anecdotes

One day a sophisticated Colombian man arrived at the Conservatoire posing a whole range of complicated intellectual questions. His line of inquiry exposed an ardent interest in the awakening of kunalinī śakti, its upward movement through the sushumnā-nādi, the piercing the cakras and the subsequent unfolding of latent human intelligence, and that sort of thing. Yet all he received in the way of an answer was a side-glance of ridicule as the Master stood quietly and walked into the other room.

*

One fine morning a charismatic Korean woman visited at the ashram. After lunch, she held many ladies spellbound with her compelling discourse. At one point Guru Chod turned to me and remarked, "That's showmanism."

"Showmanism?" I didn't understand.

He discreetly disappeared and returned with a dictionary. He pointed to an entry on the page.

"Oh," I said. "You mean, 'shamanism.'"

"Is that how you pronounce it?" he remarked.

*

One fine morning in his 88th year, the old man privately confided in me. He said, "I'm too old to be teaching yoga. My body is like an old car."

He then posed the question that was weighing on his mind: "How to call it quits?"

*

A few weeks before the Master's passing he ate a deadly mushroom that was innocently given by people very near and dear to him.

"I didn't want to eat it," he explained the following morning, rubbing his tummy with a little discomfort. "It was given as a gift and considered a great delicacy. That's why I ate it. It's not their fault. They didn't know it was bad," he said.

This odd occurrence, this strange reenactment was a clear indication that the end was near.

*

One fine afternoon I came across a copy of Theos Bernard's Heaven Lies Within Us (1940)[3] in a second-hand bookshop on Sukhumvit Road. I immediately purchased the hardcover volume and read it through that very night. The following morning I presented the book to Guru Chod. He expressed exceptional delighted to receive it. Not only that, he treated the book in a reverential manner, almost as if it were a holy relic. He was beaming! Nearly fifty years old though, the book was a little worm-eaten, but also in a rather aesthetic way. I told him this, too, and pointed out the tiny holes scattered along the otherwise well intact binding. The Master then took this as a kind of pretext for placing the book on a chair in the garden, letting it receive bright rays of sun, as he stood at a distance gazing on resplendent.