Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir by Irvin D. Yalom
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
PASSAGE TO INDIA
This journey was extraordinarily eventful, and even now, thirty-five years later, a great many details remain in my mind. In fact, as I recently have become more interested in, and more respectful of, meditation practices, the events of this journey have taken on a preternatural vividness.
I land in Bombay, now Mumbai, at the time of the annual Chaturthi festival when huge crowds are celebrating enormous statues of the elephant-headed god, Ganesh. I haven’t traveled alone for a long time and am thrilled about this new world and new adventure. The following day I begin a two-hour journey from Mumbai to Igatpuri, sitting in a train compartment with three lovely Indian sisters who are clothed in bright saffron and magenta gowns.
The most beautiful of the three sits next to me and I inhale her intoxicating cinnamon and cardamom fragrance. The two others sit across from me. I glance at my traveling companions surreptitiously from time to time—their beauty takes my breath away—but mostly I look out the window at the astonishing sights. The train follows a riverbank full of hordes of people wading and chanting as they immerse small statues of Ganesh in the water, many of them also holding yellow papier-mâché globes. I point out the window and speak to the woman next to me, “Pardon me, but could you tell me what is happening? What are they chanting?”
She turns and looks directly into my eyes and answers me in exquisite Indian-tinged English, “They say, ‘Beloved Canapati, come again next year.’ ”
“Canapati?” I ask.
The two other women titter.
My companion answers, “Our language and customs are very confusing, I know. But perhaps you know this god’s more common name, Ganesh.”
“Thank you. And may I ask why they immerse him in the river?”
“The ritual teaches us the cosmic law: the cycle of form to formlessness is eternal. The Ganesh statues are formed of clay, and in the water they dissolve to formlessness. The body perishes but the god residing in it remains constant.”
“How interesting. Thank you. And one last question: Why are people holding those yellow paper globes?”
All three women again titter at the question. “Those globes represent the moon. There is an old legend about Ganesh in which he ate too many ladoos . . . ”
“Ladoos?”
“A ladoo is one of our pastries, a fried flour ball with cardamom syrup. Ganesh loved them and one night ate so many that he fell over and his stomach burst. The moon, the one witness to this event, found it all quite hilarious and laughed and laughed. Enraged, Ganesh banished the moon from the universe. But very soon everyone, even the gods, missed the moon so much that an assembly of them petitioned the Lord Shiva, Ganesh’s father, to persuade Ganesh to relent. Even the moon joined in and apologized to Ganesh, who gave in and reduced the moon’s punishment: the moon was to be invisible only one day a month and partially visible the rest of the month.”
“Thank you,” I said. What a fascinating story. And what a droll god with that elephant head!”
My companion thinks for a moment and adds, “Please don’t allow my comments to cause you to underestimate the seriousness of the religion. It’s interesting to consider the features of Ganesh—each one means something.” She unclasps a Ganesh brooch worn around her neck under her robes, and holds it up for me to see. “Look carefully at Ganesh,” she says. “His every feature has an important message. The large head tells us to think big, the large ears to listen well, the small eyes to focus hard. Oh, and one other thing, the small mouth tells us to talk less, and that suddenly causes me to wonder if I am talking too much.”
“Oh no. Far from it.” She is so beautiful that at times I have difficulty concentrating on her words, but of course I say nothing of that. “Please continue. Tell me, why does he have only one tusk?”
“To remind us to hold on to the good and throw away the bad.”
“And what’s he holding? It looks like an ax.”
“Yes, it means that we should cut off attachments.”
“That sounds much like Buddhism,” I say.
“We must not forget that the Buddha emerged from the great ocean of Siva.”
“And one last question. The mouse under his foot? I’ve seen it in every statue of Ganesh.”
“Oh, that’s the most interesting attribute of all,” she says. Her eyes entrance me; I feel as though I’m melting into her gaze. “The mouse represents ‘desire,’ and Ganesh is teaching that we must keep desire under control.”
