My Guru & His Disciple (3 page)

Gerald accepted the Hindu and Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation—that life within space-time is a cycle of birth-death-rebirth; you are born again and again, whether you like it or not, as a consequence of your past deeds (your
karmas
). You can only free yourself from this cycle by achieving union with your real nature and thus breaking your bondage to space-time. That was why Gerald was working so hard to make sure that this life would be his last.

I simply could not share Gerald's feelings, much as I respected his beliefs. How could I hate space-time when it contained so much that was lovable and beautiful, including Vernon? Admittedly, my feelings for Vernon were hotly sexual and possessive. I found nothing essentially evil in this, but it was an entanglement with worldly life—an entanglement which was growing more extensive, for now we needed a home and at least one car; transportation in the sprawling Los Angeles area being as much of a problem then as it is today. Chris Wood had guaranteed our security for the next few months by lending me two thousand dollars. But I should have to pay them back sooner or later by going to work, and I couldn't work legally until I had got on the U.S. immigrant quota and become a permanent resident of the country instead of a mere visitor. And once I had done this, what kind of job could I hope for? It had been all very well for me, in New York, to decide that I would like “some sort of regular humble employment.” After spending a few weeks in Los Angeles, I realized that the economic depression was still on, and that all “humble employment” was being competed for by thousands of better-qualified applicants. The only available work I was really qualified for was writing movie scripts in a studio. So the only options open to me were to earn a great deal of money or none at all. I consulted a movie agent about my chances. She had never heard of me as a writer and obviously thought me a hopeless case; things were very slow just now in the studios, she told me. So I worried and worried, thereby entangling myself ever more deeply in worldliness.

This made me feel that I must overcome my last remaining prejudices and try meditation. That might at least help me to take short rests from worry during the day. I already knew that Gerald himself had had lessons in meditation from a Hindu monk who was living nearby, Swami Prabhavananda. I now asked him to tell me what the Swami had taught him. Gerald became teasingly secretive, however. It was absolutely forbidden, he said, to repeat your teacher's instructions to anyone else. Such instructions varied from pupil to pupil, according to individual needs and temperaments. It would be like letting a fellow patient drink your medicine. Gerald even hinted, in his melodramatic way, that, if he were to teach me what he had been taught and I were to try it for myself, I might suffer terrible psychic consequences, maybe even go mad.

Then, relenting, he gave me some sensible and simple advice. I wasn't to attempt actual meditation of any kind. I was just to sit quiet for ten or fifteen minutes twice a day, morning and evening, and keep reminding myself of “this thing”—what it was and why one should want to make contact with it. That was all.

Now that I had made up my mind to try it, the mere idea of meditating filled me with a strangely powerful excitement. I thought of it as an attempted confrontation with something hitherto unencountered but always present in myself. When I try to recall how I felt, I think of entering an unexplored passage in a house which is otherwise familiar to me. The passage is in darkness. I stand at one end of it, on the threshold between the known and the unknown. I feel a certain awe but no fear. The darkness is reassuring and not alien. I have no need to ask, “Is anything there?” My instinct assures me that
something
is. But what? “This thing”? (Whatever that is.) Or merely my own unconscious? (Whatever that means.) At present, the question seems academic. I am content with simply being where I am, on the threshold of the dark passage.

The only distraction I was aware of, in those days, was created by my own embarrassment; I was acutely aware of myself playing this exotic game, and I seemed to be playing it in the presence of all my friends, over there in England. “Christopher's gone to Hollywood to be a yogi,” I heard them saying—it would be Hollywood rather than Los Angeles, because “Hollywood” represents the movie world and all its phoniness. I knew, of course, that my real friends wouldn't sneer at me so viciously. Some might be pained or dismayed, nearly all would be puzzled, but they would take it for granted that my motives for doing what I was doing were at least honest. No, it was I myself—or, rather, a hostile minority in me—who was sneering.

