Free Liberation by Christopher Isherwood Page A

He says of Belur Math, “They are waiting for me to die”; in other words, they won’t send him an assistant because, after he is dead, they can send one who’ll do exactly what they want. And what do they want? Apparently to do away with nuns in the U.S. Swami takes all this quite calmly, seems to find it mildly amusing. But he now says he will seriously consider training some of the monks to give lectures. He remembers that Vivekananda said once that Vedanta societies should be run by Americans.
    A day of energy. I am really in pretty good shape now, though Leslie’s supper put a couple of pounds back on me. I went to the gym, ran round two blocks, shopped, polished the bumpers of my car with chrome polish. We keep getting different maids. Today was Josephina, for the second time; Leslie says she’s “sly” and always getting pregnant.
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    September 11. Swami said of himself the other night that he could never have run this center without Maharaj: “I had no education.” This surprised me. I have often heard Swami express spiritual humility, and one expects no less of him; but I’ve never heard him say this about his education, before. I’ve always thought of him as having had rather a good one; those English-run Calcutta colleges had very high standards in his day. I suddenly saw that he must have felt his lack of education strongly in the presence of Aldous and Gerald—but then, anyone who didn’t would have been a fool. No, what I mean is, I’m surprised to find that Swami values education for itself; I suppose I expected him to find it slightly ridiculous, as Ramakrishna did.
    Talking about humility, he also rather stunned me by saying, “But Chris, you’re the most humble man I ever met—all that fame, and you’re so humble.” He also said (referring to his need for an assistant) that he wished so much I had stayed with them, so I’d now be able to give lectures! We were talking about this at breakfast this morning; Don asked me if I regretted having left the center. I said I find it impossible to say I regret anything I’ve done—that is, anything not definitely “bad.” Yes, I turned my back on the boot camp which would have probably drilled me into swami material, and perhaps I would have had a marvellous life and even been thrown out of the order for giving my blessing to homosexuals—either that or just died young of misery and gone straight to the loka or committed suicide by living in India. But, on the other hand, haven’t I, by doing what I did do, fulfilled at least a part of my dharma ? How can I regret the books I’ve written since then? And as for the life I’ve led! And I’m not now speaking of mere “happiness.” My life with Don has been happiness– unhappiness raised to an intensity I’d never dreamed of before; much more and better than that, it’s been a discipline in which I’ve often failed but from which I’ve learnt a great deal of what I now know. Well anyhow—
    Tennessee Williams and Oliver Evans 40 had supper with us the night before last; now they have left for Japan on a boat. Tennessee got a bit drunk (which apparently is nowadays unusual for him) and talked about how his brother got him put away in a looney bin. He is obviously unreliable in his account of this, yet the horrors don’t seem like paranoia. There is a sanity and an intention behind them, they are a sort of sketch for a future artwork, a play or a story. I do brighten up and expand in his presence; I love him. He is so essentially joyful.
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    September 13. Finished chapter 12 today. It only took me five days, which sounds good but actually there wasn’t that much to be done to it.
    Yesterday we got up extra early. By seven thirty I’d nearly finished my meditation when there was an earthquake, the second strongest one I’ve ever felt, I think; only the 1952