God on the Couch by Samuel Sandals
Sandals comes to Maha
I want to tell you of the extraordinary transformation I have enjoyed after six months at the fashionably appointed bayside ashram of the famous maha saibyebye. I feel wonderful, liberated, psychically charged and alive at last.
me just six months later
Now I admit I was sceptical at first. I believed all the stories about how the maha gives more favours to the rich, showering them with his favours and giving trinkets to the potless. I admit my early impressions tended to confirm my basest fears:
Bill gates after meet with maha
Compare this with my total haul:
Ok I admit its a complete set
Despite doubts I have been carried along by the high spirits in maha's movement. Typical is an amazing character called 'Zac Regrett, one of maha's longest serving and most ardent followers. He is the purveyor of a fine hamburger called the maha saibyebye 'always happy' meal, washed down with copious Heineken prasad.
Theres none of the buttock numbing three hour waits at maha's fashionably appointed bayside ashram either. I had arrived in early spring and the festival of armani-namavali was weel underway. Gay banners everywhere proclaimed 'his life is armani-armani is his life.' The scene is a veritable pre darshan show. Most favour a tailgate cookout or dance joyously to maha rap. Two celebrities from the music scene are enthusiastic maha devotees. LL Coolbag and Ice Tray. These guys make up the bulk of maha's house band The Maha Men who always prefigure darshan with maha's signature anthem Hoo Let The God Out.
My first interview with maha was both a spiritual and a challenging experience. Maha asked me 'what do you want?' I was taken aback, yes yes what do I really want. Should I be the distinguished psychotherapist with the temple flecked with distinguished grey? Should i fulfill the yearning for polyester against flesh or let out a repressed primal scream to frighten small children? What .........to.........want. I looked up to see maha with his shiva eyes piercing me, tapping his minibar and saying 'look guy whaddya want..bud or heineken?' From then my hesitancy was punished, maha took his attention from me and onto my niece as he repeatedly dabbed at his mouth with a white handkerchief in what i thought might be dribbling anticipation.
One thing is certain Maha is an unfathomable mystery. It is his deeeevine play to trick us into thinking he's just another bayside freeloader in SF with no visible income who somehow has had cosmic meaning attached to his hedonistic life choices. At another level though he really is asking the question: heineken or bud, faith or doubt, love or fear. And yet millions come drawn only by the thought of fulfilling their desires at his wish fulfilling basement (I myself got a passable DVD of The Mummy Return before even national cinema release). How apt for maha is testing our 'baser' egoistic intentions by often telling us to 'wait, wait' sometimes for 24 hours before fulfilling our order of bootleg Armani pour l'homme.
Yes he is the cosmic teacer/trickster. My wife, Sandy Sandals says I got this wrong that he IS a bayside fop who wants us to think he is a maha. All I know is that I am a changed, liberated Sam.
Pranams at his bogus feet.
a triumpahant reception for my lecture on post traumatic stress at Harvard