by M G Vassanji
“Sorry,” he said. “Let me get that —”
“It’s all right, I’ll manage.”
But the bag was heavy and she let him take it through the station and outside to the curb. She smiled her thanks as he put it down.
“I’m taking a cab …” she said and began looking for one.
It’s no use, he thought hopelessly. Failure stared him in the face. “I might drop by,” he said to her back in desperation. “Listen. This Satguru — is he really what you say he is? …” She turned around to face him. “… He sounded like a far-out guy.”
“You should really try him out,” she said firmly. “You should come to the ashram and see for yourself.”
“I guess I should.” He watched her expectantly. Then he took the dive. “Is now a good time … I mean, I guess it’s late?”
“It is, a little. Lights are out at ten. Let’s go and see anyway. There is an early morning darshana, too. You could spend the night there and be in time for that.”
Right on.
The Satguru Divine Anand Mission was housed in a large grey stone mansion in nearby Newton, that arcadian hideout and bastion of the gentry. In one of the upper wings of the house were Satguru’s apartments. His close staff occupied adjacent quarters. The remaining part of the upstairs, accessible through separate stairs and looking out upon the garden, the driveway, and Beacon Street, were the devotees’ rooms, fifteen in all, partitioned from the original large bedrooms. Downstairs were three more guest rooms, the kitchen and dining hall at the back, and a library, a devotion room and a meditation room.
The foyer and the main hall that they entered were hushed, suffused with yellow light from antique wall lamps. The walls had a textured brown wainscotting below a wood trim, the rest covered by wallpaper of intricate curvilinear designs in shades of purple and blue. On the floor was a red oriental carpet. Three other doors led out from the hall, and a majestic gleaming wood staircase went up, curving around itself once, before terminating at a balcony that led off on one side to Satguru’s quarters.
“It’s a palace,” Ramji said, gazing up at the ceiling, at the chandelier, not quite managing to adjust his voice to the silence, and so it echoed loudly.
“Shh,” Lyris whispered, putting a finger to her lips, and they both giggled.
“It was a gift to Satguru’s father, who was also a great spiritual teacher,” she said.
There was a whiff of incense in the air, and soft music was playing that he thought was strangely familiar. She watched him as he paused in his tracks to listen.
“I know it,” he said excitedly, not quite managing the whisper, and again she put a finger to her lips, and they smiled.
It was a song to Krishna the sweet lord, currently on the charts. He said the name out loud and she pulled him along by the arm and said, “It happens to be one of his favourites.”
She showed him a guest room with three beds, in one of which someone slept huddled inside a blanket.
Ramji hesitated as she made a move to depart. “I might wake him up, perhaps tonight I could spend in your room — I’ll sleep on the floor …”
“Yeah, sure you will,” she said sarcastically. Then: “All right, come along.”
She was as hot as he, as he’d known all along.
“Aren’t you supposed to be celibate,” he said, “or is this” — he was ensconced snugly between her legs — “supposed to symbolize mystical union?” Careful, Ramji, with that cynicism.
But she was relaxed, and warm and wet. “Among the inner circle, yes, perhaps.”
She was of the outer circle, consisting of newer, or less committed, members, those who had careers, or families, and who were not ready to abandon all.
“But this is forbidden, I’m sure,” she said. “Screwing in these rooms.”
And so a relationship formed, based purely on fucking, a convenience, and the convention that if you fucked, then you formed somehow a unit; and based of course also on growing acquaintance and friendship. But a chasm existed between them, bridged only in those couplings.
A chasm of what? Of foreignness: We’re foreign to each other and don’t really matter to each other, we need not even bother trying to come close. After all, her mother and father were doctors in New York City, her grandfather and an uncle lived in Brookline, she went to Brandeis, and she had a brother in private school in Vermont.
