The Day I Met Dr. Narayan
I know countless Dr. Narayan stories. Narayan had lots of the clown archetype in him this life, and, looking back, I am so very grateful for all the belly laughs he brought to me and my family.
The first time I met Narayan, he wasn’t Narayan yet. He was Michael Ebner, a scrawny, I mean skinny, top psychologist who was the director of the kid’s prison psych ward in Eugene OR. Michael/Narayan was at the top of his straight career back then. He and his staff had found ways to actually heal many of the children. These children were literally mother rapers and father killers, and Michael/Narayan was busy flying all over the place helping other facilities to heal their children. The methods he was using evolved into “face reading”.
How “face reading” got started is interesting. Michael/Narayan and staff recorded the kids on old movies. (Videos were not around yet.) During a staff meeting Narayan stopped the film in the projector to have a chance to talk about something. A kid’s face stayed on the screen and someone made a tangential comment predicting what this kid was going do next. Narayan had filmed the child himself and had been the only witness to the scene that day, and he was surprised because his staff member’s predictions was completely accurate. The movie got turned back on and the kid up and did what the staffer knew the kid was going to do. So, at staff meetings, Narayan kept stopping the movie, using a variety of the kids filmed and asking his staff for their predictions. Many of his staffers were right-on in their predictions every single time.
Narayan used to say that he was no psychic and in many ways that is true. Rather, he was very ADDDDD…, with maybe some Asperger’s thrown in, and a triple Sagittarius to boot. He spent years and years studying endless photos and movies and eventually he came up with “face reading.”
The day I met Michael/Narayan for the first time was a down day. I had been informed, after sadhana, that some of the big-wig 3HO shrink types were meeting at the Ashram in Salem and that I was expected to “serve” them. Guru Shabad Singh (Stephen Josephs), Sat Kirpal Singh, Viriam Singh, Nirbhao Singh, and Michael Ebner all arrived mid-afternoon, and I was ready with lots of Yogi Tea and homemade healthy goodies.
The conversation was immediately wondrous to me. I was fascinated by psychology, hypnosis, and Jung. However, I was 21 and had never gone to college, while these men were in their 30s and 40s. I really wanted to feel honored to serve them quietly and perfectly. Looking back, I was pretty cute, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. I was married and so were the 3HO men. However, their wives were at Camp and it was vacation time…. They were strutting that day – probably wishing to impress Michael/Narayan, definitely out to impress each other.
Turns out, however, that Michael/Narayan (bless him) couldn’t bear to have me serving those egos, so, even though he was the guest of honor, he kept taking the tea cups from me and delivering them to the others, all the while carrying on with the fascinating discussion. I think he was particularly unwilling for me to play the sexy maid role because he had made a big, big professional blooper with me when he had arrived at the door of the Ashram.
I had welcomed him, introduced myself, and told him I was eager for him to read my face.
“WOW!” he blurted out, “You were your Dad’s MISTRESS!”
“WHAT?!?!?! (I think I left my body)” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Michael/Narayan had totally shocked himself by having actually said this out loud.
“What I mean is,” he said, “Your Father liked you better than he liked your mom.”
“O yes!” I chuckled, “My Mom is pretty hard to like much of the time.
So, this all led to Michael/Narayan helping me serve the great 3HO men, which was somewhat uncomfortable for them, and not easy on me either. Then, noticing that I was fascinated by the conversation, Michael/Narayan insisted that I join their circle. He asked me what I thought of something and I told him. He questioned me for some time and I blossomed.
“This woman is very, very gifted.” he declared. “I’m glad you included her in this discussion because she is extraordinary and special.” he informed the bros.
My mouth dropped and so did everyone else’s. Nothing much happened after that, I don’t think. The group left and I decided that I was going to get a “real” face reading from Michael/Narayan as soon as I could.
A Little Bit of Narayan Singh History
It took Narayan many years to get through university and graduate school because of his extreme learning disabilities. He would audit a class one semester and then take the same class for credit the next semester. This was in the 50s. He was a total geek and the department chair and others didn’t like him much. Now-a-days we would simply say that Narayan was not “neurotypical.”
Narayan used to tell me about how they were teaching behaviorism when he was in school, which he said was OK in class but it simply didn’t work in the field. He had some very scary and hilarious stories of doing internships and side jobs in locked down asylums attempting to get insane folks to respond to BF Skinner behaviorism regimes. According to Doc Narayan, it wasn’t until the 60s that they started coming up with therapies that actually help people.
