I continued my love of drumming circles into my third marriage, discovering a gentle woman who owned a yurt in a hillside area above Eugene. I was the only turbaned person among mostly Rainbow Family type folk that came one night. The drumming was rich and varied.
I asked the woman, “Do these folk ever use drumming to journey? If so, I would like to share with them how to journey to the Golden Temple.”
She said, “Yes! If you like we can do it tonight.”
So I picked up my Tar, a big flat drum, told a few Golden Temple stories and started to pound a steady, continuous beat. People sat or laid down and closed their eyes, absorbing the soothing beat and my voice guiding them through the sky, across the continent and sea, asking them to feel everything below and bless everything as they passed, then off in the distance see a glint of gold and zero in on it—they would know they were at the Golden Temple the moment they bathed in its blissful golden light.
When anyone goes in meditation, or imagination to the Golden Temple, it helps to first imagine how the marble feels beneath your feet, what it feels like to touch the gold or even just sense its radiance, to splash in the water, or if nothing seems to be happening, to hold the Guru's hand. The moment people lock in with even one sense, they go on automatic effortlessly, and the Guru engages their aid in others healing or more deeply into their own.
The meditation went on unguided for about twenty minutes, at which point I switched to quick pounding, a signal to come back. I invited folks to share their experiences, so curious was I, not having come prepared to teach, having no photos of the Golden Temple to show them.
One man, Gordon, had such an unusual journey he came up to ask about it, describing scribbling he had seen in the sky. As I opened up my Nitnem to the first page of Japji, he pointed and exclaimed, “That’s it! Those are the very same figures I saw! Do you know what it means?”
I translated for him, “There is One Creator, Truth is His Identity.” He had seen the Gurmukhi version of “Ek Ong Kaar Sat Nam,” in my Nitnem, the beginning of Guru Nanak’s Japji.
Some folks saw golden domes, others met up with turbaned Gurus. Their descriptions closely approximated the actual structure of the Golden Temple in different degrees of completion and from different viewpoints, either seeing the Nectar Tank as a pond in a jungle, a white-brick building, or various aspects--the temple’s original brick, or marble and gold. All phases are possible in the timeless etheric realm.
