Authors: John Updike
Ooh
. What was that? Nothing, I guess. Distant shots. I’ve made myself this cozy nest in Vikshipta’s old A-frame—he left his blankets, and a lot of Löwenbräu in the fridge, and all this Freud in German that I can’t read. And, Midge, I found a little
whip
, and some funny black leather outfits I can’t even figure out how to put on, all straps and rings. Maybe
he’s
supposed to put them on. I feel rather hurt, that he never shared this with me. I wonder if that’s what he and Durga had between them—when he came back from Seattle he went straight to her and didn’t give me the time of day. At any rate—
Uh-oh. There it was again. It sounded closer than way up the canyon, but then that’s how sounds are out here—the spaces are so huge and the air so dry, it’s hard sometimes to know if a sound is up in the hills or right around the corner. Anyway, this harness or whatever it is is held together by big brass buckles and rings with these designs that if you look—
Oh no.
No
. That was
def
initely footsteps outside, on the gravel. Now something’s fiddling at the door! My God, Midge, what shall I do? Somebody’s coming in!
[
Amplified clatter and scraping as of drawer being opened and shut. Subsequent conversation faint and transcribed with difficulty. Male voice in italics below as before
.]
Master. It’s you.
Who is with you?
Nobody. I’m alone. All alone. You scared me. My heart’s pounding.
I heard your voice talking
.
I often talk aloud, before I go to sleep. It empties the mind. It’s like saying a mantra.
To whom do you speak, Kundalini, in this spiritual exercise, since God in the Occidental sense does not exist?
My daughter. My old friends back home.
They are still real to you?
No, Master, only you are truly real. It’s just I have to relax my chittavrittis away from all this disturbance lately.
Let me feel your heart pounding, my dear. It is true. You are afraid. Whenever we talk, it is of fear. Yours or mine. We should attempt to talk of joy. When you speak in solitude, is it also to your husband, this Charles?
Rather rarely, Master. For years I didn’t much interest him and now he doesn’t interest me.
Perhaps you both self-deceive a little in this. You said he admired your breasts. He was correct. They are admirable
.
I usually wear a nightie, but it’s been so hot lately—
Kundalini blushes. Also she smiles. It is good, to be admired. I think despite your shyness you like being admired. I admire your smooth darkness, your old-fashioned upright way
.
I find your kindness to me rather stunning, actually. I mean, I’m forty-two and just a former housewife—
Please. No fishing, Kundalini. You are magnificent. Your breasts are magnificent. Once, you did not let me caress them. You did not let me caress them like this
.
Perhaps the context was different. Time has moved on. I was then in your abode, now you are in mine. You are my guest, one refuses a guest nothing. Master, why have you come to me?
I was alone. I was nervous. I thought of you, perhaps also alone. There has been so much disturbance but I am left alone, at the hurricane’s eye—is that an expression? Ma Prapti has the many reporters to fascinate with her horrifying confessions. Durga has her fellow-warriors to exhort and imbue with thirst for glory. In my solitude I enjoy samarasa, the divine immobility. But for the condition of sahaja, of the non-conditioned and purely spontaneous, to reach that of advaya, of non-duality, and from this to attain
Mahasukha, of which we once spoke, there must be yuganaddha, the principle of union, which implies an initial duality. I thought of you. My inkling has been that you, too, wish to confront the other, the opposite, and thus achieve advaya. It is perilous, because within it one loses the self
.
You said you felt nervous. How can this be when you are a jivan-mukta, always in a state of samadhi?
I am Arhat, a follower of Buddha. The Blessed One did not leave the world, did not disengage himself from the confusions of jiva and ajiva and withdraw into nirvana like your cowardly Jesus. He stayed upon earth, instructing and consoling his disciples to the age of eighty. If we stay on earth, we stay in prakriti. If we stay in prakriti, we are subject to the vasanas and chittavrittis of other men. We are subject to nervousness in the forms of lust and fear. This is the great sacrifice the enlightened make, out of karuna, out of compassion. Indeed you are smooth, as smooth as black Kali. As smooth as Satyavati after bathing in the river Jumna. As smooth as Radha upon the flower couch in the groves of Vrindavan. There is that faint oiliness which I much love. It makes an iridescence
.
