Enlightening Nonsense

His bark is worse than his underbite!

The New Life Expo, a collection of freaks, geeks and Sheiks, psychics and medics, UFOs and LSDs, happens twice a year in New York City. I’ve been attending the Expo for about 13 years straight, almost never missing one unless I am serving out a jail sentence.

A couple of years ago, Bark Mecker, the creator of the Expo added a Yoga & Raw Food Expo to the line-up. It was a smaller, less Bizarro World event that I rather enjoyed, not that I don’t enjoy sitting on the point of a pyramid and feeling my anus Egyptize. I pitched him for the second year to see if I could get on the roster, promising to be not something “old” or “borrowed,” which is already rampant in the world of “experts,” but something “new” and “blue,” as I would be wearing my Smurf outfit.

We had some back and forth emails. Bark has supposedly been teaching yoga for about 35 years but he is a businessman before he is a yogi. His first question to me was not about who I am or what I have to offer but whether I wanted to buy a big booth or full-page ad in the magazine. I told him that, unlike all the snake oil salesmen, I had nothing to sell but only something to offer that would be different and challenge popular thinking—even popular yoga and raw food “thinking,” which is often not thinking but “reciting.”

Finally I wrote something like, “I find it ridiculous that all I want to do is offer something that people could use and I have to sell myself.” To his credit, Bark sent me an email with his number and told me to call him right away. And I did.

It was like I was pulled over by a cop for speeding and was getting a lecture on the dangers of speeding, all the while me thinking, “I’ll listen to this friggin’ speech for as long as you want to spew it but I better not be getting a ticket at the end of it!” Bark told me how we do have to sell ourselves and blah, blah, blah. I finally couldn’t take anymore and said, “It was a bad word choice. I meant that it was ‘frustrating.’” Bark chimed in, “Frustrating, that would have been a good word.” All of a sudden he thought he was the Editor in Chief for the New Yorker. But more importantly he said that he would give me a chance. Cool!

I had one lecture and one class to guide. About fifteen people showed up to the lecture, from about age 20 to about 80. I could see their eyes lighting up as I talked, certain cogs cranking in their heads that had rusted shut due to being fed answers from the “experts” instead of what all of us really need—more questions. I expected Bark to be there and check out the new blood but he just bopped his head in once and left.

I brought my drummer friend, Lenny Hoops, to the yoga class. There were only about ten people in attendance, many from the lecture, and I taught a class that was like nothing any of the people had ever experienced. Six months later at the next New Life Expo, one girl who had attended the class came up to me and expressed how deeply it had impacted her. I had hoped she wasn’t talking about fecal matter but was prepared to tell her to “sit and spin” on the pyramid if this were the case.

I had a really great time sharing what I do and the teachings that come through me. Many of the people who attended one or both of my gigs came up to me and told me what a fresh breath of air I was, how much they appreciated what I had to share and how my voice was desperately needed in this New Age movement that was becoming rather Old Age, with the same line-up of people giving the same tired presentations with different names.

Another thing I was very proud of was that Bark and I had come from a place of head banging to a place of union. I thanked him when I saw him and he would place one of his hands on his heart and nod with a soft brotherly love smile that made me believe that it would be the power of yoga that would bring peace to the Middle East. That was until I realized it was all a farce.

Roach was in town and we were attending the Expo together, or rather the last day of the Expo after I had already shared my two classes, as she always had busy work to do and no amount of my excitement for my first invite to share at the Expo could sway her from her “duty.” She started out the Expo often holding my hand or with her arm around my waist and by the end I seemed to be relegated to a foot or two behind her as she made her rounds among her raw food business associates. I remember her telling one of her friends about how she bought a Samson juicer there and got a really good deal and from my shadow behind her I had to jump in to remind her that she only got the great deal because I was very friendly with all the guys from that company and got her the deal. It seemed clear to me that her public image was more important to her than I was and as long as I didn’t mess with that, I could hold her dress up from behind like a little bitch.

