March 27
We "took our leave" of Australia yesterday morning and flew to Auckland, departing in a torrential downpour and arriving in cool, autumn sunshine. On the flight U.G. and I got down to a real heart-to-heart. The Stapylton visit changed something, or so it seems.
He is suddenly more affectionate, less harsh. I am openly in touch with my love for him, less fearful of his disapproval. He said I can only be myself when I am not terrorized, not afraid of losing him. So perhaps he is being less terrifying. He said he had to be able to completely trust the person he is with, to be completely open with, say anything to. Yet it must go no further than him or her. I ask myself if I could be up to this kind of discretion, dependability? Things just pop out of me sometimes, as if my need to expose myself is greater than any good sense.
We talked a little bit about money and U.G. said that of course he doesn't want 'the world's richest woman', as all the predictions have indicated would come to him, wouldn't have any use for the money anyway. He even said if I didn't have any money at all, he would share what he has with me! I just dissolved. Several times he took my hand and held it. I asked him whether I was still giving off the bad vibes or whatever was burning him in Bangalore and he said, "You have changed since then."
I was completely enmeshed in the intimacy of that flight, relaxed and at one with U.G., almost like the conspiratorial closeness one feels with a lover. Yet this person is not a lover, and will never be, at least not in a human sense. And any relationship that appears to exist is reborn and dies each day, each moment with no continuity. What transpires in the evening has no bearing on what will transpire the next morning. One moment there is a casual, carefree camaraderie, the next intense awe and devotion, the next dismay over a criticism, the next confusion and disorientation at not being able to make any sense out of what he is talking about.
U.G.’s friend Ronald came over in the morning and the three of us went off in his Land Rover to rent a monitor and two vcrs to make tape copies for people in Sydney. Then to Auckland to Qantas Airlines to confirm our flights to America, to an Indian store for lime pickle, coriander and dal and a few other errands. U.G. made lunch for the three of us, couscous, while I worked on the tapes. He was on my case all afternoon about my inefficiency, my not listening to him, not wanting to do things his way. But I just worked away at what I was doing, trying to suspend my own opinions, my thinking processes. I never felt in any way disconnected or estranged from U.G. Only devoted to him.
Ronald left after dinner. I finished the tapes and U.G. asked me to put his RAGE recording on the VCR to copy it to another tape. I filmed him listening to my two favorite songs, and I was bathed in the glow of love.
Afterwards he showed me that his toe had healed. I asked him if he had a nail scissors and he said no. I said I would like to give him manicures and pedicures and he scoffed at the suggestion. I said I wanted to become indispensable to him, and he emphasized that no one had ever been or would ever be indispensable to him.
But we launched into an amazing, humorous conversation about the nature of our relationship that I cannot recapture. He said he wants someone with him who is able to do things quickly and efficiently, his way. He said he had never been with anyone in such an intimate way except Valentine, no one had ever had this kind of closeness to him and that with it came the obligation for discretion.
We stayed up until midnight talking, laughing. It seemed at times like a conventional discussion about a relationship, about the pros and cons of living together. Yet when you think that it is an enlightened man and a devotee having this discussion, that there is really no relationship there to discuss, that by its very nature it must dissolve from one moment to the next, it takes on a strange twist. Strange and curious and perplexing and amazing.
Yesterday was a completely mellow day. When Ronald arrived, we went to the post office to send the video tapes to India and Australia and the audio tapes to Sweden. I filmed the whole process of packing and taping and addressing the packages. U.G. was friendly and funny, even complementing me on the efficient way I made the tapes last night.
Then to the sea where I took more footage of the Auckland Bay, U.G. wading in the water near a Maori canoe, and the view of Auckland from a lookout point. The weather is perfect, sunny and warm but crisp—no bugs, glistening autumn light. U.G. launched into a description of the way we see beauty versus the way he sees, period. For him, the light sparkling on the water draws his eye, his attention, that is all. He doesn't name it or label it as beautiful or ugly.
