Space Between the Stars

by Deborah Santana

  NEW YEAR MEDITATION WITH SRI CHINMOY,

  SELF-REALISED MASTER

  HUNTER COLLEGE AUDITORIUM,

  DECEMBER 31, 1972, 7:30 P.M.

  MAHAVISHNU JOHN McLAUGHLIN

  WILL PERFORM ON GUITAR

  The words were framed in hand-drawn gardenias. I was surprised to see Mahavishnu's name like an advertisement. It seemed artless and begging, as if Sri Chinmoy needed a famous person to sell his spirituality, incongruous to what I believed God could do without human assistance. People stood outside the doors to the auditorium. One of Sri Chinmoy's male attendants opened a side door for Carlos and me. Disciples bustled through the large theater: Two men carried a wooden platform onto the center of the light-flooded stage, bending deeply as they set it down. A woman followed, her sari dancing around her. She laid a thick square of foam on the wooden seat and draped gold brocade over it, smoothing the fabric with her hands. The plain wood was transformed into a throne, accented by flowerpots of poinsettias and chrysanthemums along the front of the stage.

  Mahalakshmi waved from down front and walked quickly to us. “I'm so glad you could come. Guru wants you to sit with the New York Centre. We're in the middle first three rows.” She led us to our seats. No New York disciples were talking. They sat straight-backed with their eyes closed, absorbed in their own consciousnesses, finding an inner silence in the midst of the preparations. I wanted to sit by Mahalakshmi and catch up on disciple news, but the focus of the devotees was the night's meditation. Carlos and I sat down. Mahavishnu slid into the seat next to Carlos and embraced him in a bear hug. “I'm playing acoustic tonight. Want to join me? We can do ‘Naima’ or ‘A Love Supreme.’

  Carlos looked surprised. “I don't have my guitar,” he whispered.

  Mahavishnu smiled. “I brought an extra Martin.”

  Although Carlos loved spontaneous jam sessions, he usually played his own instrument.

  Carlos looked down at his hands for a few moments. The stage lights cast an adobe glow over his skin; he looked so mestizo against the white shirt he wore. A long line creased his cheek, like a dimple pulled sideways. His lips pursed together as he thought.

  Carlos raised his head, eyes twinkling. “Okay, man.”

  Mahavishnu motioned for Carlos to follow him. Carlos left his coat on the seat next to mine and walked up the stairs onto the stage, disappearing behind thick velvet curtains. Doors at the rear of the auditorium opened, and seekers filed into rows behind the disciples.

  Lavanya and Ranjana descended the stage stairs. Light glinted off their saris—Ranjana's threaded with gold, and La-vanya's embroidered with tiny round mirrors. They were dressed as though going to a ball. Their lives were a puzzle to me: Although they were together much of the time, I never saw them talk to each other or display outer signs of closeness or even friendliness. They carried themselves with an air of knowing, but their faces—often without emotion—were aloof like wax figurines. They sat in the first row directly in front of the throne. Sri Chinmoy emerged from the side, walking stiffly, as though already deep in trance. His brown head topped a flowing white kurta and dhoti; his hands were clasped loosely in front of his body. He sat down on the edge of the throne, his feet in sheer, white striped socks.

  “Om,” he chanted forcefully, the word resonating until the sound melted into absolute silence. “Om,” he chanted again. An aura of white light radiated around Sri Chinmoy's face, his neck extended like a heron ready to fly and his eyelids half-mast in dreamlike whiteness. On Guru's shoulders rested blossoms of white and red carnations woven into a thick necklace hanging to his stomach. He sat back on his throne, the garland around his neck rising and falling with each breath.

  Mahavishnu walked onto the stage. Fans began whistling and clapping.

  “Whoo! All right!”

  Applause crescendoed around the auditorium. Carlos walked out in his bare feet, carrying a guitar by the neck with both hands. His head was bowed. A hum of voices said, “It's Carlos. That's Carlos Santana.” Louder cat calls, whistles, and clapping.

  Mahavishnu and Carlos sat down on the stage floor behind a six-inch-high microphone on a stand. They tuned their strings to each other. The auditorium grew silent. Their four hands moved ever so slightly as the melody of John Coltrane's “Naima” whispered across their guitar strings. Sri Chinmoy sat up tall, his eyes fluttering as the two guitarists bent over their fingers, absorbed in the music. Carlos's soft legato chords were a perfect foil to Mahavishnu's rapid arpeggio runs. Trading solos, their tonal qualities blended as one voice.