During the years that I was attending (as a Teaching Assistant) San Jose University as a Religious Studies major, I would get Narayan in as a visiting lecturer most every semester. Towards the end of the 80s, I had to stop because Narayan could not, or would not, “pass” anymore in an academic setting. But up until then, he was a funny and unusual speaker and he mixed very well with my professors.
One of my favorite Dr. Narayan lectures was when he would bring his photos of himself down through his life. They were SO diverse it was almost unbelievable – all these faces were the same man! Of course, the man I met named Michael Ebner didn’t look anything like the Santa Claus Dr. Narayan we knew while in 3HO either.
Narayan had different names for these faces. “Trotsky” was one of them, I remember. That face had burning eyes, gaunt cheeks, and a goatee. I also remember the photo of Narayan as a child with buck teeth that stuck straight out. Then there was “Lord Bryon,” a dreamy, romantic poetic face for sure. And in the 60s, Narayan (strangely slim and handsome) had his hair down to his butt, tie dyes and love beads, and a big goofy smile – his Wavy Gravy persona. Narayan gave his ex-wives pet names: “Ruth Vader” was one of them, I recall. Another one was “She Who Must Be Obeyed!”
Michael Ebner Becomes Narayan Singh
Michael Ebner didn’t become Dr. Narayan Singh very quickly. For several years he had no intention of joining 3HO, much less being a yogi. As much as Yogi Bhajan was courting him back then, feeding him endless 3HOers to “face read” and making a huge fuss over him, Michael wasn’t going for it. No way, no how!
It wasn’t until 1980 when Narayan Singh and Kaur moved to California that Narayan Singh had his conversion experience. It happened in a bank. After YB named Michael, “Narayan,” 3HOers kept writing their checks to “Narayan” instead of “Michael,” and his new CA bank wasn’t accepting his double identity. This angered Narayan and he left the bank in a huff. Suddenly he “heard the voice from the Home Office.” God spoke to him, you might say, and it freaked him to the core. And what God said just made it worse. “I was told to wear the white and turban! It was horrible, unthinkable. Professional suicide! ”
Now the way Michael/Narayan came into contact with 3HOers was that he had been brave and hired Viriam Singh (of the Eugene ashram) onto his staff, not minding the whites and turban. It was Viriam Singh who immediately saw the potential for Michael/Narayan using face reading on regular folk to help us in our spiritual development. He brought Narayan home to the ashram and those 3HOers simply loved him.
Viriam Singh was good friends with my Xman and me. We were living in Salem OR under the Nirbhaos back then. It was summer 1976 maybe ’77 and all the women, except me, had gone to KWTC (Women’s Camp) in New Mexico. Due to several factors, I never attended KWTC (except once) during my years in 3HO. This left me home with the men, which had its ups and downs.
I wonder how much Narayan was responsible for the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and the Bay Area 3HO sangats being looser and more self-expressive than other regions. Of course, the PNW and San Francisco were hotbeds of liberalism anyway, but, even so, I think Narayan had a lot of impact. In Oregon, in the late 70s when Michael came on the scene, what with YB courting and promoting him, pretty much everyone got their faces read and the whole sangat was babbling Narayan jargon constantly.
Narayan’s Cosmology
Here is a bit of Narayan’s cosmology as I understand it: After WW2 there was an infusion of high souls born onto this planet, especially into the USA and Europe. This group is popularly known as the Baby Boom, but Narayan called us the Shock Troopers. We experienced a mass initiation starting in the 1960s. We came of age during the time of student protests against the Vietnam War and we joined campaigns for Civil Rights, Women’s rights, Gay rights and more. We over 50 years training ourselves for the times we are experiencing right now: economic collapse, corporate crime explosion, peak oil, melting ice caps, drastic climatic change, and so forth.
Narayan always said that when these times arrived, we would be fine because our skills would finally be needed: we know how to start food coops and live in community and educate our kids. We have been eating organic all the way along, so we are a bit less poisoned. We pray.
Narayan was always careful to confront straight, hierarchical thinking when talking about high souls as distinct from mature souls, much less baby souls. Any soul can grow up fully in one life, he asserted. We are designed, in some ultimate sense, to grow up in one lifetime. However, we can get stuck developmentally, and then it can take many lives to grow up. However, by asking for help from the “Home Office” and receiving GRACE, we can all get there during this life.
Many high souls have incarnated and are still incarnating at this time in history to help save the earth. Some of us came from other planets. A few of us are walk-ins and many of us are crawl-ins.
