DeAnn’s Cabin

July 19, 1983

“You must write about this day,” DeAnn’s country neighbor said.

“That’s true,” I responded. That day would be etched in my mind forever.

“Yes, but you must write it down for your children,” she said.

I replied, “My children won’t be interested, but I’ll write it down for the experience of trying to capture these events. I could never recount to anyone all that happened in these last few days.”

July 17, 1983

I reached DeAnn Corbin’s cabin at 5:15 p.m.

I was feeling extreme pressure because I was being called to launch into a new venture for which I did not feel capable. I did not know what to do or how to do it. I was being torn apart because I felt I was not ready for this task.

As she handed me the keys to her cabin, DeAnn requested that I water the flowers and tomatoes, since she and her husband would not be going to the cabin during my stay. Upon reaching there, the first thing I did was to water the flowers and tomatoes. As I watered the plants, I sought their guidance and their assistance during my stay. I believe I heard them say, “Do not rush; let it happen. Do not force things, relax. It will happen.”

The cabin, which had been closed up for some time in the Kansas summer heat, felt like an oven. I pulled a pillow from the couch, turned on the window air conditioner, and lay down in front of it on the bare linoleum floor, the coolest spot. Before I knew it, I dozed off. When I awoke, it was 8 p.m.

After a drink of water, I found a comfortable chair on the porch. The sun was still up. The birds and the crickets were chirping. I started listening to the sounds. My mind wandered. Time and time again, I brought my mind back to the sounds. It was like a symphony. A small airplane lazily flew across the sky. Its sound was as natural as that of the birds, and it blended into the symphony.

Gradually, the sounds started to intensify. The tempo of the sounds increased several-fold. I felt as if they were penetrating my whole body. There was a definite beat and rhythm to them. The sounds started with a bird somewhere on my left, whose sound traveled sharply and quickly to the right. Then, a similar sound came from the right and traveled left. Yet there was no pattern. Sometimes the sounds continued going left or right without stopping. I felt as if the sounds were from within me. It was as if I were on a swing made of sounds. Sometimes the swing would go only a few feet above the ground, and then the next time it might go 360 degrees. And yet, at other times, it kept going around endlessly. I had no control over the sounds. I could not decipher any pattern. At some point, the sounds were no longer pleasant or musical; they were piercing. The rhythm and beat were that of wild, African music.

Then, I felt the darkness falling all around me. The half-moon was 45 degrees to my left. There was a low star nearby. I could not keep my eyes open. The moonlight was covering me like a cobweb. It was pleasant. But I determined that sounds were where I must remain.

The sounds were so piercing that it felt like they were shooting out of my body through its tiny holes. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood on end. The sounds were now only inside. I lost awareness. There were now no sounds. Suddenly . . . silence. My mind could not take it anymore. A few thought patterns went through my mind. They were not flashes. They were like a presence. It was a phenomenon that I could not describe.

Then there was the presence of white light. It was diffused. It was not bright and sharp or focused, as I had sometimes experienced in the past. It was opaque. I was enveloped by it. The light was coming from front and above. I could see myself sitting in the chair. There was a feeling of levitation.

There was a presence, a sense of recognition. I could not recall her name. There were no words. Just feelings. Just thoughts. She told me we had both been initiated by the same preceptor. She was here to help and guide. I begged her to stay with me throughout my retreat.

With each word or thought, I could feel my body quiver like the string of a musical instrument. It was very pleasant. I heard the sounds again. My mind must have drifted. I must have fallen asleep. I knew I had to concentrate on the sounds. I believed my mind was playing tricks.

But my body could not take it any longer. The sounds were only inside of me. They were not in my entire body. They were only at the top part of my head. It was as if that part of the head was ready to explode. I felt as if I had been in meditation for a long time. I lost interest in the sounds. My head remained heavy.

Gradually, I opened my eyes. The moonshine was too strong and bright. The moon was 75 to 80 degrees in front of me, yet it was pitch dark all around me. I must have slept a long time.

There was a feeling of suffocation. I needed to breathe immediately. I took long breaths and pushed them all the way down to the bottom of my stomach. It was as if, for some time, my breathing had been confined only to my head.

