Travels with UG

July 1

Back to a cool, wet climate. U.G. is resting in his room until lunchtime, after which we'll go for a drive. I have unpacked, bathed, shopped, feel clean and at peace. A calm, perhaps, between storms.

Nobody else is here until Wednesday so there are a few days to unwind, rest, just be. The tension with U.G. is, for the moment anyway, over.

We rented a car at the airport and drove up to Gstaad, stopping for groceries along the way. The chalet was ready for us. We dropped our bags and went down the hill to the village to rent a multi-system VCR and television. U.G. knew exactly what he wanted to do, and did it.

We had supper early last night. I am charmed by the birds and the beauty and the cool, clean air. I am in a sanitarium here. I walked down to the village while U.G. rested, returning just before a huge thunderstorm, which later turned into hale. A train passes right by the chalet, there's a brook nearby and the village and the mountains can be seen from every room.

Mahesh called to see how U.G. was. He asked me about my mood on the way to the airport, said I had seemed down. I replied that I had been tired and in a bad mood because of all the joking about the suitcases and left it at that.

This morning U.G. said maybe he only gave me 600 R and he did something with the other 200. He is being very nice to me now and I feel a re-establishment of ease. I have no ideas or expectations, I am here with him and it is what I want.

Being Sunday, the shops were only open a few hours. I bought some tomatoes, potatoes, cheese and a few other things from the corner market and now we are all settled. U.G. rests a great deal, knowing how to care for himself. I am reading the Bhagavad Gita and it reinforces my desire to express my devotion to U.G. silently, in my actions.



A rainy, overcast day. This afternoon we're driving to Zurich to do some shopping, and tomorrow to visit U.G.'s friends, Hans and Doris about an hour from Zurich.

After lunch yesterday we drove around Saanan and Rougemont. U.G. showed me the chalet he and Valentine rented years ago, Chalet Pfyffenegg, and the Chestnut tree in front of it with the bench where he had his Calamity in 1967, when it all began. The bench looks out over the valley and the seven hills. I wanted to sit there for a moment and he said, "Don't think you're going to get anything." I said I knew that, I just wanted to experience the bench.

We drove by the meadow where J. Krishnamurti’s gatherings were held in a large tent. Then we went by the chalet where U.G. originally rented a room, and the spot in the garden where he pitched his tent on the weekends when Valentine came up from Geneva, so she could have the room. I was touched that he took me on this tour.



In Zurich, we stayed at the Zurcherhof Hotel in the old town, did some shopping in the afternoon and had an early dinner at a vegetarian restaurant near the station. U.G. went off to bed early, 6 p.m. I wandered around for a while, looking for an adaptor plug for my camera and browsing in shops.

This morning we had breakfast in the hotel and drove to Romanshorn to see Hans and Doris, U.G.'s friends. Hans is a homeopath and after examining U.G., found that he has a hernia, not prostate trouble. A big relief, though he still needs an operation and will probably return to Bombay in the fall to have things taken care of. We left at 11 a.m. and drove home in the driving rain, stopping in Bern to buy lime pickles at an Indian store, apparently the only outlet for Patak in Switzerland.

U.G. suddenly refused to get out of the car and go with me, he said he wasn't interested in Indian food at all, didn't want idlies, etc. I am used to his mood-shifts by now and am less ruffled by his criticisms and attacks. He chastised me again tonight for not putting Max Shaw's zip code in the address book I did for him, he said he could count on me for nothing. I just let it go, didn’t defend myself.

What is he doing to me? I am quiet most of the time. We spend hours without talking, without saying a word. Most of the conversational subjects I broach fall on unreceptive ears. My personality is at stake, my need to make small talk.

When U.G. mentioned my not listening, not hearing and I asked if there was anything I could do about it he said, "You could hang yourself from the nearest tree," his way of saying there is nothing to do, that it is hopeless.

It is fantastic to be in this cool, mountainous spot.



U.G. and I went down to the village yesterday morning and did errands, later driving over to Shonreid to look for a studio for Luna who arrives tonight.

I was about to go to the laundromat in Saanen, but noticed U.G. washing things by hand. He told me he has never used the laundromat in the twenty years he has been coming to Switzerland. I immediately decided to do my own washing as well, to do as he does as much as possible. Soon the clothesline in front of the chalet was full of wash. Later, I ironed his clothes. Everything in this chalet including the iron and the vacuum cleaner is antiquated, but works in its own feeble fashion.



'Bodhi', Gottfried and I went to town in the afternoon to look up their latitudes and longitudes for charts, then picked up Luna at the station. It was pouring rain all day. I took her to her chalet in Shonried, which she loves, then back here for dinner. Bodhi and I share the cooking, though U.G. made spinach soup for supper while we were out.

I am now aware that he relates to everyone in the same way, and can be as withdrawn with others as he is with me. He tunes out. I am reminded of Jerry's warning not to take anything U.G. does or says in the conventional sense, not to judge him as you would a normal human being.

Above all I realize I must keep my own counsel, trust my own feelings.



Difficult times. The full moon has come and gone, a hard one on U.G. He seems tired, low on vitality. Last night at dinner he turned on me suddenly, and said he didn't want me to cook for him anymore, anything I made he would not eat, he was tired of my putting 'branches' (coriander) and vegetables in his food. I could cook for myself and others, he said, but not for him. This time he got to me. I was devastated. It was so unexpected, it seemed so unjustified.

I was too confident, arrogant. He had complained about vegetables earlier, and Bodhi had suggested we give him pasta without sauce, without tomatoes. I insisted that I knew he would eat tomato sauce, that I knew what he liked. I also insisted on cooking dinner, rather than leaving it to happenstance. I am so used to taking over, doing everything.

U.G. was hovering around during dinner preparations, which he usually is not, so he must have picked up on my sureness. If there was one thing I was sure he liked, it was angel-hair pasta with simple tomato sauce with a little curry powder. But I saw that no matter what I made it would be wrong. Is he showing me something?

The thought of not cooking for him threw me into a state of anxiety. Now it is morning, we’ll see what happens. Luna felt he was cruel to me, harsh. I was hurt, confused, and a little angry.

Yesterday morning we drove to Launen, a beautiful mountain area nearby, Bodhi, Gottfried, U.G. and I. I love these mountains and chalet houses way up, built near streams, with attached barns. I told Bodhi on a walk with her after lunch that if U.G. sent me away, or I ever left him, I might decide to live in a little hut by myself with a dog and a goat, at least during the summer. I would not go back to my life in New York.

I like Gottfried and Bodhi. He is a beautiful man, gentle and wise, and a wonderful artist. She is childlike, in her fifties, also a good artist. It is peaceful here and everything works well. Exception: my troubles with U.G.



U.G.'s birthday. Bodhi brought a little bouquet of wildflowers for the breakfast table this morning, only to be reminded by U.G. that he sees no reason for the flowers to die for human enjoyment. If you want to look at flowers, he says, you can go outside to the field. Animals don't kill for pleasure, only for food, they eat only one thing, don't require varieties of food.

I passed through my pain with ease yesterday, though I am still sleepless due to the full moon. (It was so bright over the mountains, magnificent, and Saturn burning brightly nearby, both Saturn and the moon in Capricorn.) I was close to tears in the morning as Bodhi made porridge, and again couscous for lunch. I set the table and allowed the pain to flow through me.

Lunch brought lightness from U.G. and a release for me. Bodhi's couscous had no sauce or salt, as she was convinced that the problem the night before with my cooking had been salt and the indigestibility of the tomatoes. I knew it wasn't that, but didn't know what it was. But I have two theories, one that he wants me to get me over my need to be needed, my desire to serve, to be useful, a good person, and two, that he wants to work with Bodhi for the time she is here, and a point of contact with U.G. is always through food, or money, or both.