[Apparently, because times on Earth are so crucial right now, many souls want to come to earth in any way possible, so there are alternatives to the time consuming task of being born and then waiting to grow up before you can help save the world. Walk-ins are souls who incarnate immediately after someone dies suddenly (in an accident for instance) so that there is no apparent time that the person is dead. Walk-ins can start to be effective adults immediately. Crawl-ins are similar, but they incarnate even earlier, often before a baby is even born.]
Something like that anyway.
Narayan’s Face Reading Technique
Narayan talked about the (Arnold) “Schwarzenegger Effect,” which refers to how we literally face build, the same way as Arnold would body build. By repeating over and over the same expressions, and same facial tensions, we actually created our own faces.
Narayan’s method was to divide the face into four quadrants. First, he would look at the right and left sides of the face, particularly the eyes and the mouth. Some people’s faces are very different from one side to the other: the mouth might have a permanent smile on the right side of the face but a sad little frown on the left. This common sort of mixed expression, Narayan asserted, is someone who is forever putting on a happy face while feeling sad inside. There were deeper levels to Narayan’s Face Reading, of course, but in many ways, it was simply looking at the different faces within the face – right side and left side, up and down – and seeing what you saw.
Another way that Narayan taught Face Reading was by having people imitate faces. I remember in one class Narayan showed us an old photo of Nixon. We all dutifully brought our eyebrows down hard. Then we looked out from under this ledge while letting our cheeks sag into jowls as best we could. Then we got all pent up and excited and shaky like Nixon used to, and practiced saying “I am not a crook!” Later we compared our experiences of being Nixon, which was fascinating. Years later I found myself studying theater and using the same techniques with actors.
Narayan’s Typology System
“I’m deSLIMming!” I remember a sister telling me. SLIM is Narayan-talk for “people pleasers” -“She loves me, she loves me not.”
“I’m an ORD!” a brother would chirp. ORD means “Overly Responsible Depressive.” Can you imagine this scene? Narayan got “Keep up, ji” and “seva-holics” and gloomy work horse men and women to happily admit that they are ORDs. Because of this, those people started to relax and laugh more, and the sangat let them.
“Stop PANG Banging on me!” PANdG stands for “People are no damn good.” and PANdGs tend to boss people around. Many of us had compound Narayan-isms applied to us. I am a PANdG AND an ORD myself; but not at the same time. My Xman, as I mentioned, was declared by Narayan to be a Bootstrap ORD.
Bootstraps are those people who had to raise themselves, had to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they are no good at asking for or receiving help. CHURCHMICE were those among us who are uptight and controlling; micromanagers – Dharma Police. KEGS – I think this is right but I don’t recall what the letters stand for, but this type is the Alpha Male, the tyrant, GODzilla.
Now, remember that as crazy, wild, and unusual as Doc Narayan was, he was also brilliant. Within the cult, he trained many of us up in his picture-cliche-language, where we could easily talk about hard things and actually heal ourselves a bit.
For instance, one day, Narayan and I were talking about an issue I was having and he said, “Remember, Kamalla, you were apple tree-ed.” This was Narayan code for “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me…” referring to my father’s relationship with me.
For the years I lived in Silicon Valley (1980-1993), I encouraged all my yoga students, friends, and folks from the university to have their faces read by Narayan. I loved sitting in on this process, and many didn’t seem to mind having me there, so I witnessed several hundred face readings by Dr. Narayan.
In hindsight I might well have left 3HO sooner had Narayan not lived in the Bay Area. You see, Dr. Narayan was a liberal, and he was always himself, which implied to some of the rest of us that there was room in 3HO for unusual people, self-expression and creativity. And, of course, Narayan was the nemesis of strict ashram leaders, which was endlessly amusing for the free spirits. But Narayan wasn’t our leader – he wasn’t capable of anything like that; rather, he was simply fully weird and different. Those who could accept diversity liked having him around, and those who wished to control others and make us all the same really hated Narayan.
For instance, one of my best memories happened at a Gurdwara service in Berkeley. It was a warm and perfect day outside and it was a bit boring to be stuck inside doing “church.” Narayan always fully admitted that he found 3HO Gurdwaras to be dull and Indian Sikh Gurdwaras to be unbearable. But, bless his heart, Narayan was there that day, propped up against the back wall. After a bit of kirtan, Narayan fell asleep and soon he was snoring contentedly.