Suddenly we hear a squeal of breaks as the train slows. My companion, whose name I have not learned, says, “Ah, we are approaching Igatpuri and I must gather my things for departure. My sisters and I are attending a Vipassana meditation retreat here.”
“Oh, I’m attending the retreat too. I’ve enjoyed our conversation so much. Perhaps we could continue to speak at the retreat—at tea time or lunch?”
She nods, saying, “Alas, there is to be no more speaking . . . ”
“I’m confused. You say no but you nod your head yes.”
“Yes, yes, our head nodding is always a problem for Americans. When we nod up and down we mean no and when we shake our head side to side we mean yes. I know it is the reverse of what you are accustomed to.”
“So then you mean no. But why? Why no more speaking?”
“At the retreat there can be no speech. Noble silence is the rule, the law, at the Vipassana retreat—no speech at all for the next eleven days. And that, too, is forbidden,” she points at the book on my lap. “There must be no distractions from the task at hand.”
“Well, goodbye,” I say, and add hopefully, “Perhaps we can talk again on the train after the retreat.”
“No, my friend, of that we must not think. Goenka teaches that we must inhabit only the present. Past remembrances and future longings produce only disquiet.”
I have often thought of her departing words: “Past remembrances and future longings produce only disquiet.” So much truth in those words, but at such great cost. I don’t think I’m able or willing to pay so much.
At Igatpuri I taxied a short distance to the meditation center, where I registered and was asked to donate money for the retreat. When I inquired about the average fee attendees paid, I was told that most of the attendees were poor and paid no fee at all. I donated two hundred dollars, considering that a modest fee for an eleven-day retreat that included room and board. Yet the registration staff seemed astounded by my generosity and all shook their heads in approval as I glanced at them. I looked about me and noted, with some concern, that, of the roughly two hundred participants registering for the retreat, I was the only Westerner!
A staff member placed all my books in a locker in the front office and then guided me to my sleeping area. Perhaps because I had made a sizable donation, I was placed in a room with only four companions. We greeted one another silently. One of them was blind, and on three or four occasions he grew confused and tried to lie down on my pad and I guided him back to his. There was no speech for the entire ten days. Only Goenka, or occasionally his assistant, spoke.
It was only when I looked at the schedule that I began to grasp the severity of what I had signed up for. The day started at 5 a.m. with a light breakfast and then meditation instruction, chanting, and lectures for the entire day. The only real meal of the day was a midday vegetarian lunch, but very soon I lost my appetite and scarcely cared about food—a common occurrence at the retreat.
After breakfast we assembled in the great hall, where there was a slightly elevated podium for Goenka. The hall had a floor of matting and, of course, no furniture. The two hundred attendees all sat in lotus position waiting in silence for Goenka to appear. After a few minutes of silence, four attendants escorted Goenka to the podium. A formidable, bronze-skinned, handsome man clothed in white robes, he opened the teaching with chants from an ancient Bu
The first thought that enters my mind, when I wonder why the chanting so affected me, is my father’s voice as he accompanied Yiddish singers on a phonograph record. And then, too, I think of how much Goenka’s chanting reminds me of the cantors chanting in the synagogue. During my adolescence, all I wanted to do was to escape from the synagogue as quickly as possible, but now, looking back, I recall some delight in listening to the cantor’s fine voice. I can only guess there is some deeply buried part of me craving enchantment, and the alleviation of the pain of separateness through ritual and authority. I think there are few without such craving. I’ve seen the emperor without clothes, heard the secrets of too many individuals in high places, and know there is no one immune to despair and longing for the lap of the divine.