Vernon certainly didn't sneer. Being young and curious about all ideas which were new to him, he was greatly interested and started questioning Gerald. He may have done some meditating on his own. The fact that I didn't ask him about this suggests that I was feeling guilty because my sits were so irregular. I think I felt the inevitable dissatisfaction of a beginner who hasn't been given any definite instructions. I can't remember why it was that I didn't immediately contact Gerald's Swami Prabhavananda. Maybe the Swami was away from home. Anyhow, it wasn't until late in July that Gerald took me to see him.

Two

In those days, and until the freeway was cut through Hollywood during the nineteen-fifties, Ivar Avenue climbed steeply from Hollywood Boulevard straight up to Franklin Avenue. There, Ivar appeared to stop. But it didn't. A short distance to the right, along Franklin, there was a left turn onto an extra bit of it. This turnoff was easy to miss. Many of Prabhavananda's visitors did miss it, the first time they came looking for him. Characteristically, Gerald liked to regard this as symbolic: where wells of eternal truth exist within space-time, they are always carefully hidden.

If, however, you made the turnoff successfully, you found yourself on a stretch of narrow road which was only a block in length. Here the ground was more or less level, for you were now, so to speak, on top of the first step of the staircase of hills looking over the city toward the ocean. Hollywood Boulevard lay below you, busy with shops and restaurants. At night it sparkled brilliantly and often swept the sky with arc-lamp beams if there was a film premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater. But, up here on Ivar, you felt secluded within a sleepy hillside suburb of little houses nesting amidst flowering bushes and vines.

Halfway along the road, on the right-hand side, a surprise awaited you; a squat Hindu temple with white plaster walls and onion domes, their pinnacles painted gold. A flight of steps led up to it, with cypresses on either side.

At number 1946, on the street corner next to the temple, stood a wooden bungalow—then one of the city's most typical structures, originally adapted from the bungalows of the Orient, and perhaps for this reason small-windowed, with a shadowy interior, as if to provide coolness in a much hotter climate than ours. In this bungalow, Prabhavananda and two or three other people were living.

I have absolutely no memories of my first visit. Can this have been because Gerald talked so dazzlingly that the Swami's personality became dimmed, along with anybody else's who may have been present? I had known him to have this effect on me before. Nevertheless, this visit accomplished all that was necessary, from my point of view: the Swami and I arranged that I should come back alone a few days later, so that he could give me some instructions. Our second meeting is recorded in my diary; it was on August 4.

This time, he didn't receive me at the bungalow but in a small study which was part of the temple building. I found him waiting for me there when I arrived. I was immediately aware of the atmosphere of calm in this room, rather uncomfortably so. It was like a sudden change in altitude to which I should have to get accustomed.

The Swami is smaller than I remembered—charming and boyish, although he is in his middle forties and has a bald patch at the back of his head. He looks slightly Mongolian, with long straight eyebrows and wide-set dark eyes. He talks gently and persuasively. His smile is extraordinary. It is somehow so touching, so open, so brilliant with joy that it makes me want to cry.

One of the Swami's characteristics isn't mentioned here; he chain-smoked cigarettes. Since I, too, was a heavy smoker, this wouldn't have bothered me.

I felt terribly awkward—like a rich, overdressed woman, in the plumes and bracelets of my vanity. Everything I said sounded artificial and false. I started acting a little scene, trying to appear sympathetic. I told him I wasn't sure I could do these meditations and lead the life I am leading. He answered, “You must be like the lotus on the pond. The lotus leaf is never wet.”

I said I was afraid of attempting to do too much, because, if I failed, I should be discouraged. He said, “There is no failure in the search for God. Every step you take is a positive advance.”

I said I hated the word “God.” He agreed that you can just as well say “The Self” or “Nature.”

He talked about the difference between yoga meditation and autohypnosis. Autohypnosis or autosuggestion makes you see what you want to see. Meditation makes you see something you don't expect to see. Autosuggestion produces different results in each individual. Meditation produces the same result in all individuals.

I explained how I had always thought of yoga as silly superstitious nonsense. The Swami laughed. “And now you have fallen into the trap?”