Maybe his seeming aversion to nature, to going out to the country to see beautiful sights is his way of reconditioning us to just see. A carving away at the extremes, good and bad, that we create with our thinking.
We had lunch in town at an Indian restaurant with a poster of the Taj Mahal hanging over our table, a reminder of my day away from U.G. back in December. Later I bought a hand-knit New Zealand sweater though it cost $220 New Zealand dollars. U.G. encouraged me to buy it and said over and over again, "It really looks good on you," whatever that means for him.
And after dinner I thought he had gone to the kitchen to throw out—throw up—the potatoes and tomato sauce I had made, but it was only to rinse his mouth, the water in his glass being too hot. Twice he said he really enjoyed dinner, that the sauce was really good. These compliments are so unusual that they make me suspicious.
What is he trying to show me? That I am attached to the compliments and disturbed by the criticisms, or to help me get to the point where neither affect me, one way or the other?
After Ronald left we watched Goldie Hawn in Overboard on the motel video. U.G. went to bed halfway through saying he was tired. I was, too, and went to bed at 9:30.
This morning U.G., Ronald and I set out towards the western beaches, after cataloguing the last of the Bangalore tapes. We stopped once at a health food store, looking for couscous, and again at an information center for the Waitakere Range.
There I walked up to a lookout point and took some videos of the panoramic view, and again of U.G. down below in the parking lot. He was talking about ecology and the environment. Apropos of a sign describing details of the view, U.G. commented: "It's the sign that's blocking the view."
~ ~
We piled back into the car and just a kilometer or so along the way, only a third of the way from Auckland, U.G. said he wanted to return to Auckland, he had no interest in beaches or scenery or sightseeing.
"Is this an order from the Dictator?" asked Ronald. And he commented that it's lucky for U.G. he has such loyal troops. U.G. mentioned later that Ronald and I were welcome to go sightseeing on our own, that we could just drop U.G. off at the nearest bus stop and he would find his way back to the motel on his own! As if we would. Oddly enough, the reversal in our plans didn't affect me at all. I realized that I didn't care much, one way or the other.
We went to a few more stores looking for couscous, including the Asian market in Auckland, but to no avail. I bought some fortune cookies which we opened in the parking lot. U.G.'s said he liked horses and gambling! Though he scoffs at portents like fortune cookies, astrology, palm reading, I Ching, tarot, etc., he participates with enthusiasm nonetheless.
Suddenly U.G. wanted to go to Qantas. "There are two questions and two questions only that I want answered," he said. "One is are we obligated to stay at the motel until the fourth? The other is when is the next available flight out of New Zealand?" So we found from Qantas that we can leave this Sunday night instead of Wednesday, and there was no problem at the motel at all.
I did U.G.'s laundry first, in the motel laundry room, and pressed his clothes with a faulty iron, and then did my own wash. I have taken to washing, ironing and mending his clothes, very satisfying. It is an undertaking that can be begun and finished, one I dedicate to him in love without his being aware of it (or is he?), and one where my mind is less raucous than usual. I have never devoted myself to anybody in my life before, not with this kind of consistency.
On the phone, my mother came up with the expected (from her) question about why don't I let U.G. do some of these things for me, instead of me for him. I couldn't even respond to the question, understandable though it is for her. How to explain this relationship to anyone who just doesn’t understand it? Not possible. My life with U.G. is totally beyond her experience.
After lunch we went out to take videos of sheep with the Lone Tree of Auckland in the background, then a few feet of U.G. and Ronald talking after lunch with the roar of the superhighway in the background. "The silence is there," said U.G., "not in your meditation. What you want, the ending of your thoughts, is that thunder of trucks."