Goenka lectured to us in the first couple of days and taught us how to focus on breathing, how to experience the cool air on inhalation and the warmth of the exhaled air that had been cradled by the lungs. After only a few hours on the very first day, however, I developed a significant problem sitting in a lotus position. I have never been comfortable sitting on the floor and my knees and back began to ache. During the lunch break, I spoke of my problem to one of Goenka’s assistants (though we had to maintain silence with one another, we were permitted, if it was truly urgent, to speak to an assistant). He looked at me oddly and wondered aloud what I must have done in my previous life to have such an uncooperative back. Still, he offered me a simple wooden chair, and for the rest of the retreat I sat in a chair amidst two hundred acolytes, all sitting serenely in lotus position. The assistant’s comment about past lives was, by the way, the only reference to the supernatural that I heard during the entire retreat. Discipline was present but invisible until an evening when someone passed gas loudly. A couple of people laughed out loud, and soon eight to ten people got into a laughing fit lasting several minutes. Goenka cut the day’s teaching short, and the following morning I noticed that the audience was smaller: the attendees who had laughed were no longer present, undoubtedly expelled.
On the third day, Goenka began the formal teaching of Vipassana meditation, instructing us to concentrate on our scalps until we sensed some sensation there, perhaps an itch or twinge, and then to move our attention down to the face, waiting for some sensation there that signaled us to move to the next segment of our body, to the neck, to the shoulders, until we reached the soles of our feet, all the while mindful of our breathing, and ever mindful of impermanence. All the later instruction focused only on learning this Vipassana technique, which, Goenka reminded us repeatedly, was the Buddha’s own personal way of meditating.
In addition to instruction and chanting, Goenka gave several motivational lectures, almost all of which I found disappointing. He assured us we were now rich, that we now had a technique allowing us to use our time more meaningfully. For example, while waiting at a bus stop, we could meditate in the Vipassana mode and purify our minds, much as a gardener might remove weeds from a garden. Thus, he emphasized, we would have an advantage over the others who waited at the bus stop merely wasting time. This last idea, that Vipassana permitted one to gain an advantage over others, seemed unworthy and at odds with Goenka’s spiritual appeal.
After a few days of Goenka’s incessant instruction I had an epiphany that entirely changed the nature of my Vipassana exercise. I began to “sweep.” I began to feel as though honey were being poured over my head and that it was slowly seeping down to envelop my entire body. It felt delicious, as though my body were buzzing or vibrating, and suddenly I had a flash of insight: now I fully understood why so many adherents might choose to remain in this state for weeks, even years. No worries, no anxiety, no sense of self or separateness, only the heavenly buzzing and warmth sweeping down and through the body.
Alas, this delicious otherworldly state endured only a day and a half and I could not again reenter it. I’m afraid that, overall, I would give myself a flunking grade in Vipassana meditation. It did not help that my sleep became entirely disrupted—I rarely slept for more than four, occasionally five, hours during the retreat. This was partly due to the impact of so much meditation, partly because of my blind companion’s confusion and his attempts to get into my bed, and partly because of the night guards circling the retreat center blowing police whistles loudly all night long to keep thieves away. The time passed far too slowly and I grew increasingly bored. Aside from washing my clothes, I could find little to do, and I washed them often whether they needed it or not, and even checked them frequently to see how quickly they were drying.
From time to time I saw my beautiful train companion at a distance, but, of course, we could not speak, though I was often certain she was gazing deep into my eyes. Despite her warnings about future thoughts disrupting tranquility, I often imagined us meeting again on the train, without her sisters, after the retreat. I tried my hardest to dispel that luscious fantasy—surely such fantasies obstruct the path to equanimity.
And, worst of all, no books! I rarely go a day without reading a chapter or two of a novel, but I had been required to part with all my reading material upon check-in. I felt squirrelly, like an addict in withdrawal. Spotting a wrinkled page of blank paper in my knapsack, I pounced on it, and with a nub of a pencil amused myself by sketching a story. I considered my train companion’s words: “Past remembrances and future longings produce only disquiet.” Now, with pencil in hand, I considered the catastrophic consequences of that thought. I imagined Shakespeare embracing that phrase and choosing not to write King Lear. Not only Lear, but all the great characters of literature would have been stillborn. Yes, the glorification of tranquility is wonderfully calming, but the cost, the cost!