In this account, there is one enormously important omission. My vague reference to “the life I am leading” seems to refer merely to a worldly life in the conventional sense; my efforts to get employment and money. I must have told the Swami about these, too, thus prompting him to advise me to be like the lotus leaf—which is a standard Hindu precept. But the question I had actually come to ask him was a far more serious one. If his answer was unsatisfactory to me, there would be no point in our ever seeing each other again.

I wish I could remember exactly how my question was worded. No doubt it was put apologetically. Perhaps I blushed and stammered. In essence it was: Can I lead a spiritual life as long as I'm having a sexual relationship with a young man?

I do remember the Swami's answer: “You must try to see him as the young Lord Krishna.”

All I then knew about Krishna was that the Hindus regard him as an
avatar
—one of the incarnations of “this thing,” who are believed to be born on earth from time to time; and that Krishna is described as having been extraordinarily beautiful in his youth. I understood the Swami to mean that I should try to see Vernon's beauty—the very aspect of him which attracted me to him sexually—as the beauty of Krishna, which attracts devotees to him spiritually. I should try to see and love what was Krishna-like in Vernon. Well, why not? I told myself that I didn't just desire Vernon, I also loved him. This was a way to prove it. I was aware, of course, that if I was successful, I should lose all desire for Vernon's body. But the Swami had only said “try.” There was no harm in trying—especially when we weren't actually in bed together.

I wasn't at all discouraged by the Swami's reply; indeed, it was far more permissive than I had expected. What reassured me—what convinced me that I could become his pupil—was that he hadn't shown the least shadow of distaste on hearing me admit to my homosexuality. I had feared a blast of icy puritanism: “You must promise me never to see that boy again, or I cannot accept you. You are committing a deadly sin.”

From that moment on, I began to understand that the Swami did not think in terms of sins, as most Christians do. Certainly, he regarded my lust for Vernon as an obstacle to my spiritual progress—but no more and no less of an obstacle than lust for a woman, even for a lawfully wedded wife, would have been. Christian sins are offenses against God and each one has its fixed degree of magnitude. The obstacles which the Swami recognized are offenses against yourself and their importance is relative to each individual's condition. In fact, the Swami's attitude was like that of a coach who tells his athletes that they must give up smoking, alcohol, and certain kinds of food, not because these are inherently evil, but because they may prevent the athlete from getting something he wants much more—an Olympic medal, for instance.

I doubt if I had already heard, at this time, of the
kundalini.
But I will write about it here because it is relevant to the subject of sex and chastity.

According to Hindu physiology, the kundalini is a huge reserve of energy situated at the base of the spine. Its name means “that which is coiled up,” and hence it is sometimes referred to as “the serpent power.” We are told that, when this power has been aroused, it rises upward along the spinal canal. In doing so, it passes through several centers of consciousness, known as
chakras.
A chakra is not an anatomical organ; its nature is described as “subtle,” as distinct from “gross.” Subtle matter is invisible to gross eyesight and can be seen only in spiritual visions.

In the great majority of people, the kundalini seldom rises above the three lowest chakras; therefore, its power causes only material desires, including lust. When, however, a person becomes sufficiently spiritual, the kundalini rises to the higher chakras, thus causing greater and greater degrees of enlightenment. In exceedingly rare cases, the kundalini may reach the highest chakra, the seventh, and cause
samadhi,
which is the ultimate experience of union with what is eternal within oneself.

Regarded from this standpoint, chastity isn't even a virtue; it is a practical necessity. By being chaste, you conserve the kundalini power which is absolutely necessary for your spiritual progress.

I found this image of the kundalini most helpful as a corrective to puritanism. The religious puritan regards certain parts and functions of the mind-body as “pure” and others as “impure.” He refuses to admit that there can be any relation between the two groups. Meanwhile, the anti-religious puritan thinks that he is effectively damning religion when he declares that it is nothing but repressed sex. There is only one kundalini, one power behind all these functions. Why call it either pure or impure?