I was too relaxed or too weak: I could not decide which. I did not feel like moving. My body felt light, but my head felt heavy. I stayed sitting for some time before I went inside the cabin. It was almost 11 p.m. I was tempted to break my fast but decided to use my willpower. As I lay down to sleep, I was still able to hear the sounds in my head.

July 18, 1983

I broke my fast in the morning with an orange. I drank orange juice all day mixed with plenty of water. I needed that because it was hot as I lay under an oak tree all day long. At one time, a single oak leaf dropped on my right shoulder. “You like me, eh?” I said to the tree. Good omen.

Why did I say, “good omen”? Because I was reminded of a similar incident when, one night, I visited Dr. Sinha in Allahabad under the tree where we always met. I told him about some health issues I was having, but he waited a couple of hours without suggesting a medicine. Then suddenly a leaf had fallen on him, and he leapt forward to catch it. He said that was a good omen, which confirmed to him the medicine he was planning to prescribe for me. No matter, why consider it a good omen? The falling leaf was an event, and I could treat it as I wanted. And so, it was a good omen. “I love you too,” I said to the tree.

Throughout the day, I tried to write. Up to that point all I had been writing was old stuff that had already jelled in my mind. My speed was slow, and I was producing very little written material. I kept on dozing, perhaps because of the heat. But all was not lost. New thoughts started streaming in, just like leaves falling from the tree. The new thoughts crowded out the old thoughts. I felt the need to digest the old thoughts before letting in the new ones. I worked until 8 p.m.

Both meals that day were light. I had orange juice, pita bread, a small piece of cheese, and celery. I went for a six-mile walk from 8 to 10 p.m. The sunset was just beautiful. I felt the presence of Laurel, a friend I knew, and let out a loud shriek of, “Raaa!” Oops! That broke my vow of silence. I contained myself, took off my glasses, and looked at the sun for several minutes.

Back at the cabin, I tried to meditate on the sounds again. They were no different. I faced east. They started in my left ear, went across, then started back. I could not concentrate for too long. I was still angry at one of my friends, though I did not know why. I looked inside at my anger, and it looked like a cactus in my heart. I imagined uprooting that plant with all my might. Then, in the hole, I planted a seed of love. I observed it growing into a five-pointed purple tulip.

While trying to meditate that night, I saw the image of a young man, unshaven with unruly hair, dressed in a hand-woven garment. Knowing DeAnn’s deep Christian beliefs, I felt it might be the image of Jesus. So, I said to myself, “Jesus, I am in your house, so please be my personal God and guide me. Show me your light, show me your light.” I said this over and over. Suddenly, I felt a bright flash near my right eye. Instinctively, I opened both my eyes. There, within my reach, off to my right, was a lightning bug with a long, flashing, neon light. Maybe it had come to see who I was. “Playing tricks on me, you ole toad!” I thought to Jesus. Or, could it be that the lightning bug had said the same prayer, and Jesus was showing His light in each of us to the other. How little we understand. I laughed and laughed.

At midnight I was hungry. I had a banana, a piece of cheese, and some rye bread before falling into bed.

July 19, 1983: The Longest Mile

I woke up at 5:30 a.m because I was chilly and pulled up the blanket. I was too comfortable to get up, so I stayed in bed until six. When I went outside it was such a beautiful day that I decided to meditate there.

By 7:30 a.m. I was ready for a walk. It was still chilly, but I anticipated it would get warm, so I dressed only in my undershirt, cutoffs, and walking shoes. I didn’t expect to run into anyone on this lovely country road so there was no need to comb my hair, but for some reason I did.

Some cows jumped up, startled, as they saw me. “I won’t hurt you. I love you,” I said to them. Oops! I was not to speak. My vow of silence was broken again. I knew I had to be more attentive.

My sense of time told me that I must have walked about an hour or so. My reliable legs told me that I had walked three miles. The sun was already blazing, and it was time to return.

After walking half a mile or so, a man in a yellow pickup truck stopped by, his window already rolled down. “Are you in any trouble?” the driver asked. I shook my head, indicating that I was not. He turned off his ignition, folded his hands across his chest. “Well, well then,” he said quizzically. His question was rhetorical. The look in his eyes said, “Well, well . . . look what we have here.” From experience, I knew that look.