After the retreat I took the train back to Mumbai and never again saw the Indian sisters. Before leaving India I wanted to visit Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India, but the route led through Calcutta, which confronted me, as never before, with the depths of human misery. The taxi that drove me into the city from the airport passed endless wretched shacks of the poor, each with a charcoal stove spewing dark smoke and fumes into air that stung the throat and darkened the sun by two in the afternoon. Gaunt beggars, the blind, lepers, and staring, emaciated children awaited me every time I left the hotel. The lepers chased me for blocks, threatening to touch me with their sores unless I gave alms. I always went out with my pockets full of coins, but the poverty and the need were inexhaustible. I did my best to use the Vipassana techniques I had just learned, but I failed to achieve tranquility. My novice meditation practice seemed powerless against real agitation.
After three days in Calcutta, I boarded the train and arrived at the holy city of Varanasi late at night, the only tourist at the empty train station. After an hour, a bicycle cart driver arrived at the station and agreed, after some spirited bargaining, to take me to Varanasi and help me find lodgings. But the city was so filled with Buddhist pilgrims that empty beds were scarce. Finally, after two hours of searching, I found a tiny room in a Tibetan monastery that was adequate but noisy. I slept very little that night because of the loud and joyful tantric chanting all night long. In the coming days I attended seminars, yoga classes, and meditation exercises at the various monasteries. Though I was a failure as a meditator, I found the seminars and lecture of great interest—not for a minute did I doubt there was great wisdom in the Buddhist tradition. Nor did I consider enlisting in further meditation training. At that time it seemed solipsistic to me—I had a whole life elsewhere: a wife and family that I loved deeply, my
I took boat rides on the Ganges, saw the daily cremations along the riverbank, the hordes of monkeys in the trees and on the roofs, and explored the surrounding area with a guide, a college student with a motorcycle. Next I went to Sarnath, the Buddhist holy city with many revered sites—for example, the deer park where the Buddha first taught the Dharma to his acolytes, as well the Bodhi tree grown from a cutting of the original tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment.
When I went to the station to buy my ticket back to Calcutta, where I was to catch my plane back to the United States after a stop in Thailand, the ticket seller informed me that no seats would be available for several days. I was baffled, since the station appeared relatively deserted. Returning to my hotel, I asked the manager for help, and he informed me, with a smile, that the solution to this riddle was quite simple and that I had yet to learn the ways of India. He escorted me back to the train station, asked me for a five-dollar bill, then slipped the bill to the ticket seller, who courteously and instantaneously produced a ticket. Moreover, when I boarded the train, I observed that I was the sole passenger in the entire second-class car.
From Calcutta I flew to Thailand, where I toured floating markets and Buddhist shrines and had an interesting conversation and tea with a Buddhist scholar I’d arranged to meet through a friend at home. In the evening, a friend of my cousin Jay took me out for a secular tour of the town. At the sprawling seafood restaurant where we went to eat, the waiter did not provide a menu but escorted us to a fishpond circling the restaurant and asked us to select our fish. He caught it in a long-handled net and guided us to a large fresh vegetable bin, where I selected side dishes. I did my best to instruct the waiter with my one Thai phrase, “Phrik rxn” (“No hot chili”), but must have mangled the words, for they elicited such boisterous laughter that other waiters came over to join in the merriment. After dinner my guide took me to my first and only Thai full-body massage parlor. I was escorted to a room by an assistant who asked me to undress and bathe, after which she covered me from head to toe with massage oil, at which point the masseuse, an extraordinarily beautiful naked woman, entered and began to massage me. After only a few minutes I realized that I had misunderstood the term full-body massage—it was not so much that my whole body was to be massaged, but that she massaged me with her whole body. At the end of the massage she smiled, bowed, and inquired in a most delicate fashion, “Is there anything else you might desire?”