I need not assume that I am always the cook, the organizer of the house and kitchen. It will be true sometimes and sometimes not, always depending on the situation. There can be no assumptions of any role, any position, any status quo. Any idea I have of who I am in relation to U.G. or the situation is going to be destroyed.

I have to break the idea that he has any need for me to do anything; I have to be able to be the stone, the vegetable, just be, not earn or justify my keep in any way. When I began to get an inkling of this, and when clues came at lunch (he said I knew how to make tomato sauce, could help Gottfried with his potatoes today, said he liked salt in his food, that the couscous was tasteless and horrible, i.e. that it was not my cooking that was the problem), I was able to relax.

By the end of the day I was feeling lighter and freer with U.G., natural, and no longer in this mode of serving the guru, just living here too, without the need for perfection or slavish devotion. He won't let me touch the VCR, says I will break it, so that is fine, I won't touch it. He will ask me for whatever he wants of me, like recording Gottfried's story, writing a letter to Sushil Kumar. I do not have to be an initiator of anything, just do as I am told.

It is startling to think that the reactivation of the thymus gland is the basis of enlightenment, the goal of all religion, nothing more, nothing less. And it is nothing that can be activated by any practice or by any contact with a teacher or sage. This is what U.G. says.



The drawings were excellent. Photocopies have been made and dispatched to India and one remains here. U.G. said yesterday apropos of drawing and painting (and writing) that when the artist is not there, when the mechanical process takes place on its own, the work will be creative. You must let the subject and the technique alone, get rid of the artist. But, on the other hand, it's worse to try to get rid of the painter, you just have to let the technique have its own way.

My daughter arrived the morning Leboyer was leaving. U.G. blasted Leboyer at lunch, indicting Freud as the phoney fraud bastard who gave him his ideas about underwater birth. U.G. insisted vehemently that birth cannot be a trauma, it is too natural an event. Leboyer was resistant and stubborn, could not listen. Somehow his attachment to his ideas about birth, breast feeding, and nurturing directly relate to his crisis with the woman he lives with in London, advice about which is the reason for his visit to U.G. Leboyer said you weren't a mother if you hadn't breast-fed your child. I said I was a mother and hadn't breast-fed the third of my children, my daughter. She was horrified, hadn't known that, was upset.

What a scene.



Absolutely exhausted from lack of sleep. I feel terrible, and must sleep tonight or I won't be able to drive to Rome tomorrow. I rented another car from Hertz.

U.G. is unrelenting, uncompromising. If you ask him for help, you get it, but in ways you don't want or expect. Perhaps you are not even aware of being helped, until later, or perhaps never. We supply the bullets, he cannot help firing at our falseness. And then we duck, saving ourselves, choosing to remain stuck, miserable, not opting for freedom and change. "I can't" means "I don't want to," he emphasizes over and over. I have seen this in my own case, and in that of others.

U.G. is right, but we don't care. We prefer misery. Hope of an easier path, a compromise. There is no such thing.



Back from what U.G. calls a flying trip to Rome, though we drove (I did) both ways. I tried (as did 'Mary') to figure out the reason for the trip as it was not at all obvious. U.G.'s reasons were, he said, that he wanted to make use of his Italian visa, that he wanted Mary to "finish the job" on her sculpture (of his head), and that he wanted to replenish his wardrobe.

We drove down on Sunday the 15th, leaving Gstaad at 9 a.m. and arriving in Rome at 9:30 at night. I said I wanted to buy a map to see where I was going, and he discouraged me, saying we have maps in our minds, anyway, and they interfere with our seeing, that he knew the way perfectly. In Livorno we got on the Aurelia in the direction of Grossetto, avoiding Florence, city of 'brothels' (museums), and ending up off the Autoroute, following the coast on a Sunday night. But the traffic wasn't bad, and only an hour was added to the driving time.

Still, it's a long way, a long drive to make alone, though I felt energized by U.G.'s presence, safe. When he drives long distances, he never gets out of the car. Somehow he programs himself ahead of time, regarding toilet needs, etc. Not the case for me.

We stayed at Mary's the first two nights and moved to Paolo's the last three (as he has air-conditioning). Rome was very hot, too hot to do anything between noon and 4 or 5. I loved being back there and had forgotten how beautiful the city is, the light, the birds, the church bells, the winding streets. Mary and I took U.G. to visit the house I lived in in the 1960s on the Appian Way, introduced him to the gardener next door. U.G. said I was making up having lived in Rome, that I had bribed the gardener to pretend to recognize me.

Shopping with U.G. near the Piazza Navona, I wanted to buy papadums for Switzerland in a specialty food store. U.G. suddenly turned on me viciously, reciting the old refrain that I have no place with him, can't live this life. I pursued the matter this time, asking him to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Later I went to his room to push it further and asked if it has to do with my conflicts, that if I really wanted to be with him, nothing would stand in my way, no power on earth. I would not weigh this with that, want to be in two places at once, be indecisive. He said, yes that’s it.

~ ~

I'm glad we went to Rome. U.G. wanted to go, and driving him there was something tangible I could do for him. I enjoyed getting to know Mary there, before coming here, as we will be in this house together for the rest of the summer. She, like so many of the people around U.G., has known him for many years and has a proprietary attitude towards him, very sure of what he wants, how to deal with him. It is interesting to talk to her about Valentine and Parveen Babi and Kim, the people who traveled with him in past years. This harshness is nothing new, according to Mary. She says he has always been particularly rough on women.

Good to be back in the mountains, the cool nights and the dry, hot days. Never uncomfortable in the shade, a constant breeze.



There was a full solar eclipse at 5 a.m. this morning, and the sun is just rising now, 6:30 as it ends. We didn't see it, but theoretically will feel it. It is exactly on U.G.'s Mercury, 29 Cancer, and conjunct all his other Cancer planets, including his moon and ascendent. Paolo and I talked about U.G.’s chart while we were in Rome, and according to astrology, this is a key week for U.G., as Jupiter moves past his moon and ascendent at the same time as the eclipse, with an opposition from Saturn. If nothing major happens, it will be a blow to astrology.

The atmosphere has changed here with the arrival of new people, Henk and Robert (an artist from Amsterdam), Mary and her son. Mary is aggressively friendly with everyone. I like her and don't mind.

The first day back here U.G. told me he didn't want me to cook for him, that I should just make what I want for myself and whoever I invite. Mary interpreted this that he likes to do things for himself, that he needs to do things, that he doesn't want me to be in charge of the kitchen or serve him. Fine, I said, not hurt this time, completely comfortable with making salads.

But immediately, at the next meal, U.G. asked me to warm up his leftover couscous. And yesterday evening, when Paul Sempe arrived, a sweet man who comes from Marseille to drive him around every summer, U.G. asked me to make dinner. So? I must just remain flexible and go from meal to meal. Perhaps he doesn't want me to become bogged down in cooking, or to invite others to eat here. There are too many people around now, and unless he specifically invites someone, best to keep things simple. My tendency to feed the world will get me into trouble.

Luna and I went for a beautiful walk along the Saanan River yesterday, and stopped at the Krishnamurti left in Saanan where I bought Commentaries on Living, a book I almost bought in Rome but decided not to, thinking U.G. would be disgusted. Then I realized I had not done what I wanted to, which was to buy the book. Chandrasekhar told me how he used to take it up to the Ramakrishna gardens in Bangalore and read it and the other two volumes.

