My Guru & His Disciple (6 page)

Looked at from outside, my life could have been described as busy, successful, and social. I was earning five hundred dollars a week, low-bracket pay by movie standards, Arabian Nights wealth by mine. I wasn't inspired by my film work but I was fond of my fellow workers and enjoyed our parlor game of plot construction. In the evenings, at the Viertels' and elsewhere, I mingled with famous and fascinating people: Aldous and Maria Huxley (who had a house nearby), Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Anita Loos, Thomas Mann and his family, Bertrand Russell. And yet, deep down, I was miserable. I felt steeped in that dull brutish inertia which the Hindus call
tamas,
the lowest condition of the psyche. My misery expressed itself in various minor ailments. These were being treated by a doctor, whose large fees I could now easily afford.

The days go by and I don't see the Swami, don't start meditating. This isn't mere laziness. The opposition is enormously strong. Incredible as it seems, part of me actually wants to wallow in black lazy misery, like a pig in filth.

My diary adds that Vernon has finally caught my depression, “like a South Sea islander who nearly dies of a common cold imported by a trader.”

*   *   *

March 6, 1940. I've seen the Swami. He says if I'm too busy to meditate I should think about the word Om, which is God. But I can only become aware of God by thinking all around him. Om says nothing. It's just a comic noise. I'm afraid the Swami is altogether too Indian for me. I must talk to Gerald again.

The Sanskrit word
Om
is used by Hindus as the basic name of God, because it is thought of as being the most comprehensive of all human sounds. Fully pronounced, it combines utterance by the throat, the mouth, and the lips—approximately
Ah-oo-mm.
This I already knew. But there were moods in which my anti-Hindu prejudice made me rhyme
Om
with
Tom,
thus turning it into “just a comic noise”—as in om-tiddly-om-pom.

*   *   *

In July, I went at least twice to a class Prabhavananda was giving on the Upanishads (those portions of the Vedas which contain the teachings of Vedanta philosophy; the rest contain prayers, hymns, rules of conduct, and instructions for the performance of rituals).

Seated on a cushion, he smilingly exposed the ignorance of his class. He is gentle, persuasive, and humorous. He speaks quietly, with an absolute, matter-of-fact authority. To him, spiritual truths are unanswerable facts, like the facts of geography. You don't have to get excited about them, or argue or defend. You just state them … I notice that he has a taste for very elegant, pointed shoes.

Someone mentioned the Holy Ghost. The Swami was asked to explain It, and said that he couldn't, he wasn't a Christian. So everybody present had a try, and the difference in our definitions was a sufficient comment on the muddle of Christian theology. To every suggestion, the Swami replied, “No—that is too far-fetch-ed.” At last he sent one of the girls out for Webster's Dictionary. Some of the class were quite scandalized. “You won't find it there,” they told him. But the Swami was confident: “Webster's Dictionary can tell you everything.” He was wrong, however. Webster said only: “Comforter, Paraclete.” The Swami promised to “ask Mr. Hard.” He seems to have great confidence in Gerald.

On July 29, I got further instructions from Prabhavananda. He told me to meditate on the
Atman,
the indwelling God, “this thing” within each one of us: “Imagine that there is a cavity within you. In the middle of this cavity there is a throne, in the form of a red lotus. In the middle of this lotus, a golden light is burning. Approach this light and say ‘Oh Self, reveal Yourself to me.'”

My comment on this was:

My imagination revolts from this: it sounds like a stage scene at the Radio City Music Hall. But I shall try to do it. I have put myself into the Swami's hands and I must follow his instructions, just as I follow Dr. K.'s. We always want to choose our own medicine. A rose, for example, wouldn't seem nearly so silly to me. But perhaps the lotus is better, just because I don't like it.

“The Swami is too Indian for me” was a complaint I would return to, again and again. But, even while persisting in my prejudice, I had to admit to myself that the very Indianness of Vedanta was helpful to me. Because of my other, anti-Christian set of prejudices, I was repelled by the English religious words I had been taught in childhood and was grateful to Vedanta for speaking Sanskrit. I needed a brand-new vocabulary and here it was, with a set of philosophical terms which were exact in meaning, unemotive, untainted by disgusting old associations with clergymen's sermons, schoolmasters' pep talks, politicians' patriotic speeches.