"That traffic is the one that is silencing your thoughts and if you condemn that you have destroyed the possibility of that doing the job. The noise of the trucks, that will do the job. Not the gurus and not the spiritual teachers, and the meditation techniques and yoga. Don’t listen to all these jokers telling you that loud noise will destroy your nevous system and all that. Not at all. The body knows it and cuts out the sound if it cannot take a certain amount of decibels, that’s all, it cuts out. Like looking at the sun, the body closes its eyes, it’s that’s simple. Wearing dark glasses in the sun is ridiculous."
Ronald told me a little of his days in India with U.G., his dependence on U.G. in those days, and his experience of U.G.'s acting as the perfect mirror. He said that if indeed any change has taken place in him, it has been so subtle and so deep that he isn’t even aware of it. I find him a lovely man, gentle, sensitive and real. He says in a way he is still dependent on U.G., that U.G.'s visit is the highlight of his year, and that his early departure is a disappointment, but he is prepared for it because it happens every visit.
A phone call from Bob in California. They are taking a one-bedroom apartment for U.G. which means I will probably stay with Leslie and Jerry. I feel a resistance to leaving this intimacy with him, but perhaps it is necessary, or coming at a good time. What is needed will happen.
Will I continue to travel with him? Who knows. I would say chances are fifty-fifty. The intimacy and loving response from him may be illusory, coming from my own present devotion and love, projections of my own. Can't figure it out.
I finished Donald's book on Krishnamurti, interesting and well-written. It brought home to me what U.G. has been saying about the hypocrisy of J.K.'s "There is no path to truth; no organized belief or religion can lead man to truth or salvation." The book was about J.K.'s organization and how engrossed he was in running it, participating in all its details and the complex politics of the people close to him, his devotees. I knew this, but reading a first-hand account from someone I know, love and believe, shows me the stark gap between the two men.
U.G. is utterly consistent in regard to this matter. If he is paradoxical elsewhere, here he is not. The very whiff of organizing anything other than his personal life, his travels and clothes and food, is blown away instantly. He will walk away from any demand, any suggestion of a public appearance, lecturing, even speaking to groups. He now avoids seekers almost entirely, and, of course, it is only these "seekers of truth" who make up the followers of such a man. No more books, he says, and he is against audio tapes, videotaped talks, and he doesn't care if people have no access to him.
As for his teaching, there is none. Nothing to hold onto, no poetic ramblings about nature and the observer and the observed. As Jerry exclaimed in Stapylton, "U.G., no one can understand what you are saying!" This is the absolute bottom line. U.G.’s words come from a place of no words, and no experience can touch them or make anything from them. It is the reason Moorty said many months ago, "Don't listen to the words, just listen to the sound of his voice." U.G. has no cause, no teaching, but is himself the cause and the teaching, both in his disavowal of their being one, and the pure unwavering demonstration of this by his living every waking and non-waking moment of his life. This I have seen for myself. U.G. is free in a way that is not imaginable to us. Any effort to make the world aware of this will be instantly thwarted by the culture, of which we are a part!
Yesterday morning U.G. knocked on my door to ask if he could take a shower and to tell me that he had talked to Chandrasekhar and Suguna during the night. Suddenly, it seems, they are very positive about my being with U.G., saying I have a billion dollars worth of love for him, money doesn't matter, that I must come with him in June. I was happy to hear this and curious what brought on the change of heart.
We finished the Bangalore tapes in the morning and began on Delhi. U.G. made me laugh when he suggested Ronald and I go to the beach or sightseeing or whatever we want to do, and, he said, "I'll stay home and sink. I'll be a real drag." Of course neither Ronald nor I would dream of going off without U.G. and when one thinks about it, one realizes one doesn't care at all about sightseeing or the beach.
We did go to Woolworth's looking for couscous with no success. But U.G. found some small Bic aftershave colognes which he had been searching for. These he puts in the airline travel bags they give out on long flights, and he distributes them in India as gifts!