I jerked out the folded piece of paper and pencil from my pocket, which I carried for just such an occasion. I went over to the hood of his pickup and wrote, “I am staying at Corbin Farm. I am in meditation and under a vow of silence.” I felt like adding, “God bless you,” but I refrained. He might have thought me to be more of a kook, so I blessed him mentally. One must be practical.

He took a long look at the piece of paper. His forehead wrinkled. He must have been wondering what meditation meant. I had tried to write retreat instead of mediation, but the word wouldn’t come, and I wrote meditation instead. He was in his 30’s, I think. I caught my reflection with a quick glance in his big side mirror. My hair was windblown and scattered. My face adorned a three-day old beard, reddish with fine dust. I must have looked quite a sight to him. He was neat and trim and must have just showered. I, on the other hand, had not bathed for three days.

He looked at me, smiled suspiciously, turned on his ignition, waved, and zoomed off at perhaps 80 miles an hour, covering me further with a coat of the fine, red dust.

It must not have been more than a couple of minutes when another pickup pulled up and stopped. “Need a ride?” this man asked. I shook my head, “No.”

“Out for a walk?” he asked.

I nodded my head, “Yes.” Inside the truck I saw a gun rack with two rifles and heard the same CB radio sounds as in the other pickup truck. He drove off. After a short distance, he turned around and came back, waving at me as he went by. He must have been curious. I’m sure they didn’t see strangers like me too often. However, the community was just watching out for its neighbors.

I continued my walk back to the cabin. It felt longer than I had anticipated, mostly because of the heat. Back at the cabin, I took off my shoes and socks and stripped off the rest of my clothes. My underwear and undershirt were wet with perspiration, so I put them on the stone fence to dry. I went inside and turned on the air conditioner and the fan.

Later, as I came out of the cabin, the door closed slowly behind me. In a way, it felt as if someone was moving it and I had a split-second choice . . . to hold the door, or not to hold it . . . I chose to let it close behind me. It was not that I knew the door would lock behind me, but somehow there was an uneasy feeling that I could stop it from shutting, but I did not. On some level, I must have chosen to let that door lock behind me.

I went to the fence, put on my dry underwear and went back to the cabin. When I tried to open the door, I realized it was locked. I went around the cabin to see if there was another way to get in. There wasn’t. I tried the door many times, hoping for a miracle. I just sat there for quite a while, wondering what to do. 

I decided to walk the winding quarter mile down to the main road. It was excruciatingly hot, so I sat near the edge of the road hoping that someone, like those two guys who had come by earlier, would come again. After a few minutes, I put my ear to the ground to see if I could hear any rumbles of a vehicle coming, but it was silent. I repeated this routine several times.

I remembered when drove in on my first day that I had passed a small farmhouse. I decided that my only hope was to walk there. The county was getting ready to repave the road, and they had put rather large stones on the roadway, preparing to put down the blacktop. It was blazing hot, and those stones were like hot coals, much too hot to walk on barefoot. I tried to walk on the side, in the grass, but it was full of burrs. With the first step, I had to stop and pick thorns out of my feet.

I couldn’t walk on the stones, and I couldn’t walk on the grass. So again, I stopped and waited for another 10 or 15 minutes, thinking that someone would surely come along. Finally, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. 

I decided to break two bushy branches off a tree. This was difficult because the branches were about four or five feet long, still green, and I didn’t have a knife. I put one branch on my head to shade me from the blazing sun, and one on the ground in front of me, and took my first step. I quickly realized the branches had to be very precisely placed. The gaps between the leaves caused burning jabs. I took the branch on my head, set it in front of me, and took my second step. Then, I picked up the one from the ground behind me and put it on my head. I knew I had to walk fast to keep the heat from penetrating through the leaves. I took perhaps 100 steps and knew I could not continue doing this.

I decided to override my mind and go into a meditative state, as if I were doing a Fire Walk. Thoughts started to vanish. I was totally focused. There was a short scene, almost like a movie, where I viewed myself walking down below. I saw an odd-looking person, trying to walk as fast as he could, mechanically moving leafy branches between head and feet. I was seeing this in slow motion. It was an entertaining cartoon that made me smile.

