Hiding with Sikhs
Making Friends with Satsangis in Virginia
STUART RESNICK: On that trip we were also with the guys in the turbans.
JANARDAN: The Sikhs, yeah. The Nada People.
STUART: The one thing I remember about the Sikhs is they would come together and have these [spiritual programs called] satsangs, and the people who went to the satsangs there they called satsangis. And while we were there they said, "You have to come to the satsang." OK, we said, we'll come to the satsang. It was in some community type building in town. And it was sort of unclear which room we were supposed to be in.
ALAN ROSS: Where was this? What area of the country were you in?
STUART: Virginia, probably Bowling Green. But what I remember most is going to this satsang, and other people roaming the halls looking for various meetings, and it so happens that the Quakers were meeting in the same building. And one of them came up to us ... well, I guess it was first of all, one of our people went up to them and said, "Are you a satsangi?" And the other guy said, "Satsangi?! Are you a Friend?" And our guy said, "Friend?!" And they were just completely parallel universes, they had nowhere to connect.
JANARDAN: The Sikhs were nice. All their gurus looked like Santa Claus. Unlike the Krishna gurus who all looked like acid freak dropouts, losing their teeth, etc., the Sikh gurus did look like Santa Clauses: all fat and paunchy, white-bearded with cherubic faces and brimming smiles, flask in the back pocket.