Eric Estep is referred to throughout this letter as Sundaram, the spiritual name he used at Ananda and was known by for many years.
March 27, 1996
Dear Ones,
Is it helpful for people at Ananda, especially newer members, to know about the character of Eric Estep, the man assassinating Swami’s character through the lawsuit? Will it serve truthseekers and Master’s work to understand this present battle in terms of character references? I think so. I was married to Eric. In truth, the joyful dharma of writing this letter overrides the pain and discomfort experienced in the process of its composition. I am encouraged to come forward and contribute to the continuing saga entitled, “As the Mailbox Overflows.” [This is a half-joking reference to the many all-community letters sent by individual Ananda members sharing their thoughts as the Bertolucci case unfolded.]
I spent four years with Sundaram (Eric Estep) from 1977 to 1981—the first two as his partner, the remaining two years as his wife. To this day, I call him by the name given him by Swami because it affirms a much needed life lesson for him—seeing divine beauty everywhere. My time with him was the darkest period of my life. On some levels, I know that I am even now recovering from it.
I still remember our first meeting, as one does with these powerful karmic ties. In sharp contrast to Swami who, for all the greatness of his accomplishments emanates the deepest humility, Sundaram made me feel that I was in the presence of someone “truly great.” I was later to understand this as a cover-up for a serious inferiority complex, and the beginning of a tragically destructive and unhealthy relationship. Why was I ever with him? That’s another story. It’s called, “As the Stomach Turns.” Ask me about it sometime.
Before continuing, let me make one point clear. Although I could easily, and perhaps rightfully, call myself a victim in that relationship, I choose not to stoop to such an un-yogic position.
Remember: there are no victims, only volunteers. To quote a scriptural truth from a car dealership slogan: “You want it, you got it: Toyota.” And I might add, “You pay for it.” I take responsibility for my actions: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I write this letter without anger or bitterness—no bones to pick, no ax to grind—in the hope that it will provide you with more of the unwatered-down truth. My prayer is that this letter will assist you in finding that place of peace within your own heart regarding the nature of this psychic war called the Bertolucci lawsuit.
To resume: I also chose, against the wise counsel of my spiritual teacher, my best friends, and my earthly family, to marry Sundaram. I still remember asking Swami about marrying Sundaram, and if he would act as minister. His reply: “You want to marry him?” Twice more, I asked, both times receiving the same sort of response. On one of those occasions, he suggested that either Jyotish or Prakash do the ceremony. My mind was made up. Sundaram and I would marry. A part of the character of an abuser is to make the other person feel as if he is the only one who truly understands her. I swallowed it. And so, out of Swami’s innate graciousness and unwillingness to interfere with my “free” will—even against his own inner guidance—he performed the ceremony.
I lived with Sundaram toward the end of his twelve-year stay at Ananda. Perhaps he was a little more amiable in his earlier days here—that, I can’t say. But when I initially heard about this lawsuit, my first thought was: Sundaram. I recognized his energy behind it.
This lawsuit, I sensed, would provide the perfect channel for his obsessive desire to destroy Swami: a desire which I witnessed sprouting in him like a noxious, poisonous plant. In his later years at Ananda, Sundaram obsessed about proving that Daya Mata was self-realized and Swami, to the contrary, wasn’t. I remember several times walking away from Sundaram even as he continued talking. He was keenly bent on enlisting my support for his theories which were based upon personal vendetta, and that frightening use of logic untempered by the heart’s intuitive perceptions. Why such hatred toward Swami? That, I don’t know.
And even to say that Sundaram spent twelve years here is misleading. He was in Ananda, but not of it. Many of us have said that Ananda is a consciousness, not a physical place. I propose that Sundaram never lived in this consciousness. His energy, in the name of being “spiritual,” was contractive. He was proud of his long hours of sadhana, thus inferring the inferiority of those here who couldn’t meditate as much as he did.
Imbalanced by a near total lack of service, which I believe seriously impaired, if not completely prohibited any attunement with the community, down and out he spiraled, finally physically leaving. And herein lies the irony: he left a place where he had never truly lived. In fact, during my four years with him, I saw him perform only one serviceful act, and even that was on his terms: he painted a Himalayan backdrop for Swami’s play, “The Jewel In The Lotus.”
You have already heard that Sundaram stopped paying village dues, which began about midway through our time together. This upset me to no end, and I told him I would have no part in it. He reasoned simply that he felt he had already “paid his dues.” He argued that he had paid off the little plot of land on which he lived, and that others could pay for the roads, the water, the schools, and other communally shared projects. These were of no concern to him. He expressed no interest in energetically supporting the community—financially, or in any other way. I remember when various people in management, one by one, came to his little studio to try to dissuade him. He was unmoveable.
Now comes the hardest part for me to write. I would not describe Sundaram as prone to anger or lacking in self-control. Conscious, intentional cruelty and manipulative behavior are more like it. In our marriage, there were several incidents of physical abuse. The details are not important. Easier to recall than those damaging events was his cruelty to animals. I used to set table scraps for the deer just outside our little wooded cabin in a patch of sunlight and kitkedizze. One morning, I found him throwing rocks at a family of deer. On another occasion when we had company for dinner, be grabbed my cat who had climbed onto his shoulder, and threw her forcefully onto the floor. Not until years later was I to learn the clinical term for being forced to watch acts of cruelty performed on others: witness abuse. Again and again, I was to witness Sundaram’s profound disrespect for life. Sadly, one of the nicest things I can say about him is that he didn’t, to my knowledge, ever abuse plants.