It wasn’t until we got into an argument days later that I became privy to what probably contributed to her acting out more definitively in a way that seemed to tell everyone, “He’s with me but not with me.” I forget what the specific argument was. It probably had to do with me saying something like, “I’d like to eat yourraw peanut” and her responding in her typically humorless way, “Why would you say that?” [See Lighten Up, Francis! at http://rebelyogi.com/lighten-up-francis]

She told me how Bark had pulled her aside and asked her, “Are you seeing Swami X?” Even how she told me her response showed that she felt of me like a Down Syndrome kid: you love him but when he takes off his pants in the McDonald’s playroom full of balls and someone asks, “Whose kid is that?” you deny to the hilt that the little reetz is yours. “I said, ‘well, um, kind of.’” And if I didn’t have so much self-confidence I might have gone home and stuffed myself with raw pastries.

She then told me that Bark had voiced disapproval and said that I was “combative.” I was like, “What the fu—?” First of all, that would be a dick move for any guy to do to a brother, let alone a supposed “yogi.” But what really hurt was that I had actually thought that Bark and I had come to a serious point of understanding and union and that this was a good thing. Suddenly I realized that what Bark was selling was “out” and that his hand on the heart-bowing smile was as much of a costume as the faggy green silk Chinaman shirt he wore that weekend. That he was a Phogi, a “phony yogi.” And a douche to boot!

Like at the end of The Sixth Sense, I started to have flashbacks replaying past events with my new understanding that I was a ghost to the raw food cult. FIRST FLASHBACK: The last New Life Expo when I was helping cover a friend’s booth with another helper and the 61-year old Bark had hit on and asked out the 22-year old girl. At least that’s what it looked like from my vantage point five feet away but as I couldn’t be certain, I asked her. And she told me this was the case. I took a little pleasure in her saying that she would never be interested in a shriveled up phogi like him.

Now I don’t necessarily hold that against Bark. I mean, I have hit on people 39 years my junior. I had to do this by offering free lollypops at the pre-school but, like Bark, I am attracted to extremely younger women. And I can assure you that when I am 61, I will be hitting on anything that can make my shriveled peen-asana unravel. But I would never go up to him when I saw him at the Raw Spirit Festival in D.C. with a girl on his arm more his contemporary and say, “Hey, it’s great to see Bark dating someone like you who is not four decades his junior like the little blondie he was trying to bang at the last New Life Expo.”

SECOND FLASHBACK: the yoga class Bark taught at the Yoga & Raw Food Expo, where he constantly said things like, “If you take a class and the teacher doesn’t give you an adjustment—leave immediately. If you take a class and a teacher doesn’t give you breathing exercises—leave immediately.” For someone who was worried that I was going to be dissing on everyone and specifically told me that the Expo was not about this, he was certainly taking a big dump on anyone who didn’t conform to his limited way of teaching yoga.

And in the class that I guided at the Expo, I didn’t do a single adjustment nor did I cover much more than some basic breathing. And yet I challenged not only the yogis’ bodies but their minds as well and everyoneleft transformed with a more expanded idea of what yoga can be. Six months later a yogi told me how much she appreciated my class; six minutes after leaving Bark’s class it was forgotten.

[The instructor I got the most from during my yoga teacher training almost never gave adjustments in her classes. Check out a long-winded but very good response to a question (with an attitude of a comment!) that I asked one of my other teacher training yoga instructors four years ago about if there is really a need for adjustments at all: http://www.yogascope.com/blog/2006_05_28_archive.html]

THIRD FLASHBACK: I was in the stairwell with Roach and we saw Bark and some girl, perhaps one he was trying to bang. I said, “Bark, I have to tell you that I was a bit hurt that you didn’t come to my sadhana [kind of a community teaching] at the Raw Life Expo.”

Bark had to play the old “here are a few words of wisdom” card and told me that we should never feel hurt by others. I said, “Nigga please! I wasn’t really ‘hurt’ but was disappointed that you had an opportunity to see what I do in a more relaxed setting outside of your own expos where you weren’t running around like a chicken without a crown chakra.”