I told U.G. I was reading this book because he said I had no background, though I have read many books. He said what he meant was that I had no interest in these matters, that freedom or enlightenment had not been a burning issue for me. This is true. My practice, so-called, with Buddhist masters and others was more to ease my psychological pain, to get past my terror of death and life, than for any mystical union with God, or grasping for ultimate truth.

Anything that comes from thought is vicious and destructive.

Yesterday morning a discussion was going on about going for a drive with U.G. and Paul. U.G. invited Mary to join them. I felt excluded. Mary demurred saying since he had me for company, he didn't need her. Angry and hurt, I blurted out, "I’m not going," rejecting before being rejected.

U.G. replied that if I was going to behave this way I must pack up and leave for New York. He was telling me that I had things all wrong, that my presence with him was a given, I would always be included as long as I was here with him. But that this kind of trouble-making temperament had no place.

As things unraveled, I saw how I had misinterpreted the situation and created trouble where there was none. Mary meant literally that since I was here and able to go with him on these drives, she didn't need to suffer the winding roads and heat. We never did go for a drive, and the storm passed.



An enormous crisis has transpired and I am just beginning to sort it out, recover and feel its consequences. Yesterday morning I went down to the village at 9:30 to buy some chocolate for U.G. and started back up the path where I ran into Paul. U.G. was coming down the hill at the same moment and when he saw Paul he said, "Let's go for a drive." To me he said, "We may not be back for lunch." This latter remark was delivered with icy detachment and disdain.

I was shocked and shattered. He had said to me the day before that the person who was with him (which is me presumably, at least for the moment) would always have a place in the car, always be included. And here he was going off without me, proof positive that I was not the one who is always with him. He had also said that he was not going to make arrangements for me in Amsterdam, that our time together was over, the video virtually finished, no reason for my being here any longer. I had no place with him, couldn't fit in, couldn't change my habits and ways of doing things, didn’t want to change.

When I went down to the village I was insecure and frightened, and after U.G.'s remark, devastated. I made my way back up the hill crying and heart broken, wept for over an hour as I have never wept in my life. The shattering realization that I was rejected, unwanted, being driven away was horrible. I couldn't believe this was happening to me, that U.G. could be so cruel. I was reminded of all the rejections of my life rolled into one, all my efforts to please the father figure spurned, my actions invalidated, my good will crushed, my heart in shreds.

I had to leave. There was no other option. He didn't want me with him any longer. I could hang on like April or Cedella, wait to be bodily thrown out or a body-guard called in, or I could just go. In the midst of my attempts to pack, Luna called from Shonried, the voice of reason. (Don’t do anything precipitous.) Also an Indian yoga teacher from the Krishnamurti conference came by to see U.G. and engaged me in conversation. My departure was delayed.

When Luna arrived we went down to Gstaad to meet two trains, looking for Stanley who never arrived, and to have coffee and talk it over. I finally saw that my intense clinging to U.G., my fear of disappointing him, angering him, not living up to some impossible standard of behavior, my terror of having this life with him end was causing the very thing to happen that I feared most—leaving him. His harshness, seemingly unending and unreasonable criticism reflected my morbid, servile attitude towards him, grasping at crumbs. I was shocked to see how far I had fallen in dependency, fear, lack of boundary.

As I sat in the cafe I realized the most profound hopelessness. The reality sank in that I could not stay with U.G., he wanted it to end, he wanted me out, yet there was nothing else in the world I desired, nowhere else I wanted to be. I could not change, and I could not stay with him the way I was. Everything was flat, lifeless, miserable. And from that numb despair came the courage to get it over with, to pack up and go. Things were desperate and action was called for.

I returned to the chalet alone to make my move. I thought I would stay in Stanley's place for a night and then look for something else the next day, perhaps rent a car, perhaps go to France. Luna and I had met two trains looking for Stalney’s arrival but realized he was probably coming the next day. I couldn't understand how U.G. could leave his arrival to chance, how he could count on me to pick him up, considering the way he had treated me. Stanley was more U.G.'s friend then mine, and I had pointed this out to him several times. (And he would lash out, "Don't try to be clever, use these tricks.")

When I returned, Henk was there and U.G. had returned. Henk said U.G. was celebrating and I figured he meant celebrating my departure and was hurt anew. When U.G. appeared, he asked where Stanley was, and when I told him he hadn't arrived, he headed abruptly down to the village with Henk. As he left, I said that I thought I should move to Stanley's place for a bit and he said coldly, "You do what you want."

So I had no choice but to pack, resigned and miserable. When U.G. returned, I was ready to go, taking all my personal possessions, but leaving behind all that had to do with him, video camera, tape recorders, cassettes, books. He suggested sitting under the tree because it was so hot, then said he didn't see why I was leaving in such a rush, why one day more or less mattered. As we talked I realized I didn't have to go.

The important thing was that I had faced my worst fear, leaving. My mind had made the shift and the cord of clinging was broken. U.G. showed me that I had created the whole scenario, that he had left me behind to meet the trains, that I myself had said someone needed to be here and he assumed it would be me.

I don't believe he does anything on purpose. Some response comes from him, a response to the situation, or more exactly, to my reaction. He responds and I react. Whatever is needed to break down these reactions comes from him, spontaneously and immediately. Something broke in me and I was freed from my fear. I would stay, but remain packed, ready to go. And when I unpacked later, I realized I would remain packed in my mind, always ready to go. It is the only way to live with U.G., or with anyone, or anywhere.

U.G. said that this time with him is an incredible chance to become myself, to become who I really am, and in that spirit I can live anywhere, with anyone or alone. Have I become somewhat unhooked from U.G.?

Yesterday was one of those perfect for no reason days, when the sunlight was magic, my body at peace, tingling with well-being. I was detached from the dramas and intrigues around me, not threatened by anything. U.G. went after me again in the morning and I treated it lightly, fearlessly joking with him about it, and he stopped, and laughed.

In the evening Henk, Robert, his girlfriend, Paul, Mary, Lorenzo, Luna and I went up to the top of Hornberg for rosti potatoes. The cows milled about outside the door with their bells, the sun set on the mountains and it was lovely. I was in no conflict about going. U.G. wanted to eat alone and watch a video. I was not torn in any way.



Yesterday U.G. and Paul and I drove down to a village near Bern to visit Valentine's sister, Adrienne, 93, who was staying with her daughter and son-in-law. U.G. was sweet with her, and she was touched by his visit, said he was fidèle coming to see her every year. He left her a video of Valentine in Bangalore, so she could see how she is and understand the life that goes on around her.

Paul recited Baudelaire and Rimbaud to Adrienne, much to her delight. Afterwards we went to Bern for lunch in a vegetarian restaurant and to do some window-shopping.

Before leaving in the morning, U.G. and I had a long talk, he roasting me for my pettiness. But I held my own, unafraid of him in the way I had been before. I can listen to him now without being blocked by fear. My investment in pleasing him seems to have lessened and I am trying to understand what he wants and do things his way. If "his way" cannot be my way, then I will have to leave. If I have no investment in my way, then I can be in no conflict.

The minute I let go of my need to have a place with U.G. every minute, I don't care about Amsterdam, or going to Bern, or any of it, and I can go or not go, it is the same.

~ ~

Last night after dinner in Shonried, the view again was magnificent. Paul, a philosopher in his own right, explained U.G.'s idea about splitting. Thought is there. Then we come along and a thought is isolated, somehow and splits in two, half of it being the 'I' and the other half the thing 'I' am looking at. Neither is real.

