After lunch today, Swami told Maria Bürgi to stop wearing hats altogether. (She had on a truly weird contraption, just like a slipped turban.) Bürgi explained that she wore hats out of respect for our sacred surroundings. Swami replied that that was merely an idea of St. Paul’s; it doesn’t apply in India. Swami also advised Bürgi to wear gerua on her head, if she must wear anything. The result will probably be appalling.
I have a new badge now. The same ribbons and general design, but this one has the motto, “Mother, make me a man.”
I presided at the parliament this afternoon, after a flirty tea party with Aranyananda and Shashi Kanto. Such languishing looks, delicate hand-touches and flashing glances are perhaps only possible for the absolutely innocent. Though I’m not sure if Aranyananda is quite as innocent as all that. I feel he has been around.
Our session of the parliament was fucked up by the non-appearance of Mr. Humayun Kabir, the minister for petroleums and chemicals. There is a possibility that he may have heard that Swami Sambuddhananda (the organizer of the parliament, who has the tact of a hog and the voice of a bull) referred to him, by a slip of the tongue(?) as Mr. Hanuman Kabir—which could be construed as a deadly insult since Kabir is a Moslem. Making a monkey out of him, literally!”fn520
My speech was better than the other, though less well received. When I had reached the very last sentence of it, Sambuddhananda handed me a written message, “Continue for fifteen minutes.” Because they had realized that Kabir wouldn’t show. I ignored this, and stopped. This kind of behavior is enormously insulting, however unintentionally so; typical Hindu thick-skinned bossiness.
When I got back to the institute, I dropped and broke my glasses. So Prema had to be phoned at the Math to send my other pair by Sujji Maharaj, who is to meet us tomorrow on our way to Sikra Kulingram, Brahmananda’s native village. Meanwhile, Krishna temporarily mended the broken frame with adhesive tape. He cut his finger doing so—and somehow this seemed touching, a kind of bloodshedding for me.
Maria Bürgi appeared at supper hatless, with a ribbon around her hair. She looked very good.
I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, when Aranyananda appeared. He obviously wanted to talk, so we did, until half past twelve—that is, for more than three hours.
He started with anecdotes about his relations with Shankarananda. (At least, I think it was Shankarananda. Anyhow, it was some very senior swami of the order—which one hardly matters much, since Aranyananda’s attitude to the whole thing was so subjective.) Such studies in monastic psychology exceed by far the sensitivity of a Proust. Aranyananda—his eyes blazing with remembered passion and also with satisfaction at his own hypersensitivity—described how, after waiting on the swami faithfully and faultlessly for months, he made one little slip—forgot to get some medicine the swami had ordered. Next day, he was told that the swami had been very annoyed. So Aranyananda became furious and went into the swami’s presence spoiling for a fight. But the swami somehow conveyed to him by a glance how much he loved him. So all was well. The motif of a loverlike need for reassurance kept recurring. You are equally ready to leave your guru and the monastery for ever, or to fall at his feet in tears. Such scenes could obviously become as necessary to one as playing Russian roulette. They would have to be repeated at least once a week.
I then asked Aranyananda how he came to join the order, and he gave me a description which was built up move by move and word by word. The curious thing about the story—since his must, after all, be accepted as a genuine conversion, not a caprice—is that Aranyananda apparently wasn’t influenced by any living human being. He was more or less of a freethinker, surrounded by very intellectual brothers and sisters, most of whom have subsequently made for themselves brilliant scientific careers. His father (a [literary] scholar) and his mother would have been horrified if he had told them he was planning to become a monk. So Aranyananda had to run away from home, which he successfully did. He didn’t even have a friend of his own age who would have understood him.… And what made Aranyananda decide to become a monk? Simply reading the works of Vivekananda!
The night he left home was very carefully planned. And yet this boy, who was renouncing a loving family and financial security and all the good things of the world, very nearly missed his train because he couldn’t, at that hour of the night, find anyone to carry his suitcase, and to carry it himself would have been a loss of face! Aranyananda quite saw how funny this was.
And now, says Aranyananda, he is blissfully happy at the institute, and he and Ranganathananda and Shashi Kanto quite often joke together like equals, making jokes “below the belt” so that onlookers are quite shocked. He says Ranganathananda can skim pebbles with terrific force, using his bent-back middle finger as a catapult, and he can take water in his closed hand and squirt it for astonishing distances.
Behind all Aranyananda’s stories there is a certain suggestion of “see what a tiger I am—yet I’m as gentle as a dove if you treat me right.” Also, there’s a good deal of name-and-fame awareness. In what other station of life, he asks, would you find famous men and women actually taking the dust of your feet? He frankly delights in this. And he told me, encouragingly, that I should become far better known by my book on Ramakrishna than by any of my novels. (Incidentally, he thinks Romain Rolland’s book is supreme; all I can hope to do is be the next best.)
I see Aranyananda and Ranganathananda as two of a kind. Aranyananda understands and thoroughly approves of Ranganathananda’s ambitiousness. Shashi Kanto is different. He told Swami that he wants to give up work and spend his time in meditation. But Swami told him to stick to work for the present.