My father had dark skin. My mother is quite pale. She takes a terrible tan, but keeps trying.
Yes. Your rich mother. We discussed her. I think you are very close, mother and daughter
.
Not really. We got off on the wrong foot somehow, when I was very little. About your fear. Is it that you are afraid of death?—of course not, how could you be?—or of the troubles in the ashram sending you back to India?
I am not so afraid of India. Perhaps I am afraid of non-India. I am afraid of advaya, of non-duality. For as long as there is duality, the spirit does not need to unrobe. I am not afraid of unrobing the body and will do so. But I am afraid, yes, of the spirit unrobing itself of the body. Of jiva shedding ajiva. That is what I promised
you, I think. To turn your body into spirit, to have the great bliss, the Paramahasukha
.
Do you think I’m ready for that? Maybe to start with we could have just a
little
sukha.
Let us concentrate, Kundalini. That is stage one. We will let Durga have her shootout on the hills and the FBI men shoot back and the poor little sannyasins run for cover while we enact maithuna. Maithuna is not what is called in this coarse country “fucking.” It is cosmic play. It is lila. The soul’s journey is lila. The emergence of prakriti from purusha is lila. From the truth of the body, bhanda, emerges by lila the truth of the universe, brahmanda
.
I love it when you explain things. Would you like to touch me again?
That comes later, the touching. First is concentration, sadhana. We concentrate upon the beloved. It is best if she is parakiya rati—the wife of another. That is why I so much like your Charles. We need him. Otherwise you are apakva, unripe. Otherwise you are samanya rati, ordinary woman. We must mentally conceive you into vishesha rati—woman extraordinary, divine essence of woman
.
Shall I concentrate on you, too?
It is not so necessary, what the woman does. But yes. I am nitya manus, eternal man. I am sahaja manus, man unconditioned. I am ayoni manus, man unborn. My linga is all lingas. My mouth is all mouths. My hands are all hands
.
That idea gives me the creeps. I want them to be
your
hands, your hands only. When can you start touching me?
I am Krishna and you are Radha and we are in Vrindavan. Many flowering trees all about us. The smell of much maithuna all about us. The sound of water running. Birds unseen singing. All things rank, ripe, deep. We gaze and concentrate upon the other
.
Is there a next stage?
Smarana, recollection. I think of Kundalini as when she first
came in her rented Hertz, in a checked suit too hot for the sun, with the bold manners of a woman who thinks well of herself
.
And I think of you as you were from afar, a brown face on a poster, on the label of a cassette.
Which cassette did you possess?
The one on yamas and niyamas.
Yes. That was a good one. An early one
.
And then the one where you answer questions about the aham and the burning away of the vrittis.
I had stupid questioners that day. Stoned hippies and Vishnu bums. All squatting on the dirt floor in Ellora. Before the solid middle class discovered Buddha and pulled out their fat wallets
.
Should we be proceeding with the ceremony? Should you have all your clothes still on?
It is not important that the worshipper be naked; only the goddess, the worshipped. Now comes aropa, the attribution of qualities. You are woman, nayika. You are tall. You are dark. You are smooth. You are splendid. You have limbs like thick luminous snakes. Your belly is waxen and long, long; under my eyes it has dunes and hollows like desert sands in moonlight. It has shiny stripes like veins of expensive mineral. Your navel is an eye without an eyebrow. It is elegant and long and was well cut by the doctor the day of your birth. Bless that man. He is present in your navel
.
I was born in the war, in ’44. Daddy was in the South Pacific on a destroyer. The hospitals were understaffed and the doctor on emergency was a black man my mother had never seen before. Our own doctor had collapsed; he hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours, there were fights and accidents all over Boston then, the soldiers and sailors and all these jazz places. It was wartime. My mother said she was so terrified she vowed she’d never bear another child. But she did, four years later.
People forget pain. They do not so quickly forget bliss
.
