Part III
TRABUCO CANYON
The account of the first years of the monastery at this location has been given in Six Lighted Windows.
The difficulty about adding to that picture is that this is an account
of the men who have remained in the monastic life of our Western
monasteries, and so much of the work done at Trabuco has been done by
men who came for some months or some years—and left. Such was the case
of John Schenkel, one of the two men who began in Hollywood and became
one of the three pioneers at Trabuco. The other was Kenny, Swami
Anamananda, some of whose work has been described in the book. Soon
Frank (Asim Chaitanya) came, willing to learn and to do any kind of
work, and he is the one who remained there all his life. Contributions
to the life of the place in terms of music were numerous, but all by
men who did not stay.Part III
TRABUCO CANYON
Ken made the chicken-farm his magnum opus, and watched it grow from a dozen hens to a henhouse of 700 birds and then had to see the slow decline of all small chicken operations, due to disease and feed costs, till the whole plant had to be torn down. Ken had a hard life, was subjected to a lot of criticism, from his Guru and others, and was molded accordingly. He always described himself as "a survivor". He had a great deal of practical knowledge, was a self-taught man and well up on current events and a records-keeper of the events of his own life and those he had known. Because both John and I departed for other places after 8 or 10 years, Ken was the stability point for the monastery for many years. Then Len (Bhadrananda) and Mark (Tadatmananda) arrived.
Now what is the work of a monastery such as this one? It is certainly not the orchard, garden, building maintenance, cleaning or cooking! One "public" project undertaken was the construction of a trail of shrines to the various faiths—taking their cue from Portland—(and as a tax-saver). The shrines are very simple but significant, and the area is open to the public. Just which men built it I cannot say, as I was no longer there.
But no, the work of this place is meditation. It is the shrine room. It is the constant and continuing commitment to a life absorbed in thought of the Divine. No one who has not tried for some time to live that life can have any true idea of what it is like or what it means. It means learning to live with and love persons you do not even like, because they share your ideal and your values and are trying in their own way to live this kind of life. How does one write about or account for the contribution to the Society or the society, of a life like this? Oh yes, one can say, the atmosphere, the “vibes" of the place become tangible, even overpowering. But Trabuco has never welcomed short-term visitors very much; so how many will be able to know about and profit by that atmosphere? What I am saying here about the life of the men who have “stuck it out” at Trabuco must also be said of the men in Olema, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York and so on. Theirs has not been a public life: few have become teachers, some give discourses, no doubt, but even that is a late development and mostly in So. Calif. Swamis Prabhavananda, Ashokananda and others would be the first to say that the contribution of the "silent ones" has been the greatest of all. I doubt that these first Heads of Western Centers conceived that any of us would be "teachers".
HOLLYWOOD
Once again, an account is to be found in my book, and it is quite limited because I lived only for only one year in Hollywood and a few odd months. And once again, much of the work I saw was carried out by men and women who later left the Order. I recall Swami Vidyatmananda having responsibility for the publishing of “Vedanta and the West,” and most of the book business, building up the book store, and for the care of the rose garden beside the temple. Krishna (Swami Krishnananda), as everyone knows, was chauffeur to the Swamis, provider of new Cadillacs, and photographer extraordinaire. He also was the almost invariable dishwasher. Among others I took a turn at doing the daily worship; also mowed lawns, did gardening and other odd jobs. This was the time when Douglas Blue, later Atmatattvananda (who had first arrived at Trabuco at nightfall, was not speaking; so his work was rather specialized. This was also the time when Mark (Tadatmananda) and Len (Bhadrananda) were beginning to work at the Center, followed later by Nitya, Jnana and Nirvana. Atmavidyananda was a little boy, whose parents were regular attenders. Paul, (Amohananda) did an immense amount of the Hollywood work—maintenance, construction, personnel, properties, garden—before "retiring" at Trabuco, from which he has again retired, being now apart from the Order.
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