Never to Return: A Modern Quest For Eternal Truth, Chapter 31: "The Great Guiding Force"

NEVER TO RETURN:

A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH

A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis

Chapter Thirty-One

THE GREAT GUIDING FORCE

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO RE-ENTER "the world" after spending ten years living a monastic life? Or, let's rephrase that. What was it like to enter Hollywood, the embodiment of illusion, after spending so many years seeking only eternal truth? Upon leaving the doors of my beloved ashram, I experienced a constant and flowing mixture of emotions, thoughts, and feelings, including confusion, surprise, peace, excitement, fear, confidence, insecurity, ambition, wonder, faith, trust, and many new situations and lessons.

One challenging moment arose when I realized it would be best to use my American name in work situations. Whenever I'd introduce myself to someone as Kumuda, there would be some inevitable question about the origin of this exotic name. I didn't want to lie, but I also didn't want people to know too much about my past right away. Not everyone would have a favorable view of guru's and monasteries. After ten years of being Kumuda, I realized I would have to become Sharon once again. It was not an easy transition.

In a way, I resented having to answer to this name. Sharon had been locked away long ago with all the painful childhood memories associated with her. As far as I was concerned, Sharon had been a victim, while Kumuda was spiritual and powerful. I did not want to become Sharon again.

Soon after moving to Los Angeles, I received a letter from my teacher, which gave a subtle guidance for this situation. Through my gratitude and excitement from receiving a letter from my beloved guru, delivered to my new Los Angeles apartment, I was also horrified to see that the secretary had typed my American name on the envelope. I was certainly not Sharon Janis to my guru! I was still KUMUDA!

Feeling distraught about this, I tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter. It began, "Dear Kumuda. . . "

Immediately, a deeper guidance was revealed that answered my unasked question about which name to use when. I was to be Sharon Janis on the outside, and Kumuda on the inside. In a way this made sense. Why throw a pure soul like Kumuda out into this gnarly world? I wanted to protect and keep that part of myself safe and clean from worldly effects and vibrations. I didn't want Kumuda to have to be looking for jobs, struggling with mundane desires and goals, or even carrying the burden of success. No, Kumuda would represent the part of myself that remained free from the burning flames of worldliness – the lotus flower that perhaps lived in mud, yet remained free from stain.

I began to use the name Sharon Janis for work-related situations. Sometimes it would take a while for me to remember that name when someone introduced themselves to me or asked for my name. Sometimes I would answer, "Ku. . . Sharon," and occasionally I'd take an uncommonly long time to answer this seemingly simple request. One person even asked me, "Is that a hard question?"

After leaving the monastic environment that been my home for so long, I did not ease gently into the mundane world. Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, I was hired as a free-lance editor for a brand new tabloid show called "Hard Copy."

"Hard Copy" had just purchased two very complex editing systems that were rarely used in Los Angeles. The operations manager for the show was actually having a hard time finding free-lance editors who were able to use the set-up. I ran into a very kind fellow at a post-production facility in town, who spent nearly two hours giving kind suggestions and advice about how to proceed with finding work. He’d heard about Hard Copy’s need for editors, and mentioned it to me as a good place to call even though I also was not at all familiar with their obscure editing system. When I called to apply for the job, the operations manager scheduled me to attend a day of training by the equipment’s manufacturer, along with seven fellows who were also up for the freelance position.

These seven guys had clearly been professional editors for quite some time. I was the least experienced person in this group, by far. This was way over my head. I became concerned about my obvious disadvantage in this arena. It didn't look like I had any chance of landing the job. I didn't even know most of the basic terms used in editing television shows, since my experience had all come from the ashram’s video department.

At this point, I would have likely released the whole idea of working for Hard Copy, told everyone at the training that it was nice to meet them, and left. Why spend all day working so hard and feeling so inadequate when I had no chance of landing the job anyway? Under normal conditions, I would have probably gone out and found myself a nice little job editing for a small company, making some minimum wage. I would have probably started at the bottom of the Hollywood ladder, which was clearly where I belonged in terms of experience.

I had little personal ambition in terms of career. All I needed was enough money for a place to live, preferably on my own after so many years with roommates. I needed a car and enough cash for necessities. Nevertheless, one thing stopped me from settling for a simple, sparse life – my guru's command. If I settled for a job paying $10 or even $20 an hour, how could I ever repay this elusive "debt" my guru had placed upon me? Clearly, she intended for me to go further than I might have attempted to go. I couldn't settle for mediocre. I had to go for the best.