Out of the human experience of 'table' comes a thought of table, and it divides in two, half of it is me and the left that I think I am, and this left or 'I' sees the table. Neither the table nor I exist, but if anything exists, it is the table which causes me to exist when I name it. And that left of consciousness I call 'I' and I will do anything to substantiate that I, to continue its existence, even though it doesn’t exist.

U.G. explained it tonight, cozy in the living room, just a few of us, wonderful atmosphere.

Am I am getting the hang of it? Something seems clearer. I am full of vitriol and anger, hostility and impatience, irritable with Stanley and even Luna. I am restless when I am away from U.G. Does this mean I am to be always with him, or is it the remains of dependency? I am more alert to U.G.'s message, listening in a new way.

Paul asked me tonight why a beautiful woman like me is staying with U.G. He said it must be very reflechi on my part, and I said it is choiceless, instinctive. I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing but I'm doing what I want to do. That I know.

Though sometimes I question even that. Robert called last night from California and asked U.G. how he was treating me. He had heard from Leslie who had heard from Luna that he is giving me a hard time, being cruel. After the call, U.G. asked me, "Do you think I am a sweet, gentle, mild Jesus?" And then went on to say that of course Jesus himself was far from gentle and mild, that he beat people with sticks.

The question is: Why stay with someone who treats you badly? Is this relationship any different from all those in my past, aside from its celibacy? In those, I was trying to complete myself through the man, and trying desperately to please, and taking endless criticism and abuse. And here I am in the same position. I tell myself it is different, because U.G. is in this natural state, amazing, unique and I have everything to learn from him about him, about myself, about reality. Yet he says we cannot change, that we cannot understand, cannot even listen. So what really goes on? If it is true that there is no mystical content to our relationship, then what?

~ ~

Mary made gnocchi for the joint birthday of her son and Anthony. U.G. emphasized that he and I were strictly guests, so I did nothing to help. Paul and I met Stanley at the train at noon and took him to Shonried to get settled.



Yesterday U.G. and Paul, Mary and I went to Thun for lunch and some shopping. A peaceful, uneventful trip, no fireworks. In the car I asked U.G. about pettiness, clarifying that it was not the same as meanness. He said he would not tolerate meanness around him for one minute, while pettiness he could accept in someone, though only for a limited time. He said I was petty and cheap, but I felt cheerful about it in some way, glad at least that I am apparently not mean.



The four of us are off to Zurich today. My son may appear at any minute or he may not. I could wait here by the phone in case he calls from Geneva, but I don't want to. I have learned that if I stay with U.G., things are fine and I am not in conflict. If my son uses his intelligence, he will take the train to Gstaad and hang out until we answer the phone.

This was all quite painless for me. I asked Tim to stay here in case my son calls, and then asked U.G. if it was all right with him. No it was not. I'm glad I asked. He does not want people around, especially for meals. He said if I was concerned about my son, I could stay here and wait by the telephone, but not to ask Tim to do this. And I did not want to wait by the phone, of that I was certain.

He and I talked about these matters last night, but there was no charge and I am not afraid of him now. I revere him, but the groveling is gone since the crisis. We also began to talk about fall and New York and plans and it seemed quite clear that he expects me to stay with him, go to California and so forth. So that is a relief.



We have been here a month, one more to go. Everyone else but me seems concerned with how U.G. treats me, the people in California, Mahesh (who called last night), Luna.

U.G., Paul, Mary and I went to Zurich yesterday, having lunch at the vegetarian restaurant and then doing some shopping. U.G. went off on his own for a bit, and Paul to see to the car, leaving Mary and me alone. She said she had never seen U.G. like this, so closed, so negative, so hostile and she said she thought it was my being with him, anyone being with him, that he didn't want it. That everyone else felt the same way.

I asked Paul whether he thought U.G. had changed and he said not at all, he was exactly as he always had been, though perhaps his teaching had become more accessible. So I think this is all in Mary's mind. She had much to say about how kind and considerate he has always been with her, not like this at all. I asked if he was being hard on her, too, and she said no, not at all, he was always wonderful to her.

It feels like we're competing in some way. I understand it, but can't do anything about it. She reverses herself constantly, one minute saying he never kept her waiting, and the next he always did, one minute saying he did all the cooking for her, the next she did it for him. Weird.

I seem to be the only one unruffled by his behavior. Yes he's hard on me sometimes, but I believe it has to do with routing out my falseness, my desire to run things, be in charge. The difficulties I have run into in my relationships with men have been my headstrong will, my need to do things my way, assuming my way is best, and the 'other' is a dolt. U.G. is not a dolt. Forcing my will has gotten me nowhere but into conflict my entire life, caused me to shoot through countless unhappy relationships, at odds and at war.

I don't think I will ever understand U.G.

Mahesh called at 10:30 and I woke U.G. As he was going back to bed, he referred to Mahesh's question about how he was treating me. "I'm not mild, gentle, sweet," he confirmed again to me, as if I didn't know. "I'm not Jesus." But then he hastened to add that Jesus himself was harsh, beating people around. Yes, U.G. is harsh. But he is also gentle and mild.



A torn muscle in my right shoulder makes everything painful. Don't know how long it will take to heal. Even typing hurts. We had Ortolani and his wife and Michel for lunch yesterday and in the evening went down to watch the National Day celebrations in the village. A bonfire and fireworks and parade.

U.G. has been exceptionally mellow, gentle and accessible. Talking to Mary late last night, I realized that what motivates him to move from one place to another is not media exposure, as he claims, but the need of one of his friends, disciples. Through his interaction with that person, we all see something about ourselves, can learn something. Though he appears harsh and a butcher sometimes, he is routing out our thinking mechanism, our ideas about ourselves and the world, trying to free us to be ourselves. It is the fire Larry writes about, not the icepack we would prefer.

For some reason, this all seems clear to me now, though he would deny it and undercut this evaluation.



Everything has changed again, law of the universe! First of all I woke up to find my arm nearly well. Whether it was U.G.'s cooking (he made lunch) or what I don't know, won't know. Or perhaps just taking a bath before bed. I felt better. Mary opted out of the drive, the requisite every other day ritual when Paul is here. We drove up through Col de La Croix and down into Montreux for lunch.

Going up Col de la Croix I asked U.G. if St. John of the Cross had anything new to say. His answer was that he had basically been unable to break away from Christianity, that none of the Christian mystics had broken with their tradition, just added to it. If anyone has anything more than a petty little experience, he says, everything is shattered, tradition, the master, all rendered obsolete.

Strange thoughts. Mourning my aborted grandchildren the other day, I told U.G. In the car he brought it up, said the feelings were intelligent. Incredulous, I asked him later what he meant, and he said having abortions was intelligent, if you don't want the children, the misery. But that is not what he meant in the car, I'm almost sure of that.

He told Paul that maya, in Sanskrit, means measure. You measure from the supposed left, that is, yourself, the illusory you you supposedly experience. Thus all measurement is illusion, you are illusion. There is no space, no movement. You are not moving. But, he said, don't try to understand this logically.

Thoughts, when they come to U.G. are burned. They are not used for achieving anything. We use them, to gain something and to perpetuate ourselves, therefore they don't burn and they divide, creating the thinker and the thought.

Attachment is causing me pain, otherwise I wouldn't be trying to detach.

~ ~

I called Mike yesterday and was filled with love, talking to him. I cannot detach from my children and don't want to. I love them. I think I love them particularly when I am here, not there.

U.G. is trying to decide about travel plans.



U.G. came out of his room with his address book, ready to plan September's travel plans. He addressed most of his remarks to Mary and asked her if she would be in Rome then and suggested he return so she could go to work again on the head. Why he wants her to do it so much I don't know, nor does she, but it is clear to me it is for her, not for him. Either he wants her to use her good talent again, or he wants to give her confidence, maybe both.