  Sri Chinmoy maintained his meditative tranquility. The final chord was followed by cheering, as though we were at a concert rather than a meditation. Sri Chinmoy bowed toward Mahavishnu and Carlos, a smile beaming from his face. The guitarists walked off the stage. After many shouts of “Encore! Encore!” did not bring the men back, I heard the rustle of some people leaving.

  The New York girls went onto the stage to sing. I would have died if I'd had to follow Carlos and Mahavishnu, even though many of their fans had left, but the women closed their eyes and folded their hands; Bengali words tumbled from their lips as the remaining nondisciples squirmed in their seats.

  The meditation ended, and Sri Chinmoy left the stage. Carlos walked toward me, fans surrounding him, trying to shake his hand. When he reached me, I thought, He's glowing.

  “You're glowing,” he said, looking in my eyes.

  “So are you.” I laughed.

  Savyasachi came up behind Carlos. “Guru would like to see you both in the back room.” He led us down a hallway behind the stage to a door cracked and yellowed with age. The air held the scent of fresh gardenias. Carlos and I waited while Savyasachi slipped inside the room. I shifted my heavy wool coat from arm to arm. Carlos leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed. The door opened, sending light cascading into the hall. “Guru can see you now,” Savyasachi said.

  Sri Chinmoy sat in an orange-cushioned recliner, his Buddhalike smile gently beckoning us. Carlos knelt at his feet, his eyes looking down at the floor. I knelt next to him.

  “Dear ones, I am so happy you came to this special meditation.” Sri Chinmoy's voice creaked like a door, its hinges needing oil. “While I was meditating, your souls approached me, asking for a blessing. When you were playing your guitar, dear Carlos, the Supreme told me your spiritual name. This name I will give you in the next few months. When you receive this name, a new, fruitful consciousness will dawn in you. Your soul flew to me also, Devi.” I smiled at the way he pronounced my name with a v instead of a b. In Hindi, Devi means “goddess.” I hoped that Devi would become my spiritual name.

  “The Supreme gave me your spiritual name also. Together, the two of you will run like deer to the golden shore. You have pleased God with your purity, your aspiration. In August we will have a special gathering at my home for you to receive your soul names.”

  Carlos and I bowed, feeling that we were making progress in our spiritual lives. Each Indian name embodied the divine qualities of the disciple's soul. We stood up, gathered our coats, and backed out of the room. The next day we left for San Francisco.

  Carlos continued rehearsing every day with the band. They were scheduled to begin their tour in San Diego on January 30, my birthday. His suitcases were laid out on the bedroom floor. He folded T-shirts, jeans, and a snakeskin jacket into neat piles and laid cowboy boots on their sides. Carlos made copies of albums he wanted to listen to on the road and lined one whole side of his suitcase with cassettes. We went to his management office in San Francisco to meet with Barry Imhoff, the tour manager, who worked under Bill Graham. Bill owned the Fill-more West in San Francisco and the Fillmore East in New York City, world-renowned concert venues, and ran his concert-promotion and band-management company across the street from Fillmore West on Geary Boulevard. Carlos held my hand, and we walked by the thin-faced lobby receptionist into the main room. Heads turned to watch us. I continued to be stunned when people paid such attention to Carlos and,
in turn, to me. When the band was onstage, I understood who Carlos was in the musical world—his gift of melody and time, his fame. But alone, he was my sweet friend and lover, not a famous celebrity.

  Music streamed from radios and cassette players in different corners of the office—mixing drums, screaming guitars, and bass. Every inch of every wall was covered: photos and posters of the Rolling Stones hung alongside Led Zeppelin; Peter Frampton; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young; James Brown; Joan Baez. A huge photo of Santana onstage at Woodstock with Bill playing cowbell in the wings was suspended outside Bill's office door. Dried flowers were strung over windows. A framed wheel of tickets was displayed, one from every venue in each city played on the Who's tour—a Plexiglas window box with photos of Pete Townshend and the band in performance. The office was a rock-and-roll museum. I sat on a leather couch outside Bill's office, waiting for Carlos while he met with Barry and Bill, and I made small talk with Bill's personal secretary. My eyes took in a lectern outside Bill's door; it had a microphone perched in the center and lights strung in an arc over the top. I asked her what it was.