He paused and said, “You could have invited me.” And somehow this lame excuse completely hooked Roach who was like, “You see, you just had to invite him.” If you’re in a cult and you see someone pissing on someone’s back and telling him it’s raining, you try and justify the action. “Maybe the lying down man was on fire and the pisser knew that he had to put it out but that if he informed the burning man that it was urine that was accomplishing the job, he would be reticent.” Roach was in the cult and Bark was pissing on my back.

His comment was completely insincere, as over the past year I had invited Bark to numerous workshops I was teaching—and charging for—as my guest, at least one yoga hike to a State Park through a group I’m affiliated with and for which I would have to pay for him, as well as several classes I was giving in Central Park. Bark never ever responded to any of these. At the Raw Spirit Festival he had an opportunity to not only join in a “real” spiritual talk for a change but to get a closer glimpse of Swami X so that if he were going to bash me behind my back at least he could be a little more accurate.

FOURTH FLASHBACK: Sean Morton, a headline speaker with a lot of personality, was giving a talk to a packed house of about 120 people or so. Bark walked in with his faggy green silk shirt and Sean, ever the humorist, made a joke about it. “Ladies and gentleman, the man responsible for the New Life Expo—Bark Mecker! Hey Bark, did they sell men’s clothes where you got that shirt?”

Everyone laughed and Bark calmly walked up to the microphone and took it. He said, “Have you noticed how each year Sean is getting larger and larger?” Now if I were going to make a fat joke, I would at least be clever about it. Here would be my version:

“Years ago, Sean guaranteed me that he would become the biggest speaker at the Expo. I thought he meant in popularity, not in girth.”

Now my version is playing on the double meaning of the word “biggest.” Even the punchline doesn’t say, “You’re a fat shit!” or rather it does but the word “girth” is so non-offensive that it becomes an enjoyable dig. Bark’s remark, which stayed in the air like a stale fart, was not clever and as a result of his unfunniness was actually mean-spirited. He would have been better off saying, “I’m not sure if they sold men’s clothes in the store but the salesman sure gave me a great blowjob.” Yoga is about awareness and dissolving the ego.Phoga is about denial and creating a more “spiritual” ego. Bark is what we call in the world of comedy a “dying dolt who should be sent to the glue factory.”

I discovered another example of how Bark can’t think on his feet and offer an original thought that is remotely spiritual or useful when I was following Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and researching my “enemy.” Sun Tzu didn’t have the advantage of YouTube. I found a clip where Bark was interviewed at the Yoga & Raw Food Expo. At the end of the clip, the interviewer asked him to share with us what five things at the Expo would really leave one changed and improved.

Bark was like Brick, the borderline-retarded weatherman in the movie Anchorman in the scene when each of the crew was sharing what they loved. Brick was like, “I love lamp. I love carpet.” One of the others said,“Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them?”[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VGM_jAzPj8]

He looked around and just mentioned the items from the booths in his vision. One of the items he mentioned was Himalayan salt. Now I like Himalayan salt. I use Himalayan salt. And phogi, you ain’t no Jack Kennedy. Himalayan salt isn’t going to rock someone’s world to change his or her whole outlook on life.

After the salt, he mentioned Zukay salad dressing. I have talked in length with the creator of this raw fermented salad dressing. I have bought a bottle. I find their product delicious. But friggin’ salad dressing isn’t making someone think, “Amazing grace, I was lost and now I’m found!”

He ended by talking about how one of the five life-changing things one should see is the Acid-Alkaline water-purifying booth where you can “drink the good part of it and utilize the bad part of it,” which sounded so childish that it was like I was watching a dying comedian and as much as I wanted to laugh at this pathetic man drowning in his own unfunniness, I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLhdE8CH3og]

I even found out from some main player vender friends of mine at the Expo that Bark’s business practices are questionable regarding ethics. According to them, he was known to use the credit cards of venders and charge them for the upcoming Expo before they even agreed that they were going to do the show. A phogi is allowed to throw out the yogic principle of satya, or truth, and asteya, or non-stealing, and aparigraha, or non-possessiveness, hoarding or desiring more than we need, when it comes to making a buck.

