My Father's Guru

by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

  I humbly prostrate myself at your blessed feet,

  Jeff Masson

  By the next night, my fever was over 105 and I had become delirious. My father was very worried, especially after an ashram doctor examined me and told him that there was “little hope”; my best chance was to pray to the Mother. I saw my father walk to the door with him and then burst into tears. For some reason I was not frightened. My father immediately arranged to see another doctor from town. He came and said he found my illness puzzling. He thought nothing could or should be done, but he did not think I would die. I felt a little better, but when I got up to go to the bathroom and reached to turn on the light, I fainted.

  My father was terrified. The fever lasted on and on, day after day. Already very small and thin, I lost a considerable amount of weight, as I could take no food. Finally, after about fifteen days, the fever began to recede. But we still could not leave Pondichery, as I could barely walk from weakness. So I stayed in the hotel room and my father brought me books to read: the twenty-one volumes of Aurobindo’s collected works. They were turgid, unreadable mystic poems and spiritual prose. A typical passage:

  If I had been standing on the Supermind level and acting on the world by the instrumentation of Supermind, the world would have changed or would be changing much more rapidly and in a different fashion from what is happening now. My present effort is not to stand up on a high and distant Supermind level, but at the present stage the progressive supramentalisation of the Overmind is the first immediate preoccupation and a second is lightening of the heavy resistance of the Inconscient.

  The other books were all about the Mother: “Reject immediately every feeling, every impulse that makes you draw back from the Mother.” Or: “There is not much spiritual meaning in keeping open to the Mother if you withhold your surrender…all has to be done by the working of the Mother’s force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender.” Unreadable, even depressing.

  I hungered for something secular and prosaic. My father visited the French bookstore and brought me back Guy de Maupassant in French. That was much better, but I was most eager to leave the city and the ashram. I still think that I must have fallen ill from drinking the foot-water a few days earlier.

  *

  The next guru P.B. had recommended was to play a major role in my life for the next few years and in both my parents’ lives for many years to come, the catalyst to dislodge P.B. His name was Krishnamenon, or Gurunathan, or Atmananda, and he lived in Trivandrum, in Kerala state. He taught a particularly severe and intellectual form of Advaita Vedanta, the Hindu monistic philosophy of which the seventh-century Indian philosopher Shankaracharya was the main exponent. He had absolutely no tolerance for any form of devotion, for rituals, for any talk of any of the staples of Indian religion, karma, reincarnation, meditation. “Pure nonsense,” he would declaim, “all of it.”

  It was exhilarating talking to him, though I found his teachings above my head. Still, seeing him galvanized a certain latent criticism of the kind of spirituality I had been ingesting from P.B. Remarkably, it seemed to have the same effect on my father. For one thing, Gurunathan represented a certain tradition that has always existed in India in which secrets, mystery, occult powers—in short, all the paraphernalia that usually surrounds a religious cult of whatever kind—is dismissed as intellectually dishonest, ignorant, and inimical to true spirituality. He did not pretend to possess any powers. He did not say that there were things he could not reveal now. He did not engage in any of P.B.’s manipulative maneuvers. He was completely straightforward: “I have a philosophical point of view [monism] that I want to get across to you. Here it is. Think about it.”

  Gurunathan was the author of two books, Atma-Darshan and Atma-nirvriti in English, which we both began to read with absorption. They are uncompromisingly intellectual—“pure Advaita Vedanta,” as his disciples say. Here are some excerpts from Atma-Darsban (At the Ultimate), written in 1946:

  Water by itself can never form a wave. Likewise Consciousness by itself can never form a world.

  Therefore the world is not, has never been and is never going to be.

  What is really existing is Consciousness alone. Consciousness is Happiness itself. The Atma signified by the world “I” is also That.

