My Guru & His Disciple (19 page)

The proofs of the Gita arrived. In the afternoon, Marcel Rodd called, so Swami had to release me from my silence to discuss business. Rodd was much amused. I could see him thinking that religious people are all alike; God is forgotten as soon as there's any money involved.

July 11. Drove out with Swami, Sister, and Dr. M. for a property hunt on the Palos Verdes headland. It was so beautiful there that I felt more depressed than usual. The dreadful hungry boredom of Alfred's absence. Without him, the oleanders and the sunlight and the shining ocean were in vain.

At first, the house agent was very cagey; no, they had hardly anything, times were so uncertain, it would be too expensive, etc. etc. Then he took Dr. M. aside and murmured something, and Dr. M. shook his head decisively. At which the agent's manner instantly changed. Well, come to think of it, there
was
one excellent lot, a real bargain, just what we were looking for … Later, Dr. M. explained to us what we'd already guessed—that the agent had thought Swami was a Negro. An East Indian, according to their standards, is altogether different, almost a white man. Sister was even more outraged than Swami at the idea of our having our Center in a restricted area.

(I remember one more property hunt which isn't recorded in my diary. Swami and I went to look at a site we had been told of, on a hill overlooking the Arroyo Seco, near Pasadena. The land had some empty, partially roofless buildings on it. These were obviously being used by teenagers for their orgies. Bottles were scattered about, with, here and there, a pair of torn panties or a used condom. The walls were covered with graffiti—the largest of them announcing in huge letters: JACK HAS SYPHILIS. Swami didn't appear to notice any of these details specifically, but his face showed a certain uneasiness. After a few moments, he turned to me and said seriously, without the least trace of irony: “You know, Chris, I don't think this place has a good atmosphere.”) After several postponements, Vernon arrived from New York on August 12. He spent the first week in one of the rooms at Brahmananda Cottage. Then he moved to a tiny apartment near the Center which I'd rented; I was planning to share it with him later.

But now something quite unforeseen happened. A wealthy old man, who had been a disciple of Swami for some while already, made a gift to the Vedanta Society of a house he owned at Montecito, near Santa Barbara, together with enough money to pay its property taxes.

August 28. Swami has decided that this shall be the new Center we've been looking for. For the present, Amiya is to be in charge there, and other members of the family will take it in turns to go up and stay. Swami will commute back and forth. After the war is over, the Society will move up there and extra buildings will be added.

Swami has invited Vernon to live at Montecito. There's a garden house he can have, which stands apart from the main house. Vernon seems pleased with the idea and wants to go as soon as possible. I don't know what to think. I didn't want him to plunge into the family so quickly—but then, I didn't altogether realize how sold he is on Vedanta. And, after all, why hesitate? We have to try it.

I'll probably spend a lot of time at the Montecito house myself. We went on the 20th, to look at it. It's very beautiful there. The house stands high up the mountain slope, on the edge of the national-forest land. You look over the bay with its islands; a much finer view than any around Santa Monica. It's still quite wild country, with deer and coyotes and rattlesnakes and even some mountain lions. The other homes in this area are mostly large estates; you don't feel the presence of neighbors. It's not expanding like Los Angeles. The war seems hardly to have touched it.

Vernon has exactly the right attitude toward the Center; sees the funny side of it, and yet realizes the necessity of the funny side, and the significance behind it. His being here seems to lighten up the whole place and every minute of the time. I no longer want to rush away to Santa Monica. And the Alfred situation has practically ceased to exist.

Vernon's popular with the family already. Swami says, “Who could help loving him?” Amiya coos over him. Sarada is romantic about his looks. He wrestles with Webster and teases Asit.

The other day, Chris Wood came to visit us. After he left, Swami exclaimed, “What a
good
man!”

This comment of Swami's made a particularly strong impression on me, because I had grown so accustomed to the shrugs and head shakings of Gerald's Christian friends over Chris's open homosexuality. It wasn't that they disliked Chris—though shy, he was always polite to them—but not one of them would have described him as “good.” How
could
he be good? He was immoral. When Swami called Chris “good,” the word had to be understood in relation to his statement: “Purity is telling the truth.” Chris was certainly “pure” and therefore “good” in this sense. He was remarkable for his frankness and truthfulness, about himself and about everybody else. You couldn't imagine him pretending to feel or think anything that he didn't. You might say that his sex life was a function of his truthfulness. It
had
to be open and a scandal.

As happens in many long and intimate relationships, Gerald and Chris had become locked into opposite and complementary roles. In their case, these roles were absurdly symbolic; Gerald played the Saint and Chris the Sinner. The Saint prayed for the Sinner and the Sinner cooperated by continuing to sin. However, Chris was essentially a believer—or at least a would-be believer—not an unbeliever, as his role demanded. Even if he had wished to join the community of believers at Trabuco, he could only have done so by changing his role and becoming the Repentant Sinner. This was unthinkable. Chris could never have acted out such a lie against his nature. Besides, by changing roles, he would have upset the balance of his relationship with Gerald, whom he loved. The same thing would have happened, in a different way, if he had become Swami's disciple.

What Chris did do, at this time, was surprising enough, because it was a breach of his usual reticence about his deeper feelings. He wrote a review of
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
(
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
is a compilation by Mahendranath Gupta [“M.”] of conversations between Ramakrishna and his disciples and devotees. A new translation by Swami Nikhilananda, head of one of the two New York Vedanta Centers, had been published in 1942.)

