Baba autobiography of a blue eyed yogi

Rampuri, . .

Baba autobiography of a blue eyed yogi bear

Bell Tower, $23 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-8038-0

It is 1969 in Beverly Hills. After experimenting with mind-altering substances, a 19-year-old dropout leaves his prosperous family and heads for India to find himself.

Cartouche, a fellow traveler, recommends an English-speaking guru. The young man renames himself Rampuri and begins an apprenticeship involving deities, servitude, ceremonies and a fair amount of cannabis. After two years, he is initiated into the Great Renunciation and becomes a yogi.

Baba autobiography of a blue eyed yogi

After his guru falls ill and dies, Rampuri is horrified to discover that the guru has possessed him. Cartouche reappears at just the right moment, gives Rampuri a stiff dose of language philosophy and helps him interpret his quest.

By the mid-1980s, India's first blue-eyed yogi has founded an ashram. Rampuri mixes his story with fanciful tales of deities and holy men, gurus who converse with crows and people who fly out of their bodi