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I find your kindness to me rather stu
Please. No fishing, Kundalini. You are magnificent. Your breasts are magnificent. Once, you did not let me caress them. You did not let me caress them like this.
Perhaps the context was different. Time has moved on. I was then in your abode, now you are in mine. You are my guest, one refuses a guest nothing. Master, why have you come to me?
I was alone. I was nervous. I thought of you, perhaps also alone. There has been so much disturbance but I am left alone, at the hurricane’s eye-is that an expression? Ma Prapti has the many reporters to fascinate with her horrifying confessions. Durga has her fellow-warriors to exhort and imbue with thirst for glory. In my solitude I enjoy samarasa, the divine immobility. But for the condition ofsabaja, of the non-conditioned and purely spontaneous, to reach that ofadvaya, of non-duality, and from this to attain Mabasukba, of which we once spoke, there must be yuganaddba, the principle of union, which implies an initial duality. I thought of you. My inkling has been that you, too, wish to confront the other, the opposite, and thus achieve advaya. It is perilous, because within it one loses the self.
You said you felt nervous. How can this be when you are a jivan-mukta, always in a state of samadhi?
I am Arbat, a follower of Buddha. The Blessed One did not leave the world, did not disengage himself from the confusions ofjiva and ajiva and withdraw into nirvana like your cowardly Jesus. He stayed upon earth, instructing and consoling bis disciples to the age of eighty. If we stay on earth, we stay inprakriti. If we stay inprakriti, we are subject to thevasanas and cbittavrittis of other men. We are subject to nervousness in the forms of lust and fear. This is the great sacrifice the enlightened make, out ofkaruna, out of compassion. Indeed you are smooth, as smooth as Hack Kali. As smooth as Satyavati after bathing in the river Jumna. As smooth as Radba upon the flower couch in the groves of Vrindavan. There is that faint oiliness which I much love. It makes an iridescence.
My father had dark skin. My mother is quite pale. She takes a terrible tan, but keeps trying.
Yes. Your rich mother. We discussed her. I think you are very close, mother and daughter.
Not really. We got off on the wrong foot somehow, when I was very little. About your fear. Is it that you are afraid of death?-of course not, how could you be?-or of the troubles in the ashram sending you back to India?
I am not so afraid of India. Perhaps I am afraid of non-India. I am afraid ofadvaya, of non-duality. Tor as long as there is duality, the spirit does not need to unrobe. I am not afraid of unrobing the body and will do so. But I am afraid, yes, of the spirit unrobing itself of the body. Ofjiva shedding ajiva. That is what I promised you, I think. To turn your body into spirit, to have the great bliss, the Paramabasukha.
Do you think I'm ready for that? Maybe to start with we could have just a little sukha.
Let us concentrate, Kundalini. That is stage one. We will let Durga have her shootout on the bills and the FBI men shoot back and the poor little sa
I love it when you explain things. Would you like to touch me again?
That comes later, the touching. First is concentration, sa-dbana. We concentrate upon the beloved. It is best if she is parakiya rati-the wife of another. That is why I so much like your Charles. We need him. Otherwise you are apakva, unripe. Otherwise you are samanya rati, ordinary woman. We must mentally conceive you into visbesha rati-woman extraordinary, divine essence of woman.
Shall I concentrate on you, too?
It is not so necessary, what the woman does. But yes. I am nitya manus, eternal man. lam sabaja manus, man unconditioned, lam ayoni manus, man unborn. My linga is all lingas. My mouth is all mouths. My hands are all bands.
That idea gives me the creeps. I want them to be your hands, your hands only. When can you start touching me?
I am Krishna and you are Radba and we are in Vrindavan. Many flowering trees all about us. The smell of much mai-tbuna all about us. The sound of water ru
Is there a next stage?
Smarana, recollection. I think ofKundalini as when she first came in her rented Hertz, in a checked suit too hot for the sun, with the bold ma
And I think of you as you were from afar, a brown face on a poster, on the label of a cassette.
Which cassette did you possess?
The one on yamas and niyamas.
Yes. That was a good one. An early one.
And then the one where you answer questions about the aham and the burning away of the vrittis.
I had stupid questioners that day. Stoned hippies and Vishnu bums. All squatting on the din floor in Ellora. Before the solid middle class discovered Buddha and pulled out their fat wallets.
Should we be proceeding with the ceremony? Should you have all your clothes still on?
It is not important that the worshipper be naked; only the goddess, the worshipped. Now comes aropa, the attribution of qualities. You are woman, nayika. You are tall. You are dark. You are smooth. You are splendid. You have limbs like thick luminous snakes. Your belly is waxen and long, long; under my eyes it has dunes and hollows like desert sands in moonlight. It has shiny stripes like veins of expensive mineral. Your navel is an eye without an eyebrow. It is elegant and long and was well cut by the doctor the day of your birth. Bless that man. He is present in your navel.
I was born in the war, in '44. Daddy was in the South Pacific on a destroyer. The hospitals were understaffed and the doctor on emergency was a black man my mother had never seen before. Our own doctor had collapsed; he hadn't slept for thirty-six hours, there were fights and accidents all over Boston then, the soldiers and sailors and all these jazz places. It was wartime. My mother said she was so terrified she vowed she'd never bear another child. But she did, four years later.
People forget pain. They do not so quickly forget bliss.
Oh, stop looking. I am so old. My poor saggy body. My poor stretched belly, that's what those marks are, from carrying Pearl. This Paramahasukha should have come along when I was twenty.
You were not ready at twenty. You were only ready for Charles.
I was ready actually for a boy called Myron Stern, but my parents disapproved so violently I was scared off. What a docile nitwit I was.
With this Myron, too, dubkba would have entered in. Life is dubkba. Dubkba is incorrectly translated "pain." Buddha did not say, "Life is pain." Dubkba is disenchantment. He said, "Life is disenchantment." He said, "Life is a letdown." With Myron, as with Charles, there would have been enchantment, there would have been disenchantment. Even with Arbat.
Not with you, Master.
Why not? I am myself or another.
No, you are you. You have attributes. Let me see you.
I am afraid to disrobe. I am afraid of non-duality.
Don't be silly. Let me help.
[Faint tumult.]
I am fat, yes. My telly is in layers like a cake.
Just cozy. So much nice soft black hair.