walked away without another word, so I went inside. There I vouchered the key to the hotel room, and the desk sergeant had me fill out an overtime form. Then I changed and headed to the last yoga class of the day.
I had first taken yoga in college and immediately got hooked. Though the practice was thousands of years old, and had been developed by holy men who could never have imagined my crazed existence on the other side of the world, it was perfectly designed to help with the stresses of modern life.
The studio I frequented now was a cozy little hole-in-the-wall place directly across the street from my house, which specialized in an ancient variety of yoga called Kundalini. I had chosen it because of its convenience, but I was a little skeptical about it at first. The guy who ran the place was more like a mystic—a strange, hairy, barefoot creature who looked like he’d escaped from the pages of a Maurice Sendak book. The first time I stepped into his tiny studio, I asked him what Kundalini meant.
“There is an immense reservoir of energy that lies dormant inside each of us,” he said intensely. “Most people die without ever even knowing about it. We teach you techniques—exercise, breathing, mantras—to unleash and direct that untapped power.”
“What kind of power?”
“The Kundalini is a snake of psychic energy that is coiled at the base of your spine, in your Abadabado. When awakened it soars up your body and into your crown chakra.”
“So you become like a superman?”
“It’s psychic power.”
“What do you mean by psychic?” To me the word evoked fortune tellers and con men.
“I can introduce you to people who will gladly testify that after following our practice they’ve developed enhanced powers in everything from clairvoyance to telekinesis.”
“But if I do your yoga, will I work up a good sweat?”
“Absolutely. And our first class is free.”
“As long as it keeps me fit,” I thought. And after the first, strenuous class, I got a discount for ten more sessions.
To the usual yoga poses and moves my new teacher added a whole regimen of stomach rolls, breathing moves, and strange sways that were intended to awaken my sleeping serpent. During the class, he also gave lengthy instructions on how to direct my consciousness. Since he frequently spoke in broken Sanskrit, I never knew exactly what he was talking about, but as long as I was staying fit I didn’t mind.
The guy had some crazy-ass name I could never hope to pronounce, though it sounded like Oogabooga. Under a lot of long, twisted hair, he was actually a handsome guy in his late thirties who, I discovered, had one day given up his law practice and his family and devoted himself entirely to eating wilted celery stalks and teaching yoga. Since he truly seemed to have renounced all worldly belongings for the sake of inner peace, I simply thought of him as the Renunciate.
Over the following months, as others joined and left his classes, the Renunciate started focusing on me.
“I feel it,” he finally said to me one day.
“Feel what?”
“Your cynicism, radiating like heat. If you chose to leave it at home just once and give us a chance, the Kundalini will be there waiting for you.”
“Thanks, but I really just need the workout.”
“Kundalini is arguably an evolutionary step for peoplekind. Using mental focus you can gradually learn to unleash the limitless powers of your chakras.”
I asked him if he could explain this alleged power again. I never really got a straight answer before.
“You will become a better person in every sense of the word; More courageous, more attuned. You will have access to things that elude most people.”
“What things?”
“You’ll see people more clearly than they can see themselves.”
But it was my neighbor Maggie who really sold it. One day soon afterward, she saw me carrying my sexy rolled-up mat to the little studio across the street and got excited. She said an old friend from acting school had studied Kundalini out in LA and it had really given her the edge in her career.
“What kind of edge?”
She speed-dialed a number on her cell and handed it to me. Like a living infomercial, her friend Jeanine told me how her life had been transformed since she started practicing. Her thoughts were clearer, her perception crisper.
“But it was more than that,” she said. “It’s as though I’m able to will things to happen.”
Now she was getting work consistently. She’d been in a pilot for a sitcom called Resplendent, which she was just waiting to get picked up. She knew what casting directors wanted without them even having to ask.
“The real strength of Kundalini is in detecting hidden things,” she said.
“I work with criminals who are habitual liars,” I explained. “Do you think it could help me there?”
“Faith is always rewarded,” she replied simply. “What have you got to lose?”
It still sounded flaky to me, but I figured that since I was paying for the classes anyway, what would it hurt if for once I left the cynicism at home?
After my next yoga class, I waited until all left and asked the Renunciate what exactly I had to do to release my Kundalini.
“Focus on breathing and meditation.”
Before my next class, though, I had an encounter with Maggie that undermined my faith in anything she and her loopy actress friend might recommend. She invited me over for some tea, and inevitably we wound up talking about the latest man in her life. When all the tea turned into pee, she ran off to the toilet. Alone at her dining table, I saw a half-written letter sitting off to the side. Glancing at it, I saw it was addressed to the film actor Viggo Mortensen, who’d recently starred in Lord of the Rings. Of course I had to read it.
Dear Viggo,
Like you, I too am a thespian, so this isn’t so much a fan letter as an epistolary salute from one colleague to another. When I first saw you in Indian Runner and later GI Jane, I felt an immediate connection . . .”
Under it I discovered more letters, addressed to other box office stars, including Noel Holden.
By the time Maggie returned, I had put the letters back in place, but her slightly paranoid mind immediately grasped that I had read them.
“I kind of have a correspondence with Viggo,” she said slowly and softly, “as well as several other actors I’ve met along the way.”
“Do any of them ever write you back?”
“Not yet,” she said. “But when everyone else forgets them, then they’ll write me back.”
After watching the crime scene all day, I let loose in class that night. I was trying to remain open to