I was completely relaxed about the plans, not caring where we went, or if I went with him, or returned to New York early to get things done, or stayed here with the Tucks, or whatever. For once I had no agenda. It became clear that he expected me to come to Rome with him, asked Mary to ask Paolo to make arrangements for both of us. But it didn't matter to me, that's what made the difference.

Later in the morning, Henk called and said arrangements in Amsterdam were underway for September 1, so U.G. immediately changed plans and said we would go to Amsterdam first, directly from here, and to Rome after.

~ ~

There are about fifteen or sixteen people coming every evening to talk to U.G., a constantly changing panoply of individuals from Scotland, England, Italy, Holland, France, the U.S. A girl from Poland, a violinist, said she was not going to the Yehudi Menuhin concert in Saanen because of lack of funds and U.G. right away reached in his pocket and gave her the money for a ticket—an example of how he responds instantly to a situation. People come and go, constant hellos and goodbyes.

At night my mind plays its petty tricks, worrying about money and plans and apartments, but by day I see that there is no problem, anywhere, that everything will fall into place in its own way, that I don't need to control things, or even try. To trust, to surrender to the current, the motion that is life.

What seems to have changed is I am more prepared to be alone now, I could be on my own in a way I never could before. Being with U.G. is being alone, and I feel myself connected to some other flow, not so utterly isolated and needy. It is a subtle change and nearly imperceptible.

Stanley left, an odd departure. U.G. had insisted he send his bags through to the airport by train from Gstaad, also told him to come up in the morning, instead of the usual time in the afternoon. As it turned out, both of these directives were important because the concierge where he was staying made a mistake and thought he was leaving yesterday instead of today and had someone coming into the room. U.G. told him to go to Geneva a day early so he could see something of the town, spend the night there. The whole thing was a jolt to Stanley, but probably just what he needed, to get the departure over quickly, to have some time to reorient himself before going back to New York and ABC. U.G. knows these things, and he responded to this need.

Luna, Mary and I saw Stanley off after lunch, after a coffee near the station.



What a strange life. I have no desire to do anything other than what I do every day, household chores, cooking, shopping, talking to people and listening to U.G. It is a very compact, full life, one which does not extend very far beyond this particular hillside in this particular village in Switzerland. This is my entire reality right now (except when I think about my children or my mother, or sometimes the past)!

U.G. is gunning for my personality. He lumps most of my questions and remarks into coffee table conversations, good for the cocktail lounges, he says, but not here. He turns a deaf ear to any comment coming from me, ignores me.

U.G. talks endlessly with Mary about nothing, and is far friendlier to her than to me. I might as well not exist; I am a non-person in this house. If he isn't being downright insulting, or making insinuating remarks about the garbage. ("Last year we took the bag down only once a week, this year it is every day.") He looks through me, ignores my very existence. I am trying to just live and let live, go with the generally pleasant atmosphere and not need affirmation of my existence from U.G. It will not be forthcoming.

In the beginning he was charming to me, always introducing me to everyone, making a fuss about every little detail in my life, bringing me into conversations. Now it is quite the opposite. What is going on? When my personality asserts itself, when someone else brings me into the picture, it feels strange as if a stranger is speaking through my mouth. I don't know who I am anymore.

U.G. is killing me and I wonder just how far it will go. Will I be a shadow of my former self, incapacitated, but still limping along under the delusion that I exist, that I 'am'? No psyche, no consciousness, no unconsciousness. No nothing. No me, no you, no world. I'm not bothered, just bemused.



2 a.m. A sleepless night. My mind is in tatters, burning up. I feel the same disorientation I did after leaving Andrew, no reference point. Terrifying and sickening, making me nauseous. Can't cry, can't sleep. Almost took a Valium, but took it out of my mouth at the last moment. Have to stay with this and see where it takes me, if anywhere.

Not sure what triggered this. We went to Geneva today to have lunch with Viru-ben, the lady we saw in Bombay in December. U.G. was friendly to me all day. I was relaxed and at ease, joking and talking, no fear. In the morning, before leaving, he had asked me to write Terry for him, saying he wanted the cave built in the Crow's Nest so, "(if she is still around) she will have a place to stay," and to write him a check for the first two and a half month's rent.

Light and cheerful, had a nice conversation with Mary afterwards. We are getting along fine and it seemed the tension was over. I should have known it couldn't last. By the time we returned to the chalet, U.G. was beginning to badger me, complaining about dinner, attacking me for my useless taping efforts. I spoke with Gorden in New York and when I told U.G. that he is very flexible regarding September, he rejoining loudly and frostily that he was not going to spend even one night in my apartment.

I don't know where this leaves me. I floated past it at first because my daughter, my son and my mother called from Maine and I had an hour talk with them. U.G. went to bed in the middle of it, then Mary. I fell into total insomnia. I am being dragged through my worst fears, abandoning my children and mother, losing contact with my security and resources, having to make huge decisions. I find it all horrible and painful and unfair. There is no fairness with U.G. He is torturing me in some new way.

I am being torn apart and I hate it. I try to relax and go with it, but cannot. I know I must let him have his way with me, can't escape. But I am terrified. This feeling of madness is horrible. He is horrible. How can he do this, why do I have to endure this? Or is it just the same old thing I have suffered all my life?

U.G. hasn't done such a great job as a father. He hasn't even done such a great job with his devotees if the people around him, myself included, are any example. I'm angry at him, and frightened. He is cavalier and arrogant.

7 a.m. I'm exhausted, but with the light of day less freaked out. A splitting headache and a numbed sadness. Usually I look forward to 8 a.m. when U.G. comes out for breakfast. Today I feel he is the executioner, and dread the movement of the clock. Why have I given over my power to this man? And yet there is no alternative, nowhere to go from here.

Is he driving me away from him because he is not comfortable with my presence? Or is he methodically murdering my mind, according to some inscrutable plan of his own?



Talked a bit to U.G. yesterday morning, but nothing was resolved. He told me I should not listen to others, but ask him if I have any doubt about anything. He said I am "funny" about money, unclear, cheap and petty. This I must resolve before we go much farther. I feel out of control, don't know what I'm spending or for what. I try to see it as "letting go," but the result is a confused, anxious mind. I must take care of my business affairs. He is not going to do this for me.



Sleeping badly. U.G. says it is because of my petty thoughts, my ambivalence. Perhaps it is so. The absolute bottom line is that if I want to be with him, there is no power in the world that can stand in my way. My worries about money are standing in my way. In some way I am unclear, odd about it and I'm not sure what the worry is about.

Talking to Luna yesterday, it seems as if perhaps I pretend to myself to be wealthier than I am in an effort to be with him, to talk myself into it, talk him into it. But facts are facts. I want to give him everything, but in the next frame I am afraid for my security. U.G. won't take my money.

Otherwise he is being quite friendly. An occasional barb about my eating habits, taking cheese from the plate with my knife and then putting it on my bread, from which I've taken a bite. A Brahman habits of his, which I forget to honor. But mostly he is mellow. The worst thing he does is ignore me.

As long as I am interested in what he has to say and what goes on around him I will be fine. If that is no longer the case, I must go. Luna and I had coffee with Tim yesterday and discussed whether U.G. is or is not a guru, no conclusion, though it is clear he acts like one in relation to most of us. Dependency is the big issue, but if one were independent, one would not need him, nor be attracted to being with him.



