Premonitions in a Tipi

I was hiding out in a Tipi on the Hare Krishna Community farm in Northern NSW. The police were looking for me in relation to a stolen car that I had crashed ever so lightly into a carpark pole near my secret parking space in Murwillumbah. I was a couple weeks off my 18th birthday and was notorious for being a little reckless in cars. I already had had my learners licence disqualified a few months earlier while driving my V8 HX Manaro.

I had lost my keys to my Manaro so I bought a 1980’s model Ford laser for $100 from an older friend. It was unregistered and missing the right rear taillights. When one of the tyres went flat I kept driving it until I found another wheel that kind of fit but kept falling off. Once the wheel was lost in a paddock at night so I drove a few mates I back into town on three wheels in the wee hours of the morning. I had one guy run along at the back of the car pushing until we got enough momentum and then he jump in to the moving car. I could see the sparks through the hole in the boot where the missing taillights were as we scrapped a line into the bitchemin alway from Euneye, through Bray Park and into Knox Park. I left the car on display in the middle of our small town for a week then put the original flat tyre back on it and drove it around some more till I crashed it while trying to park with too much velocity. I remember my poor staffy pup landing in my lap from the boot when we crashed.

Two of my passengers were found buy the police a little later in the night and they told the police everything, way more than necessary. So that’s why the police were looking for me. I hadn’t been living with mum for a couple of years already but that same night I went to mum’s to raid the fridge. As I was eating the police knocked on her door asking if she knew where I was. Blessed mum said she didn’t know where I was and when the police left she told me to hide in the roof. I didn’t take her advice though. I went straight back out to roam the streets.

The next day I decided to try stay out of town for sometime till the heat cooled of so I stayed with a close friend who still lived on the Krishna farm with his mum. Up on the ridge his mum’s house was beautiful like a small cathedral with trees all around. His mum had bought a proper Tipi for him to live in just up the hill a bit in the bush so I was hiding out there for a couple of weeks. We spent lots of time out there in general. Beautiful place. It was in that TIpi one night that I had what I now believe was an amazing premonition about the future. At the time I had no idea what it meant though. It was just a normal experience for me having dreams like that. It played out over several years and each time I would recognise something in my day life it was like a puzzle was being pieced together. I will out line the dream first and then recount my life and the intervals of the dream as I recognised them. I will have to leave out a lot of life details because it would take too long to share it all. I will try keep it to a minimum by just relaying key points that if taken out might make the presentation fall apart or not reveal its significance.

The Dream

Everything was tinged with yellow from the sunset. I was at my mum’s old house on the riverbank near Condong having a rare dinner with her and my four younger siblings. After dinner I walk out side on to Tweed Valley Way and hitched a ride on the back of a garbage truck. I climbed in the back with the rubbish. It was one of the ones you see driving around New York with the men hanging on the back throwing trash in. I don’t remember meeting the driver. Inside were cogs and pullies made from bones, which was weird and I never really discovered any significance from them. The truck drove me north quite far over a hill and down into a city somewhat futuristic looking with lots of lights and overpasses.

At this point I should say I cannot remember every detail of the dream as it happened in 2003 and I’m writing this in 2017. I’ve only held the significant bits in my memory, bits that I had revisited over and over countless times. After entering the city and leaving the garbage truck that took me there I was in Hungry Jacks having a vege burger and I was surprised to meet a girl I knew from high school there. In real life I hadn’t seen her for 1–2 years. After this there’s a big gap missing from my memory of the dream but I end up feeling trapped and alone down in these basements of large inner city buildings with graffiti.

Unfortunately I cannot remember now how I left the basements. To be honest I never really thought much of the dream at first but each time I was reminded in the years to come it was quite amazing for me. Anyway, in the dream I somehow escaped the city and what felt like a dark dead end and I ended up finishing the dream in some dorms with bunk beads, living near the ocean with other men and feelings pretty peaceful.