January 2. The kind of sweat that breaks out on you on a warm smoky morning here is like the unnatural sweat you sweat after taking aspirin.
This morning, Swami, Krishna and I left the institute by car and drove to Shivananda’s birthplace.fn521 There we met Sujji Maharaj and went on with him to Brahmananda’s birthplace, Sikra Kulingram. It is a tiny village out on the flat paddy-fields of the Ganges delta, enclosed in an oasis of lush trees and very bright blossoms. There is a shrine there, and a guesthouse.
Throughout the drive, I felt awful[.] Partly upset stomach and headache, but chiefly rage against the Parliament of Religions, the Ramakrishna Math, India, everything. This is a very deep aversion which I have been aware of from time to time ever since I first got involved with Vedanta. It has—as far as I can figure out—nothing directly to do with Ramakrishna, Vivekananda or Swami. (Did Roman converts to Christianity loathe the Jews all that much the more?) Anyhow, it all expresses itself in the old cry of the ego, I’m being pushed around!
When we arrived, we were told that Krishna and I would have to share a room. Did I mind this? No—I honestly don’t think so. But I immediately said I had a headache and wanted to lie down. Maybe I did have a headache, but what I really wanted was time to figure out what I was going to do next. I realized that I was going to make a scene and I needed time to rehearse it. Presently, I was through with the rehearsal so I got up and began walking around, feeling better already. It was quite warm, with a brilliant blue sky. The leaves were flashingly green, the flowers were vivid. Dark smiling children sat among them, half hidden in the shadows.
I found Swami sitting with Sujji Maharaj (whom, at least for the moment, I disliked, as being one of the pushers-around). I took Swami aside and asked him if I could have the car drive me back to Belur Math at once. Swami seemed bewildered, as well he might be. He said gently, yes, of course—but wouldn’t I have lunch first? On such occasions, he seldom asks leading questions. If you want to make a scene you have to make it all by yourself, under your own steam. So now I did. I said, approximately, “Swami—it isn’t just that I’m sick—I feel awful about everything. I’ve made up my mind: I can’t ever talk about God and religion in public again. It’s impossible. I’ve felt like this for a long time.” (Already, I had withdrawn the concessions I had previously planned—to agree to talk in Holly
wood after I get home. Some instinct told me that this ultimatum must be drastic or it would make no impression at all.) “I suppose I’ve wanted to spare your feelings, but that’s not right, either. After all, you are my guru—you have to be responsible for me anyway—and you’re probably a saint. Anyhow, you’re the nearest thing to a saint I have ever met. So why shouldn’t you be told how I really feel? It’s the same thing, really, that I told you years ago when I was living at the center: the Ramakrishna Math is coming between me and God. I can’t belong to any kind of institution. Because I’m not respectable—”
At this Swami laughed, more bewildered, than ever. “But, Chris, how can you say such things? You’re almost too good. You are so frank, so good. You never tell any lie—”
“I can’t stand up on Sundays in nice clothes and talk about God. I feel like a prostitute. I’ve felt like that after all of these meetings of the parliament, when I’ve spoken.… I knew this was going to happen. I should never have agreed to come to India. After I promised you I’d come, I used to wake up every morning, feeling awful—”
“Oh, Chris—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you—”
“You know, the first time I prostrated before you, that was a great moment in my life. It really meant something tremendous to me, to want to bow down before another human being. And here I’ve been making pranams to everybody—even to people I’ve quite a low opinion of. And it’s just taking all the significance out of doing it—”
“But, Chris, you don’t have to do it. Nobody here expects it of you—”
All this time, we were walking up and down in the brilliant sunlight, along the path between the ranks of glossy dark leaves, with Krishna somewhere in the middle distance, and Sujji Maharaj and the others on the porch of the guesthouse, and the hidden children watching. I felt that everybody knew a scene was taking place. I also felt that I was acting hysterically. Indeed, I couldn’t have looked Swami in the eye while I was saying all this. But I didn’t have to, because I was wearing the dark glasses belonging to Jim Cole. (I brought them with me to the airport to give back to him—he left them at our house—but then he never showed up, so I had to take them along on this trip.)
Swami had barely understood a word. He was quite dismayed. “I don’t want to lose you, Chris,” he said. I told him there was absolutely no question of that. That I loved him just as much as ever. That this had nothing to do with him. But still he didn’t understand. He looked at me with hurt brown eyes. I felt rather awful and cruel—but not very. However dishonest all this may have been in one sense (for, after all, by taking this stand, I am saving myself one hell of a lot of work and annoyance) at least its expression was honest and frank. It was far better to have spoken than not to have spoken. The boil was lanced and I felt better immediately. Sujji Maharaj received the news that I was going back to the Math with his usual slightly cynical impassivity. “Can’t take it, huh?” he was thinking. He often used to look like this when I was sick during my last visit. We had a silent embarrassed lunch at which I ate only rice. Then the chauffeur drove me back into Calcutta in a cloud of red dust. Through the eyes of my relief, India suddenly seemed charming. The long fruit market alongside the street of De Ganga village, where we were stalled behind produce trucks. I almost loved the dark-skinned country people, so completely absorbed in the business of their world and shouting at each other in angry voices without anger and with campy fun. And I was so happy to get back to my quiet room at the guesthouse.