This caused a FIFTH FLASHBACK to pop into my third eye, or was that my third nipple. It was a Nutrition Panel at one of the past Expos. Bark popped in and, thinking himself the Hugh Hefner of the Mansion, he took over the mic and started to babble. He talked about how in yoga, “We believe in ahimsa, which means not eating animals” (ahimsa actually means “non-violence”) and then dropped the little aside that he eats fish. I guess in Phoga one can eat an animal if it is tasty or supposedly nutritious enough.

When I contacted Bark this last time about being a speaker and instructor at the upcoming Yoga & Raw Food Expo again, his email came back almost identically to my first year’s request, making me think he may have his email set on auto-phogi. “To make it a win-win we ask the lecturers to support their lecture with a 1/4 page ad in the expo magazine.”

I told him that I really didn’t have the money for an ad and that now that his task of “asking” was done, can I lecture or not. Now, for the record, I am also aware that there are many who have lectured or taught at this Expo that didn’t have any ads in the magazine.

After several back and forth emails, I saw that Bark was trying to have us play out this archetype of him being the wise master and I being the doting student. I wasn’t having it, as I was willing to bend but not bend over for a spot at the Expo. Instead I gave him a teaching lesson in an email that I entitled “The Gift and the Flower Bush.”

When a man leaves us a gift and by accident steps on our flower bed, if we just focus on—and tell everyone—that he flattened our flowers, we are not only representing the man unfairly but are focusing on the aspect that keeps us in separation. And that is our choice. While I would like a final decision from you, it is more important that you ask yourself, “What choice will I make and does it bring me closer to union or into separation?” It is your expo and your right to fill it how you desire. It is also your yoga and your right to explore it or not.

After more back and forths, with Bark desperately trying to hold onto his egoic phogi costume, I finally brought up the issue of him badmouthing me to Roach behind my back, knowing full well that this would not enhance my chances of being a presenter at the Expo but that at least I could buy some Himalayan salt or salad dressing if I needed enhancement (especially after the disappointment of the Johnny “Wad” Holmes Penis Enlarger.)

I reworked the email for about an hour, as I didn’t want to sound petty or just make it into a put down but really wanted to express that I was disappointed that what I thought was a great coming together in union was totally soaked with urine when he pissed on it. I never received a response. At the next New Life Expo he gave me a big fake laugh in passing that was so fake that even the Phogi Union would have been like, “Dude, a little too much.” When I finally wrote him again and said, “I never heard back from you regarding my last email,” he wrote a short email that said, “Thank you for offering to teach at the expo. Unfortunately you haven’t been chosen as one of the teachers this time. Feel free to attend as my guest.”

The Expo starts today and I will be in attendance. I will even spend some of it sitting at a booth promoting an upcoming Boots & Barefoot: Boot Camp and Yoga Session gig paired with a fitness professional—once again, by donation. I think it is a shame that Bark has allowed his ego and a personality clash with someone who doesn’t want to play submissive to his dom to get in the way of many seekers having access to the fresh perspective on ancient wisdom that I can share, as well as allowing himself to be open to the lessons that he could gain from me but for which he is closed off because I am not old and Indian.

I think Bark has done a great service arranging to have these shows where people who don’t necessarily think like the mainstream can come together and share some new ideas. Bark has been teaching yoga for about 35 years and this shows dedication. But it also shows that despite studying with all the supposed big “masters,” that if you are a phogi, the only purpose they will serve is to fill your gay green silk blouse with an ego that is as fake as your yoga.

