The 1992 Collapse of the Seclusion Retreat Temple

It was 30 years ago that Divine Mother brought down the Seclusion Retreat temple, with me
inside. Here’s the story:

Friday, February 14, 1992 was not only Valentine’s Day, it was the evening that the Ananda trainees at the Seclusion Retreat were hosting a grand banquet for all those at the Retreat, plus many invited guests from the Village, including Swami. I was living at the Seclusion Retreat at the time.

The dinner in the Common Dome progressed wonderfully. Just before the dessert was served, snow began to fall. It came down fast and heavy—thick wet snow dubbed “Sierra cement.” So sudden was the snowfall that those who’d come up from the Village realized they’d better beat a hasty retreat back down there, or risk being stranded. Swami’s car did, in fact, get stranded for a time on Tyler Foote Road, aggravating his heart problems.

Meanwhile, the Retreat residents packed it in for the night. Two events were scheduled in the Temple the next day: a 3-hour Saturday morning meditation for the 30 residents, then in the evening Peter and Mandala Skillman’s wedding, with 200 expected.

The Seclusion Retreat Temple was a geodesic dome built many years back with a framework of 2×4’s connected together by metal bands at their ends. A large glass and wood cupola was added onto the top for ventilation. At the front of the temple was a huge picture window, covered by clear, thick plastic.

The years, however, had begun to take their toll: the window, a structural “weak point” of the dome, had begun buckling inward, and was propped up from inside by two long wood beams. The front door was beginning to jam as the surrounding structure sagged. The handwriting was on the wall: at some point, the temple would need to be dismantled, and rebuilt anew.

I did my best to sleep that Friday night, but oddly enough the sounds of little critters’ footsteps running back and forth across my cabin roof kept me awake (the only time that’s happened before or since!). Finally, early in the morning, I figured, “Well, may as well head on up to the temple and meditate!” It had stopped snowing, and as I walked up through the foot-thick snow that covered everything now, I enjoyed the beautiful moonlit scene, silent except for clumps of wet snow falling off trees.

Entering the temple, I lit the altar candles and energized. Every once in a while, I heard a strange “popping” sound (Wyatt told me later that he’d heard it at 11pm the previous night). It reminded me of a sound I heard once on a windy night in the cabin I was staying in, when a falling sharp pine branch pierced the cabin’s stretched-plastic “skylight.” I surveyed the temple window for that, but didn’t see anything unusual.

I sat down in front of the altar with the harmonium. It was pretty cold, so I moved back near the propane heater on the left side wall. I did maha mudra, prayed, and began to chant Yogananda’s “They Have Heard Thy Name.”

Suddenly, in the middle of the chant, the idyllic dream became a nightmare: a freight train thundered in the room, and the front of the temple avalanched down toward me

Now, I’d LIKE to report that I calmly went into the “AUM,” focused at the spiritual eye and invoked Master’s protection. What I DID do was scramble backwards on the carpet in total panic-survival mode, all the while gasping “AUGHH! AUGHH! AUGHH!”

Then… it was over. The front two-thirds of the temple was completely gone, having collapsed right up to, and just on top of, the harmonium I was playing. The back third directly over me did fall some, but was stopped and held up by the frames of the side and rear doors, plus a tall shelf at the other side for sadhana gear.

When I realized it was over and I wasn’t dead, the first thing out of my mouth was a very loud “WHOOOOO!!!” of joy and relief and exhilaration, followed by “THANK YOU MASTER! THANK YOU MASTER! THANK YOU MASTER!”

Then… the rational mind kicked in: “Um…what now?” I looked up at the surreal scene: what used to be the temple was now a beautiful, moonlit, snow-covered forest. I slowly, carefully pulled my (somewhat wet) sadhana blanket out from under the harmonium, gathered my gear, and climbed out around the jammed back door—it was still there, but the wall next to it wasn’t!

The dutiful inner call to return to my cabin and complete my sadhana was overruled by the dutiful call I knew I’d better make to Anandi and Bharat, the managers at the Retreat. I somewhat shakily entered the dark, snow-covered Common Dome kitchen—would it come down too?—to use the phone there. The conversation went like this:

“Hello, Anandi? This is Joe. Sorry to call you so early. You know the group sadhana we were going to have this morning? It’s canceled. There’s no more temple.”

After I explained some more, Anandi, thinking about fire safety, asked, “Are the candles out?”

“Yep,” I said, “don’t worry about it, they’re out!”

Bharat then wisely suggested I wait for him there, so we could both go in together and retrieve the big oval painting of the Masters that was the main altar centerpiece. This effectively helped me “get back on the horse” after my shaky experience.

Soon, others began arriving for morning sadhana…then stopped, stared, figured it out, and began pitching in for the cleanup effort. They propped up the remaining back part of the temple with some extra supports (shown in the photo below), and began recovering personal articles.

The cause of the collapse? The heavy weight of all that wet snow was too much for the temple to bear. It forced the connecting metal bands of the 2×4’s to come undone, one by one, all night. That was the “popping” sound Wyatt and I heard.

When the front window avalanched inward, the heavy glass and wood cupola slammed down onto the altar floor, right where I was first sitting (you can see it on the left edge of the photo).

An upright piano against the temple wall was flipped over backwards into the snow.

The force of the collapse severed the power line to Anandi and Bharat’s home, stopping their clock at 4:42am. It blew the batteries out of a small temple clock that showed the same time; I’m holding it in the picture.

A few tidbits: The oval painting of the Masters was unharmed, except for a crack in the frame and a mark across Babaji’s chest. A triangular painting of Sri Yukteswar was found in a space between two collapsed wall sections, unharmed except for a cracked frame. A glass-covered picture of Master’s “Last Smile” was found intact under the altar (a draped picnic table), looking “as if it had been lovingly placed there.” The harmonium was unharmed, and is used to this day in the new temple.

And I…well, I was amazed, overwhelmed, and to be sure, a bit skittish around sudden, loud noises for a few months! But mostly, I was awed at Divine Mother and Her many blessings. Through Her gift of abundant, heavy snow, She quickly and efficiently demolished a temple that some felt might be dicey to climb and take down by hand. She prevented a potential tragedy for 30 at the morning meditation, or 200 at the wedding—which relocated to the Expanding Light temple without a hitch. [Only now, 30 years later, does it occur that perhaps the tapasya Swami
endured the prior night—being caught in the snow 45 minutes, which aggravated his heart condition—might have helped too. Thank you, Swamiji.]

Divine Mother gave me the blessing of a lifetime: to realize, and share with you, that this “temple” we are so used to can vanish in an instant. All that is truly permanent is Her divine beauty ever shining around us, and within us.