The passing of Nellie Hart has
been a touching thing, even from afar, for I am completely convinced she
had conquered death long ago in the deep silences of her non-dual
meditations. She knew.
She had thrown away so many veils already, she knew she was not a person
at all, but the life of the consciousness that was going on through her
mind. Just as when doing all kinds of activities she was always alert, and
alert to details, so she was aware of a meditation that was not scheduled,
but was going on ALL THE TIME. That is why I loved being with her for
endless coffee and smokes and discussion of the highest spiritual kind
we knew, trying to fuse Sri Ramakrishna with Sri Nisargadatta for example,
searching for the absolute. The non-thing "thing" which cannot be named.
When I was suffering from
Grave's disease she decided to take me to Hawaii to recover for 2 or 3
weeks. She had always wanted me to see the island where she had lived for
good number of years. And indeed I got to go right inside that very house
myself and look at it (Other relatives live there now I think). It was wonderful of course, with a mountain nearby.
Oh! What a saving grace that trip was. I only weighed about 99 pounds, was
skeletal from being metabolized to near death by an excess of
thyroid hormone. The medicine (six big tablets a day) was just starting to take
effect. At least I no longer felt like I was being squeezed by a giant
sized fist.
But Hawaii had a big effect on
me and spending every day in serious metaphysical discussions with Nellie
also had a big effect. I began to feel an ecstasy arising as the life
force hormone settled back to its correct value. The sensation was of
being physically reborn, coming back from death, and our monk-like daily
spiritual concentration and coffee was just the right medicine for this
coming back to life. The life force! And Nellie could go all day! She was
relentless in pursuit of our discussions. If I only had a tape of that!
Later we arranged a trip to go
to the Big Island to see the volcano, Kiluea, and the "firepit" of the
volcano, Halemaumau, said to be the mouth of the mother godess Pele. To
Pele we would make our offering on behalf of Baba and in his name, because
the plan to bring him there never happened. To pick up the tickets I rode
a loaned bike to another town with glorious views all along the way, a
fairly long ride. With my body chemistry coming back toward life I had an
intoxicating feeling of youth again.
I got a bottle and put some
vodka in it, and them some raw meat. Pele (like Kali) likes alcohol and
meat. Also put into the bottle were two betel nuts from Baba's fire, both
partially burned, and a piece of Baba's hair. It seemed a fitting offering
for the Goddess in his name.
This may have been taken when
Nellie Hart first introduced Athena Kouzan to Baba, I
don't know. It kind of looks like the right time period and
"oldness." It must have been in the 60s.
Athena Kouzan (Premamayi),
Sri Prahlad Chanda, Nellie Hart (Brahmamayi, and Joyama
We were on
a little tour at first, having flown to the Big Island, but Nellie
had arranged for us to have our own hired cab for the whole
afternoon. We set out to make our offering to Pele at Kiluea's fire
pit, Halemaumau. The driver was a young guy, a true son of Hawaii,
and at first he took our talk of "Pele" to be typical haole (white
man's) disrespect. Gradually, with side glances to me, Nellie guided
the conversation in various ways to eventually win him around and
realize that our desire to make an offering to the mother goddess
was sincere. After that, he welcomed us completely as if we were
family. In fact, later he took us to meet his family at some kind of
farm in the countryside.
Before the
fire pit we stopped to look at giant flows of black lava all
hardened into rock now, swirling in its shapes, organic living
shapes. Suddenly Nellie, looking at a particular lava shape with the
driver, made a kind of surprise exclamation, as if she had suddenly
noticed something.
"It's
very.. organic, alive, almost .."
She
stopped. She seemed a little embarrassed, perhaps remembering that
this taxi driver was still almost a perfect stranger. The driver
saved her.
"You mean,
erotic?"
"Yes,"
Nellie said, glad that he had said it and not left it to her. With
this bit of freedom established they discussed the erotic aspects of
the lava shapes a bit further. The driver was beginning to enjoy us
now very much. His humdrum workday was turning out to be interesting
and fun.
Later I
found myself walking across a desolate but exciting landscape with
Nellie and the driver and our little offerings. Smoke was coming out
of the ground from little places here and there, "smoke" which had a
very strong odor of sulphur. Eventually we came to the fire pit. I
looked down.
For some
reason that first glance into the fire pit, an actual giant pit,
with smokey stuff going on at the far bottom, that glance and image
got burned into my brain in an intense way. Even weeks later just
remembering it would invoke again this sense of a vision, a mouth of
the earth mother, Halemaumau, the fire pit of power, Pele, the
fearsome and magnificent. The life force itself.
With
Nellie's subtle supervision we made our offering to Pele, sitting at
the cliff at the edge of the deep hole in the ground. I said some
words about how Baba had wanted to go to Hawaii and visit Nellie,
and visit this site, but that he could not, and that in his name we
make this offering from Baba to Pele. I think I named the items out
loud, the partially burned betel nuts from Baba's sacrificial fire,
the small lock of his hair, the meat and alcohol, perhaps there was
a small picture. Nellie and I said some mantras and then I threw the
offering into Halemaumau, the fire pit of the Mother, in Baba's
name. Later that night whenever I remembered looking into the fire
pit, this odd feeling came over me, the vision of... something.
I really got healed on that
adventure with Nellie in Hawaii, physically and mentally. We stayed at her
son David's apartment in Kaneohe and David was a real prince of a host to
me, making me feel as if I were part of his own family. If was a friend of
his mother, then I was okay as far David was concerned. Oddly enough it
was David Hart, on this healing and spiritual trip for me, introduced me
to computers and programming. He set up his son's little game system (very
early, primitive) and showed me how it worked. That night I wrote my first
several programs in BASIC. From that trip to Hawaii forward it was all
computer programming for a long a time. So this trip to Hawaii, Nellie's
gift to me, turned out to be a turning point in many ways.
All who knew her loved
her dearly, because of how she was. And long talks with her were
great adventures into the heart of meditation, and the self inquiry,
and the great questions. You would always feel she was somehow more
your own mother than your own mother. You could confide anything to
her, you could be honest, she might get testy if you were not
honest. She was dead serious about getting to the truth, and to the
sensing of the absolute.
Premananda
Bill Morgan
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