The Life

Ok so I will now cross over and recount my life after the dream and cross-reference relevant points. I had had the dream in the Tipi and a week later we couldn’t help our selves, we were in town running a muck. The police snuck up on me while talking to an old girlfriend on the foot path. They told me to come to the station the next day for questioning.

I showed up to the station and they laid it all out. That’s how I knew the two passengers had told the police more then necessary to save their own butts. I denied the allegations and then the police officer told me that actually the car was stolen from Queensland, that they knew who I got the car from and if I didn’t own up to the driving offences the guy who I bought the car off would get charged.

They were trying to scare me into owning up to it. The guy who I got the car off was a big guy and kind of scary looking I suppose. I took a moment to consider the situation. I really didn’t want to get someone else in trouble but it didn’t feel legit so I called their bluff and said “I’m sorry officer but I really don’t know what you are talking about.” The police officer said “Well we are getting the finger prints off the car and if we find yours you will go to jail for it.” The station had my mobile number. They let me walk out of there and they said they would contact me. This may sound weird but this is a small country town we are talking about.

I remember walking out of there and feeling a sense of collapsing in side, thinking “Fuck. What am I doing with my life? This shit is getting real now.” As I walked out of the station into Mainstreet I bumped into my step dad. He asked how I was? I was falling to pieces in that moment. I think I said “I’m probably going to jail.” I was turning 18 in a week or so and I knew that finally I could be charged as an adult.

I really was lost at the point. It was like the final nail in the coffin for my life in the town I had grow up in. I had been getting in trouble with police regularly for a few years. I couldn’t see anyway out of the cycle. A week earlier I had received a letter from centerlink telling me I owed them $9500 for getting austudy and not attending TAFE for one whole year. My world was imploding.

I told my mum what happened at the police station and god bless her, she got some legal advice along the lines of “if he hasn’t been charged yet get him out of that town now.” So no kidding, literally the next day mum had found me a place to live in Brisbane with some friends of her friend. I really didn’t want to leave my town but I knew I had to. Within two days of being questioned by the police I was in the top floor of a big empty old Queenslander house in the Grange, Brisbane, The big city up north. There was a couple older guys living down stairs and I had a room upstairs. I felt alien and alone.

I was quite the rural/coastal boy. I had not spent much time even on the Gold Coast what to speak of Brisbane. It was a big deal for me and although I was broken I sensed adventure ahead. The first night I actually cried. I was feeling like I had torn myself away from my own life, my friends, my family and everything I knew really. That first night I put on a CD with Prabhupada chanting Hare Krishna and found some solace.

I started familiarising with Brisbane and found my self a job pretty quickly. I’d been working as a house painter since I was 15yrs old. I saw some painters at the pub and hit them up for work. It was a “can you start tomorrow?” type thing.

I was waiting for the call from the police back in Murwillumbah but it never came. I still had the same number. I’m glad I called their bluff because they never did chase me up. After a few years they didn’t even recognise me anymore, the times I walked past them in the street while visiting my home town.

After six months of living in Brisbane, I went for a short, quiet visit back to Murwillumbah and saw a few old friends. One was this friend from high school, which really wasn’t significant until a week or so after returning she called me saying…

“Hey Ud. You’re living up in Brisbane hey? Do you have a spare room in your house? I want to move to Brisbane.”

And she moved in. The girl in my dream was came to Brisbane.

So here I am in the big city up north and the girl from high school is there with me. Spooky right? I don’t recall thinking too much of it at that point other than like “yeah of course that would happen.” It wasn’t until more points of the dream were revealed that I became convinced about my dream being a premonition.

My friend took a job as an exotic dancer and it was through her that I started meeting the who’s who of the Brisbane club and drug scene, the underbelly. As time progressed I got more into that scene than anything else. I still maintained a job, working in small supermarket fruit and vege management mostly, but eventually it wasn’t even necessary. I kept it casually as what I liked to call my “cover” job. I also started studying audio engineering at SAE.