It was my second Food Fest Extravaganza with Peter and I had been preparing for it all week by drinking nothing but my own urine. Peter creates some of the best vegan and raw food meals I have ever tasted, from appetizers of dehydrated crackers with caraway seeds and cheesy guacamole dip, to quinoa and mixed vegetables with a special sauce (whose recipe I discovered by accident when I walked in on Peter spanking it over this ancient grain dish and have since added my own spunk to everything I serve others) to desserts that have made me have to throw three pairs of semen-soaked underwear in the hamper from just thinking about—CHA-CHA-CHA, uh, make that four—from a raw German chocolate cake with a frosting of dates, cashews and maple syrup, to both coconut and macadamia nut ice-cream.

Last year, I went to a meet-up on Long Island that consisted of a day of raw food demos and eating, as well as yoga and holistic modalities, where I taught a yoga class with my usual rebel flair—meaning a poorly sequenced class where my “adjustments” consist of rubbing my nutsack against the students while they’re in downward dog. At this event I met Kardamom, who is a strong woman who knows what she likes and likes what she knows (I’m not sure what that means but it sounds kind of fierce, no?) Peter was also at the event and at a later date Kardamom told me about his Food Fests and through the connection of yoga and raw foods—Kevin Bacon!

The first Food Fest Extravaganza I went to at Peter’s left me in some serious distress. I ate so much that after dozing out in an insulin coma on his couch, I found my stomach in serious pain and in need of pumping, similar to the last time I went backstage at a Rod Stewart concert and found myself in the hospital having two gallons of sperm pumped from my stomach—which was a lot harder to explain than the Fusilli Jerry in my ass! I literally had two bites of dessert left on my plate and couldn’t even stuff them down—this coming from a guy who was raised in a Jew house where eating was considered not only a sign of sharing love but also a way to swallow the blood of Christian children that we cooked into our matzah. For the record, Christian altar boys who haven’t been fucked by a priest usually have the sweetest tasting blood. MM-MMM!

At the end of the first Fest, Peter asked if I wanted to take any food home. I was so distraught that I couldn’t even fathom it, let alone think about eating ever again. It wasn’t until the next day that I was like, “Shoot! I wish I had taken some food home!” Well this time I did, from his cheesy guacamole to his blueberry and chewy granola-y dessert. Yum! CHA-CHA-CHA. Oh no—5^th pair of underwear! This time I decided to pace myself a little better and while I still ate more than the entire population of Ethiopia does in a year, but I wasn’t in as much agony as the last time.

It was at this Food Fest that I met Lina, an opinionated Russian yoga teacher. The hairs in the crack of my ass were on edge because my false soulmate, the Red-Haired Devil, was also a Russian yoga teacher and I thought God might have been messing with me by reincarnating her after I had thrown her into a tar pit in Jersey. Because I agreed with a lot of her opinions, such as that most yoga being commercially taught is not much more than calisthenics, I found her quite amusing.

But then she had to go on about her trip to India and the poison of fake spirituality didn’t mix well with the careful food combining of fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and beans and water shaken not stirred in my stomach. I was kind of psyched about the possibility of puking, as this would give me more room to eat! Oh, if I only had a young boy to blow me I’d either be Roman, or a Catholic priest, or maybe even a Roman Catholic priest! I don’t know which would be better: if I were a Roman, I would have Caesar defending me from prosecution and no one questions Caesar—except for maybe Domino when it comes to making pizza; if I were a Catholic priest I would have the phony, cross-dressing, “messenger of God,” the Pope, hiding my sodomy. Oh, decisions, decisions…

Lina said how when she was in India, she was at some resort and this “stupid American” kept trying to force a tip of 500 rupees on some worker who kept politely refusing. First of all, even with our dollar not being worth the paper that Bernake keeps printing it on and dumping it out of helicopters, 500 rupees is like 12 cents. Uh, no second of all. But Lina kept saying how, “He just didn’t get it, that this was actually insulting to the Indian man.” Just what I needed, an insulting lecture about how stupid us Americans are from a white Commie import who paints her face a curry yellow.