Early the next morning they went downstairs to the devotion room for the daily darshana, a session in which the devotees met their guru, having spent the previous half hour meditating in their rooms. By six o’clock the devotees were all gathered, seated in rows on the floor, awaiting him in silence. There were roughly equal numbers of men and women, about twenty in all. A couple of logs had been set going in the fireplace, beside which stood a small dais, about six inches high, on which all eyes were transfixed, as if expecting the Master to materialize at any moment, right there. A constant drone of tanpura filled the room, creating by its few plangent notes an aura that embraced the gathering in a purpose and a frame of mind, enhancing the feelings of devotion and longing. The Master arrived through the door at the back of the room, escorted by a female devotee walking behind him with eyes lowered. He went to the dais and sat upon it, his legs crossed under him, and he placed his hands on his knees as he gazed down at the rapt audience beaming at him with bliss. His ruddy, clean-shaven face shone serenely at them. He seemed to be in his late twenties and was of medium height, and unlike other gurus, he was not chubby but actually slim and good-looking. His lips were full, his forehead was large and pronounced, and his dark hair was combed back.
After a minute or so of gazing at his disciples, the Master began to speak; Lyris gave a nod of assurance to a fidgeting, uncomfortable Ramji. His voice was pitched high, with little modulation, carrying a tension that drew the audience powerfully along; in the background the tanpura droned.
“In New Haven the other day a young woman shoved a Black Panther flyer under my nose — actually shoved it.” A few devotees shook their heads in a show of disapproval. “ ‘What do you have to say about this?’ she asked. ‘You can’t hide the boys and girls from what’s around.’ Referring of course to the poverty and injustice against which the Panthers purportedly have taken up cause. A valid point, but, ‘Sister,’ I told her, ‘the path of action is noble — if you pursue it righteously. Are you sure that in your protests your actions are always righteous?’ The path of love, of devotion to the Lord, reaches the same goal — only it is easier. The Lord is your engine, your locomotive. The Gita says,
The unwise work in pursuit of selfish ends
the wise one works without attachment for the good of all;
that is the path of action and it is noble; but says Krishna to Arjuna,
Give me your mind and your heart, give me your
worship and your love;
then truly you shall abide in me;
such is the path of devotion, the path of ecstasy.”
After a brief pause, Satguru said, “Say ‘Rama-Naam’ with me,” and closed his eyes and sat up even more erectly. The disciples did likewise and the devotion began, “Rama naam, Rama naam, Rama naam …”
The chant went on for quite a while, during which Ramji opened his eyes momentarily a couple of times for a quick look around, as he felt sure others did. The climax finally came — “Raa … aaa … m …” — in one long sonorous syllable, ecstatically pronounced, diminishing, abating into an echo, a nothingness, into which the Master re-emerged, and went on, “Now concentrate on your temples, see the multicolours of your humours, and go down down down, concentrate on your solar plexus, touch that button, release that fount of energy … and let it overflow, bathe you in its cool glow, release you from those worldly cares … and now connect, connect … connect with your neighbours, open those ego-dykes of personality, let it all overflow and become one ocean of wisdom, one, onne … ONNE … AUM …”
The disciples held out their hands to their neighbours, e
yes still closed, “connecting” in rapturous silence.
This devotion, called Rama-naam-bhakti, was meant to bring a sense of “Onne …”-ness with the universe, which Ramji understood to be the hallmark of the Divine Anand Mission. It did nothing to him.
The devotees opened their eyes, slowly let go of each other’s hands, and looked at the Master expectantly. Satguru said, “Well?” The mood relaxed. This was the beginning of the question and comment period. A young man said the cross-legged posture distracted him due to the pain. It was recommended that he attend the afternoon yoga classes. Nothing comes easily, practice makes perfect, practice both in mind and body. A girl asked: The orange light that one sees during meditation, is that a good sign? No, she was told, it reflects the passions. Curtail thinking, become unconscious — but don’t fall asleep. (Modest laughter.) Is the objective inner peace, or is it enlightenment? a woman in her thirties queried, enlightenment is surely wisdom and knowledge, and therefore with respect to the world.…When you find it, you will know what it is, the Master said. The two are the same. Enlightenment removes turbulence of the mind and heart as light removes darkness. But the path is treacherous, it looks easy but is not, the ego has to be smashed …
There was a minute of silence as Satguru and his disciples beamed at each other; then Satguru joined his hands in a pranam, and the disciples began getting up. Each went up to the Master, knelt, kissed his left or right foot, took three steps back, then turned and left the room. Only Lyris and Ramji remained now, her hand on his arm as if to stay him. Satguru’s gaze fell upon them, and Lyris got up, gestured to Ramji discreetly with a hand, and he followed. They went and knelt before Satguru, and Lyris kissed the foot closest to her, at the heel.
