"Penn Station, Penn Station," came the reply. "Last stop!"
We left the train and were funneled onto the escalator by the crowd. Paul and my brother headed uptown on Third Avenue, while Sal and I worked Second Avenue. Dodging cars, bicycles, and more crowds, we entered a supermarket and found the manager.
"Excuse me, sir," Sal said sweetly. "We are sponsoring a workshop on relaxation and were wondering if we could place this in your window."
"One of the posters is already outdated," I pointed out. "So we won't have to take up more of your window space."
The manager looked us over, glanced at the poster, and nodded.
"Thanks," we said and quickly placed two, back to back, visible to people inside and out. After several hours we had placed more than half the stack.
Postering with Sal boosted my confidence in asking favors from strangers. Soon, though, we decided to work opposite sides of the street to increase our efficiency. I found that by acting polite and a bit shy, I could easily persuade store owners to say yes. The more I spread the word of Guru's mission, to people in stores and on the street, the more I believed in it. And the more I believed, the more I wanted to spread the word of Guru's mission...
When Sal and I ran out of posters, we crossed over to Third Avenue, met Paul and my brother, and caught the subway to Penn Station. I was tired from the postering. I found the repetitive clatter and vibrations of the train soothing. I found it easy to meditate. I could have thought about how Atmananda had been teaching me how-to-hunt-and-how-not-to-be-hunted. I could have thought about how those who teach how-to-hunt-and-how-not-to-be-hunted can easily prey upon those whom they teach. I could have thought about how, by asking Atmananda to take me beyond the world of reason, I was hunting him. I could have thought about how he was hunting me. But I just sat there and let my thoughts run free.
That year, Sal, Paul, Tom, my brother, and I placed thousands of posters in Manhattan. Working with Anne, Dana, and Suzanne, we also distributed thousands of handouts on the Stony Brook campus. Sometimes we worked in sub-freezing temperatures. Once Atmananda had us glue posters on buildings in Manhattan in the middle of the night. I did not mind. I tended to enjoy the effort, in part because I believed we were doing some good, because we had plenty of time to pursue other interests (in January, 1979, I began studying English literature at Stony Brook), and because as hard as we worked, we played.
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