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National News

At long last our Rainbow Grocery is open. It has been a project that has made one of the greatest changes in the Seattle community since it's birth over two and a half years ago. In the late winter of 1974, the eighty members of the Seattle community came together to make a decision; what can we do to serve our Guru Maharaj Ji, help propagate his Knowledge, and stabilize our-selves as a community? We decided to build a natural foods grocery store, because the entire contents of one had been donated to us by an enthusiastic brother named "Corn-planter".

Right away a committee of interested premies began planning how we could get the project underway. Our first step was to see what we needed; especially financially. Right away the grace began to flow. A loan was given to us, we bought a storefront, and set about figuring how many days it would take to open up. Then we began learning some of the facts of life. Good old Murphy, he always said: "Nothing is as easy as it looks. Everything takes longer than you think. If anything can go wrong, it will." But then even he was optimistic, and we had to learn the hard vvay. Our building was legally described as "in shambles". We had one thousand dollars to fix it all up with, and there we were wondering how many days it would take.

Three months later, we had renovated the entire exterior and roof and were out of money. We began pooling our nickles and dimes and decided to build a small store first in a smaller section of the building in order to grow with experience into the larger section. It took thousands of hours and thousands of dollars and premies sticking to it and concentrating to get it done. If a premie couldn't help by pounding nails or swinging a paintbrush, he'd give a couple of dollars. If he couldn't give money, he'd give one of his houseplants.

Brian, the local architect, designed the store, and Shri Hans Services worked to build it in every spare moment. The brothers in Bellingham built the arched door; one brother hand-made a beautiful wood parquet mandalla; and one sister hand made a beautiful swan window out of stained glass. Building the store was like an old fashioned barn raising, only more extensive. Everyone pitched in; and every little touch is here with love. It's truly beautiful. Already the low prices, the love, the warmth and the care that went into building the store is drawing in the public. They love it. A fantastic change comes over people when they walk in the store. They walk out smiling and happier; they say they can't wait to tell their friends. And in return the premies smile that knowing smile.

An Incredible Dream

Denver PLA theater troupe and musicians have now performed their new play, 'Incredible Dream' for audiences in Laramie Wyo., Pueblo and Denver Colo. The play opens to find a middle-aged janitor so bored with sweeping the same floors for the last twenty-seven years that he falls asleep on his broom, musing the meaning of it all. His call is answered when a cosmic visitor awakens and relates to him (with full choral accompaniment, sung to the tune of "Finicule Finicula") that "Knowledge of the Soul" is the answer to his dreams. He isn't quite sure, so the production incorporates 'Professor Lightheart and his Incredible Human Schtick', 'Man, Mind and Soul', and the ever-popular 'Warm Fuzzies' in an attempt to help him understand the remarkable capability of this 'Knowledge' to make him see the light. By the end he is overwhelmed by warm fuzzies, in blissful slumber on his broom, and would have thought it all a dream if it weren't for the leaflet he holds inviting him to the very program at which he is performing. Needless to say he drops all and runs to attend.

Tempered by WWA performances throughout Denver last month the cast made its first f ul ly public performance with 'Warm Fuzzies' at a street festival in Laramie. Between performances the cast leafleted the crowd. "They looked straight through me" one sister said afterwards, recalling two Indians who had been watching her from the crowd. "This is about meditation. It's what your forefathers lived in."

She was making an invitation to that evening's program at Wyommg State U. where 'The Incredible Dream' made its debut to an overwhelming audience of fifteen.

Though small numerically, many present proved high in spiritual courage, following the cast to our premie host's humble abode, there to share in late night dinner and satsang.

Next came a performance at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Pueblo. Much previous satsang had brought a sizeable interested audience. Catholics, youthful truth-seekers and premies alike wore the same smile by the end of the evening, with much individual satsang being shared between members of the cast and the audience.

Then at the counter-culture community's People's Fair in Denver, 'Warm Fuzzies" and 'The Incredible Dream' drew many to hear Mahatma Gurucharnanand's definition of a warm fuzzy at the following evening's program.

The script for 'The Incredible Dream' is available to any interested theatrical premies. Write to Communications Dept., Box 532, Denver, Colorado 80201.

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