When I say to people that I have no life to go back to, I realize this is not true. I am in the middle, wanting two things. I want to travel with U.G., have this unique relationship with him. But I also want to maintain my base in New York, go there from time to time, keep in touch with my children. I feel my relationship to the latter is threatened, and it is one of the reasons for my nervous mind, calculating, trying to figure out strategies for keeping both going. In a sense I am planning for the time I will not be with U.G., living in the future, rather than just adhering to what is actually going on now, that which is the case now.

Money is symbolic of this dichotomy. I cannot be clear until I am clear, and when I am clear about one thing, I will be clear about all things, and that will be clarity of mind. (U.G. says there is no such thing as clarity of mind.)



Yesterday was a horrible day. It began with silence in the morning, neither U.G. nor I saying a word during breakfast. He disappeared to his room and closed the door soon afterwards. When Mary and Paul appeared later, there was a pregnant heaviness in the air, no energy.

I said I had written a letter to a French friend (Elisabeth), expressing my irritation (in response to a letter of hers) at the way she came to visit me in Maine with her children and her demands for food, requiring special hamburger (in a vegetarian household), complex ingredients for daily soups, etc. U.G. said it was just what had happened here. I had come into a simple situation and complicated it. I saw what he meant, but my feelings were hurt at the comparison.

After lunch I asked U.G. whether he had any objection to my offering Tim money to stay in the campsite at Saanen rather than in a field in Launen. Asking was the wrong thing to do. He blew up at me, saying, "Don't do anything for me," and berated me for being mean, cheap and petty, showing off, being territorial. We were in the midst of this heated denunciation when Mary appeared to do his ironing. The conversation (such as it was) stopped dead, and he began a cozy one with her about his clothes, matching colors, etc.

I was fuming and felt like murdering both of them. Fortunately, Luna appeared at that moment and we left for a walk. I was hurling pebbles at the trees with rage on the way down the hill. I ranted to Luna all the way down Eggli, so angry I wasn't even afraid in the lift going up. A beautiful walk, but marred by my anger. Though it was good to express it, and let off steam.

I thought of U.G. and how this matter was not at all on his mind, that it had disappeared from his screen immediately on my departure and would only return when I reappeared, a different frame. I, on the other hand, carried it with me for hours, analyzing, fuming, dissecting and blasting.

I was still upset and angry when we returned, talked to Tim in the living room while U.G. carried on with his visitors outside. I am less afraid now, the anger and pain have burned some of the dependency from me. I look at U.G. and listen to these conversations and wonder if I'm mad, being here, thinking this is all that I want in the world. As predicted by Luna, and even by me, the tables turned again yesterday and all was calm.

U.G. did his usual peacemaking gestures of (what I consider) prasad. We stopped at the Geissmann's chalet and several times he cut pieces of chevre and handed them to me. He let me take along the video camera and made no fuss about my filming.

What I have seen, basically, is that I am a petty bitch, there is no other word for it. I do not resist this now, I know it is true. By knowing this, I don't blame others for being just as I am, but own up to it in myself. I cannot be otherwise, unless it drops away. But perhaps I will be less judgmental. I am territorial, I show off. Anything that bothers me about others is something very present in myself.

This morning the phone rang at 5:30, Douglas calling from California for U.G. I lay in bed awake afterwards for a while and realized I was light and happy, no problem. The peace after the war, not to be counted on lasting. Underneath is the knowledge that there is no permanence, there is no security. But why hold on? When we part we part. I have parted over and over again, and survived.

U.G. said, months ago, that the day I no longer suffer from his fire I will leave him, go away.



My journal seems to be repetitively and entirely about the ups and downs that go on for me here in this house rather than about U.G.'s teaching. But then the ups and downs are the teaching. Yesterday afternoon, during the 4 to 6 discussion, as the train roared past the chalet, U.G. said to Ortolani, as he always does, "That is your teacher," and for the first time I felt I really understood something about this, about the silence that these sudden noises really are, rather than the artificial silence of meditation or isolation from the flow of life.

If I could really listen to that train, or that truck, or that jackhammer, without recoiling from it or considering it an interruption of my train of thought or the conversation, more thought, it would end all thought. It would silence thought. That's it, that's what he means. But I avoid it, listen or try to listen instead to the prattle and roar of my own thinking, or try to listen to what U.G. is saying instead of staying with "that sound."

He is saying that sound is your teacher!

Mahesh sent an article that appeared in the Indian magazine, Society, with some of my photos. I had it photocopied, and U.G. passed the copies to the assembled people late in the day. Bernard said he hated one of the pictures, that he thought U.G. looked sick, it was not a good likeness. U.G. turned on me later, saying all his friends thought the photo was lousy, that it reflected me, not him, that all my photos of him reflected me, that he would no longer allow me to take photos for the newspapers! He finished it off with the remark that I was only good at taking photographs of "sheep." The absurdity of the whole thing was incredible, yet the force of his anger and energy was as present as it ever is, and I was forced to withstand it.

Perhaps the blast was to keep me from getting too sure of myself (How could I ever be sure of myself?), not to be proud of having been quoted about U.G. in the article, I don't know. Perhaps he is tired of my photography and doesn't want it to continue.

But after this intense day, I was more present than I have ever been, more attuned to his teaching, understanding him in a new way. And after dinner we had a beautiful relaxed conversation about politics and the origins of religion, U.G. at his best. Talking about Anandamayi Ma, I said I had heard she was very rough on a few of her disciples. U.G. said, "Yes, of course, what do you think?"

Not that he would acknowledge himself as teacher and me as disciple, but I heard from him the confirmation I need to sustain myself.



What a dizzying merry go round. I stayed up until 1:30 talking to Mary last night, the two of us closing down Gstaad, sitting alone outside in a cafe, the village dark and asleep. We had gone to Thun earlier in the car (with U.G. and Paul), tension and distance between us. First off in the morning U.G. had taken my photo over to Mary at the breakfast table and asked her what she thought of it. She responded immediately that it was terrible and chastised me for putting it in the hands of the journalist.

I was incensed at her criticism, and retaliated by complaining about her scraping toast crumbs onto the floor right after I washed it. Petty, petty.

U.G. showed us that we can't trifle with him, that's for sure. After all Mary's and my promises to talk things over and get along, he turned our resolves into ashes.



Well we've had the showdown I knew was coming. After an unusually peaceful and cheerful dinner (Mary and I had just commented on how "happy" U.G. seemed, how mellow), the shit hit the fan. He and I and Mary, Luna and Paul were sitting around the living room talking after dinner. Mary suggested doing the I Ching for the head she is supposed to sculpt of U.G.

Suddenly U.G. commanded me to do the I Ching on when I was going to leave him. I was put on the spot, and under pressure. I did it, jokingly, getting all kinds of mixed messages, Nourishment, then Decrease.

Then U.G. launched into his attack, "What makes you think you can stay with me? You are petty and mean and cheap. All the time I'm asking you to go, if you want, if you can't change. Being with me is not like being with your husbands, your lover boys. I don't care about you. I don't care about anyone. I don't give a damn for human foibles. If you want to rent a house and take in all the Adris and Tims, you do it, but not here. Do you think I give a damn for your cooking or your petty gifts, shoes, t-shirts? Your photography is useless. It's acceptable to have pride if you've done something, but you've done nothing. Your videos are worthless, I'd throw them all out. Do you know how many people want to do what you're doing, living with me, traveling with me? Why you? What have you got to offer? Why do you want to be here? If you want woman's lib and independence you should be elsewhere, live your own life somewhere else. If you want to be here, you live my life, do things my way. What's the good of talking to Luna and Paul and Mary, what can they tell you? Everyone all over the world wants to know why her, why this woman who came out of nowhere? When you are with me, you are me to others. You must be very clear why you are here. This is walking the razor's edge."

