I left the movement and traveled across country with Gigi. It was a very spirit-filled time. She loved Lord Jesus and was living in the Holy Spirit of love of God. I was devastated in my path since I had been so heavily weighted towards rules and regulations and Brahmanism which I found impossible to follow with the disappearance of Srila Prabhupada. But Gigi rescued me with her pure love of God.
We traveled in a rickety old van and chanted in the streets all across the country. She had a beautiful voice, wrote poems and songs and could play different musical instruments. She was like an angel and she loved to chant Hare Krishna for Jesus. We read and studied Prabhupada's books together. We also had Back to Godhead magazines to distribute. We met a lot of people in this way and they would invite us to go to their homes and teach them and their family and friends to chant and dance.
Gigi had to constantly remind me that I was lovable. That God loved me. That she loved me. I think that is why I kept going back to the rules and regulations type of worship, deep inside I didn't see how anyone could ever love me. I felt I was rotten to the core and that my only hope was to try to get the good graces of God by following rules and regulations. Learning scriptures. Then the whole thing about love didn't have to enter into it.
That was what Gigi forced out of me. She loved me as she loved God and she would tell me this over and over. I could not say I loved her in the same way but I hung on for dear life. There was nothing mundane or nonsense about our relationship. It was pure. She loved everyone. She loved the animals. Her loved poured over me and I bathed in it. But I was like a rock. I took and took and took but my heart remained as hard as rock. I was always filled with mistrust and fear. But she never stopped loving God, everyone or me and never took my fears seriously. She never wavered. She was always like the sunlight.
We reached the West coast and decided to stay in Eugene, Oregon and maintain a spiritual center there. But I became confused. I wrote to Satsvarupa m. and told him what we doing and he chastised me, saying it was too independent from the movement and we should be engaged in service under the direction of a temple president somewhere. By listening to his negativity it weakened my faith in the Holy Spirit and I began to think that rules and regulations were the real shelter. This drove a wedge between Gigi and myself and the spirit of love of God we had been serving with such joy and wonder.
I became morose and distrustful. She received a check from her sister and I ran away to Portland so that she could not find me, leaving her to figure out what to do without me. I got a job in an engineering company and lived in the van in a campground. I got mail through a message service run by a woman named Brandy. She was very different from most people and I used to like to talk with her. She was a new member in a Pentecostal church that was changing her life. She invited me to come to their worship service.
Alone, no association whatsoever and confused about my spiritual path I accepted Brandy's invitation as the Lord trying to help me. Their worship was in the Holy Spirit. The preacher, whose name was Pastor Crook (ha ha funny name for a pastor, but he was alright, it was just his funny name) would pray and pray before the service. If he didn't feel the spirit that was it. No service. That happened a couple of Sundays. Everyone was there; we sat there while he prayed and prayed. Nothing happened and everyone went home.
But when he felt the spirit it was quite animated. With lots of spontaneous shouts of "That's right", "Say it" "Jesus"etc. they would start speaking in funny sounds with a lot of energy behind their outpourings. Like a strange language. They would get up and start to dance all around the room. Sometimes in a line like a train, with lots of arm waving in the air and twirling and jumping as they sang different songs. They really like the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." One time one of the men just threw his shoes in the air and shouted "Hallelujah!"
I spent some time with them and received baptism by water but I didn't get the fire. I didn't criticize. I just marveled at their spontaneous displays. They were very stable family people. Many of them 3rd generation in the same church. I felt very loved and protected with them. I didn't eat their food. Only Brandy was a vegetarian. But the spirit was so strong I didn't let the meat eating get in the way of what I really needed; to be at least near people who recognized the joyfulness of the spirit of love of God even if I couldn't enter in at that time. I knew at some point I would be able to. I was willing to wait. It was worth waiting for that was for sure.
Then again the call of Brahmanism and rules and regulations pulled on me and I moved to San Francisco to try to find shelter in the ISKCON Temple there which was being managed by Tripurari m. That's a whole 'nother story.
It's taken me so long to accept that God loves us no matter what. He doesn't just maintain us like it's a chore or something and really just wants to kill us for not loving Him. No He actually loves us, even if we don't love Him. Unconditionally. We don't have to earn His love, we just have to accept it. Thank you for loving me, when I didn't even know what love was.
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