Home to monitor videos. Ronald and I talked in the sun while U.G. rested. Tonight we leave for Los Angeles. I have kept the room for an extra half day so we can leave for the airport directly from here. U.G. seemed to go along with this, though he had originally planned that we should check out at 11:00. If I come up with a practical suggestion he will immediately embrace it.
Yesterday we went to Victoria Market, full of craft booths and food stalls. We finally found couscous and another cream-colored jersey for U.G. In the afternoon we finished the India tapes and I will copy the catalogues on the plane.
Ronald left before dinner to go to a rock concert. U.G. and I watched part of The Name of the Rose and part of The Fly on television. U.G. said, "Feel my foot" at one point, which I did. It was ice cold, the right colder than the left. He said he was 'sinking'. I wanted to bring him a blanket, but he just wanted to show me, that was all, and went to bed right after. And when I think of the mystique surrounding the guru's foot, how people long to touch them, how U.G. impatiently brushes them aside. What is he showing me? That his feet are like all others, cold sometimes? Or?
Hard to believe we will be back in the States in twenty-four hours, after exactly (almost) four months. Have I changed? Probably, but I can't say how. I have been through so much with U.G. and yet if I tried to tell someone about it, I wonder if they would understand. To wonder is to speculate, to get caught in the hypothetical—useless, useless.
Today I'll do the last laundry, pack up, perhaps make a tape (for Stapylton) of Shylaja singing before I put the camera away. Robert called last night to say the place in Sausalito is fixed for U.G. for the fourth. We have three days to kill and perhaps will rent a car and drive up to San Francisco, stopping in Ojai and Santa Barbara, neither of which I have seen. U.G. seems up for anything and I see him as a wonderful traveling companion (even though he can be a tyrant)!
~ ~
He vetoed the idea of my sending the tape to Stapylton. He said I was the guest of these people because I am his guest, and I do not need to observe the normal channels of courtesy. We returned to the Victoria Market and I bought a few aboriginal T-shirts, mentioning that they might make good gifts. U.G. assured me he would never buy a present for anyone, bring a present. Yet he gives things away all the time, when the spirit moves him. Why did I make tapes for Stapylton when he had told me not to?
He is suddenly more affectionate, less harsh. I am openly in touch with my love for him, less fearful of his disapproval. He said I can only be myself when I am not terrorized, not afraid of losing him. So perhaps he is being less terrifying. He said he had to be able to completely trust the person he is with, to be completely open with, say anything to. Yet it must go no further than him or her. I ask myself if I could be up to this kind of discretion, dependability? Things just pop out of me sometimes, as if my need to expose myself is greater than any good sense.
We talked a little bit about money and U.G. said that of course he doesn't want 'the world's richest woman', as all the predictions have indicated would come to him, wouldn't have any use for the money anyway. He even said if I didn't have any money at all, he would share what he has with me! I just dissolved. Several times he took my hand and held it. I asked him whether I was still giving off the bad vibes or whatever was burning him in Bangalore and he said, "You have changed since then."
I was completely enmeshed in the intimacy of that flight, relaxed and at one with U.G., almost like the conspiratorial closeness one feels with a lover. Yet this person is not a lover, and will never be, at least not in a human sense. And any relationship that appears to exist is reborn and dies each day, each moment with no continuity. What transpires in the evening has no bearing on what will transpire the next morning. One moment there is a casual, carefree camaraderie, the next intense awe and devotion, the next dismay over a criticism, the next confusion and disorientation at not being able to make any sense out of what he is talking about.
U.G.’s friend Ronald came over in the morning and the three of us went off in his Land Rover to rent a monitor and two vcrs to make tape copies for people in Sydney. Then to Auckland to Qantas Airlines to confirm our flights to America, to an Indian store for lime pickle, coriander and dal and a few other errands. U.G. made lunch for the three of us, couscous, while I worked on the tapes. He was on my case all afternoon about my inefficiency, my not listening to him, not wanting to do things his way. But I just worked away at what I was doing, trying to suspend my own opinions, my thinking processes. I never felt in any way disconnected or estranged from U.G. Only devoted to him.