Chris's review begins:

“
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna?
It's awfully long. What's it all about? It certainly weighs enough! And what a strange-looking man!” “It's a fascinating piece of biography,” I answered, “quite extraordinarily honest. And as for its being long, the truth about anyone is never dull. Try it; I don't think you'll be disappointed.” And, I added to myself, maybe you'll get something more than pleasure out of it … Which made me wonder what I, also an outsider, had got out of it. But, of course, there are really no outsiders. For, the more I think about Ramakrishna and his disciples, the more I am aware of a growing conviction that, sooner or later, by some route or other, this is the way we all must go.

And it ends:

And when at last, ceasing to reason, one stills one's mind, there is something more. There steals over one a strange nostalgia, an almost-memory of something once known, long since forgotten. And one wonders, all too well aware of the answer, what has one in place of that which is lost? Vanity, illusion; just nothing.

Chris had shown me this, as he sometimes showed me his stories, with a characteristic air of self-deprecation. I had persuaded him to let Swami see it, and Swami had at once insisted that it must be published in our magazine. This was probably why Chris had been invited to visit us at the Center, which he very rarely did.

August 29. A stupefyingly hot day. I sat under the acacia, on the front lawn, correcting the magazine proofs. Vernon came out of the temple and told me that he'd had the best meditation of his whole life. It makes me so wonderfully happy, having him here.

So now another attempt begins, to live this life the way it ought to be lived. I have Swami. I have Vernon. I have this place. I have some experience behind me and some acquired confidence. If I fail, I will have no alibi whatsoever.

I doubt if there is anybody in the whole world who, from my point of view, is luckier than I am right at this moment.

September 9. Vernon started to grow a beard. Swami told him to shave it off. “This is not Trabuco,” he said.

Swami told me that when he joined the monastery all his friends were amazed: “They thought I was just a dandy-boy. I parted my hair and wore rings and a gold chain. I liked to play practical jokes. I was known as the best-dressed boy in Calcutta.”

He said that when I go up to Montecito he wants me to make a great deal of japam. “When once you are established in that, you can go anywhere. It is all the same.”

September 10. Vernon left for Montecito today. In rather a dither, because lots of people have gone up there—Swami habitually invites twice as many people as there are beds. Vernon's first night won't be spent in the garden house, or, if it is, he won't be sleeping alone there. If he can't have any privacy, he's ready to leave.

I've got to explain this to Swami and I can, because I understand just how Vernon feels—I've been through it myself. Vernon was also upset because of a visit to his friends in Santa Monica, who told him that mysticism isn't right for him. This makes me furious. We'll have enough trouble without outside interference.

September 18. For a long time now, a fight has been going on between Swami and the draft board, over Asit—Selective Service wanting to put him in the Army, Swami saying they shan't—because Asit is not only a visitor in this country but a member of a subject race which isn't eligible for U.S. citizenship (though, of course, Asit could become a citizen if he wants to, as soon as he's been inducted and has spent a short period of time as a soldier). An additional argument is that the British themselves don't conscript Indians. Swami has taken the matter up with the American Civil Liberties people and there will be a court case. But, while that is pending, they have advised Swami and Asit not to resist induction.

Finally, today, Asit was inducted. Before he left for the induction center, this hundred-percent Westernized future movie director became a traditional Hindu and prostrated before Swami on the temple steps, making the gesture of taking the dust from Swami's feet and touching it to his own forehead. (This was only pantomime, of course, since Swami's shoes were flashing with polish.) Meanwhile, Swami blessed him. It was startlingly beautiful.

(The tone of the above entry suggests that this was the first time I had personally witnessed such a salutation—it is called a
pranam.
In those days, I don't think that any of us ever prostrated before Swami. Sister might perhaps have done so while the two of them were together at the Belur Math, where this would have been normal behavior. Many years were to pass before pranams became usual at the Center.)

*   *   *

Partly, no doubt, because of Asit's case, partly because of the inevitable wartime suspicions which attach themselves to aliens, we found ourselves under official observation. When one of us would ask another if any new students had shown up at a lecture, it became an in-joke to answer: “Oh no, it was very quiet—just the family and the F.B.I.”

And then Swami got an overt visit from two self-identified agents, neatly dressed and smiling. Swami wasn't in the least intimidated; indeed, he seems to have enjoyed himself. I wasn't present. According to him, their dialogue went more or less as follows:

Swami:
Gentlemen, what can I do for you?

Agent:
Swami, we've been given to understand that you speak against England and the British rule in India.

Swami:
Yes, I do. I want the British kicked out of India.

Agent
(laughing): Well, we kicked them out of this country.

Swami:
Then why do you question me?

Agent
(a shade less friendly): Could it be, Swami, that you are getting money from Germany, or Japan perhaps, to make this propaganda?

Swami:
Do you think they are fools, that they would give me money for something I do freely?

Agent:
Could it be, then, that you are collecting money for your countrymen here to go back home and fight the British?

Swami:
Listen! If I knew any Hindu boy who had to be
paid
before he would fight the British, I'd throw him out of this house!

Thus the interview ended in laughter and reassuring handshakes. The agents didn't visit us again, and our lectures no longer seemed to be monitored—or, if they still were, it wasn't by such obvious flatfoots as before. Later some highly respectable members of Swami's congregation got in touch with the F.B.I. and vouched for his good character.

September 20. Swami and I visited a Mr. Williams who is responsible for deciding cases of objection to military service on religious grounds. We were trying to get a 4-D classification for Webster.

Mr. Williams received us in a very bare office downtown; we had to sit on piles of fishing tackle. Taking it in turns, and sometimes contradicting each other, we made an extremely garbled statement of the aims of Vedanta philosophy. Ordinarily, I would never dream of contradicting Swami in the presence of strangers, but I was convinced that I knew better than he did what words to use in talking to a novice like Mr. Williams—and, after all, Webster's future as a monk was at stake.