The scene was eventually interrupted by a house appearing on my right. It was a farmhouse that, over time, had weathered to gray without any paint. I moved toward it.

I had no memory of how I reached there so fast. 

A grandmotherly-looking woman, who might have been in her 70s, was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. She was wearing a white house dress with a floral design. When she saw me coming, I could see a look of horror on her face. I went near the porch and tried to speak, but my throat was totally dry, and nothing would come out. I was mute. I cupped my right hand and put it to my mouth in the universal language of thirst.

She went inside, and after several excruciating minutes, came back with a large, clear-glass pitcher of cold water. I drank the entire pitcher. My voice had still not come back, and I motioned for more. Soon she returned with another pitcher of water, and I drank all of it. I must have drunk seven or eight glasses of water. The water was cold and soothing. Only then was I able to tell her that I was staying at the Corbin’s farm and that I had locked myself out.

She went back inside the house. When she returned, she told me she had called DeAnn, who confirmed that I was, indeed, her boss, and that I was staying at their cabin. I couldn’t blame my host for checking, because I must have looked horrible—a scary scene for an older lady living in a rural area where normally no one walks around in their underwear, undershirt, and no shoes. 

After 15 minutes or so, her husband appeared from inside the house. She introduced him to me. She blushed as she admitted that when I first asked for water, she had called her husband on the wireless because he was out in the field on his tractor. Only then, did she bring me the first pitcher of water.

Since I was in such bad shape, her husband said, “Come, let’s have you clean up.” They filled the bathtub with cold water, and I slipped into it and must have soaked for half an hour. Then they brought me some of the man’s clothes. They didn’t fit me well, but I tied things up, and they did the job. She asked if I was hungry. I mentioned that I didn’t eat meat. She laughed and asked, “What do you eat, then?” I apologized and said, “Ma’am if you have any cheese, you could make me a sandwich.” She made me a grilled cheese sandwich with thick pieces of homemade bread and all the trimmings—lettuce, tomato, mustard, and catsup. It was a hearty, delicious meal, and I felt her love in every bite.

After I had eaten, the lady laughed and said, “We have a spare key to the cabin! DeAnn and her husband left it with us in case of emergency.” I remember her gentle belly laugh.

When I was fully revived, they drove me back to the cabin. I sat in front with the farmer, and his wife sat in the back. He kept on saying, five or six times, “Why didn’t you just break the glass?” In my mind, I hadn’t broken the glass because the cabin was way out in the country, 150 miles from Wichita. I had worried that if I did so, mosquitos and flies and maybe two-legged or four-legged critters might get inside. I didn’t want to leave the cabin in shambles. I didn’t know how long it would take for them to get the window fixed. I didn’t know how to explain all of that, so I had chosen to keep quiet.

The drive back to the cabin took barely five minutes, but walking there, under my circumstances, had taken more than two hours, and that was after my morning six-mile walk. I had left the cabin around 10 in the morning, and it was 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. when I got back. When I went inside, I found a small mirror and took a look at myself. I thought, “Oh, my gosh! How scary I must have looked to that lady!”

Then I settled into a comfortable chair next to the air conditioner and pulled up another chair for my swollen feet. I was still glowing with the love that DeAnn’s neighbors had shown for me. I glowed further thinking about the neighbor lady’s suggestion that I write about the experience.

I started to review what I had learned from my experiences during those three days of my retreat. Clarity and courage had been provided to me in one experience and I received a message that would serve me in many future situations that would have otherwise seemed impossible. The message was: One step at a time with total focus.

One step at a time with total focus.

At that moment, I felt as if the tension that had been building within me for a long time broke loose. I started to wail like a baby.

July 19, 1983: The Second Lesson

After a few minutes, I nervously got up and looked out the front door’s glass panel to make sure no one was hearing me cry. I realized no one was around for miles. 

I continued to feel all the emotional release as thoughts arose: How dare I think there is no one seeing me cry! What about all the tomato plants, the flowers, the trees, the birds, the critters, the lightning bugs, and the muses that honored my request for help? They were here! And perhaps, upon witnessing my profound breakthrough, they were celebrating with singing and dancing! 

A broad smile covered my face from ear to ear.

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