Ronald left after dinner. I finished the tapes and U.G. asked me to put his RAGE recording on the VCR to copy it to another tape. I filmed him listening to my two favorite songs, and I was bathed in the glow of love.
Afterwards he showed me that his toe had healed. I asked him if he had a nail scissors and he said no. I said I would like to give him manicures and pedicures and he scoffed at the suggestion. I said I wanted to become indispensable to him, and he emphasized that no one had ever been or would ever be indispensable to him.
But we launched into an amazing, humorous conversation about the nature of our relationship that I cannot recapture. He said he wants someone with him who is able to do things quickly and efficiently, his way. He said he had never been with anyone in such an intimate way except Valentine, no one had ever had this kind of closeness to him and that with it came the obligation for discretion.
We stayed up until midnight talking, laughing. It seemed at times like a conventional discussion about a relationship, about the pros and cons of living together. Yet when you think that it is an enlightened man and a devotee having this discussion, that there is really no relationship there to discuss, that by its very nature it must dissolve from one moment to the next, it takes on a strange twist. Strange and curious and perplexing and amazing.
Yesterday was a completely mellow day. When Ronald arrived, we went to the post office to send the video tapes to India and Australia and the audio tapes to Sweden. I filmed the whole process of packing and taping and addressing the packages. U.G. was friendly and funny, even complementing me on the efficient way I made the tapes last night.
Then to the sea where I took more footage of the Auckland Bay, U.G. wading in the water near a Maori canoe, and the view of Auckland from a lookout point. The weather is perfect, sunny and warm but crisp—no bugs, glistening autumn light. U.G. launched into a description of the way we see beauty versus the way he sees, period. For him, the light sparkling on the water draws his eye, his attention, that is all. He doesn't name it or label it as beautiful or ugly.
Maybe his seeming aversion to nature, to going out to the country to see beautiful sights is his way of reconditioning us to just see. A carving away at the extremes, good and bad, that we create with our thinking.
We had lunch in town at an Indian restaurant with a poster of the Taj Mahal hanging over our table, a reminder of my day away from U.G. back in December. Later I bought a hand-knit New Zealand sweater though it cost $220 New Zealand dollars. U.G. encouraged me to buy it and said over and over again, "It really looks good on you," whatever that means for him.
And after dinner I thought he had gone to the kitchen to throw out—throw up—the potatoes and tomato sauce I had made, but it was only to rinse his mouth, the water in his glass being too hot. Twice he said he really enjoyed dinner, that the sauce was really good. These compliments are so unusual that they make me suspicious.
What is he trying to show me? That I am attached to the compliments and disturbed by the criticisms, or to help me get to the point where neither affect me, one way or the other?
After Ronald left we watched Goldie Hawn in Overboard on the motel video. U.G. went to bed halfway through saying he was tired. I was, too, and went to bed at 9:30.
March 30
This morning U.G., Ronald and I set out towards the western beaches, after cataloguing the last of the Bangalore tapes. We stopped once at a health food store, looking for couscous, and again at an information center for the Waitakere Range.
There I walked up to a lookout point and took some videos of the panoramic view, and again of U.G. down below in the parking lot. He was talking about ecology and the environment. Apropos of a sign describing details of the view, U.G. commented: "It's the sign that's blocking the view."
~ ~
We piled back into the car and just a kilometer or so along the way, only a third of the way from Auckland, U.G. said he wanted to return to Auckland, he had no interest in beaches or scenery or sightseeing.
"Is this an order from the Dictator?" asked Ronald. And he commented that it's lucky for U.G. he has such loyal troops. U.G. mentioned later that Ronald and I were welcome to go sightseeing on our own, that we could just drop U.G. off at the nearest bus stop and he would find his way back to the motel on his own! As if we would. Oddly enough, the reversal in our plans didn't affect me at all. I realized that I didn't care much, one way or the other.
