My Guru & His Disciple (7 page)

(I should mention here that Vernon and I were just about to move into a rented house back in the Hollywood area. This wouldn't necessarily isolate me from the world of the refugees but it would enable me to visit the Vedanta Center much more easily.)

September 7. Looking in through the glass door of the living room at Ivar Avenue, I saw the Swami sitting alone. He must have been meditating—his face was utterly transformed. It was very still and almost frighteningly attentive, like a lion watching its prey before it jumps. Then he became aware of my presence and rose to greet me, his usual gay polite Bengali self.

*   *   *

According to my diary, I found it easier to meditate in the shrine room of the temple than in my room at home:

The atmosphere is extraordinarily calming, and yet alive, not sleepy. Someone said to me that it's like being in a wood. This is a very good description. Just as, in a wood, you feel the trees alive all around you, so in the shrine the air seems curiously alert. Sometimes it is as if the whole shrine room becomes your brain and is filled with thought. Of course, the smell of the incense also helps. It induces a special mood by association—just as the smell of antiseptics induces the passive mood of the hospital patient.

If you entered the temple when it wasn't being used and when the curtains were drawn together, concealing the shrine, it looked like a small lecture hall which was remarkable only for the good taste and simplicity with which it was furnished. Light gray walls, a light gray carpet, rows of light gray seats facing a pulpit on a platform. On the walls were photographs of Ramakrishna, the Holy Mother, Vivekananda, Brahmananda, an image of the Buddha, the alleged face of Christ on the Turin shroud. There were no decorations, Indian or other, except for the word
Om,
which was carved on the pulpit.

When the curtains were drawn apart, you saw that there was a little windowless shrine room beyond the platform on which the pulpit stood. Within this shrine room, on a pedestal of two steps, stood the shrine itself. It was about four feet in height and had been made in India out of a dark wood which was intricately carved and gleamingly polished; four double Corinthian pillars supporting a dome. Under this dome, a photograph of Ramakrishna stood in the middle. To the right of it was a photograph of Holy Mother; to the left were images of Buddha and Krishna and a Russian icon of Christ. Photographs of Brahmananda and Vivekananda were on a lower level, together with images of some minor Hindu deities.

During the Sunday lecture, the curtains were parted and the shrine exposed, decked with garlands of flowers and lit by candles in glass candlesticks which had sparkling pendants. It looked exotically pretty, and no doubt a casual visitor to the temple, seeing it for the first time, would regard it merely as a charming focal point in the scheme of decoration. But this shrine really was a shrine, in the primary meaning of the word. It contained relics of Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and some of their disciples, including fragments of bone which had been preserved after their bodies had been cremated. The Hindus, like the Catholics, believe that such relics generate spiritual power which can be communicated to worshipers who expose themselves to it. But this is only half of the process. What the worshipers receive, they must return to the shrine through acts of worship; thereby they “recharge” the shrine, and thus themselves, continually. It was therefore a rule that ritual worship must be performed before the shrine every single day.

When driving along Sunset Boulevard, I would sometimes feel the impulse to park outside a certain church and go into it. Before kneeling in one of the pews, I would genuflect to the altar and cross myself. I always felt slightly guilty of theatricalism as I did this, and excused the action to myself as being a gesture of mere conformity, since I was in a Catholic church.

What was I actually doing there? I might have answered that, by meditating in our temple, I had discovered in myself a strong devotional inclination which I had been suppressing throughout most of my adult life. Because of this inclination, I now felt drawn to
any
sacred place. A Catholic church was more like our temple than a Protestant church would have been, because it contained a shrine. The consecrated Host was present in the tabernacle on the altar, and people kept coming in throughout the day to kneel before it and adore it.

This was true, but not the whole truth. Because of my Protestant upbringing, going into a Catholic church still gave me a slight sense of daring, of doing what was forbidden. This was what made my visit exciting. To genuflect and cross yourself was scandalous behavior, by the Protestant standards of my youth. To bow down before a Hindu shrine wouldn't have been scandalous in the same way; it would have been just heathen and therefore meaningless.