*   *   *

I had now met Aldous Huxley many times—usually with Maria, but occasionally by himself at M-G-M, while we were both working there. (
He
was earning fifteen hundred dollars a week, and sending most of it to help relatives and friends in wartime Europe.) I already felt at ease with Maria, who was charmingly outspoken; she asked me frank questions about my personal life, which I answered with equal frankness. When the three of us were together, we behaved like intimate friends. When Aldous and I were alone, I felt uneasy because I was aware—indeed, it was Gerald who had made me aware—that Aldous, with all his liberalism, found homosexuality and the homosexual temperament deeply distasteful. I am sure that he liked me personally and that he fought against his prejudice. He was a nobly fair-minded man. Nevertheless, my uneasiness remained.

That Aldous and I were both officially disciples of Prabhavananda didn't strengthen the bond between us, as far as I was concerned. I was beginning to realize that Aldous and Prabhavananda were temperamentally far apart. Prabhavananda was strongly devotional. Aldous was much more akin to his friend Krishnamurti, who was then living at Ojai, a couple of hours' drive from Los Angeles. Krishnamurti expounded a philosophy of discrimination between the real and the unreal; as a Hindu who had broken away from Hinduism, he was repelled by devotional religion and its rituals. He also greatly disapproved of the guru-disciple relationship.

According to my diary (July 31), I must have told Aldous at least something about Prabhavananda's latest instructions to me, thus prompting Aldous to tell me that Krishnamurti never meditated on “objects”—such as lotuses, lights, gods, and goddesses—and even believed that doing so might lead to insanity.

This conversation disturbed me very much. Suppose Gerald is barking up the wrong tree? But I'm also aware that these doubts are not quite candid; they are being prompted by the Ego as part of its sabotage effort.

My indiscretion in talking to Aldous about Prabhavananda's instructions was inexcusable. Indeed, it was worse than an indiscretion, since I must have known in advance that Aldous would be critical, and would thus disturb me and strengthen my doubts.

*   *   *

The refugees weren't the only ones who drew me into their midst and away from Prabhavananda. There was also an assortment of men and women whom I will call “Seekers,” because many of them would have so described themselves. I met them through Gerald, who had now become a central figure in their circles, not only in Los Angeles, but throughout the country. Chris Wood protected him from the Seekers' phone calls by refusing to take messages for him, but his mail was enormous and urgent. “It's funny,” I once said to him, “how these people invariably write to you airmail special delivery, when all their questions are about eternity.”

Some of the Seekers had unquestionable integrity and courage—even perhaps saintliness: a man who had become a clergyman because he had had a vision of Christ when he was fighting in World War I, a Japanese who had been persecuted by his countrymen for his pacifism, an ex-burglar who had practiced mental non-violence while being beaten up by prison guards. As for the rest, many might have been called cranks but almost none of them fakes. I couldn't imagine any of them as disciples of Prabhavananda—some because they were too exclusively Christian, others because they put the need for social action before spiritual training, others because they were entangled in the occult, others because they were trying to use what they called religion to heal sickness, promote longevity, ensure success in business and joy in marriage—all this with perfect confidence in the purity of their motives.

What was I looking for, amidst these people? What made me sit through their lectures and join them in hours of earnest discussion? I might have answered truthfully that I was interested in some of them as practitioners of pacifism. I could have claimed that the rest were at least teaching me tolerance: during my pre-California life I wouldn't have been seen dead with them. Their earnest air of dedication, their gently persuasive voices, and their pious vocabulary would have turned my atheistic stomach.

But I had to admit to a deeper motive. I was associating with the Seekers in order to find weaknesses in their faith and contradictions in their creeds; to, prove to myself, if possible, that they were seeking a nonexistent treasure. If their treasure was non-existent, then Prabhavananda's might be, too.

