My Guru & His Disciple by Christopher Isherwood Read Free Book Online Page B

Center.
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    Early in 1940, I got a job at M-G-M. This was chiefly thanks to the Viertels, who knew a producer there, Gottfried Reinhardt, one of Max Reinhardt’s sons. We were to make a film out of James Hilton’s novel Rage in Heaven. My fellow screenwriter was Robert Thoeren, an Austrian. So I remained within the refugee world even at the studio. Gottfried, Robert, and I often spoke German together when we were discussing the script.
    Looked at from outside, my life could have been described as busy, successful, and social. I was earning five hundred dollars a week, low-bracket pay by movie standards, Arabian Nights wealth by mine. I wasn’t inspired by my film work but I was fond of my fellow workers and enjoyed our parlor game of plot construction. In the evenings, at the Viertels’ and elsewhere, I mingled with famous and fascinating people: Aldous and Maria Huxley (who had a house nearby), Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Anita Loos, Thomas Mann and his family, Bertrand Russell. And yet, deep down, I was miserable. I felt steeped in that dull brutish inertia which the Hindus call tamas, the lowest condition of the psyche. My misery expressed itself in various minor ailments. These were being treated by a doctor, whose large fees I could now easily afford.
    The days go by and I don’t see the Swami, don’t start meditating. This isn’t mere laziness. The opposition is enormously strong. Incredible as it seems, part of me actually wants to wallow in black lazy misery, like a pig in filth.
    My diary adds that Vernon has finally caught my depression, “like a South Sea islander who nearly dies of a common cold imported by a trader.”
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    March 6, 1940. I’ve seen the Swami. He says if I’m too busy to meditate I should think about the word Om, which is God. But I can only become aware of God by thinking all around him. Om says nothing. It’s just a comic noise. I’m afraid the Swami is altogether too Indian for me. I must talk to Gerald again.
    The Sanskrit word Om is used by Hindus as the basic name of God, because it is thought of as being the most comprehensive of all human sounds. Fully pronounced, it combines utterance by the throat, the mouth, and the lips—approximately Ah-oo-mm. This I already knew. But there were moods in which my anti-Hindu prejudice made me rhyme Om with Tom, thus turning it into “just a comic noise”—as in om-tiddly-om-pom.
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    In July, I went at least twice to a class Prabhavananda was giving on the Upanishads (those portions of the Vedas which contain the teachings of Vedanta philosophy; the rest contain prayers, hymns, rules of conduct, and instructions for the performance of rituals).
    Seated on a cushion, he smilingly exposed the ignorance of his class. He is gentle, persuasive, and humorous. He speaks quietly, with an absolute, matter-of-fact authority. To him, spiritual truths are unanswerable facts, like the facts of geography. You don’t have to get excited about them, or argue or defend. You just state them … I notice that he has a taste for very elegant, pointed shoes.
    Someone mentioned the Holy Ghost. The Swami was asked to explain It, and said that he couldn’t, he wasn’t a Christian. So everybody present had a try, and the difference in our definitions was a sufficient comment on the muddle of Christian theology. To every suggestion, the Swami replied, “No—that is too far-fetch-ed.” At last he sent one of the girls out for Webster’s Dictionary. Some of the class were quite scandalized. “You won’t find it there,” they told him. But the Swami was confident: “Webster’s Dictionary can tell you everything.” He was wrong, however. Webster said only: “Comforter, Paraclete.” The Swami promised to “ask Mr. Hard.” He seems to have great confidence in Gerald.
    On