In December 1972 Kirpal Kaur and I visited the Denver ashram and Hanuman’s Conscious Cookery. Baba Prema Singh, the ashram director, walked into the kitchen wearing blue jeans with his hair down. He said he was operating a Christmas tree lot just up the street and that he no longer lived in the ashram. This was news to us. Last we heard he was running the ashram. We questioned Fredrick and the other residents. Apparently, this had been going on for a few weeks. Why hadn’t they told anybody? Who was running things?
The answer was that nobody was running things. I immediately called Siri Singh Sahib Ji right from the restaurant. He was in Florida for the Winter Solstice Celebration. I was afraid he would tell Kirpal Kaur and me to move back to Denver.
Instead, he sent Harry and Diana Bird to save the scene. They along with their two children, Madonna, age nine and Dominic, age seven showed up on a cold January day. Unlike most of Siri Singh Sahib’s students who were former hippies, Harry was a former US Marine. They left their comfortable home, a successful business and many friends in warm sunny Florida to take over the hippy infested ashram, a failing natural food restaurant and all in the middle of a cold Colorado winter.
I hope they write their memoirs. Those early months in Denver must have taken a toll. Fredrick stayed long enough to train Harry in running the restaurant, then left. The Birds were pretty much on their own. Kirpal Kaur and I visited often but they were usually so busy they couldn’t even stop to say “Hi”. Madonna at age nine ran the dining room with the aplomb of someone three times her age. Harry did the cooking and washed pots. I don’t know how they did it. Siri Singh Sahib Ji sent a few people from various parts of the country to help.
Within a year they had sold the restaurant, bought a large house in central Denver, established steady yoga classes, set up a cleaning business and had enough residents in the ashram to cover basic mortgage payments. Not only that, the Denver Ashram quickly gained the reputation for discipline, military discipline, including close order marching drills, and a commitment to sadhana. Harry’s Marine training was being put to good use.
Later that year, Harry and Diane became Hari Singh and Hari Kaur. Interestingly, at the same time Harry became Hari, a recent immigrant from India named Hari Singh changed his name to Harry and cut his hair. This was at a time when we were establishing relationships with the Indian community in Denver. The symbolism was not lost to anyone. It seemed the torch of Sikhism was being passed from the traditional Indians who were trying to assimilate themselves into American culture to the new American converts who were trying to live the traditional values of the Sikh religion.
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