Peter easily spends over $100, probably closer to $200, not to mention countless hours in food preparation for each of the Food Fests he hosts. In the two I’ve attended, there were up to 12 people in attendance, which is the equivalent of preparing food for 30 with these fatties. Kardamom and I had talked about how while it would be nice to throw Peter a donation for all he puts into his events, Peter himself had insisted that he doesn’t want anything. I had suggested we could gift him with supplies he may use in his creations, like the big bag of raw cacao powder I gave him at this last event.

When I was at the kriya yoga ashram in India, with which I have an affiliation from taking three initiations in the States(don’t worry, no “The poor brownies are much more spiritual than us whiteys” speeches), there was a young Indian man who would always ask if we wanted any more food and was always quick to bring us food or tea or give us a happy ending. I remember saying a simple, “Thank you,” to him and on seeing his face, I realized for the first time what a true karma yogi was, one whose service to God is in serving others without thinking about the rewards of their actions. In the American yoga scene, “karma yoga” means “doing slave labor for a yoga studio by teaching without pay so that the studio can save money by not paying their teachers.”

The young Indian man looked at me almost confused, as if I had ordered a Double Big Mac at a Burger King, and if he were as loquacious a mystic as me he might have said, “Do you thank the birds for singing, or the trees for blowing in the wind, or the cow for mooing? This is their joy. This is their service to the God within their hearts. It would be ridiculous to thank them for being a willing tool of God. So shut the fuck up with the ‘thank you,’ okay white boy?” And then he gave me a handjob.

Peter, too, is a karma yogi. He not only enjoys the creative energy of putting God into the form of food using the mold of his love, but he beams when he sees how much others enjoy his creations. To give him money for this would actually diminish his joy in giving—and be an insult.

We are all human, except for the aliens living among us, both Mexican and extraterrestrial, and if you start receiving money for any action, after awhile it becomes known as a job. “I give to them. They pay me because I give to them. They are paying for my giving. Therefore, my giving is a job and it is hard to hold love in the dark and dank container of a business.” Then one day someone doesn’t bring a “donation” and you inevitably feel a little ripped off. “What a cheap bastard!”

I had to be careful regarding this when teaching yoga by donation. There was one time when there was about six or seven students in class and they didn’t even donate enough to cover the $25 room rental fee. I was pissed…until I did some self-reflection and realized that I had been a douche and that donation means “whatever you give” and not “what I want you to give.” [See “The Empty Envelope” http://rebelyogi.com/the-empty-envelope.html and “A Rose By Any Other Name—Would Be A Pretty Stupid Name” http://rebelyogi.com/a-rose-by-any-other-name-would-be-a-pretty-stupid-name]

The next day I was walking with Ninja, who I had taken to the Food Fest largely because her freeloading ass has been eating me out of house and home. She told me that she walked in on a conversation between Lina and Peter where Lina was insisting that Peter should be compensated for all he puts into his Fests and that she was very pushy. Peter said, “I hear what you are saying. But I can’t do it,” and his “can’t” wasn’t because he was too much of a pussy to ask but because it felt innately wrong for him to charge for sharing his joy.

When the Ninja told me this, like an idiot savant reciting the answers to the 1953 game show, What Animal’s Schlong Is This? I connected some pieces and realized the whole puzzle was that of a hypocritical yoga poser. We all had to listen to Lina’s lecture on how ignorant Americans are, a topic that is already hard to swallow coming from a Russian Commie. And yet wasn’t she being just as insensitive to her “server” when she kept insisting that Peter charge for his Fests? While I may agree that on the whole Americans are stupid, insensitive, arrogant idiots, I think the Americans who cover their skin with the make-up of the East are all that and hypocrites to boot.

I am the first one to tell you to burn your books and live, to stop READ-ing and start BE-ing. I also quote Jesus when he said, “Let the dead bury the dead” and apply this to Jesus’ words themselves, which is so paradoxical as to be beautiful, and say we should burn all of our Bibles and New Testaments and, dare I say it, Korans. We could burn Book of Mormons but I don’t think anyone would really give a shit, except for a few polygamists who are too busy banging their seven wives in between churning butter to make much of a stink.