Thus I kept rediscovering in myself an active underground force of opposition to Prabhavananda's way of life—insofar as it threatened to influence mine. In my diary, I called this force my ego—what I actually meant was my self-will. “Nothing burns in Hell except self-will” was a favorite quotation of Gerald's, from the
Theologia Germanica,
XXXIV.

Speaking of hell, I am thankful that I at least had the good sense not to personify my self-will as the Devil and imagine myself to be the prey of an awesomely malign superpower, whose strength I couldn't be expected to resist. What I was struggling with was something quite intimate and unalarming, something that had an animal, not a superhuman nature; something that was partly a monkey, partly a dog, partly a peacock, partly a pig. One must be firm with it, one must keep an eye on it always, but there was no reason to hate it or be afraid of it. Its plans for my future weren't devilish, they weren't even clever. It merely wanted to maintain the usual messy aimless impulse-driven way of life to which it was accustomed. It would actually rather wallow in “lazy black misery” than be interfered with by Prabhavananda.

Five

By August 1940, the war had long since ceased to be called “phony,” even in California. It was a solid presence which cast its shadow all over the United States. The Nazis had occupied France and threatened to invade England. Americans had begun to tell each other fatalistically, “We'll be in it soon.”

The future promised us bureaucratic discipline, denial of comfort, frustration of self-will. So my anti-Prabhavananda underground panicked and was ready to lie low and give up its sabotage efforts, for the time being. In contrast to the grim activity of the outside world, the Vedanta Society way of life suddenly appealed to it, as being quiet and snug. While the rest of me tried to meditate, it could at least sit still and do nothing.

*   *   *

August 9. To see the Swami. Sat in the temple while he and several of the holy women who live at the Center finished their evening rites. The bottoms of the women were enormous, as they bowed down to adore. Could concentrate on nothing else.

(“The holy women” was one of Gerald's phrases. Used by him, it chiefly expressed affectionate humor, but also some misogyny. He and I agreed, at that time, in finding women hard to coexist with as fellow worshipers. They so often seemed to us to be calling attention to their presence, especially when decked out in their best saris with tinkling bracelets, and the saris naturally enlarged the bottoms. Our prejudice would never have included Sister Lalita, however. In the temple she was the most self-effacing of us all.)

The Swami called me into his study afterwards. He gave me new and much more elaborate instructions.

First, I am to think of people all over the world—all kinds of people at all kinds of occupations. In each one of them, and in all matter, is this Reality, this Atman, which is also inside myself. And what is “myself”? Am I my body? Am I my mind? Am I my thoughts? What can I find within myself which is eternal? Let me examine my thoughts and see how they reflect this Atman.

August 12. Meditation night and morning. It is much easier now, since the Swami's new instructions, because I can begin with the external world and work inward. I start by thinking of Heinz. Then of the airmen fighting over the Channel. Then Hitler, Churchill. Then Teddy, our dog in Portugal, the ocean with all its fish, etc. etc.

August 13. Huge German air attacks on England. Invasion is expected hourly. I feel terribly depressed, but not frantic. It's amazing how much my “sits” help, however badly and unwillingly I do them. They clear the mind of that surplus of misery which is entirely subjective and unnecessary, and helps no one—which, in fact, merely poisons the lives of everybody around you and makes their own troubles harder to bear. Too much unhappiness over external tragedies is as bad as too little. Both softening and hardening of the heart can become vicious. I begin to understand what Eliot means in Ash Wednesday: “Teach us to care and not to care.”

August 18. Today I finished an almost unbroken week of “sits.” My chief effort is to stand outside the Ego, to try to catch a glimpse of the world with a non-attached eye. But the Ego, with its gross body and great swollen, sullen pumpkin head, is like a man who
will
stand right in front of you at a horse race; you can only catch glimpses of the race by peeping under his arms or between his legs. It is terribly difficult, but the mere discipline of trying brings its own rewards—cheerfulness, long periods of calm, freedom from self-pity. Vernon is the invariable barometer of my failure or success. Yesterday afternoon, when we were laughing together, he suddenly said, “If only it could always be like this!”