Here Lies the Heart

De Simple Silence.

Voyage to India — Conversations with Meher Baba and Sri Aurobindo

And this time I wanted most of all to go to India to see the great Indian sage and saint, Ramana Maharshi, and I felt that I must go at once.

I had very little money, far too little to risk going to India, but something pushed me toward it. I went to the steamship company and booked myself one of the cheapest cabins on an Indian ship, the S.S. Victoria sailing from Genoa to Bombay toward the beginning of October. In the meantime I flew to Dublin to see my sister Baba and her husband, Freddie Shaw, and their two children Frederick and Mercedes. Like many youngest sons, Freddie had no money, but he was a remarkably good and fine man. They were living in a modest little house and I never saw a family so devoted to each other or so happy together.

Alfredo Sides’ wife Consuelo sailed with me to India. She intended to stay there several years with Sri Meher Baba, but Alfredo, when he came to the station to see us off to Genoa, said, « Don’t let Consuelo do anything foolish and please take care of her. » Before Alfredo, Consuelo had been married to Charles Nungesser, a dashing, devil-may-care French World War I pilot of legend. He was reputed to have spent more time in the hospital and in various women’s beds than he did in the air. He did however spend enough time in the air to shoot down 43 German aircraft. He also talked himself into the American Lafeyette Escadrille for one month, from July 14 until August 15, 1916 where he relaxed and showed the American pilots and crews his gold teeth, teeth that were necessitated after being shot in the mouth during a dogfight with the Germans. After the war he tried to fly west over the Atlantic at the same time that Lindbergh flew east. Nungesser was lost on the flight. But it was not until she married the unmarriageable Alfredo that we became close friends. I will never know what made Alfredo suddenly marry. He was out of character in doing so and was certainly not the husband for Consuelo.

I had booked passage to Ceylon intending from there to cross over to southern India and go directly to Tiruvannamalai where Ramana Maharshi lived. But when the ship called at Bombay, Princess Norina Matchabelli came on board to see me with a message from Meher Baba saying that Consuelo and I must get off the ship and come to see him in Ahmednagar, about two hours from Bombay. I did not want to do this as my real purpose in India was to see the Maharshi, and I was impatient to get to him. But Consuelo was going to Baba and she and Norina pressed me to do the same. It was an appallingly hot day and I had a migraine headache, so I let them pack my things and, in a daze, followed them off the boat. I remember edging my way through masses of people whose dark faces stood out in the brilliant sunlight against the white which the men wore. There was also a great deal of color among the crowds — turbans and saris of brilliant pinks, blues, greens, every imaginable color, and after the incessant black one sees worn in occidental countries, Bombay gave me the impression of a gay festival.

The next day we motored to Baba’s ashram in Ahmednagar. This a place he had built a number of years ago, even before he had European disciples. He had built it for what are called in India « God-mad men and women » These are people who become possessed by God and the spiritual life, and go out of their minds. A great many of them had become insane at an early age. Thousands of them wander all over India, sleep in the fields and are fed by anyone who gives them food. Most of them are harmless, but their physical condition becomes tragic. Although they are considered holy and like the Sacred Cow allowed privileges, down through the ages nothing had been done about them by the government or by individuals.

Meher Baba is the first person in India who has taken care of them and attempted to cure them. He sends his Mandali (men disciples) throughout India to bring as many of them as they can to his ashram. Here he puts them in order physically, and then works spiritually and psychologically to cure them. He has cured hundreds of them and many of them, after coming to their senses, have become his Mandali and helped to cure others. When I arrived in Ahmednagar, Baba had a great compound where about five thousand of these mad people lived. I saw him bathe many of them, a technique he uses to work spiritually through water, which seems to calm a great many of them in an extraordinary fashion. I was very much impressed by these sessions.

I was, however, not at all happy my first night in the ashram. Baba had many times spoken to me about it, and he had always promised me that if I ever went there I would have a room or a cabin of my own. This point had been brought up because Norina had told me that all the women slept in dormitories. I am a poor sleeper and I knew that under these conditions I would not be able to sleep. Also I have a horror of a lot of women herded together. This is one of the reasons why I have always hated convents and the life of nuns and any kind of dormitory school life. So I was extremely upset when I was told I would have to sleep in a dormitory. I mentioned this to Norina, who brushed my objections aside and said that I had to be « like everyone else. » Looking back on it now I realize that I had no right to expect special treatment. Baba was possibly teaching me a lesson, but I felt that a man who was a spiritual teacher should not break his word.

In any case I spent a miserable night. The heat was terrific, many of the women snored, and all of them had pots under their beds which they used during the night. This was about the last straw for me. I arose at five and I was in no good mood when Norina told me that Baba expected Consuelo and me to stay with him for five years.

Five years! » I cried. « Are you out of your mind? I came to India to see the Maharshi and I am leaving here today. »

I went to Baba’s cabin. He was sitting on the floor in the Buddha posture with bare feet and a garland of flowers around his neck. He embraced me warmly and I sat down on the floor before him. He spelled out on his board, « I see you have slept badly. » I shrugged my shoulders. I was not going into all that again. He continued. « I want you and Consuelo to stay here with me for five years. I hope you will agree to this. »

« I regret terribly to have to refuse you this request. I could not possibly remain here and I must not deceive you, Baba — In case you don’t already know it, I must tell you I came to India to see Ramana Maharshi. »

He asked on the board, « Do you consider the Maharshi a Perfect Master? »

« I don’t know anything about such things. I am no judge of Masters or of the fact that they exist. I only know that I long to see the Maharshi with all my heart, and I must go to him. »

« When do you want to leave? »

« I would like to leave today. »

« There is no car to take you to Bombay today. You will have to go tomorrow. But Consuelo will remain. »

« I hope she will not. Alfredo put her in my care and I think after a few months she should go back to Europe. »

Baba made no comment on this and I felt dismissed. Suddenly I knew I was no longer within the inner circle. The European disciples withdrew from me and their attitude strengthened my wish to leave. I did not feel any spirituality in such a lack of understanding.