“Satguru-ji, Swami-ji,” her voice was tremulous, “I’ve brought a friend — Ramji. He is in need of spiritual guidance but has … has a … a sceptical mind …”
Ramji sensed the guru’s gaze upon him. Years of religious upbringing had taught him to keep his own eyes lowered at such moments and instinctively he had done so. Now he felt uncomfortably compromised.
“Better a sceptic than an indolent mind; a sceptical mind is already engaged … it knows what it wants but stubbornly denies itself. But it needs to be saved before it destroys itself. With the right insight and love it can be made to see —
“It is natural at some point in life to want to rebel,” Satguru said, in a changed, more casual voice than before.
“Ramji is a Gujarati name,” observed Satguru more pointedly, after a moment’s pause. “A holy name.”
“Yes,” said Ramji.
“You are welcome here,” the guru said, and Ramji felt pressure on the back of his head and his forehead was touching the guru’s other foot. Not a bad-smelling one, at that. Oh God, what’s going to happen to me, this utter humiliation; how low can you get, kissing the foot of a dime-a-dozen-in-America guru. Smash the ego.
The Mission’s brochure, of which Ramji found a carton of copies in the library, explained clearly what Satguru was about. He was the son of the great guru Anandaswamy, who had in 1932 come to the West with a message of hope and enlightenment from his own guru, who lived in a retreat outside the famous city of Rishikesh on the Ganges. After establishing a centre in London, he had come to the New World, specifically (and symbolically) to Boston. America possessed the fresh mind of a child — or youth — but was deluded as the young always are in the exuberance of their possibilities and their energies, without the wisdom of experience, unaware of their limitations. It was ready to receive the ancient wisdom of the East. The Divine Anand Mission, its headquarters now in Boston, soon gained renown in America and Europe; its founder’s melodious voice spoke at many prestigious venues, including Madison Square Garden in New York. The likes of Albert Einstein, T.S. Eliot, and Aldous Huxley had benefited from his vision. A faded photo of Anandaswamy (in trousers, Indian kurta, and turban) with Thomas Stearns Eliot (in three-piece suit) was shown at the bottom of page two of the accordion-folded brochure. And then suddenly an apparent scandal broke out in 1939. One of Anandaswamy’s disciples, an English girl called Carol Brown, announced that she was carrying the child of the guru. Shortly thereafter the mission was closed in Boston, and the couple went to live first in California, where the child was born, and later in Switzerland.
The scandal was only an illusion, the brochure explained, it was the “lila” — play — of the Merciful Master, who had outwardly suffered ridicule and humiliation but actually taken a leap into the future. Having foreseen the Second World War, he had postponed his mission and planted a seed to blossom in the years of peace ahead. The divinely conceived son, named Edward Anandaswamy, had been trained to continue the mission. In a ceremony in Lausanne in 1964, he had been anointed by his father, and Satguru Edward Anandaswamy declared himself ready to guide mankind on the path of perfect happiness of the soul.
Anandaswamy the Elder had not been inactive in Europe. He had written six books on spiritual philosophy and an autobiography in 1960 called To Break a Destiny. He regained some of his earlier reputation and was awarded honorary degrees in Germany and America. Finally he left his mortal body and obtained union with the Universal Soul in 1965.