We went to a few more stores looking for couscous, including the Asian market in Auckland, but to no avail. I bought some fortune cookies which we opened in the parking lot. U.G.'s said he liked horses and gambling! Though he scoffs at portents like fortune cookies, astrology, palm reading, I Ching, tarot, etc., he participates with enthusiasm nonetheless.
Suddenly U.G. wanted to go to Qantas. "There are two questions and two questions only that I want answered," he said. "One is are we obligated to stay at the motel until the fourth? The other is when is the next available flight out of New Zealand?" So we found from Qantas that we can leave this Sunday night instead of Wednesday, and there was no problem at the motel at all.
I did U.G.'s laundry first, in the motel laundry room, and pressed his clothes with a faulty iron, and then did my own wash. I have taken to washing, ironing and mending his clothes, very satisfying. It is an undertaking that can be begun and finished, one I dedicate to him in love without his being aware of it (or is he?), and one where my mind is less raucous than usual. I have never devoted myself to anybody in my life before, not with this kind of consistency.
On the phone, my mother came up with the expected (from her) question about why don't I let U.G. do some of these things for me, instead of me for him. I couldn't even respond to the question, understandable though it is for her. How to explain this relationship to anyone who just doesn’t understand it? Not possible. My life with U.G. is totally beyond her experience.
After lunch we went out to take videos of sheep with the Lone Tree of Auckland in the background, then a few feet of U.G. and Ronald talking after lunch with the roar of the superhighway in the background. "The silence is there," said U.G., "not in your meditation. What you want, the ending of your thoughts, is that thunder of trucks."
"That traffic is the one that is silencing your thoughts and if you condemn that you have destroyed the possibility of that doing the job. The noise of the trucks, that will do the job. Not the gurus and not the spiritual teachers, and the meditation techniques and yoga. Don’t listen to all these jokers telling you that loud noise will destroy your nevous system and all that. Not at all. The body knows it and cuts out the sound if it cannot take a certain amount of decibels, that’s all, it cuts out. Like looking at the sun, the body closes its eyes, it’s that’s simple. Wearing dark glasses in the sun is ridiculous."
Ronald told me a little of his days in India with U.G., his dependence on U.G. in those days, and his experience of U.G.'s acting as the perfect mirror. He said that if indeed any change has taken place in him, it has been so subtle and so deep that he isn’t even aware of it. I find him a lovely man, gentle, sensitive and real. He says in a way he is still dependent on U.G., that U.G.'s visit is the highlight of his year, and that his early departure is a disappointment, but he is prepared for it because it happens every visit.
A phone call from Bob in California. They are taking a one-bedroom apartment for U.G. which means I will probably stay with Leslie and Jerry. I feel a resistance to leaving this intimacy with him, but perhaps it is necessary, or coming at a good time. What is needed will happen.
Will I continue to travel with him? Who knows. I would say chances are fifty-fifty. The intimacy and loving response from him may be illusory, coming from my own present devotion and love, projections of my own. Can't figure it out.
I finished Donald's book on Krishnamurti, interesting and well-written. It brought home to me what U.G. has been saying about the hypocrisy of J.K.'s "There is no path to truth; no organized belief or religion can lead man to truth or salvation." The book was about J.K.'s organization and how engrossed he was in running it, participating in all its details and the complex politics of the people close to him, his devotees. I knew this, but reading a first-hand account from someone I know, love and believe, shows me the stark gap between the two men.
U.G. is utterly consistent in regard to this matter. If he is paradoxical elsewhere, here he is not. The very whiff of organizing anything other than his personal life, his travels and clothes and food, is blown away instantly. He will walk away from any demand, any suggestion of a public appearance, lecturing, even speaking to groups. He now avoids seekers almost entirely, and, of course, it is only these "seekers of truth" who make up the followers of such a man. No more books, he says, and he is against audio tapes, videotaped talks, and he doesn't care if people have no access to him.