But it is amazing to me that Jesus’ Parable of the Vineyard applies today as much, if not more, than it did 2000 years ago. If you don’t know the parable, read it. I will just give you the punch line: “I gave you what I promised you. What the hell do you care what I do with the rest of my money? Why are you involving yourself in matters that don’t concern you? What are you, Muslim?” Perhaps Lina should get off her curry-colored high horse and “Baaa” with the flock of the Jesus shepherd for awhile.

Even if you took out the “joyful love” element for Peter, we could still look at his sharing as his personal “donation.” Who is Lina or anyone to tell another person how he should donate his money? No one has the right to do this—except apparently the government as it donates taxpayer money towards Haiti and Israel and 9/11 victims families whose spouses didn’t take out a life insurance policy and so the Federal Government made them millionaires via taxpayer money.

But apparently the white bread Westerners who walk around with a curry I.V. drip making them stink like an dot-headed Indian, will tell you where you should give your money. Key word is “your” money—and not hers. They’ll tell you that feeding the hungry or giving to the poor is the work of God but that giving to your friends and family is just selfish. Who died and made them the Director of other people’s charitable donations?

I can see what will probably happen. Soon there will be a whispered understanding that everyone “should” bring a donation of some food ingredient that Peter can use. The food donation is not the problem, it is the “should” that is, because it will almost immediately take it from an action of the loving heart and move it to an action of the guilt-ridden mind. And then we’re back into the “Who’s on first. What’s on second. I don’t know—Catholic church” comedy routine.

We’re always taught to “give” but does anyone teach us how to receive? If you received fully, without the need for a tit-for-tat or putting a marking on your invisible tally, can you imagine how filled the giver would feel? We can’t because we have been taught what we “should” do, and what is “expected,” and what is “proper” and not to let the voices of our parents, priests and politicians in our heads decide what is “right” and “wrong”…and not our hearts. Talk to anyone going to a Bar Mitzvah or wedding and you will hear him or her say, “Well, it is going to be about $75 a plate and since I am bringing my spouse, I should give at least $100 present.” I go to weddings and great the host with, “Here’s my present” and give them a hug. If those bitches don’t appreciate my present—which is my presence—there are no returns and either way I’ll be eating big that night.

It would take something away from Peter for him to accept donations, something that no one has the right to take away from him—not me, not the church, not the “should” police and especially not some makeshift Commie yoga poser.

Yogis talk about karma yoga as if it is anything other than guilty-induced giving or business dealings to get your Heaven’s Gate pass or your Enlightenment halo. How about amrak yoga, which is about receiving so fully that the giver feels so completely blessed that no thought of, “Well, that’s nice and all, but how about throwing a few bucks into the pot!” comes to mind?

It is our inability to receive that has destroyed the beauty of giving. Get off your curry-colored high horse and open your arms to receive. And when you are truly open to receive, the hugs you receive will be felt just as joyously around your torso as it is felt on the giver’s arms.

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REFLECTION:

Do you prefer giving or receiving? How are you at receiving? When someone gives you a gift do you say, “You shouldn’t have,” or “I don’t deserve this”? If someone gives you a compliment, can you grin largely and say, “Thanks” or do you dismiss their gift of gratitude for you by saying, “You don’t have to thank me,” or “It’s nothing”? If someone compliments me, I say, “Damn straight!”

MEDITATION:

Imagine yourself giving a gift to another person. It could be a gift of flowers or food or your time or energy or maybe “just” your love. Imagine the receiver saying, “You didn’t have to get me this.” How do you feel? Now imagine the receiver saying, “I feel so blessed to have someone who thinks about me like you do.” How do you feel when he or she says this?

Imagine someone giving you a gift of flowers or food or their time or energy or their love. As the receiver, how do you feel if you say, “You didn’t have to get me this”? Probably like the receiving valve is a little closed, no? Now try: “I feel so blessed to have you in my life.” Any difference? You bet your ass there is! (But be careful about betting your ass; I lost my ass in a poker game and ever since then, sitting has been a real pain in the, uh, high hind quarters!