Coming from ten years of monastic living did have its specific challenges in terms of finding employment. When I'd apply, the interviewer would often ask how much money I had earned in my previous job. How could I say $100 or even $500 per month? I would have been laughed out of Hollywood. Yet, part of my discipline was also to be truthful whenever possible. And so, when asked this question, I'd simply answer "Oh, thirty to thirty-five." They would, of course, think I meant thirty to thirty-five thousand dollars per year, while I'd chuckle inwardly at the unspoken "cents per hour."

Now things had changed. I was infused with ambition to succeed in Hollywood. I wanted to make a lot of money, even though I was not personally attached to making a lot of money. I wanted to achieve worldly success, even though I didn’t care so much about success. This paradox brought a chance to explore one of the main teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

This powerful text teaches the spiritual importance of performing actions without desiring the fruits of our actions. It explains that non-action is not really a viable alternative to greed-based action, because it is impossible to not act. The entire universe is constantly performing actions. Therefore, the idea is to act with skill and enthusiasm, while remaining detached from greed-based motives. This was the lesson before me now. I had to play this game of worldliness without becoming trapped by it.

No longer was it enough for me to live as a simple monk. I now had to rise up and meet the new experiences and lessons unfolding before me with respect and love. I had to surrender in a whole new way. The movies and television shows I had shunned for so many years were now going to become a major part of my life. Not only would I watch these worldly images, but I'd watch them over and over, using my precious creative and mental energies to focus on every word, and every image.

My purity was no longer to be based on living a clean, pure life of chanting and contemplating spiritual wisdom all day long. Now my purity would consist of surrendering – even to living in this impure world – because it was God's will that I do so. The final statement of the Bhagavad Gita was ringing in my heart, "I will do thy bidding."

Just as I would never have refused a command of my guru, now I had to learn that this entire universe is the guru, the teacher. I had to accept what was being presented to me with openness and faith, without being defensive or resistant. After all, this approach would certainly guarantee an easier time than if I were to play holier than thou and feel aversion to everything around me. I was able to intentionally guide myself into letting go and, as they say, letting God. This was the jewel I had received from the ashram, this surrender to the divine will, to the infinite beneficence of Universal Perfection. I had to keep that alive. I had to let my body, mind and heart go through this new branch of destiny, without getting in the way of its flow and inherent lessons and grace. I had to play this instrument of Hollywood lifestyle, just as I might have stepped back and allowed the universal energy to play the drum or harmonium organ through my being. This was the new challenge on my path.

I decided to stay in the day-long training session for the editing equipment used at "Hard Copy," in spite of the apparent futility of doing so. Surprisingly, after about five hours, the playing field had become more level. Even though I didn't know as much as these other editors did to begin with, I processed the new information quickly, and was at least on par with the other guys by the end of the day.

In fact, of the eight editors training that day, I was the only one who even went back to "Hard Copy" to apply for the job. The others probably didn't think they would be able to keep up with all the operations of a whole new editing system. It would take too long to learn these complex audio and video systems that made up the "Hard Copy" editing room. I'm sure they'd all worked in many other places using more user-friendly equipment. Why put themselves under that kind of stress and pressure for some freelance work when they could just find a job with more familiar editing systems?

But, for me, this was a unique opportunity. Yes, it would take effort, and yes, I knew it would be stressful to attempt something so difficult. But I wanted a job; I needed a job. This was an amazing opportunity for someone who had so little experience with professional editing – a nationally syndicated television show. I arranged to spend my next two weekends at "Hard Copy," studying all the manuals and practicing on the system.

The operations manager was impressed by my dedication, and immediately hired me. My first assignment was to edit a piece about Princess Diana. Fortunately, I knew who she was, since we had actually watched part of her big wedding in the ashram’s video department. I did notice in some of the footage we were working with that as she walked about, people and reporters were often shouting out, “Princess Di!” Having come from ten years of studying mantras and the powerful effects of our words, I thought that this was not a very good affirmation to have shouted at you all the time – it sounded as though these folks were saying, “princess, die!”

My second project was a bit more extensive. It was a three-part "sex survey," and I spent several days working with a man and woman producer team who had no idea that I was completely new to the show, the equipment, and virtually the entire world. I was certainly new to a three-part series on sex!

These producers were very fun and enthusiastic, and wanted all kinds of snazzy effects in their pieces. This was "Hard Copy's" first season, and the show’s style was really wild and glitzy, before they toned it down in future seasons. Snazzy effects required even more complex equipment operations – the effects were way beyond what I had ever done, and I was doing them on completely new, complex equipment. I must have built up a lot of neuronal brain connections during that week. I was probably thinking harder than I had ever thought before. I was constantly on the hot seat, for eight to ten hours a day. Still, I must have put on a decent act, because the two producers had no idea I had just come from an ashram, or that I had never done this kind of editing before. In fact, they praised my work to the operations manager. Their suspicions only arose while we were editing a celebrity fantasy montage to play in-between interviews about who people liked to fantasize about during sex. The male producer asked me to edit a shot of Michelle Pfeiffer into the celebrity montage. I asked who she was, and they both looked at me as though I were joking. The woman producer teased, "What planet did you come from?"

