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or if that doesn't work,
then click this link. This book was a long time in coming. I've worked on it for many years and over
those years it has "morphed" into it's own thing. I feel deeply that God morphed it into what He wanted it
to be. I found writing this book (and the subsequent ones) to be highly cathartic and liberating. I grew up and
matured...spiritually...as I wrote them.
Chasing The Avatar chronicles the time I lived in an ashram in Southern Indian and traveled around with a Hindu guru. It's true! Or rather, about 90% true. The actual physical events that I wrote about all happened. The people who appear in the book were really there. I interacted with them as much or as little as the book notes. They were as crazy and as normal as I made them out to be. The events all happened as I stated. So, you may wonder: Why did I decide to make the book "fictitious autobiography"? Why not simply an autobiography? The reason for this has to do with chronological order. I lived in India and traveled around with the guru over a period of two years. I kept journals while I was there and had even written a first volume based upon the journals. However, a couple of hundred pages into my journal-based writing, God told me that what I had written did not honor Him. I deleted what I had written and burned my journals.
For starters, yes, I was at Harvard working on
my doctorate in Government when I met the guru. I was insanely discontented and a crazy risk-taker to boot. To this
day I don't know why I'm still alive. I should have died several times over before I ever made it to India--such crazy risks
did I take. In such a state, I met the guru, Cha Ma, and decided within two days that I had...absolutely HAD to go to India.
I packed up and left in three weeks. However, I took a circuitous route to India, traveling first to San Francisco to see
my brother (terrorize him and give him fodder for a few good laughs and great family reunion anecdotes), then on to Indonesia
to visit my best friend from Harvard, Malaysia and finally on to India. I was blown away in India and I have to admit--I loved
living in the ashram. I was psycho: my moods swung around pendulously from soaring mountaintop happiness to abject despondency
and despair. I don't think a day went by that I did not think about (and try by jumping off the roof of the temple) killing
myself--all in the name of reaching enlightenment. Also, I loved the people in the ashram, all of whom were as psycho and
bizarre and on the edge as me. The guru had gathered a group of crazies around her, no doubt.
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