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.For even you, Master?
Very heavy, I think, in my vasanas. All these operations-the agricultural workings, these therapies, the publishing bouses that make my image over and over, the bookstores selling these images and my darsbans with many typographical errors, the boutiques selling all clothes in the sunset colors that are also the colors of love, the natural-food stores and the massage parlors in these many places here and abroad that Durga must visit with such great expense-all these things run from my spiritual energy. You smile, why is that?
They stem from your'spiritual energy, they run on it-either would be correct.
So. These things run on me, as you say. English is strange in its little words. In German there is the same thing, the strange floating little words only the natives can dispose properly. I have often considered that language is stranger than it seems. It conveys meaning, we perceive that, yes, but also it makes a tribal code, a way to keep out others. It is of that intricacy which in paper currency is meant to defeat counterfeiters. The religion of the Hindus and even more of the Jains has this repellent intricacy, which to be ideal must be endless, which piles upon the mind until the mind goes blank and may receive enlightenment. I forgive you for smiling at your Master.
Also, I love the way you say "love." Lufff.
Kundalini is a cruel tease of her poor overworked Master. Even she runs on me. The beelike sa
Its essence is illusion.
No. That would be too jolly. The essence of the world is pain. Is dubkba. Dubkba, and fear.
Oh dear.
Truly. " Ob dear" if the truth. You do not feel dubkba and bbaya because I am with you. But the pain and fear that is suppressed in you pushes over onto me, I have sucked it out of you, it comes into me as if into a vacuum. Dreadful terror. Only men and gods can bold such terror. With animals, death is over in an instant. With men, too, in actual misfortune, it is over in an instant-the animal numbness mercifully comes. But a man in repose, be can bang forever over this abyss of bbaya, this steep invisible terror that being alive brings. It is the clamoring of the million demons of death unleashed by Mara on the night of our Lord Buddha's enlightenment.
You mean-there is no release? There is no salvation?
There is for the disciple. Not for the Master. There is for the bees, but not for the queen bee. For by consenting to be a guru, I am permittingprakriti to contaminate my purusba, to make it heavy. I am trading on my atman. For this sin I have this horrible heaviness. Perhaps my energy is no longer fuelling our enterprise. Perhaps my oil filter is dirty. Can you smell it, my fear, my dirtiness? Come closer.
[Rustle.]
And you, do you not ever feel this dirty?
Oh yes. My mother-
Your sari fits you very pleasantly. You look Indian. You need only the pearl above the nostril, and the tikka, the third eye, between your brows. You have the eyes of an Indian woman. The beautiful dark eyes of ressentiment. In India women are worshipped and degraded. It is a good combination.
I would not think a jivan-mukta could feel'fear. In achieving samadhi he has put away kama and krodha, lobha and bhaya.
He is mukta, yes, saved, but also be isjivan, living. That is bis tension. That is bis duplicity.
Could you not withdraw deeper into purusha, to lighten and cleanse yourself?
Ab, Kundalini, I ca
Women feel fear, too.
No. When they do, it is the man within them who is fearful. There is no fear in the woman herself. She is a goddess. To touch her is to feel fear vanish. Your hips are solid. Your husband, did be admire your hips? Did be seize them in the night, for comfort?
He-
Your feet look comely in sandals. Such long straight toes. So many American women, I thought when upon arriving in this continent, have ugly toes, from being squeezed inside the pointed shoes.
My mother believed in sensible shoes for children. We went barefoot all summer, especially in Maine, and when we used to rent a cottage on Martha's Vineyard.
A woman is flame. A woman is smoke. A woman is Radba, sweaty with love. Sweaty with rasa. Your breasts-
[Rustling. Louder heartbeat.] No. Not my breasts. Not today.
[Laughs,] Neti neti? Is there something wrong with your breasts?
No, people-I mean Charles-
Ab, this Charles. lie is in my path. I think you have not yet burned him away.
I'm sorry. I'm not inwardly prepared for-for thts step up. I must go and think. I must meditate.
Meditate well, Kundalini. You can help me.
How? Never mind. I suppose I see how.
Perhaps you do not see all. My desire, my kama, is to turn your body into spirit. I have this power. The adept man has this power. I promise what is called Paramahasukba-instant purusba.
It sounds like just the thing. Master, I must go.
Go, then. May you rise to Sabasrara. May your Sbakti merge with Shiva. OM mani padme HUM.
Oh Midge, I can hardly think, I can hardly talk, I never dreamed-I was so terrified he'd touch it, between my boobs. Now what do I do? I shouldn't even send the tape to you, but I can't have it around here-suppose Durga got ahold of it, or Vikshipta, they both hate me so much anyway. But it seems a blasphemy to erase it-I mean, when all is said and done, he is a kind of god, at least the closest we're apt to come to it. He didn't really strong-arm me, he seemed sort of fumbling, even, and rather pleased when I turned him down. It was sad. And the worst thing was-oh God, I could cry, I feel like crying suddenly, just to be away from them all, the relief-the worst thing was, I'm not attracted to him, I don't think, not in that way. I mean, I love him, the way you and Irving do-I adore him more than ever, now that I've seen him up close instead of on some fuzzy videotape or out-of-date poster and actually seen him breathe, and felt his personal energy-field. I've never felt anything like it, all other men by comparison are brutes or wimps. Though he's not especially handsome, not as handsome as the posters. He's really quite short-he keeps talking about my tallness when as you know I'm not especially tall for an American woman-Gloria's taller, and so for that matter are you-and he has a potbelly, and his front teeth have this cute space between-maybe it's something they do to Indian children when they're little, you know there's this story about his having been maimed to make him a beggar child-and I have the feeling beneath that twisted-wool turban he wears he's probably pretty bald, men with hair of that wiry type-you can see it beside his ears, where the turban doesn't cover, and his beard of course-tend to have that happen. But, my God, the gentleness of the force that comes off of him, it's like an oil bath, it's like the shot of whiskey we used to take working its way into our blood, all churned up, those first few minutes. And once he slipped out of-what can I call it?-his Masterhood, his cosmic distance, and perched forward on that big silver-threaded armchair he uses as a sort of throne to grab my ass, I had this incredible wave of pity, of wanting to open myself the way I used to to little Pearl, to become this brainless fountain of life. I mean, the vibe I got was not so much that he needed to fuck me as feed on me, the way he says we all feed on him. With Vikshipta there really was this sensation of his wanting to sock it to the whole world and I was there under him as a kind of delegate, and the joy of it all for me was my ability to "take it," to absorb the fury and make it into something positive-but with the Arhat there was just an utterly unaggressive neediness, when I thought the whole idea of being a jivan-mukta was that you needed nothing.