This three-part series on sex was very educational for me. I hadn't discussed or even thought about sex for ten years, nor had I ever experienced it personally. I really didn't know much about sex, except what can be assumed logically, such as what goes where. But these people were talking about things like g-spots and fantasizing. The producers had interviewed one group of people, asking, "How much money would it take for you to give up sex for a month, and how much for a year?" I was shocked by their answers. These people were asking for hundreds, thousands, even millions of dollars! One huge, husky woman even declared, "Nothing could make me stop that!" We enjoyed imitating her during the long days of editing.

Whatever little energy remained in my brain after focusing on all the technical concerns was used to try to act normal in responding to all this new information. Here we were joking about sex, and I was pretending to know what we were joking about. This was a challenging experience all around, yet it was also exciting and educational.

I’d been hired for the "Hard Copy" job on a freelance basis, and continued to seek other work. I edited several music videos, did a stint at CBS News, and put together a "Candid Camera" special with Allen Funt himself. I knew my karmas had seriously shifted when I was hired to write and edit a trailer for a film called, "Life of Sin."

Four months after arriving in Los Angeles, I went to Disney’s Studio on the Paramount production lot to apply for a job with their brand new "Prime-Nine News," which was going to be the largest local news operation in the world, with more than five news shows each day. While filling out the forms, I looked up, and was surprised to see Mark, the operations manager from "Hard Copy," walking up to me enthusiastically.

Mark replied, "I'm running this whole show, just tripled my salary. What are you doing here?"

Mark said, "Great, you're hired." He had been impressed by my dedication in coming in for two full weekends to learn the equipment, and had also received good reports from all the producers I'd worked with. He walked me upstairs to introduce me to the vice-president and station manager.

Mark praised me to the skies to them. I had no idea this boss thought so highly of me. I had never been praised so much by someone who barely even knew me! This was my first experience of being schmoozed.

All the other editors for this effort had been carefully chosen from news organizations around the country – they were the best of the best. And here I was, having had practically no experience with editing news, hired right off the bat. Not only was I totally unfamiliar with the terms and traditions of news production, but I barely even knew what had been going on in the world for the past decade. Nevertheless, I accepted the job.

There couldn't have been a better way to catch up on worldly events than to edit the news for two and a half years. I was surprised to see how little had really happened in all those years, considering the thousands of magazines, newspapers and television shows that had been constantly produced throughout the decade. Within a short time I caught up with most of the events I had missed during my monastic years, although certain intriguing gaps continued to show up occasionally for years to come.

In news editing, deadlines can be extremely tight. An event occurs, and the footage is rushed to the station either via satellite or tapes. I'd often have just a few minutes to edit a piece, using all the best shots and piecing them together to follow the narration. These were known as "crash and burn" stories, because they had to be put together under intense pressure. Some of the producers, writers, and schedulers started calling me the "crash queen," because I'd edit the pieces in whatever time was allowed, while remaining calm, and even joking around with the nervous reporters and writers who were often wringing their hands, certain that there was no way to finish their story in time for broadcast. I actually enjoyed these challenges, because they gave me an opportunity to tap into the same kind of surrender and faith I had learned during similar challenges in the ashram.

These situations gave me a chance to step back and watch in awe and gratitude as everything always seemed to come through quickly and beautifully, and usually right on time. I would say "yes" to any project, knowing the Great Guiding Force would somehow fulfill my commitments.

I also didn't mind putting in extra time and effort to do a good job on a particular video or news feature series. After all, I had just spent ten years offering every action to God through the practice of selfless service, or seva, receiving room and board and a basic monthly stipend. I didn’t want this habit of serving selflessly to be broken by worldly mentalities, and approached my work at Disney with the same kind of enthusiasm and dedication as I had at the ashram.

Soon after we started work, one of my co-editors at Disney had to take me aside to lecture me that I was supposed to request extra pay for a missed lunch even if I hadn't been hungry when asked to work through the hour. I wasn't used to getting paid for my work, and so it took me a few years to get as greedy and pathetic as my co-workers. At the time I was enthusiastic and willing even to work on my own time to put extra care into a project. With all this dedication, I was honored with many awards during my first few years in Hollywood.

I won a Los Angeles Emmy award (along with seven nominations), two Golden Mikes, an International New York Festival, one of the two National Associated Press Board of Director awards given each year, two L.A. Press Club Awards, and more. I received first-place awards as "best editor" for Los Angeles, and "best news feature editing" for the state of California. Within three years, I had been honored with more than fifteen local, national and international awards.