  Similarly, in Atma-Niwriti (Freedom and Felicity in the Self) (1952), we read:

  It is experience that must prove the existence of anything. An object as such is never experienced. It is the knowledge of it that may be said to have been experienced. Even this is not strictly correct. If an object is not experienced it must be held to be non-existent. How can there be knowledge of a non-existent thing? Therefore it is not even the knowledge of an object that is experienced but knowledge itself. Thus experience proves that the entire objective world is knowledge and knowledge alone. That is consciousness and that is ATMA.

  In other words, trees in Indian forests make no sound if no one experiences them.

  *

  I can see why India was so congenial to P.B. When we had traveled together, he had always been delighted to discover a new vegetarian restaurant. He would immediately make a note, and it would always arouse his interest if I told him that I had seen a vegetarian restaurant somewhere. When I first arrived in India, while driving from the airport to Bombay in the taxi, I dutifully made a note of the first vegetarian restaurant I noticed, and then the second, and third, until I realized that there was not going to be any end of vegetarian restaurants in India. They were everywhere. In a similar manner, wherever my father and I went, we made a point of searching out gurus and their disciples. In India, this was like searching for a vegetarian restaurant: swamis, gurus, masters were everywhere.

  While in Madras, we spent the day with somebody called the Chidambaran Swami, a man in his nineties who in his early twenties had met Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson died in 1882.) In Calcutta we met a guru who was supposed to be two hundred years old. He looked three hundred. We met gurus who didn’t eat, gurus who didn’t sleep, gurus who didn’t die, not to mention the more common theme of giving up sexuality, property, possessions, and family. These gurus were constantly trying to outshine one another when it came to renunciation, to giving up something desirable. It was especially common for a guru not to speak. Meher Baba had not spoken for forty years. When he finally did, what he said was so banal, some wished he had kept to his old ways.

  In ancient India, sages were continuously making a vow to give something up permanently, from a particular food to all food, from saying certain things to saying anything. This was considered a particularly economical way to gain merit. Even more important, it was supposed to confer power. I think the psychology is that since most men—despite the Mother, almost all gurus were men—want wealth, companionship, sustenance, communication, and pleasure, not wanting them confers a kind of power. This power can be stored up, like money in a bank, where it grows and grows. The more you abandon, then, the more you acquire; what you acquire changes; that you acquire stays the same. You give up worldly power to achieve spiritual power, which then—paradoxically but purposefully—gives you worldly power. Not to want what other people want, including their forms of power, is to have power, and also to acquire power over them.

  *

  We also went to Sri Lanka, which was then still called Ceylon. We visited a number of Buddhist monks, primarily European ones, because these were the ones P.B. seemed to know. Neither of us were as taken with Buddhism as we had been with Hinduism, but the purpose of our trip there was not primarily spiritual. My father wanted to do business. Sri Lanka was the center of the world for blue star sapphires, star rubies, and cat’s eyes, which had been his specialty for many years, along with pearls. I loved going with him to the various merchants and buying star sapphires. I soon learned what the desirable colors were and quickly got involved in the fun of bargaining. It was a very different world. The risks were considerable, since some of the stones cost as much as $50,000 in 1950 dollars. If my
father made a mistake, he could be stuck with a very expensive loss.

  I had my sixteenth birthday in Sri Lanka, four months after arriving in India. We were staying at the Mt. Lavinia Hotel on the beach outside of Colombo. As my father and I walked on the beach, we saw a man bring his working elephant down and bathe it in the ocean. Apart from the spirituality, the physical atmosphere of both India and Sri Lanka had a profound impact on me. I liked the sounds and the smells, the heat, the luscious tropical flora, giant fronds, towering jasmine trees, the fruits I had never tasted before (sitarbal, a kind of cherimoya). Large alligatorlike animals (a species of water lizard) lazily walked across a downtown street in Colombo and went swimming off in the three-foot-deep gutter. I was taking it all in in ways that had nothing to do with spirituality. I decided I wanted to return to Sri Lanka one day to learn Pali, the language of ancient Buddhism. (I did so, in 1966.) I can remember the very dishonorable and then unbearable thought that I would still feel attached to this place even if I lost interest in spirituality.

