THE BEGINNING OF A PERSONAL SPIRITUAL PATH---BY GANASHYAM DAS
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PART Three-WRITTEN IN JAN 97-NOT FINISHED YET-PART ONE NOT STARTED YET-
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I arrived at the ashram at about 5 am in the morning. Someone had told me that
sunday that everything started very early in the morning. It was cold outside.
The front door was locked. I went aroud to the side door and it was locked too.
There was a intercom thing with a call button. I pushed the button but no one
responded. I continued to wait at the front door, returning to the side door
and trying to reach someone about every 15 minites. I got colder and colder,
as I had not brought a coat. I got angry and angrier as I got colder. 
Finally at about 7am someone asnwered the intercom and activated an automated 
lock to let me in.
I entered and took my shoes off and put them in a shoe slot in the wall.
This shoe storage area has no one taking care of it.
I asked the first person I saw, where should I go. The person said, I have no 
idea of where you should go and left me. I went through the same thing with
several people. None of the people appeared interested in me and it appeared
they did not even want to bothered to talk with me. I was getting angrier. Finally I can across who said, come with me. I was taken to a room and told,
you sit here and do not leave this room until I return. I waited there for over
1/2 an hour and finally someone came and said loudly and rudely, what are you
doing in here, no one is supposed to be in here. I tried to explain, but the
person did not want to hear my explaination. He said you come with me. I was
taken to a different room and again was told stay there until this person
returned. After waiting for a long time the same thing happened again with
still another person and I was moved to yet another room.All the people were gruf, unfriendly and did not even appear to want to talk at all.
I was getting angrier ! and by this time about 10:00. I was very hungry too.
Finally the last person who had spoken with me returned and sat down with me
and said, ok, tell me why you are here.
I told him Muktananda had told me last weekend to come here Fiday and attend
the intensive. He said baba never tells anyone to attend an intensive and the
intensive did not start until Saturday morning at 8am. I argued with the person
telling him, well he told me to. He said you wait here until I come back and do
not leave this room. About another half hour passed and he returned. This time
he seemed a bit more friendly. He said, i really donot know what to do with
you, the intensive is tomorrow. He appeared to think a while and then said, 
ok, you go to the seva room and tell the woman there that you need to be assigned work for a while.He took me out of the room and gave me dirrections
to get to the seva room. I got lost several times, the place was a maze of
halls and rooms that appeared to have had no planning in its design.
Finally I found the room and entered. there was a woman sitting behind a desk,
and a huge black board behind her with many many entries on it.
I again told this woman my story. She said, here we all work doing seva
(serivce) for so many hours each day. She gave me a wisk broom and a  dust
pan and said i was to go outside the building, find all the dog shit on the street and side walks, scoop it all up and deposit it in the dumpster.
I was to do this work until noon, return the tools to her and then have lunch
in the cafeateria and come back to her.
So I went out side and started collecting dog shit.THis part must of had a 1000
stray dogs. I was so very very angry, my face was red. I had been treated like
a little child and now I very well educated high paid elecrtonics engineer was
having to collect dog shit for two hours. at 12 noon, I returned the tools and
walked out the front door intening never to return to the stupid place.