He continued in this vein for nearly an hour, without a word from anyone else. After I got over the first shock, the first resistance to what he was saying (leave) and the humiliation that he was going through this in front of the others, I braced myself in the chair and gave myself up to the storm. This time I let it flow through me, tried to listen for the key points.

When he was through, there was silence. I said I would stay here, not go to Schonried with Luna and Paul for the usual coffee, realizing that this was key, my endless talking with others about my situation, about U.G. To avoid talking to Mary, I went down to the station to try to call my family in Maine, but the line was busy. I took this as a sign to leave it and return home. I didn't want to talk to them, anyway. I needed to process U.G.'s blast, take it in.

When I returned to the house, Mary was still poking around the kitchen, looking for parts of her watch that had dropped on the floor. The phone rang and it was Mahesh. He asked me why I sounded strained, and I said I had just received an ultimatum, either I change or leave. "Change what?" he asked. "My meanness, pettiness, cheapness," I answered. "You're not mean or cheap," Mahesh rejoined with gentleness. "Where's the old man?"

I called U.G. and after he talked to Mahesh, I asked him to stay with me a few minutes and let me ask him a few questions. So we settled back into chairs and went over it again, though this time he was gentle and kind.

The bottom line is that I must drop my habitual behavior if I want to be with U.G., and the most obvious thing is my tendency to rely on others for analysis of the situation, for confirmation, to get attention by talking about my problems.

This is what U.G. does not want. When I am with him, whatever happens is between him and me, not between me and others. He is the one I should address myself to, depend on. I have consulted others my whole life, but not really listened, ended up doing what I wanted anyway. This is what must change. If U.G. is my only reference point, I can have no conflict. I want to be with him. If this is the case, he says, no power in the world can stand in my way.

I feel oddly peaceful this morning, less complicated. I have made my choice, to stay and do things his way as best I can, if I don't know something, to ask him, not anyone else. Not to consult others about anything.



I'm not so clear after all. I have not dropped my competitiveness with Mary. She got up early and seemed as though ready to take over immediately as soon as I left. When it became apparent that I was staying on (and that U.G. was permitting this, at least for the present), she became disoriented and shaken. I noticed this and was glad. She was rejoicing in my bad luck, and I didn't like it.

But look how this separates us. Two nights ago we were bonded together, she and I, and with just the slightest turning of things, U.G. threw us back into conflict. Nothing is in our hands, I see that. As long as either one of us wants anything from him, his approval, attention, presence, we will be ready to murder each other. This is the horror of the human monster. No animal would respond this way. Thought is evil.

I am more concerned with my feud than with freedom, I see that too. The one relief was seeing that I do not have to confide in anyone, no one really expects it. Luna, Paul, even Mary didn't probe when I made it clear I was not going to talk about the episode of the night before.



What a difference, everything smooth and mellow. Yesterday an Indian lawyer from Delhi came in the morning and spent the day. We had breakfast and lunch and a drive to show him around. Just before his train left, I taped two radio interviews.

Mary has been off walking for two days, and as of last night I felt there was a new dynamic between us. Not emotional or fraught, just straightforward. Neither of us projected on the other. It is clear to me that I provoked this whole situation this summer by asking advice in an effort to placate, to get approval.

I have seen how wanting permanence, wanting a special relationship with U.G. created suffering for me, suffering for her, competition and hostility between us. There is plenty of U.G. to go around but I now see why he says he cannot have any organization around him, how bickering and power plays start immediately.

Last night at dinner Paolo told Luna his story of being a guru (appointed by Rajneesh). How easy it was to believe in the power others invest in you, what a trap it is, for both.



More and more the razor's edge. As U.G. becomes increasingly my reference point, I see how treacherous is this road, this non-road, this road to no-where. My usual points of reference, others, are no longer viable as I do not feel free to consult them. My relationships become friendly but increasingly detached, impersonal.



The night before last I had a lucid dream that my mother was dying, fading away. She said she knew she had to slow down, move more slowly, and seemed to be dying out, going into a deep I understood that she wanted to be roused, saved, but I seemed sluggish in my response.

A Jungian might say the dream is telling me that the maternal part of myself is under threat of death and doesn't want to go, and in my passivity I am letting it, not rescuing or resuscitating it. But I am not a Jungian, nor is my mother dying at the moment. So I guess I feel it has no meaning at all, and was just an expression of anxiety, brought on by all this talk of the Middle East war. Perhaps also the specter of by-passing New York on the way to California, my vestigial feelings that I should be doing something more for her, though she is hale and hearty at eighty-four.

I was upset by the dream and lay awake for hours anyway, tossing and turning and finally took a half a Valium. The next morning I regretted this act as I felt hung-over and sick all day. One directive that U.G. has given me was not to take Valium and here I had done it in a pig-headed and cowardly fashion. I had the feeling that I must act. So I went into the bathroom and flushed the entire contents of the bottle, at least 100 10 mg pills, down the toilet. Later this seemed like a rash act, my security backup of many years thrown out, condemning myself to sleepless nights and untold fears.

But today I don't care. Act I did, and bear the consequences I will. Today U.G. and I are alone together. Paul left this morning for his Bergerie in Southern France. Sorry to see him go as we built up a warm and good friendship.



U.G. said the other day that once this bug enters your system, you're finished. You can't go back to spiritual life, can't go back to ambition, greed. You are already ruined. You can't go back, but you must find the answer for yourself. You have to finish the job, or the job finishes you.

So many people have left, there is a definite end to summer feel now. The Ortolanis are still here, he still asking his incessant questions, she wishing to be anywhere else. A young Italian couple with a baby, he a kundalini teacher in Rome, she a psychotherapist of some new age sort, have been coming for ten days or so.

U.G. has said over and over again that kundalini is bunk and has nothing to do with illumination. Neither the young Italian, nor the crowd of avatar masters who have been hanging around can get it. His message destroys all they do, all they are. Without belief they can't teach their courses. If they suspect the truth, that there is nothing to teach, that their system is bogus, they would be finished, their business ruined. And yet they come.

More interesting, in a way, are the Italians' questions about their child. How to raise her without destroying her. "We can't leave children alone," says U.G. "We have to destroy them too. We love to destroy." The young father wanted to know if there is anything we can safely teach them. "It's impossible to destroy ignorance without destroying innocence," U.G. replied. "They have to find out on their own."

"The meaning of life is just breathe without knowing you are breathing." This seems like the bottom line, but, of course, impossible, we have to add on and think, ruin everything.

On the war preparations in the Middle East, U.G. continues to reiterate that he is just waiting to see American flag-draped coffins being sent home. We need to be taught a lesson, he says. The lesson that we no longer control the world, are no longer a force to contend with, we can no longer manipulate others for our own goals and needs. It seems logical to me now.



Dawn. Can't sleep. I was thinking this morning as I made myself a cup of coffee (at 4 a.m.) how after a full year with U.G. I am still thinking the same thoughts, am still behaving and responding in the same way, no change. After all the revelations, the same internal dialogue goes on. The only way to end that is to hang myself from the nearest tree, to end me. And I'm too much of a coward to do that. As U.G. says, I love those neuroses, miseries and convolutions. They are all I have ever known, all that I am.

I thrashed about, worrying about the apartment and money and what to do. But I finally gave up, something in me realized I couldn't figure it out, there was no solution. U.G. had asked me last night what I wanted to do, but didn't want to hear any of my concerns and went abruptly to bed leaving me to mull it over. So when he finally appeared this morning for breakfast, I had decided not to make a decision at all, to bypass New York entirely if necessary, or stay in a hotel with U.G.