  “His soapbox. If Bill wants to make an announcement or yell at someone, he turns on the mike and the lights and we all hear his message—loud and clear.”

  I had not forgotten Bill's voice yelling at me across the Win-terland lobby, and I hoped Carlos would come out before Bill felt a need to get on his soapbox today.

  As I watched Carlos prepare to leave on tour, the blues descended on me. I listened to Miles play “Concerto de Aranjuez” and felt miserable. I had grown addicted to Carlos's arms around me, his lips on my neck, his soft voice in my ear. Our last night together, I followed him downstairs to the studio, a large square room void of natural light, its walls lined with mocha-stained cork panels to absorb sound. A jumble of conga drums, bongos, B-3 organ, guitars, tambourines, maracas, and trap drums filled the space. An end table held a pile of music magazines. Tops of amplifiers were crowded with samba whistles and ceramic angels, candles, and incense holders. Carlos sat on a small stool, fingering notes on his guitar while listening to Wes Montgomery.

  I sat down across from him. He looked up, smiled, and blew me a kiss. I leaned against the six-foot-tall, carved-wooden mermaid that stood in the center of his music room, feeling her smoothly chiseled hardness along my back. I was jealous of her when Carlos first brought me to Mill Valley: She was powerful, physically perfect, her bell-shaped breasts pro- truding so sensuously, like fine instruments to play. She towered over me—she was a goddess he could have anytime he wanted, like real women I could not measure up to with my skinny legs and small breasts. But I was not jealous now. He was leaving her, too, for the road. I felt a bond with the nymph, who, like me, was abandoned for Carlos's insatiable true love: music.

  Clouds hung over the bay billowy and dark the day I drove Carlos to the airport for the flight to San Diego. “I'm not leaving you,” he said as we stood in the breeze outside. “You are in my heart. Wherever I go, you go with me.”

  I tried to smile, but tears fell just the same. I pushed my body close to his, wrapping my arms around him so I could squeeze myself inside of him. We walked to the gate, and the band boarded. Loneliness was sitting in the pit of my stomach. I drove back, crying, to the Mill Valley house. The little black Volvo was my consolation. I could drive Carlos's car, inhale his peppermint tea scent, and feel as though I were inside of him. The house, so cozy when the two of us were together, felt isolated in the dark night. I got into bed, curled my knees to my chest, and picked up my book, trying to ignore the sounds of raccoon feet on the deck.

  Kitsaun finally came to a meditation with me. Sevika and Saumitra could not believe how alike we looked and acted. Kitsaun was a smidgen taller than me, her face angular like Mom's—the same high cheekbones—my face rounder—like a chipmunk, I always said—like Dad's. Twenty-two months older, she was my guide as well as the tester of waters I would be wading through after her. We had always shared friends, read the same books, and, when younger, taken the bus together to civil rights rallies. We were different, too. Kitsaun had worn a 'fro that rivaled Kathleen Cleaver's, and I'd worn a long scarf flattening my hair. Kitsaun's eye for assessing a situation was clear—like an eagle's. She stuck with projects, whether sewing my orchestra outfit in junior high, finishing a term paper, or telling the raw truth. I was a hummingbird who flitted from interest to interest. People thought she was hard because she was fiercely vocal about her beliefs. I knew she was compassionate and hurt easily. I appeared soft and gentle because I smiled when speaking and served compliantly. But inside, I was strong—a composite of Mom's color-blind passion and Dad's staunch wariness. Kitsaun and I wore an invisible link of sisterhood that allowed us to forgive each other when we made mistakes. Mom had repeated throughout our lives, “Don't let anyone or anything come between you and your sister.”

  After the meditation, Kitsaun turned to me as we walked to our cars. “The disciples are so homogeneous. And why do you have to wear saris?”

  “Sri Chinmoy says they help our purity.”

  Kitsaun gave me a sideways cut of her eyes and pulled her lower eyelid down with her index finger, which meant in our silent sister-speak, “Get real.” But she had felt something, too, and said, “I like the quiet. Maybe I'll come back.”

  I used all my wiles to convince her that meditation with Guru was the answer to our inner search and that we could continue to work for civil rights by creating peace within. There were few experiences we had not shared, and I did not want to be on the spiritual path without her. I was working to absolve myself from my past sins. Although we did not talk about her time with Jake, or the drugs, I knew she could stand to do the same.