When I told Prema about all of this, he was most understanding. I hope he’ll be able to explain things to Swami in due course.
January 3. At lunch Nikhilananda talked at length about John Moffitt and his defection from the order to become a Catholic.fn522 He often refers to Moffitt; it’s obvious that he feels guilty and responsible for what happened and is trying to forestall criticism. Nikhilananda is very sympathetic at such moments, because he really does seem to cover all Moffitt’s reasons for leaving him, including Nikhilananda’s own bossiness and constant belittling and humiliation of Moffitt by loading him with menial chores and failing to acknowledge the huge extent of his literary help in the books they published. But, as Prema pointed out, what Nikhilananda doesn’t take into account is that Moffitt really is drawn to Christianity and prefers it to Vedanta and Ramakrishna. Rather than admit that, it seems, Nikhilananda will blame himself.
Not knowing Moffitt (I’m supposed to have met him once but I don’t remember it) I picture him as a weaker brother of mine. I think that he, like me, is prone to do more and accept more responsibility than he really wants to, and then to have violent reactions in which he goes to the opposite extreme. (Once, after nursing Nikhilananda with the utmost care, while he was sick in the country, he suddenly walked out on him, leaving him all alone.) I say he is weaker than I, because I know enough about myself, usually, to let off steam before the pressure gets dangerous.
As for the bossiness of swamis, whole books could be written about this. They are nearly all arrogant—lacking in manners—by western standards. They push their disciples around. (Of course, I’m only speaking of the kind of swami who has disciples.) They push the younger swamis around, even. When you see Nikhilananda bullying Al Winslow or the countess, you feel he is compensating for what the British did to India. (Nikhilananda, to his credit, was an active anti-British terrorist in his teens and got sent to a concentration camp.)
Went to the Cultural Institute for a social tea arranged by Ranganathananda; just another concealed lecture. I found Swami there, in bed with a cough; very rumpled and sad. He had become sick again at Sikra Kulingram. The country dust is blamed; but I got a strong impression (later confirmed by Prema) that the sickness has a lot to do with me. This is perhaps the only respect in which Swami can be described as sly; he is absolutely capable of getting sick to make you feel guilty, though I doubt if he realizes this—it is purely instinctive. Since I couldn’t possibly admit that I know this about him, all I could do was to be extra sweet, and at the same time absolutely firm about my decision. (As I said to Prema, I think the Hindu national technique of wheedling has even been developed in relation to God. Their motto is: All’s fair in prayer.)
The atmosphere, even in Swami’s bedroom with the air conditioner working, was thick with smoke. Never have I known it worse. Ranganathananda tried to get me to stay the night; but I had nothing with me, so could excuse myself. Ranganathananda was belittling Swami’s illness and telling him he should do asanas. (He can lie on his stomach and bend so far backward that he looks straight up at the ceiling.) Swami was saying he’s too old to travel. I suspect that he’ll cut his trip short.
So I had to double for him and myself as guest of honor at the grim tea reception. It was held in a room containing an enormous circular daybed, on which a sultan surrounded by a dozen reclining wives could easily sit. Ranganathananda tried to make me sit there, with the fifty (or so) guests around me. This I wouldn’t do. But after tea I had to let myself be publicly quizzed by him. He made everyone shush, and then asked me questions; I had to answer in a voice loud enough to be heard by all. Among other things, he tried to get me to say that I disapprove of the dirtiness of modern literature.
Later the conversation became more general. Dr. Roy, wriggling girlishly, told us how he had seen a yogini, a woman of about thirty-five, levitate in a small mud hut. She did a lot of deep breathing, then took one great breath and rose into the air from the chair on which she had been standing. Dr. Roy and his friend, a skeptical chemist, passed their hands under her feet.
Noticed, on the drive into Calcutta, the huge wheels of a bullock cart with a dwarfish driver sitting between them, pointing his stick at the bullock with the gesture of an enchanter pointing his wand.
January 4. Today, Prema and Arup got their heads shaved, in preparation for sannyas. They were very coy about this. On the one hand, they didn’t want to expose their baldness; on the other, they wanted to tan the indecent whiteness of their skulls. The shave
n Bengalis, with their brown skins, look perfectly natural. Prema told me he feels that this ceremony was a crossing of the rubicon. Now he is really committed. He and Arup have already been issued their gerua clothes, all neatly folded ready to be put on.
All over the compound, the preparations for the big celebration on the 6th are almost ready. There is an arch over the entrance gate, numerous big pandals with blue and white striped curtains, tented entrances to the shrines of Brahmananda and Holy Mother, hung with glass chandeliers, a pavilion containing all the books about Vivekananda in every language. In several places, the cobra and swan emblem has been put up in wickerwork.
A little golliwog-haired professor named Naresh Guha, whom I met at the tea yesterday, and who is writing a book on Yeats, came to take me to Javadpur University,fn523 where I gave a question-and-answer talk to the students. It went quite well. They seemed to understand everything I said, and they reacted. Among other things, I talked a good bit about Huxley.
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