  *

  We returned to Bombay, where I found a strange book in a spiritual bookstore: The Book of Mirdad by Michael Naimy. He had been a close friend of Kahlil Gibran, and the book is in a similar style to Gibran’s The Prophet. I wrote the author a letter that captures the spirit of my own unbelievable naiveté better than any account I can give:

  April 3, 1957

  Dear Mr. Naimy:

  I am a boy of 16 and have now been “interested” so to speak for 3 years in the “quest” or the Divine side of life. Dr. Paul Brunton, a well-known adept in this field, has been a close friend of our family for many, many years. Before arriving in India, I spent several days with him in Rome.

  For the past 3 months now, my father (who has been interested for 15 years) and I have been touring India in search of Truth. True, all necessary may be found within us and guidance can come most assuredly from within, but as I often say to my father, a bee in search of honey has no prejudices, or rather realizes no differences. It collects nectar from all flowers which contain it. We are somewhat the same. The truth is not reserved for one person, and whosoever shall have it, I am willing to humbly prostrate myself before him and receive whatever fragments I can assimilate, even if these people contain it to a lesser degree, I am willing to learn whatever possible.

  I very greatly desire to attain self-realization in this life. My whole life shall be thus devoted to this end.

  In Swami Ramdas’s Ashram, I chanced upon your book, the Book of Mirdad, which fascinated me from beginning to end. Much of what I was seeking I found contained within its pages. New horizons were revealed to me. Also, many of the older truths which I have been trying to comprehend were put in such a new and wonderful way that I could not help but re-read the book several times. This was 3 months ago. It is truly amazing how the unfolding process within one works. Each time I read your Divinely inspired book, more and more of it becomes clear to me. I often found it necessary to bring several of these thoughts into meditation to thoroughly assimilate them.

  Now I realize how little of its esoteric meaning I actually understood upon first reading. Many parts of it, to my surprise (please do not think me vain) resemble my own notes, which I write regularly whenever inspiration comes. The resemblance is most assuredly a direct result of the great influence your book has had on me. There are, however, several things which puzzle me in your book, such as the Trinity of being. So far as I interpret this, it represents the absolute, the individual ego-soul and the higher self, which shall certainly through duality return them to unity. Am I right?

  The perfect balance also escaped my comprehension. In time, however, with spiritual maturity all shall be made clear to me. I am content to wait so long as there is no maya or ego or doubt to interfere with my progress.

  By a strange stroke of Faith, surely a karma guided one, I received your address and obtained some information on yourself from Tripathi, your Publishers in India. They showed me your letters and I thus learned of your whereabouts and, excuse my audacity, willingness to help a struggling soul.

  I, in my impetuous manner, wanted to send you a telegram asking if it would be possible for me to stay several days with you and receive your teachings. The more I thought of this, the more I desired it, but for two distinct reasons we decided it unfeasible. First, and most important, to impose on you in such a manner is sheer audacity, lack of taste and utterly unheard of. Next, my mother and sister are waiting for us in Switzerland, where we shall return on the 4th April by plane. We stop at Damascus and Beyrouth, from where I thought I could meet you and in about a few days time return by plane to Switzerland where my sister and I are studying (for the last 2 years), but we ordinarily live in America. We intend, however, to go to South America next year, for fear of a future World War which seems pending. What may I ask is your opinion on this matter? Of course, being but a child, all forms of courtesy are unfortunately dropped for my own demands and thus being, I thought of staying with you. I fail to realize that my own excited manner and yearning for knowledge has made you seem to me quite close, as if I had known you for several years. This, however, I fail to realize is not equally felt by you—you have not even heard of me, and I expect too much. It may be possible, however, with your consent, for me to fly to meet you from France, where we will be for a few months before returning to America. I fully realize what a demand I am making on you, but I feel what a help it would be for me to receive your teachings.

  In case you would like any references about me, you may, if you so desire, receive them from: Dr. Paul Brunton, Box 339, Times Square Station, New York 36, New York or Swami Ramdas, Anandashram, Via Khanhangad Station, South India.

