When I arrived in Mysore the first time, I was invited to a potluck by a woman named Petra from the Netherlands. She was a Zappa fan, had red kinky hair, and wore colorful, high top converse tennis shoes. I told her I would bring a watermelon. I saw a huge pile being sold in the shade on the side of the road before the railroad tracks. The woman told me Guruji said they were contaminated with irrigation water and not to. Later in the day I was told not to come, I should have

That fall the teacher from Seattle invited me to come play a kirtan with him in his studio. His wife was in Mysore, and it was just the two of us. I grew up on a farm and would go back and drive truck for harvest. I was there and we finished just in time for me to drive home, catch a bus to Seattle, play the kirtan, and take yoga classes. He was preparing to go to Mysore, but I did not tell him I was also planning to go that fall as I did not think he would approve. The first

Since I and the Kirtan Woman had been to Berkley in the fall, neither of us arrived back in Mysore until January. When I got there, she had booked a room for me at the Green Hotel. I needed to recover from my flight, and she filled the room with fresh flowers. I had never been treated so affectionately. I stayed there a few days until she found me permanent accommodations, which was difficult because everything was already booked for the season. I was flying on auto pilot and

I survived another season in Mysore and returned home for the summer, but still was not wise enough to stay away. This fourth year when I arrived in Mysore, I stayed at the Kirtan Woman’s flat until she found me a room in a house down the street. David Swenson’s wife came over one morning and was visiting with the kirtan woman on the balcony. She was telling her that she had had a gay boyfriend before she had started dating David Swenson as she was a dancer. I was horrified.

The kirtan woman had contacted me that summer and wanted me to “hook up” with her in New York on the way to Mysore as she was going to be teaching a yoga workshop there and giving a kirtan. I was horrified. I told her I would meet her flight at Heathrow, and we could go on from there. My flight was late and by the time I got to the gate for the flight to Bangalore, she was waiting for me and holding the plane. I went to kiss her on the cheek, and she jerked away. She had had

The next year I went back, but the Kirtan Woman was unable to come because she needed to have surgery. I was going to stay at her Luxury Flat and close it up so she would no longer have to pay the yearly lease. When I arrived and moved in there was no way I could let it go. I called her and told her “We” should keep it. She was shocked when I referred to us as we. But even though we weren’t a couple, I felt we had a musical relationship. I continued having the Kirtans on Frid

The next year the Kirtan Woman came again to Mysore, but she would not stay with me at the flat because she did not want people to think we were a couple. I stayed there since I was paying the lease. She would lease it out to Yoga Students who came to Mysore other times of the year and keep the income. We continued having the weekly kirtans, but things had gotten weird. People were saying things to me and reacting in ways I did not understand. I just laughed it off and began

The next year I was not going to come back. I told the Kirtan Woman, and she told me that my behavior was completely natural. I told her I did not think so. She said the Yoga Community was very liberal and would understand. While I was talking about my sexual orientation, she was talking about the fact she thought I was sleeping with young boys. This is how people get away with child abuse. People just overlook it to keep from upsetting the ox cart. I told the woman who manag

Once I had produced the practice sheet, I had to memorize it. I have never been good at memorization, but I set my mind to it and accomplished it by visualizing I was leading a led class. I created one for Led Primary and another for Led Intermediate. Besides being able to know the count and the names of all the asanas we had to be able to give adjustments or assistance in all the asanas. I did not have much experience at this. I had received a few assists from Sharath, Guruj

I was having a good time. I would work during the week on my apartments and repair anything the tenants called me about immediately. I should have been happy with this and continued. But in 2011 a woman I had met in Mysore contacted me from Victoria Canada and wanted to know if I were teaching as she wanted to come down and take a class from me. I told her I wasn’t, but I was practicing at a little studio and to come down and practice. It turned out she was going to go to Ind