فصل 31

31

Metamorphosis of a Creature

Before moving on to the tremendous growth of the 1980s, I should share another aspect of my life that was teaching me a great deal about surrender—my prison work. No matter how busy I got, every other Saturday morning I spent my time in the prison. Once Radha finished school, she began joining me on these visits. Radha also took care of the increasing correspondence with the inmates and brought in spiritually oriented books they requested. If I had to, I would have rearranged my life to not miss any one of those visits.

It is difficult to explain how sincere those men locked up in a maximum-security prison became about their inner freedom. The walls could hold their bodies, but nothing could imprison their souls—except their own minds. They saw this at a very deep level. I taught them meditation and how to do a little yoga. But mostly what we discussed was letting go of oneself. They learned to watch that voice in their head, and they learned how to not listen to all the garbage it says. After my talk, we would have group sharing sessions. Sometimes one of the men would relate an incident that had happened during the week where that voice had told him to do something stupid. He spoke about that brief moment of awareness wherein he got to choose whether to listen or just let it go. Invariably, while telling the story the inmate would start laughing about how in the past he would have just immediately expressed that destructive behavior. This time, he just let it go. My heart would melt listening to them share with one another how to do this—how to let go of yourself. No words can express how honored and grateful I was that life had serendipitously put me in those sessions.

Most of my group were in for life, but periodically some of them would get shipped off to another institution. The ones who stayed at Union Correctional Institution for a long time formed deep bonds and encouraged one another in the spiritual life. Often one person in the group got the teachings so deeply that he became a leader for the others. I will recount the story of one such unlikely person because of the insights into surrender that the story portrays.

It was back in 1975 when I first met David. My group was meeting upstairs in the chapel at Union Correctional Institution when a very large man walked up front and sat down close to me. He was the size of an NFL football player, not fat, just big. After my talk, he came up to me and said, “Hey, my name’s Creature, and I’m an Outlaw.” I had heard of the Outlaws; they were a motorcycle gang like the Hells Angels. I got up, stuck out my hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Mickey.” That was my first encounter with a guy named Creature.

The name on Creature’s shirt read: DAVID CLARK. He came to every one of my classes from that day forward. Most of my group was either black or Hispanic, and David stood out as a white southerner. It intrigued me as to what would keep a person with his history in this group. Little by little, I saw that he was very sincere in wanting to improve himself and grow spiritually. He started to ask for a number of books. He began with Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. A few visits later, I noticed that Creature was carrying a picture of Yogananda around with him. I didn’t know what to make of this very sincere and intelligent person who was serving multiple life sentences for what he had done as one of the leaders of one of the most violent motorcycle gangs in the country. I will tell you that I felt tremendous love for him and was deeply honored that life had brought us together at this important stage of his growth.

David would generally approach me after class and ask some very deep questions indicative of someone who had been meditating a lot. In fact, I could tell from his interaction with others in the group that David had been organizing meditation sessions for the men in his cell block. This went on for years. David became a leader who was obviously friends with, and respected by, the rest of the group.

One day, David approached me and said something had happened that was going to affect his ability to come to the group. Authorities had apparently uncovered the bodies of some rival gang members from many years earlier, and David and a few other Outlaws were going to be charged. He didn’t seem disturbed by this turn of events. In fact, he told me that he saw it as a way of working off some of his past karma. He had done bad things in the past, and he wanted the opportunity to work them through. I was humbled by how completely surrendered and at peace David was with the situation.

While awaiting trial, David was placed in confinement in the high-security lockup cells of a building called the Rock. The Rock housed the original cell blocks at UCI, which dated back to 1925. The living conditions were so atrocious in the Rock that it was finally torn down in 1999 under court order. I was not allowed to see David while he was in lockup, but he wrote and told me that he had been spending hours a day in meditation and chanting.

Once when Amrit was scheduled to come down for one of his annual retreats, David wrote us about how much it would mean to him to meet a great yogi like Amrit. David knew that given his condition, it would never happen. But you could feel the sincerity of his devotion radiate from the letter. I sent the letter to Amrit and asked if he was willing to visit David if I could arrange it. Amrit had never been in a prison before, but he was very moved by the letter and David’s whole story. Amrit’s simple response was, “How could I not?” I used every connection I had at the prison. I had become very close with the chaplain over the years, and the warden was familiar with me because of donations we had made. Each year after the start of Built with Love, we would donate thousands of dollars to enhance the chapel and help the chaplain serve the needs of the inmates.

Ultimately, I received permission for a visit between Amrit and David. The conditions were very strict. David could not come out; Amrit and I would have to go into the lockup area of the Rock to meet him. I will never forget that day. Amrit wore a saintly off-white gown that flowed when he walked. When we made it through the main gates into the prison, we remained silent because Amrit wanted to feel what it was like to live in there. I could never succeed in describing what it was like to walk into the Rock. Each wing we walked by was just a solid row of barred cells on one side facing a stone wall on the other. There was not one drop of color anywhere. But we were not going to one of those cells. We were led right past those wings to a dark area where there were no windows. This was the lockup area of the Rock. We were led to a dimly lit cell that must have been used for meetings. It was a one-man cell with a filthy toilet sitting bare in the middle of the room. There was a small, broken table with three chairs and nothing else. Amrit and I took our seats at the wobbly table while a number of guards stood around.

After a short while, David was led into the cell. He was shackled hands and feet, but he looked beautiful to me. I was so glad to see him again. We hugged, and I introduced him to Amrit. We all took our seats at the table with David sitting opposite Amrit. We sat there for a long time with David’s head facing downward. The energy in the room felt like the Temple after Amrit had finished chanting mantras. It was so strong that you could hardly think. Not a word was spoken until Amrit asked David what he was feeling. David lifted his head to speak, and that was the first time I could see his face. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, and his face was aglow with a gentle light. In a whisper of a voice he said, “I guess I’m feeling how much love you have for me, because I’m completely overwhelmed with love.” Those were the only words spoken that day. We sat in silence for a while longer, and the guards took David back to confinement. Amrit and I were escorted out of that dark hole, past the wings of cell blocks, and out of the Rock. We were left to find our own way back to the front gates.

As my eyes acclimated to the sunlight, I was overcome by a single thought. On this earth, there are many different places where people live. Some are high places and some are low places. That hole where David was living in solitary lockup, a veritable prison within a prison, had to be one of the lowest places on earth for a human being to end up. You couldn’t go much lower. Yet the sincerity of his spiritual practices had just attracted one of the higher beings on the planet into that dark hole.

I never got to ask David what he experienced that day, but he was glowing when he left. I remembered what I had experienced the night Amrit put his hand on my forehead. A deep peace came over me as I realized that my dear friend David would get to keep that overwhelming experience of love for the rest of his life.2

2 For those interested, at trial David threw himself at the mercy of the court. Based upon his prison behavior record, he was sentenced to time to be served concurrent with his existing sentence. In essence, David got to work out his past without one day added to his sentence. David was transferred from UCI shortly after this ordeal. I got word that he had earned a “trusted-inmate” status at his new facility and was working in the chapel. I lost touch with David after that.