I spent three years in Brisbane with each year getting more exciting and dangerous at the same time as darker and smothering. I used to go clubbing three nights a week. I would go clubbing after work then in the morning walk from the club back to work just down the street. The longest I stayed awake was four days straight! Sometimes while in the clubs with people dancing and having good time to the lights and music I would sit and image what it would be like there if you stopped the music and turned the lights on and would people still want to be there. Without the added elements to aid the illusion they would just be basements with Grafiti on the walls.

I had wanted this life but it got to the point where I felt trapped. My mentors were being led to madness by meth amphetamines among other things and I was following them. One day I looked in the mirror and listened to my inner self. I heard…

“This is not me and that is not were I’m heading.”

All through my life, ever since early years I’ve been quite spiritually inclined or into the subtler aspects of life. In my later teens, especially my time away from my hometown and my old mates I had a lot of time to ponder life and myself seperate from my hometown. I realised that I didn’t grow much in my hometown. I couldn’t. My friends and family all knew me as one person. It’s hard to change or grow under those circumstances.

When life got challenging, hopeless or dangerous I used to take solace in my spiritual education from my childhood. Sometimes I would do some mantra meditation chanting Hare Krishna on beads or read the first two chapters of Bhagavad Gita. I always had this deep desire to really pursue a life of enlightenment. I had that desire but all my attempts to break free were hopeless. My habits and my attachment to my circle and lifetsyle kept me prisoner.

One evening during a big argument with my friend and mentor who I saw as an older brother I realised my hopeless situation. I saw heaps of crazy shit during that time. My friend was like a rock for me but he was being changed by rock (ice) also. Frustrated I went for a walk around the block. I chanted the Hare Krisha mantra while breathing rapidly. I didn’t want to go back in my house. I felt so alien. I remember walking through the dark quite street of the suburb Aspley thinking to my self..

“what am I doing with my life? I’m now 21. I first ran away from home when I was 15 and I still haven’t found my place in the world.”

I got back to my house but didn’t want to go inside. My friend had been letting junkies stay with us and it was all turning to shit. So I laid down in the garden and look at the stars. I spoke with God, Radha and Krishna and asked what do I do? I got the message “Come back to me.” The next day I made plans to leave Brisbane and get closer to the temple where I grew up, New Govardhan. I remember telling my mentor I was walking away from it all and the look in his eyes was like “you can go but I have nothing else.” I could see they admired my strength to leave what I had there. My situation really was the envy of anyone who is into that life style. We used to get in to clubs for free because of the status we had and I would see envy in people’s eyes. They wanted to be me. A week later my step dad was picking up me with my stuff in an old red ute. I was making my escape.

I went back to Murwillumbah and killed my ice habit by smoking heaps of weed and hanging out with good friends I had known since I was a young child. One of them was the one who had the Tipi where I had the dream. He lived in town now though. I spent six months in Murwillumbah and in this time I was piecing everything together. The big city up north, the girl from high school, the basements with graffiti on the walls, feeling trapped. It was all clicking like “Holly shit. I saw all this in that dream.” But what were the dorms near the ocean at the end of the dream? “SAE Byron Bay” I thought. I didn’t finish my audio engineering diploma in Brisbane. I knew about Byron SAE being the best one in the world, they had dorms there that you could rent and live in Byron Bay, one of the most famous beaches in the world. “That’s it!” I thought. “I have to go there next. That’s my calling.”

Over a six month period in 2006 while back in my hometown I was still having experiences of being fed-up with material life, like seeing through the social and psychological cracks of reality. I left Brisbane with a calling for spiritual life but falling back into my old circle of friends and all the things we enjoyed really wasn’t helping me make the run I was inspired to do. I couldn’t pretend anymore how ridiculous it all was. Either work, make money and pacify the mind with temporary things or take drugs and live like a mad animal trying to escape it. I started taking LSD regularly at doof parties and I would see people around me turn into their spirit animal with a drug habbit. It was quite shocking to see this. I would often leave the parties and walk up a mountain to watch the sun rise and observe nature alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about life, the universe, consciousness, “how did it all come about? What’s it all about?”