Oh, stop looking. I am so old. My poor saggy body. My poor stretched belly, that’s what those marks are, from carrying Pearl. This Paramahasukha should have come along when I was twenty.
You were not ready at twenty. You were only ready for Charles
.
I was ready actually for a boy called Myron Stern, but my parents disapproved so violently I was scared off. What a docile nitwit I was.
With this Myron, too, duhkha would have entered in. Life is duhkha. Duhkha is incorrectly translated “pain.” Buddha did not say, “Life is pain.” Duhkha is disenchantment. He said, “Life is a letdown.” With Myron, as with Charles, there would have been enchantment, there would have been disenchantment. Even with Arhat
.
Not with you, Master.
Why not? I am myself or another
.
No, you are you. You have attributes. Let me see you.
I am afraid to disrobe. I am afraid of non-duality
.
Don’t be silly. Let me help. [
Faint tumult
.]
I am fat, yes. My belly is in layers like a cake
.
Just cozy. So much nice soft black hair.
My linga does not reach the sky
.
It’s trying.
In aropa, flowers are offered to the nayika. She is beginning to become a goddess. Her yoni is a lotus. Her mouth is a lotus
.
You’re so sweetly prim here. Like a little cactus. Without thorns. With a little bitter dewdrop.
Your breasts are fruit with tips the color of eggplant. Your shoulders are a silver yoke. Your jaw is a wing, beating slowly up and down
.
Those are nice attributes. I like this aropa part.
When the nayika is not there, the yogi remembers her beauty. That is the fourth stage, manana
.
Will you remember me?
Ah, your voice is dark and sad. That is the question women ask. They always ask, “Will you remember me?”
They want to know.
Their asking so earnestly plunges the lovers back into time, the sad time that does not exist in Vrindavan
.
I think you have many nayikas to remember.
The vishesha rati is not jealous. She is Shakti and is all women
.
How very convenient for Shiva.
You ridicule your Master. You are being wicked Kali
.
I’m getting sexually frustrated. How many more stages are there?
No need exists to rush. That is very Occidental, your need to rush
.
Couldn’t you at least kiss me? Somewhere. Anywhere.
The next stage is dhyana, mystic meditation, in which the nayika sits upon the lover’s left and is embraced, not for the sake of bodily pleasure but for the enhancing of the spirit
.
That may be too subtle a distinction for this old girl.
No. Not subtle. Love is for bodies only when the spirits are in harmony. Love is more than fucking only when the god in the other is saluted. That is why we say, “Namaste.”
I love the way you say “luff.” I always have.
That is why we say, “So ’ham.” I am He
.
I’m supposed to say something back but I forget what.
You say, “Sa ’ham.” You are She
.
Sa ’ham. I am She.
Great Kundalini, stand so I may meditate upon your body, each glistening particle, each cell of skin, each hair and gland. Think with me of your body cell by cell, as something greater than galaxies, greater than all the jewel trees. You are like a Bodhisattva standing
in the Land of Bliss, in Sukhavati. You are infinitely tall, infinitely splendid. You are immeasurably radiant, amitabha. You are amitayus, forever enduring
.
Mm. That feels nice. Tickly, but nice.
I am bathing you with my tongue. I drink your perspiration, your rasas. This is puja, the sixth stage. The nayika is bathed as if she is a statue of the goddess. As I do so I repeat formulas in my head
.
Must you go through this every time?
To make it holy, yes. To exalt us, yes. You may sit now. On my left. On the bed. The worship continues. Open your thighs
.
That’s nice too. Nicer, even.
Can you feel my inner concentration?
So that’s what I feel.
I adore your yoni. I drink your rajas
.
Don’t stop. Must you stop?
Now the seventh stage. The adept lays the nayika on the bed and repeats aloud the sacred formula
.
There is one?
Hling kling kandarpa svaha
.
What does it mean?
Hling kling kandarpa svaha
.
O.K. Pardon my asking.
Now sit on me
.
It’s too big. It
has
reached the sky.
This is stage eight, maithuna
.