Having entered the pew, I became a Vedantist again and meditated according to my instructions. I felt nothing incongruous in doing this. After all, we had Christ's icon on
our
shrine, so why shouldn't I regard myself as a welcome guest—welcomed by Christ, at any rate, if not by his priesthood? However, I never stayed on in the church if a service was about to be held; that would have seemed to me like trespassing. And I never dipped my finger in the stoup of holy water. That, I felt, would have involved me in an alien and therefore dangerous kind of magic.

*   *   *

About the middle of August, a young American named Denny Fouts had arrived in Los Angeles. Denny would represent himself to new acquaintances as having been a spectacularly successful homosexual whore. It was true that he had had a number of affairs with rich men and that they had given him a lot of money. He made much of this, speaking of having been “kept” by them, and watching your face as he used the word to see if you would wince. (I have described him as “Paul” in my novel
Down There on a Visit,
which also contains a sketch of Gerald as “Augustus Parr.”)

At first I had found Denny's tactics tiresome. Then he had surprised and intrigued me by showing great interest in Vedanta and in the Swami. Long conversations with him had gradually convinced me that his interest was absolutely serious. It seemed to be related to some terrifying insights he had had while taking drugs.

October 26. Lunch with Denny, who is anxious to start a new life—get a shack in the hills, a menial job, and immediately renounce everything: sex, drink, and the Gang. He's very nervous and much worried about his motives—is he wishing to do this for the right reasons? But surely, at the start, the reasons don't matter? If you are doing this for the wrong reasons, I told him, you'll very soon find out.

Meanwhile, Denny still goes to parties and gets drunk and talks nothing but religion, to the great amusement of his friends, who call him “the drunken yogi.”

Today I took him to the temple, where we sat for some time in the shrine (or “the box,” as Gerald calls it). I couldn't concentrate—I was thinking all the time of Denny—trying to “introduce” him to Ramakrishna, and hoping he wouldn't be put off by the photographs on the shrine, and the flowers, and the ivory and brass figures. It does look rather like the mantelpiece in an old-fashioned boudoir. Actually, Denny liked it all very much, but was dismayed because he had thought what a wonderful place it would be to have sex in.

By this time, I had become possessive of Denny, regarding him as my personal convert, the soul I had saved. And I was eager to bring him to Prabhavananda. I expected to get credit from both parties; Prabhavananda was to praise me for my valuable catch, Denny for my understanding, all-pardoning guru.

Their meeting was a disaster. I wasn't present, but, from what Denny told me about it later, I guessed that he had struck the wrong note from the beginning. He must have been aggressive and theatrical and strident, painting himself as the lowest of sinners and daring Prabhavananda to reject him. This approach might have made an impression on some Christian ministers. But Prabhavananda wasn't interested in show-off sinners, any more than he was interested in self-satisfied holy men. All he watched and listened for was the look and sound of truth.

When Denny had finished his performance, Prabhavananda discouraged him from trying to make a drastic change in his life, telling him that what he needed was hard work; he had better go out and get himself a job.

Denny was terribly disappointed and hurt. As soon as we got back to his room, he threw himself down on the bed and burst into tears, sobbing that he was rotten, everybody despised him, and he'd better kill himself with heroin as soon as possible.

I protested, of course—as anybody would. In fact, I said far more than I meant. I told him that I didn't despise him, that I admired him and liked him and wanted to be his friend.

At first I was slightly shocked by what seemed to me to have been an inflexibility and lack of understanding in Prabhavananda's behavior. Also, my feelings were hurt by his rejection of the first disciple I had brought to him. He immediately sensed this, the next time we were alone together. With his usual gentle reasonableness, he explained that, in the religious life, if you try to do too much in too great a hurry, you are sure to have a reaction and perhaps lose your faith altogether. Maharaj had always been suspicious of sudden hysterical “conversions.” Soon I began to realize that Prabhavananda had shown sound judgment.