Then U.G. said now that Gordon was definitely leaving on the 21st, we could stay in Europe until that date, then return, spend a few days in the apartment and even he would stay there. And then go to California.

Something shifted for me. I have felt no fear of him all morning, no self-consciousness, very free. He hurls barbs at me and I just seem to be able to go with them, take them lightly. It's as if he can't hurt me, doesn't want to. I'm not afraid!

I put the curry can in the ice-box, asked him how it got there and realized it was me. "Am I enlightened?" I asked U.G., jokingly, remembering John Wren-Lewis' reports of people who have had various mystical experiences putting their sneakers in the fridge.

U.G. said to Paolo this morning that the questions "What to eat?" and "How to live?" are the culture. If they go, so does his girlfriend, so does absolutely everything. So enjoy your misery, he says. You can't be without it. For a fraction of a second of happiness, you suffer untold hours.

I'm not worried about anything right now, even with this impending war and my apartment problems looming. Something has changed with U.G. and I can't figure out what it is. We seem to be on new terrain, but perhaps this too is illusion and I will be back in purgatory before I know it. He badgered me about the videos with all sorts of people here and I joked about it, and I said he would miss not having me to kick around if I went away. I was completely at home with him, eating lunch, very casual and free. What is it?



Nothing lasts long. I am absorbing this changing reality of life with U.G. There is a sword in my solar plexus today, a sword of nameless fear, an unidentified threat. The adversary is probably myself, my mind, but I am helpless to deal with it. Nothing has happened. Paolo and Laura have left, Mary has called several times, now planning to do U.G.'s head from photos, since he is not coming to Rome.

But I feel he will go to Rome, and has just been testing her and teaching her a lesson. She was cavalier about him and the head, believing he wanted it for himself. My theory from the beginning was he was doing it for her, believing in her talent, returning to Rome for her, not because he wanted anything himself. She has probably seen this, at last, and is trying to make amends.

Why I feel in any way threatened is beyond me, except that I see that his attack is constant, routing out all phoniness and stupid ideas. Nobody is protected, we are all fair game and there will be no respite, ever. He is the law of life, the unknown factor made manifest! I must accept it and see where he takes me, that's all. His trump with me is my desire to be with him. Instead of trying to overcome this desire, I can only surrender to it, be dependent and connected. And realize that this need is my salvation, it is what holds me here in the school of fire, this inferno of terror.

Yet I eat and sleep well, feel healthy and alive. My body tells me all is well, though my mind runs scared. The hostage has already been taken, the bug has entered the system and it is only a matter of time until I die.

Aptly, this morning's Tribune talks of scorpions and cobras and blistering heat in the desert, terror for American troops. Their situation, according to me, is no more terrifying than mine, here with this Siva, this destroyer.



U.G. told me yesterday, quite clearly, that the neurotic situation for me is my old life versus my new life, the "dead past" versus now. I will remain in this bog until one or the other is "cast asunder," one or the other must go. It is clear to me which this is, of course. The past must, will go.



Yesterday was the quietest day yet. We were to go for a drive with Ortolani, but he called with a cold at the last moment. I realized U.G. was going for Ortolani, not for himself. And something in Ortolani is hearing U.G. in a new way this summer. He wanted to take U.G. on a pilgrimage to all the places he used to go and walk and sit with J. Krishnamurti. U.G. was willing to do it, once again, for Ortolani. But the latter got sick. I feel there is meaning in this sickness, but perhaps I am wrong.

U.G. slept a great deal, and we were peaceful and quiet together, alone all day. Except in the evening when a few people came by. I asked him about the yogic feats recounted in a book I was reading, Swami, having found it in the bookcase. He said there is nothing to these feats. He said if I understood even a tiny, weeny bit of what he, U.G., is saying I would never ask these questions. That is, probably, that the knowledge we all have about yogic occurrences allows us to create them. They are in the realm of the known.

I told him I was amused by his use of 'weeny' and couldn't stop chuckling. He said that I have a childlike quality which comes out when my pretentious personality is in abeyance, the salon-du-the-coffee-table-cocktail lounge banter that is so useless. He says this is the real me, innocent and spontaneous. This is the first time he has said something like this to me in a long time.

I said I remembered him saying (in New Zealand) that I couldn't be myself if I was afraid of losing him, afraid of making a mistake. He said that the fear causes me to do the very thing that would cause the friendship to end, to force us apart. He has said this again and again, and I know there is an enormous truth in it, but I still don't understand. How to be free from fear? It's not in my hands.



Our time in Switzerland draws to a close. I won't mind leaving, though I will probably miss the cool mountain climate. The rest of Europe is having an extended dry, hot spell and we'll be going right into it.

How to sum up these two months? I can't. I don't know if anything has changed or not. I don't know what I have learned. I am aware of my own negativity, lurking at the border of my consciousness, with the whispering voices of my mother and antecedents constantly in my head.

I realize that being with U.G. is the greatest gift, yet the loneliness of the life is beginning to manifest. It is lonely for my personality. But when real threats disappear, when his frontal attacks cease for a few days, the void is filled by my thoughts, by the beginnings of doubts. The minute I feel insecure again, the doubts will be driven away.

Farewells have begun. The Ortolanis leave today and they agreed to meet again next summer, 30 years for Ortolani and 28 for U.G., multiples of 7, this could mean U.G.'s last summer here. It is wildly expensive and over-populated, though the mountains themselves are not.

Ortolani said he is no longer a seeker, has realized there is no reincarnation, no hope, no truth. And that he has no interest in anything much. The "U.G. Effect." Being with him, you are left with nothing, nowhere to go, nothing to do.

I'm renting a car tomorrow morning and we will drive to Zurich on Friday morning for the plane to Amsterdam. We have begun cleaning up the house and packing. Trying to use up all the food, as U.G. wants nothing left. Yet people continue to bring things, chocolate, fruit, avocados.



Last day. I removed a spider from my bathroom this morning, a spider who has been keeping me company for the past few weeks, a daddy long legs, missing one of his legs. I put him outside near the steps. He had seemed to be waiting on the floor, as if asking for something. It was a choice, for me, of leaving him to be perhaps killed, vacuumed up by the cleaning after we leave, or risk his being too cold outside. I chose the latter, and noting that the spider seemed frozen out there, was not moving, I asked U.G. his opinion.

His opinion was, of course, to scoff at me, saying I can condone sending boys to the Middle East to die in the desert, but fuss over one spider in the bathroom. It was the same litany over the cockroach in Bangalore. But I don't condone sending soldiers anywhere, don't condone anything my government does. I have grown attached to my spider.

U.G. said, "Why don't you knit a sweater for the spider?"

~ ~

Feeling mellow, so at peace. Had a dream last night about U.G.. He was suggesting that someone (me?) cut off one leg, not exactly a peaceful dream. Yet there was no feeling of discomfort or stress.

He had been withdrawn for a few days, but yesterday evening was more accessible again. Is it me? I don't know. After Harry left, we sat around talking about where to go after Amsterdam. He seemed to want to go to America early, perhaps Boston. I said we could rent a car, go to my mother's and pick up mine, go to Portland and Boston. He was tearing at his toe nail and when I objected, he indicated I could cut it for him. I did this, feeling serene and comfortable. These rare moments are gifts from him.

Walking up the hill to the house, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, visualizing my children as infants, my mother as a younger woman. I burst into tears, quietly, to myself. I was weeping for the passing of all things, realizing my love for them is as much a reality as anything. I don't have to pretend to myself or U.G. that this is not the case.