I had a flat with my good friends; yes the one with the tipi was with me. It was kind of nice even though I kept having these feelings like this predictable life with no purpose was not for me. I needed a push though and it came. My landlord lived up stairs just out of nowhere he decided he didn’t like us anymore and he kicked us out. He gave us till Sunday to vacate but got drunk one evening and come down with a few of his mates to evict us on a Wednesday night. He gave me some rent money back and said “Out tonight or else.” My friends and I had a discussion about whether we should call some mates over for a brawl or whether we should just leave. We decided better not to spill blood so we did about five carloads in a Magna station wagon, taking everything to my mum’s house, even the fridge.

The next day I was feeling pretty lost like “What the hell. I thought things were going on long well but it keeps breaking to pieces.” Then I got a phone call. It was a friend’s dad. He is a builder and he’s known me since I was a baby. He saw me serving prasadam (Hare Krishna food) at the Hare Krishna temple a month earlier, something I hadn’t done since I was a young kid. When I served him he asked me if I wanted to do some painting work in Cairns at his sisters place. I had forgotten about it but here he was asking if I wanted to leave the next day for Cairns and so of course I went. It was perfect timing.

I was in cairns for 2–3weeks and I had time to think about things away from everything I knew. I started doing mantra meditation in the early morning and reading vedic literature two hours a day in the evening. I bought some books from a well known samosa stall in the Cairns markets. The first book I read was The Science of Self Realisation. In this time away from everything I got the strength to make a decision.

“I’m going to live in a temple as a monk for some time.” I said.

My friend’s dad was encouraging me too. He said “If you really want to do this don’t go back to Murwillumbah and don’t go back to Brisbane.” I saved my money from the painting job I was doing, paid some debts and bought a plane ticket. I was remembering my dream and how I was supposed to go to SAE Byron but I told myself, as I had before other checkpoints were met in the past “It was just a dream. Don’t worry about it. Get on with life.”

The morning I was to flight out I was meditating on the beach at sunrise and I saw a very clearly detailed silhouette of a monk praying in the clouds. I saw that as a reassuring sign as I was feeling a little irrational and there’s nothing like something irrational such as a silhouette in the sky to help you turn someting irrrational into something rational hehe.

I landed in Melbourne and moved into the temple ashram immediately. It was a shock to me. It was such an overwhelming change, going from directionless loops of illusive freedom to full discipline, regulation and selfless service. After a week or so I had settled in and was sitting out the back porch next to some pot plants and just took a moment to look out at the back fence, the plants, the foot path and feeling the ambiance. It felt strangely like I had been sitting in that very same spot before and then it hit me. This is it. The dorms, the bunk beds, the all men ashram….. “But where was the ocean?” I thought. I saw an ocean in my dream. I was looking forward to surfing in Byron but I recalled that actually I never saw surf waves in my dream. I just saw ocean and surmised that there would be waves to surf and guess what… the ashram was in Albert Park about two blocks from Port Philip Bay, the bay which I would walk to to mediate on many occasions over the following years.

I understand that this all could be just associations made in my brain. We all do it. We are pattern finders. One could argue it is some kind of evolutionary survival mechanism and hey you might be right but you might be wrong also. But, if you are going to live out a story, it might us well be a good one isn’t it?. Read up on some Carl G Jung if you are having trouble accepting the significance of dreams.

Personally I believe dreams have great significance in that it’s your subconscious mind processing information from inside and outside of you. If you can quieten your life enough to take note of them you can access incredible information and deal with deep parts of your psyche there. I’ve been completely sober and dedicated to positive developments for 10years now, although I do get a little drunk on knowledge sometimes. I’ve had other premonition dreams also but I will save that for a part 2 maybe.