A woman had elected herself Dharma Police that day for some reason. In the break between songs, with all of us watching, she approached Narayan. While touching him lightly on the arm she murmured, “Sat Nam, ji” in that awful cloying tone that Dharma Jockettes always seemed to use. Unfortunately for her, Narayan had actually been deeply asleep. He awoke with a huge start and jerk, roaring at full volume: “WHAT THE F–K DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WOMAN?!?!? Don’t you know this is a GURDWARA?!?!?” ”
Some of us immediately cracked up, consumed in laughter and release. The rest of the jigs were not amused one bit! Ooooo-eee! Not at all!
The war was on.
Narayan was the bane of “Dharma Jocks and Jockettes” everywhere. Fascism was getting pretty thick in 3HO/Sikh Dharma back then, so a group of us, including Narayan, started VISIONS newsletter to foster free press and self-expression – “that radical rag” as Narayan called it. He took a box of VISIONS newsletters to Summer Solstice 1992 and distributed them. [The first of my “3HO as a Dysfunctional Family” articles was in that magazine.]
The newsletter was a great success among the Solstice goers! But come the next issue, when Narayan brought the magazine to Winter Solstice, he put the box on the edge of the stage for everyone to take instead of distributing it. When he wasn’t looking, the whole box disappeared. It turns out that the head of Solstice Security had confiscated it.
The next summer, Narayan’s highly popular solstice lecture was not included with the classes scheduled at the Big Top. So, he simply let folks know that he would be lecturing under the Big Tree instead of under the Big Top, and the same big crowd as always met with him there.
By now, there was no doubt in my mind that YB and his Inner Circle were actively trying to divorce themselves from Narayan’s scene. The MSS in the Bay Area was being ridden very hard because he had such a rebellious, free spirited region. Then GurBir got arrested. [see articles under “Exposing Illegal Activities] His friends all got shunned. And, soon, most of us left 3HO.
As for Narayan, he heard “The Voice” again, and moved to Boulder CO, where he lived by himself, rather than in an ashram, for many years.
NARAYAN STORIES
Again, Dr. Narayan was not a leader while he lived in the Bay Area, but he was certainly a Wizard. He didn’t hold himself as superior or liberated; quite the contrary. He practiced “The Bitch and Moan School of Enlightenment;” he was endlessly bemoaning his own issues. And he was forever falling into funny scenes and situations, but he was absolutely NOT an actor. He was constantly surprising himself as well as others.
For instance, my friend Amy wanted Dr. Narayan to read her teen daughter’s face. Amy and her daughter, Clary, are African American. Clary was about 15 at the time and she was starting to act troubled, pulling away, hanging out with a heavier crowd. Narayan and I arrived at their home and Amy took us into Clary’s small bedroom. Clary was sitting on her bed looking highly suspicious and fully unwelcoming.
“Hello I’m Dr. Narayan,” Narayan said in a jolly tone as he sat down on a little chair across from Clary. And then he fell over sideways, chair and all. My friend Amy and I gasped and reached out to help him back up. “I’m going to read your face, if that’s all right with you.” Narayan continued as if nothing had happened. Clary just stared at him in astonishment and then she started to chuckle, “Yeah. OK. Why not?”
Now, as effective as falling over proved to be at breaking the ice with Clary, I’m quite sure that Narayan didn’t fall over on purpose. He was innocent of machinations, Narayan was, free of guile.
Looking back, I remember that Narayan rarely talked about YB. I actually think Narayan was trying to keep a low profile in regards to him. But early on, he shared with those of us in his circle about his fear that YB would hand 3HO down to Guru Jot Singh. Narayan Singh told me that Guru Jot projected a Christ face on his right side but that he was a Mafia Don on his left side.
I remember Narayan’s story about the first time he met YB. YB had come to Eugene, and Sat Kirpal Singh and Viriam Singh wanted Michael Ebner to meet him. Narayan was not so keen on the notion himself, but going with the flow, he was brought into YB’s presence. He found YB lounging back, with a plate of goodies on his lap, with 2 telephones, one on each ear, having two conversations at one time. YB asked for a face reading and Michael/Narayan gave him one, telling him “the truth” (whatever that was) or, rather, whatever Michael/Narayan perceived that was. After this, YB talked about Michael so much that he launched him into his 3ho career.
Narayan was never rich, but he earned enough to take care of himself. And after joining 3HO, Narayan paid Das Vandh, so YB knew his earnings. Specifically, for all the years I knew Narayan, he charged $108 an hour for face readings and counseling. When I could get him to come down to San Jose (every 3rd month or so), I would schedule about three full days of readings for him. He would see 8-12 people and maybe do an evening workshop too. So, Narayan could make $1000+ a day, but not every day, just when he had someone organizing appointments for him. He made between $3k – $6K a month back then, I’d say.