  Sevika said that Kitsaun could send a photograph of her face to Sri Chinmoy with a letter asking to become a disciple. “Many seekers can't see Sri Chinmoy in person before they become disciples, so he meditates on their soul through their eyes in the photograph. His heart knows immediately if someone is meant for his meditation path.”

  Kitsaun mailed a letter telling a little about her life with the photo. A few days later, she called me. “I'm accepted,” she said, sounding pleased. Sevika had called Kitsaun to say that Sri Chinmoy had meditated on the essence of her soul and she was now a member of the San Francisco Centre. She was on the path with me!

  he theme of our discipleship became “surrender.” As I worked next to Sevika, the term came up daily: Surrender all that you are, all that you think, all that you envision for yourself—to the will of the guru. Every time a message came from Sri Chinmoy, it seemed there was something we had to relinquish. Carlos had touched on this when he named his recording with Mahavishnu “Love, Devotion and Surrender,” but neither of us had foreseen how intrinsic this would be to the meditation path.

  Sri Chinmoy asked disciples to do things the Supreme told him in meditation. Carlos and I had been together seven months when Sri Chinmoy invited us to New York and asked to speak privately with Carlos. Ranjana greeted us at Guru's front door and sent Carlos upstairs to talk with Guru. I followed her into the kitchen, where she was making a curried potato and pea dish for Guru and asked me to help.

  I washed my hands and started pushing the stainless-steel peeler across russet potatoes while Ranjana clicked on a tape recording of Guru singing in Bengali. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled into a ponytail high on her head. Her eggshell-thin skin was powdery pale with the flush of winter-red cheeks. My heart was racing, wondering what Guru was talking to Carlos about.

  My head was bent over a handful of peas when I heard Carlos's soft voice calling me. I looked up and he motioned for me to follow him. I washed my hands and walked with him into the meditation room. Guru was sitting comfortably on his throne, leaning to the side on his elbow.

  “So, good girl, Carlos and I have had a heart-to-heart talk. He will tell you all about it. Now let's meditate.”

  I sat next to Carlos watching Sri Chinmoy's face. The room disappeared in a wash of
golden light. I folded my hands in front of my chest, showing my devotion to the light that was coming into my soul. When Sri Chinmoy bowed, Carlos and I bowed, gathered our shoes and coats, and walked outside. I turned to Carlos. “What kind of heart-to-heart talk?” I asked anxiously.

  We descended the stairs to the sidewalk and turned left, heading back to the Mahas'. Carlos took my hand, but walked in silence. At the corner, he pulled me to him. “He asked me if I loved you.”

  “What?” I couldn't believe they had been talking about us! I felt embarrassed. “What did you say?”

  Carlos looked into my eyes. “I told him I love you with all my heart.”

  Why did Sri Chinmoy want to know if Carlos loved me? “Then what did he say?” The pitch of my voice was getting higher in my ears.

  “He asked me what's keeping us from getting married.” “Married?” My heart was pounding. I was deeply in love with Carlos, but marriage had not entered my mind. I was only twenty-two; Carlos twenty-five. My freewheeling, no-bra-wearing spirit of the 1960s did not need the institution of marriage to define my relationship with Carlos.

  “Yes, married.” Carlos's penetrating eyes searched my face. He held my soul in his gaze.

  “What else did he say?” I asked, resisting the urge to pace.

  “He said that you are the one who can help me make the fastest spiritual progress.”

  “Do you want to marry me for me, or because Guru said you should?” I asked him, now staring into his honey-colored eyes, a flash of anger rising.

  “I love you, Deborah. I want to marry you because I want to be with you always.” We started walking. “What about you?” He pulled my hand, forcing me to turn and face him. “Do you want to marry me for me, or because Guru thinks we'll make fast spiritual progress together?”

  I looked into his amber-hued mestizo face, his chiseled cheekbones, his fragile smile, trying to see the truth. “I would like to marry you because you have a heart of gold and I love you.” My arms reached out around his winter coat, wondering if he knew how afraid I was. I had been crushed by Sly. My heart was like a car that had been in a very bad accident. Carlos's loving had repaired it, made it look almost new, but inside I was still shaken and dented.