On the very personal side of our relationship, suffice it to say that I have never known anyone so lacking in balance and integration between his spiritual and sexual natures. And this is the man who champions abused women? I, for one, really don’t think so.
Then came the divorce. I had just finished a two-week seclusion filled with a strange mixture of bliss and great unrest. During that time, still fairly new on the path and brave enough to ask very bold things of-Divine Mother, I prayed that she break me of whatever was holding me back in this life.
Lo and behold, I emerged from seclusion to be told by Sundaram that he wanted a divorce because he was in love with one of my girlfriends (whom I will not name here). He said he had taken her out on a date while I was in seclusion (which I vibrationally sensed with great pain), and that she had returned his affections. The latter, I learned by questioning my friend, turned out to be a blatant lie. She was attracted to someone else in the community at that time. My girlfriend was merely a pawn in his game of cruelty and betrayal.
I was shattered by his dishonesty, secrecy, and finally by his utter incongruence when he later said that he wanted a divorce so that he could live as a monk. Go figure! A few months later, he moved Naomi, his present wife, into the house he had built for us, and moved my belongings out of the little temple which he had built for me as a birthday present, at my expense, to make room for her. (I was later told that he pulled the same maneuver on Nalini, his first wife: telling her he wanted a divorce in order to follow the higher calling of monk and hermit. Two months later, he became involved with another woman.) There’s more, but I wish to spare his present wife any further pain than this letter may have already caused.
Our split transpired in April, 1981. In June, still grieving, I met with Swami. How easily he (or, frankly, anyone) could have said “I-told-you-so.” Instead, he responded with compassion, immeasurable kindness, and counsel which directed me to my own lessons in the experience. “I know this is hard, very hard,” Swami said. How healing were his words. Our talk concluded with my asking if he could help me understand Sundaram better. “Not very easily,” he chuckled. “He’s a tough one to understand.”
So, there you have it: an up close and personal profile of the man behind the lawsuit, the man trying to save us from the wiles of Swami and this imperfect place called Ananda. I personally think that the thousands of lives which have been spiritually transformed over the past few decades through contact with Swami and Ananda make excellent character references. If you are still undecided on the Sundaram/Bertolucci vs. Swami/Ananda issue, determine for yourself what I, and many other members, have known through direct experience for a long time about who is right, whom to believe and, most critically, where to cast your loyalty.
This lawsuit is a test of loyalty: that precious, priceless quality which Master said is the first step on the spiritual path. How very clever of Satan to undermine this strategic point for the devotee. Without taking that first committed step, we remain spiritual infants, confined to our prison-crib of delusion, much to the delight of the darkness.
On another subject, I would like to mention my friendship with Denise Peterson. Denise and I were very close friends in the early eighties, trading confidences and massages alike. We visited weekly, sometimes more often. As trained massage practitioners, we both gave Swami treatments during that time, though separately. She never once recounted anything amiss in her connection with him. The closeness of our friendship would have both encouraged and allowed for such sharing of information. (See Denise Peterson)
I was also in residence at the monastery when Kamala Wiley lived there. I have little to tell of her since I was neither drawn to her as a friend nor fellow monastic. I found her to he consistently loud, disrespectful, and disruptive. In truth, she acted more like a rebellious high school girl: pushing things too far and breaking rules, all to solicit attention. Her attitudes were conspicuously out of place in a community of serious, God-seeking devotees, let alone in a monastery. It was no secret that she and Denise were violating the boundaries which separated the monks’ from the nuns’ cluster, and talking with the monks until late into the evening hours. I also remember hearing stories of Kamala barging into Swami’s dome, uninvited yet tolerated, and insisting on talking to him when he was observing silence. If indeed any abuse transpired, it was Swami who was the recipient! (See Kamala Wiley)
My respect for Swamiji has quadrupled a godzillion times just watching him go through these lawsuits. If, as Swami said, the greatest yoga posture of all is standing on one’s own two feet, surely the ability to turn the other cheek is the second (known in Sanskrit as Cheekasana: the Christlike pose). Swami is an extraordinary example of discipleship. If we want to label him, how about terms like profoundly inspiring, courageously loving, faultlessly loyal to truth?
You say you are new here and have no direct experience with him? Swami himself has said, listen to his music to know him. Listen to “Life Mantra.” Listen to “The Mystic Harp.” For heaven’s sake, listen to “The Philosopher and The Boatman!” Or for that matter, look at his photographs of flowers: his reverence for the beauty in all living things draws a response from their very petals! Further yet, has Swamiji himself ever professed the importance of knowing him? From my own twenty years’ experience with this man (whom I feel honored to call my best friend, as do many of you), my perception is that he, consistently and without exception, wants us to know ourselves—or, rather, our Self.
One final thought: our motto for 1995—to love heroically—spans well beyond a single year. Is this not the sole lesson of every life we have ever lived? It is in this spirit, dear gurubhais and fellow warriors, that I offer you this letter. I welcome your responses, and pray for your liberation in this lifetime.
With deep love,
Lila Devi
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