My Guru & His Disciple by Christopher Isherwood Page B

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.
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    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!”
    (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,