Nevertheless, I was now committed to doing something about Denny. So I took him up to see Gerald, after telling Gerald what had happened at the Vedanta Center. Perhaps I slanted the story a little, to prejudice Gerald in Denny's favor; in any case, this was a sly tempting of Gerald to demonstrate his superior charity. Denny assisted me by turning on all his powerful charm. Gerald was quickly won over.

As for myself, I continued to see Denny quite often, and was soon able to feel sincerely what I had told him—that I did like him and did want to be his friend. I was able to admire him, too, for Denny declared that he wasn't going to be discouraged by what Prabhavananda had said. He was determined to start meditating and living “intentionally,” under Gerald's guidance. He and I remained friends throughout all the ups and downs of his life during the next few years, but he never forgave Prabhavananda. This was a constant cause of friction between us.

*   *   *

November 7. Some while ago, driving home through the evening traffic along Sunset Boulevard, I was attacked by one of those spasms of cramp which often follow Dr. K.'s injections. It was so violent and so unexpected that I exclaimed “Oh God!” aloud. And now something extraordinary happened. The word, which I have misused ten million times, produced a kind of echo in my consciousness, like the vibration after a bell has been struck. It seemed to vibrate down, down into the depths of me. It was so strange, so awe-inspiring, that I longed for the cramp to return. I thought: “I have called upon God.” After a moment, I had another spasm, but this time there was no echo. The word was just another word.

How much unhappiness there is in the world! No need to search for it across the ocean, in bombed London or China or Greece. The other evening, outside my window, a little boy cried to his mother: “You don't want
anyone
to play with me!” Even the most trivial unkindness is heartbreaking, if one weren't so deaf and blind. Very occasionally, I'm aware of this. The other night (it sounds absurd when I write it) I ran the car over a tin can on our parking lot, and felt almost as bad as if I'd killed an animal. “Oh God,” I said to myself, “must we
always
keep smashing things?”

Tomorrow morning, I'm going up to the temple to be initiated by the Swami. I know he is only doing this to encourage me—because, as he told Gerald, I am “arnest”—but I feel terribly inadequate. Lately, I've been getting up too late and missing my morning hour.

November 8. Picked up Gerald in the car and was at the temple by seven-thirty. When I went into the shrine, the Swami was already seated. I took my place on his left, holding a little tray with the flowers which one of the women had given me to offer; two red roses, a white rose, and a big white daisy. First the Swami told me to meditate as usual. Then I had to offer the flowers—the red roses to the photographs of Ramakrishna and Holy Mother, the daisy to the icon of Christ, the white rose to the Swami himself, as my guru. Next, he told me to meditate on Ramakrishna in the central cavity of the heart. Then he taught me my Sanskrit mantram, which I must never repeat to anybody, and gave me a rosary, showing me how to use it.

A
mantram
consists of one or more Sanskrit words, a holy name or names, which the guru gives to his disciple and which the disciple is required to repeat and meditate on throughout the rest of his life. The giving of the mantram is the essential act of the initiation ceremony. The guru may also give the disciple a rosary; this can be thought of as a physical gift which embodies the spiritual gift of the mantram.

The rosary beads used by the Ramakrishna Order are made of small dried kernels of the berry of the rudraksha tree. There are 108 beads, plus a bead which hangs down, out of line with the others, and has a tassel attached to it. This bead is said to represent the guru.

Repeating your mantram is called making
japam.
When making japam with your rosary, you repeat your mantram once for each bead. On reaching the tassel bead, you reverse the rosary and start it the other way around. Out of the 108 repetitions of the mantram which make up one turn of the rosary, a hundred are said to be for your own devotions, and the remaining eight to be on behalf of the rest of mankind. Since these eight represent a labor of love and not part of your personal efforts toward spiritual progress, you must not count them in reckoning how much japam you are going to make each day—one turn of the rosary counts as one hundred only. The average amount of japam made by an energetic devotee would be between five thousand and ten thousand daily. The value of the rosary is that it measures your japam for you; you aren't distracted from it by having to count. But you are also encouraged to make japam at times when you can't use a rosary—when you are engaged in some manual work or driving a car.