As for his teaching, there is none. Nothing to hold onto, no poetic ramblings about nature and the observer and the observed. As Jerry exclaimed in Stapylton, "U.G., no one can understand what you are saying!" This is the absolute bottom line. U.G.’s words come from a place of no words, and no experience can touch them or make anything from them. It is the reason Moorty said many months ago, "Don't listen to the words, just listen to the sound of his voice." U.G. has no cause, no teaching, but is himself the cause and the teaching, both in his disavowal of their being one, and the pure unwavering demonstration of this by his living every waking and non-waking moment of his life. This I have seen for myself. U.G. is free in a way that is not imaginable to us. Any effort to make the world aware of this will be instantly thwarted by the culture, of which we are a part!
March 31
Yesterday morning U.G. knocked on my door to ask if he could take a shower and to tell me that he had talked to Chandrasekhar and Suguna during the night. Suddenly, it seems, they are very positive about my being with U.G., saying I have a billion dollars worth of love for him, money doesn't matter, that I must come with him in June. I was happy to hear this and curious what brought on the change of heart.
We finished the Bangalore tapes in the morning and began on Delhi. U.G. made me laugh when he suggested Ronald and I go to the beach or sightseeing or whatever we want to do, and, he said, "I'll stay home and sink. I'll be a real drag." Of course neither Ronald nor I would dream of going off without U.G. and when one thinks about it, one realizes one doesn't care at all about sightseeing or the beach.
We did go to Woolworth's looking for couscous with no success. But U.G. found some small Bic aftershave colognes which he had been searching for. These he puts in the airline travel bags they give out on long flights, and he distributes them in India as gifts!
Home to monitor videos. Ronald and I talked in the sun while U.G. rested. Tonight we leave for Los Angeles. I have kept the room for an extra half day so we can leave for the airport directly from here. U.G. seemed to go along with this, though he had originally planned that we should check out at 11:00. If I come up with a practical suggestion he will immediately embrace it.
Yesterday we went to Victoria Market, full of craft booths and food stalls. We finally found couscous and another cream-colored jersey for U.G. In the afternoon we finished the India tapes and I will copy the catalogues on the plane.
Ronald left before dinner to go to a rock concert. U.G. and I watched part of The Name of the Rose and part of The Fly on television. U.G. said, "Feel my foot" at one point, which I did. It was ice cold, the right colder than the left. He said he was 'sinking'. I wanted to bring him a blanket, but he just wanted to show me, that was all, and went to bed right after. And when I think of the mystique surrounding the guru's foot, how people long to touch them, how U.G. impatiently brushes them aside. What is he showing me? That his feet are like all others, cold sometimes? Or?
Hard to believe we will be back in the States in twenty-four hours, after exactly (almost) four months. Have I changed? Probably, but I can't say how. I have been through so much with U.G. and yet if I tried to tell someone about it, I wonder if they would understand. To wonder is to speculate, to get caught in the hypothetical—useless, useless.
Today I'll do the last laundry, pack up, perhaps make a tape (for Stapylton) of Shylaja singing before I put the camera away. Robert called last night to say the place in Sausalito is fixed for U.G. for the fourth. We have three days to kill and perhaps will rent a car and drive up to San Francisco, stopping in Ojai and Santa Barbara, neither of which I have seen. U.G. seems up for anything and I see him as a wonderful traveling companion (even though he can be a tyrant)!
~ ~
He vetoed the idea of my sending the tape to Stapylton. He said I was the guest of these people because I am his guest, and I do not need to observe the normal channels of courtesy. We returned to the Victoria Market and I bought a few aboriginal T-shirts, mentioning that they might make good gifts. U.G. assured me he would never buy a present for anyone, bring a present. Yet he gives things away all the time, when the spirit moves him. Why did I make tapes for Stapylton when he had told me not to?