The Day Narayan “Did a Derringer”
One day when he was visiting my Silicon Valley wives’ support coven, Narayan got angry – so angry that he shot straight up, roaring – he simply went off! Right afterwards he apologized. Turns out he had only “Derringer” like that a couple of times in his life. Once was with his ex-wife Ruth (who he called “Ruth Vader,” if that tells you anything about how he felt about her,) and another time was in the middle of O’Hare Airport because his Day Timer with all his appointments, money, and ID had been stolen from his luggage cart. Other than that, Dr. Narayan swore he had never gone off like that before.
Back to my Silicon Valley wives’ support coven, I was sitting right next to Narayan. When he exploded skywards, I didn’t feel physically threatened, but it did startle me completely and adrenalin began pumping through my system. Also, I was concerned for him. Why had he gone off like that? As I said, we were a bunch of New Agey Silicon Valley wives. We were at my friend Peggy’s home in Los Gatos, which was lovely. We had been discussing how people are just wounded and that everyone can be reformed given the right healing opportunities: physical, emotional, mental, and, of course, spiritual.
Blech, it makes me want to puke now when I think back on how naive we were, a bunch of kept wives with rich husbands, exploring spirituality in the Bay Area Liberation Mall. No wonder Narayan “Derringered”! We were treating him like our peer, assuming his life had always been pampered like our lives, when, in truth, he had spent years as a psychologist studying criminals who were locked up.
After apologizing profusely for the explosion, Narayan received our forgiveness. We were a sublimely forgiving group, this was our upside. Then Narayan told us firmly that he did NOT agree with us. Some people ARE irredeemable and they are NOT going to reform this life, if ever. And their numbers are high, not low.
Narayan and Children
During the 1980s and 1990s, Narayan wore long white robes and big white turban like YB. Except Doc Narayan had great, big, green alligator feet slippers that he wore everywhere. And he had a fine, polished, wooden walking staff, named Gandalf, with a crystal on top. Of course, Narayan made a big impression wherever he went, and children flocked to Narayan.
Yet Narayan never gave the impression of liking children in particular. He treated them like everyone else. I got used to watching Narayan give face readings to kids. When it was a child’s turn for a reading, they would show up as children, and soon they would be talking to Narayan like full-grown adults. Moms observing would be completely stunned.
Narayan really helped my kids understand themselves and their world. I remember him telling my eldest daughter, Guru Inder Kaur, when she was 4 or 5 that, in our family, she was “The Aristocrat in the Bull Shop.” This gave her permission and room to explore her own interests, even those the rest of us couldn’t relate to. In her early teens, for instance, she transformed our whole suburban back yard into an English Cottage Garden – no shit. It was complete with paths and a pond and flowers everywhere, and humming birds and butterflies.
Even though Narayan didn’t usually seem to enjoy any one child over the next, he did have a special relationship with Guru Inder Kaur. When Doc Narayan visited us, he headed straight to Guru Inder. One time when she was 10 or 11, he plopped down on the couch with her. “What you reading there?” Narayan asked. Inder gushed, holding up a very thick paperback, “Middlemarch, by George Elliot!” Narayan took the book from her, and hefted it from hand to hand. He studied the front. He read the back cover. He opened the book and checked out the table of contents. He gazed down through his bifocals.
Inder waited in anticipatory delight.
“Guru Inder Kaur,” Narayan, drawled with exaggerated dryness and a pinch of academic snobbery, “Guru Inder Kaur, you DO understand – do you not? – that NOBODY reads this sort of book these days?” Another pause as he peered at her over his bifocals.
And then they both broke out in a huge belly laugh.
In 1989 my Xman and I got our wills drawn up. My daughters were in their mid-teens and my son was a toddler. We sat down and talked with them about who they wanted as guardians if both their parents died. Were we to both croak before our eldest, Guru Inder Kaur, reached 18, we didn’t want either set of grandparents to claim guardianship. We offered up suggestion after suggestion but my kids refused our every proposal. Finally, Guru Inder Kaur said, “I want Narayan as our guardian!” and the others enthusiastically agreed!
Sooooo… I called Narayan and shared the news with him.
He FREAKED OUT!!
But then, with lots of moaning and very reluctantly, he submitted.
For the next few years, Narayan bitched all the time about being named guardian by my children, much to their amusement. On Guru Inder’s 18th birthday we invited Narayan to come over to celebrate.
He arrived with presents for all three of my kids.
And, then, he danced a jig!