  It would most certainly be God’s will if by some way I could meet you. At first thought this idea seemed absurd, now it is becoming a divine reality. Truly, if it is so possible, my karma must certainly be a good one. God’s Grace is unlimitable and I am abashed at my own unworthiness. My every move seems guided towards a spiritual end, as are all moves.

  Faithfully and devotedly yours,

  Jeffrey Masson

  The combination of brashness, naiveté, and sense of entitlement displayed in this letter were to remain with me for years. Michael Naimy and I never met, but we corresponded for the next five years. At one point, I had memorized his entire book.

  Shortly after my sixteenth birthday, my father and I returned to Switzerland. My mother moved back to Geneva with him. Whatever problems they might have been having, the four-month separation seemed to have cured them. I went back to school. I became more spiritually minded than ever. I meditated longer, typed out spiritual sayings and pasted them on my wall, painted my ceiling black with little yellow stars so I could be reminded of infinity as I fell asleep, and in general was as much of a spiritual puritanical pest (though I was of course in a way merely attempting to please the adults who encouraged me) than ever. In one of my later letters to Naimy (April 29, 1957), I surely reach my pinnacle of spiritual obnoxia:

  I am enclosing two photos; the colored one is of my sister, mother and myself, after Dad had left for India. Through begging and extensive persuasion I finally got to meet him in Bombay. The reason they let me go was that I convinced them that this year was an important one in my spiritual career and it was necessary I be among spiritual people. I was more right than I then realized. My mother, also a very earnest Seeker, had been to India the year before. She sacrificed herself to be with my sister. She now wants to atone for it and therefore wants to come and see you with me if I go. How long could we stay in Biskinta? In case these photographs do not serve your purpose [I imagined he would put them to some mystic test of authenticity], I can send you one of myself in meditation which I shall take in a few days, and can send to you in my next letter. How I wish I could have known you sooner and that I could have grown up in your company to share with you my aspirations and my heart.… I have been blessed to have been born in such a family. With both a father and mother
far more advanced than I am to help me along. They send you their warmest greetings and humblest devotion.

  I had this strictly linear sense of a spiritual path upon which I was walking, hoping to catch up with those further along and always seeking somebody who could guide me. I was looking for a shortcut, which has a venerable history in mysticism: Both Hinduism and Buddhism speak of the “short path” upon which one might have a “sudden illumination,” thereby making the dreary trudge unnecessary. Like my father, I was waiting.

  *

  I was only in Switzerland for a few months. In the summer of 1957, my family went again to the South of France. This time P.B. was not able to join us. The four of us were there from June to August in the Villa Lou Mieou in the hills above Cannes. As usual, we sought ways to advance our spiritual progress, including by meeting the people we thought P.B. would want us to meet. We learned that Madame Alexandre David-Neel, who claimed to be the first European woman to have visited Tibet, dressed as an Indian monk, lived nearby in Digne. She was ninety-three. She had written a series of books, including the ever-popular Magic and Mystery in Tibet. P.B. had long admired her. He suggested we try to find her, and we did. She agreed to see us because we knew the Mother, whom she had known when they were both young in Paris, and she was curious about her.

  We were ushered into an ancient, large villa that now resembled a Tibetan shrine. She asked about our trip to India. She told us that she had been born in Paris but had left when she was young for the Orient. She had spent thirty years in Tibet. She was quite amusing, telling us a series of improbable adventures, including that she conjured up an image of a monk to keep her company in her lonely mountain hut, only to find that the young fellow would not leave and became sexually obsessed with her. “It took me six months to materialize him and just as long to dematerialize him. He was very annoying,” she told us. This sounded like a cover for a tryst, but she told the story with great gusto. She manifested a refreshing lack of piety. We spent most of the afternoon engaged in spiritual gossip, which P.B. would have enjoyed immensely. Suddenly, my mother asked her what she thought of the possibility of a third world war.