He was profoundly influenced by his two meetings with Einstein, who, he wrote in his autobiography, “was one of the great souls whom the Universal Soul sends forth at critical times to enlighten the world. In his catholicity in all matters and indeed in his pursuit of unity in the physical world, he demonstrated (as did Spinoza before him) his awareness of the essential unity of everything in the Universal Soul Itself.” In a footnote to this statement, written in 1966, his son traced the influence of Einstein’s pursuit of unified theories on his own concept of Onne …-ness.
The ashram had a manager and was run like a dormitory. Residents paid rent and gave gifts to the guru. Televisions and stereos were not allowed, and close friendships among devotees were discouraged; you were there for yourself, on your solitary quest, and your relationship was with your inner self and your master, Satguru. At the management’s discretion you could be asked to leave. One meal every day was communal, an early dinner of vegetarian fare in gleaming stainless steel utensils, in the Indian fashion. Forks and knives were allowed, but grudgingly; you had to ask for them. Occasionally Satguru turned up and ate by himself on a side table, with his hands; there would then be utter silence in the room, all cutlery laid aside.
Ramji was allowed a free bed in one of the guest rooms in exchange for hours he agreed to put in every week in the publishing department, which produced brochures and flyers for the Mission’s activities. He kept his room at the Tech though rarely used it, going to the campus only to attend lectures. His relationship with Lyris was maintained discreetly. He was often in her room, even when she was not there, and sometimes they went out together. But there were other secret liaisons among devotees as well.
He attended with diligence his remaining classes in November and December, having sneaked into his dorm room early a few mornings to bring out his books. He avoided friends, grew a beard, let his hair grow further, and in the manner of the Master wore a white cotton kurta instead of a shirt. He stopped going to the Friday music mosque, and his mailbox in that period received a dozen messages from Sona which he ignored; in the last one Sona said he was moving in with Amy Burton, the girl he’d been seeing for a while; there was an off-campus phone number.
He had called Ginnie once early in December, at the hospital. She was preparing to return home.
“You’ll come to see me, won’t you?” she said.
“You bet,” he replied, “maybe right after Christmas.”
“I’d love to see you again.”
Christmas came, and went; Lyris had gone home and returned in mid-January.
But Ramji didn’t go see Ginnie, he didn’t call her. There was a new coldness in him, an indifference. It was as if he had detached himself from his former self, as far as possible. And yet — God knows I love you Ginnie,
have loved you — in many different ways as you yourself said, and I know you of all people would understand the life I’m leading. In your laughing, carefree way you’d say, It’s all right, Ramji. But I don’t know how to face you anymore, I don’t seem to be the same person, the Ramji you knew. I am carrying on a relationship with a girl I don’t really care that much for, I am at this ashram under false pretenses and merely to escape from myself … I am not a nice person at all. I have become cynical, insensitive, brittle … a shell of myself.
He thought he would write all this, and more, in a letter to her, composed and recomposed it in his mind, began to transcribe it on paper; never sent it.
In December also, Ramji and Lyris had gone to protest the police shooting of Black Panther Fred Hampton while he was in bed. The Freedom Action Committee gang were there, drumming up a riot, as were Shawn and Kate. He avoided them all, but very briefly once met Kate’s eye and turned away. She must have recognized him, despite his beard. She herself looked different that day; her hair had grown and she wore black cords, and the hiking-style boots looked new. Kate and Shawn, he had already learned, had moved off campus.
Gradually, the question of Satguru’s genuineness or fakeness lost importance for him; the ashram had an atmosphere that could only be called spiritual; it had a calmness and a purposiveness that was not overbearing. No one brought up his strange behaviour at the morning darshana: he would not chant but sit quietly in a back row; at the end he would stand up, do a pranam but without going up to kiss the Master’s feet, and leave. At that moment of departure their eyes would meet. It seemed that Satguru, with his liberalness and compassion towards him, was winning him over. Ramji took yoga classes, attended lectures. There was barely any theology to contend with, and the philosophy, from the Upanishads, was attractive and liberating.