This gave me a bit more prestige around the studio. Many reporters would wheel and deal to get me as their editor for a project. Barely a single day went by when I didn't hear some form of extreme praise for my work at least once. When my specials would air, the news anchors would often introduce them by saying things like, "Brought to you with the magical touch of our own Sharon Janis."

And so, as fate would have it, in the very building in which "Star Trek" and "I Love Lucy " were filmed, I had the chance to experience a taste of Hollywood stardom.

By the summer of '92, I had been living in Los Angeles for nearly three years. Our ashram had hundreds of meditation centers all over the world, formed for the purpose of giving devotees a local place to come together, chant, meditate, and study the teachings and scriptures of our path. One of the reasons I had chosen to move to Los Angeles was because there was a large community and meditation center there. I had met many of the California-based devotees over the years, and they seemed like quite a friendly, open group.

However, when I arrived, there were some unexpected snags in the form of several people who seemed threatened by my presence. Unfortunately, these were the main coordinators of the center. Although they seemed to be friendly to one another, they weren't so nice to myself and some of the other devotees. It seemed as though these steering committee members were using their position to work out their own power lessons – acting like royal big shots, while taking advantage of the good hearts and devotion of the other devotees who for the most part tried to acquiesce and accept their harshness, perhaps as the guru’s way of working on their ego through these center leaders.

I had pretty much responded with this kind of surrender to similar situations in the main ashram where I’d lived for the previous decade. In that powerful, energy-filled, monastic environment, I had usually been able to move with the flow, and to stay focused on the greater lessons that were available from going through challenging circumstances under the umbrella of grace. However, this time, my response to the bad behavior of some of the center leaders was different. For the first time in my life, I realized that I had a choice as to whether I would choose to involve myself closely with disturbing people and situations, regardless of whether they were devotees or disciples of my guru or traveling on the same spiritual path.

The adversity that used to be such fodder for growth in the New York ashram was now unacceptable to me. It was no longer okay for other people to be disrespectful to me or to one another. As time went on, I attended fewer programs at the meditation center, and began to take refuge in my Hollywood work. Perhaps this was an underlying reason why the universe brought these difficult people to me at this time. Maybe this experience was necessary to wean me from my dependence on the external form of this path, so I could learn some of the other lessons waiting on my karmic plate.

The funny thing is that when I left the ashram I had been concerned that people in the world might be unfriendly. In an unexpected turn of events, the people I met at jobs and even on the street were usually wonderful. Folks I didn't even know often took time to help me or give friendly advice, while for the most part, the many entertainment professionals at our meditation center were less than interested in offering any kind of helping hand to this person who had just arrived from a decade of service in their guru’s ashram, editing and sending out all the videos they’d been enjoying. One blessing that came from this experience is that I would often take time to lend a helping hand to others who came to join the community, helping them and just about anyone I could help to find and get a job or make a good career move. As Kahlil Gibran said, “I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind.”

One day, I was driving along Third Avenue, thinking about this paradox. "Why are some of the people at the meditation center so mean-spirited, while the so-called worldly people are acting so kind? Why are these supposedly nonspiritual people following the teachings of our path, to treat one another with love and respect, better than our own devotees?"

I flipped my signal to get into the right-turn lane. The car behind me in that lane would neither speed past nor let me in. I gave a friendly tap of the horn to get their attention, but they just would not let me in. I thought the universe was giving me a clear message that rude people are everywhere, not just at the meditation center. I caught the lesson and slowed down, nearly to a stop. The car finally went past me, and I slipped into the lane behind it. There, on the back window of this car was a decal from the local meditation center, "See God in Each Other"! In the driver's seat was one of the music leaders I'd had a hard time with. She had been upset with me when she showed me how to play a new chant, and I’d picked up the tune in a minute or two. She actually had exclaimed, “I just spent two weeks learning that! I hate that you learned it so fast – it makes me so jealous of you!” I guess you have to give her some points for being honest, although I soon found myself slowly pushed out of the center’s music department by my desire to stay away from this kind of aggressive or passive aggressive behavior. After this driving experience, I learned that it is very easy to put a decal on your car, or to repeat a phrase that you have heard or read, but much more difficult to really imbibe a teaching into your heart. Of course, it was my challenge and lesson to see God in her as well, since such lessons are always multifaceted for all the players who have been drawn into any particular scene of the universal drama.

As the years went by, I became more and more absorbed in my Hollywood work. This was where I found my joy now. The executive producers at our TV station allowed me to write and produce uplifting pieces to be broadcast throughout the Los Angeles area, often on special occasions, so I felt that through this, I was offering service to humanity as well.