That night Norina walked up and down with me in the compound. She made one more effort to change my mind and used all her charm and force of personality — and she had an abundance of both — to accomplish this. When Norina spoke of Baba or God she became ferocious. She told me laughingly once that Professor Jung had called her a « God- beast » because, he said, he feared she might devour God. It was a dark night and as we walked she swung a lantern back and forth in her hand. She told me that by refusing Baba’s request I would face ten terrible incarnations. I laughed and said, « I’ll take my chances. » She said, « Surely you are not thinking of going back to that horrible Western world and to that terrible Hollywood! » I told her that after I had seen the Maharshi it was quite likely I would return to Hollywood. She threw her hands up in disgust. « There is nothing to be done with you. You are lost. »

The next day I had a battle with Consuelo. Norina had persuaded her to stay. But I won out. As we were leaving, Meher Baba was very gracious to us, which was more than the others were. He kissed us both good-by and enacted a promise from me that I would not go to see either Gandhi or the Maharshi before sightseeing all over India. I afterwards regretted this because it caused me to miss meeting Gandhi.

When we left Bombay, Consuelo and I kept our promise to Baba and went on quite an extensive tour of India. Among the many places we saw I was most charmed, in a worldly sense, by the little city of Jaipur built entirely of pink stone. Here was a fairy tale world — a world from a Bakst ballet. In front of the pink palace with its ornate door of gold stood Indian guards wearing only short white skirts and white jaipurs, and the most beautiful green turbans draped in a very special manner. I saw a string of elephants belonging to the Maharajah sauntering past the palace. Thrown over their backs were blankets of the most exquisite gold material, while on their heads sat naked boys in the Buddha posture wearing brilliantly colored turbans, and directing the elephants with sharp cries.

Because of the paintings and photographs I had seen of the Taj Mahal I had expected to dislike it. But we had the good fortune to arrive in Agra by full moon, and as I stood in front of the Taj I was overcome by its white beauty. It seemed to me a living thing, and when I touched it the stone was warm and lifelike. The heat of the sun on the stone did not cool off at night.

Benares, of course, is an unforgettable experience. There too we were fortunate, as we arrived for an eclipse of the moon, an event considered sacred by the Indians who are tremendously influenced by astrology and the heavens. Millions of people crowded down to the Ganges and plunged into it, many of them carrying their sick and dead. Regardless of the consequences they were determined to submerge in the river at the moment of the eclipse.

We went to Ellora, and Ajanta. Here, in the caves of Ellora, and especially Ajanta, I felt art transcended beyond art. Here was some blending of mysterious forces that went beyond the human. Here was the testimony of the divine heights man can reach. This was an experience for me beyond Greece and beyond the greatest Gothic cathedral.

Meher Baba wired us to go to Poona, and when we got there he sent us a message to go to a certain cave and meditate for several weeks. This I flatly refused to do. I told Consuelo she could do so if she wished, but that I was on my way to southern India and the Maharshi. So she came along with me. We went to Bangalore, Mysore, and Madras and then to Pondicherry, hoping to see Aurobindo Ghose in his ashram.

Oddly enough, we arrived in Pondicherry on November 21 not knowing that Sri Aurobindo always held darshan on the 22. This word, in a sense, means what Christians would call a blessing or benediction. It is derived from the Sanskrit darshana, meaning cognition or even sight. And yet it is not exact to say it is a blessing or a benediction because darshan is neither given nor received — it occurs. It may appear to be given by a saint or a sage, but it is not. It is really an experience. An experience which may occur at the sight of the river Ganges, or at the sight of a holy temple, or at the sight of a sacred hill such as Arunachala — any one of these may give darshan as well as a person. The thing to understand is that any spiritually-minded Indian will travel hundreds of miles and put up with any discomfort if at the end he is to receive darshan. Thousands of people had already arrived ; many of them had been walking for six months from villages in the north to arrive in time for darshan. The town was already crowded and masses of people were sleeping in the fields. Consuelo and I, not knowing what the crowd was about, went to the ashram and rang the bell. A disciple, dressed in a sort of monk’s costume, opened the door. I asked if it would be possible for us to see Aurobindo. He could not have been more surprised. He explained that no one ever saw Aurobindo and that he lived in complete seclusion except on the day of the darshan, which happened to be the next day and was the reason for the great crowds in the town.

It would seem now that Consuelo and I should have known all this, but twenty years ago very few people outside of India knew much about the great Indian sages such as Aurobindo and the Maharshi. I had read everything that Aurobindo had written, although it had not always been easy to get his books in Europe or America. But I did not actually know about his habits as I did about Ramana Maharshi’s, in whom I was intensely interested and had taken the greatest pains to find out every- thing about. I do not wish to attempt a comparison between these two sages. Aurobindo was an intellectual and in his early years he had been in politics. In his later years, in his years of seclusion, he had, I believe, allowed himself to be dramatized by the Mother, a Frenchwoman who ran the ashram and had an enormous influence on him and who under stood the value of creating the legend around him that he never saw anyone but her, except at darshan, which he gave twice a year — November 22^nd and March 22^nd.

When I understood that I could not see Aurobindo alone and would have to wait till the next day to see him with thousands of other people, I asked if we might see President Wilson’s daughter Margaret, who was living in the ashram and whom Consuelo and I both knew. She was, of course, surprised to see us but immediately said she could arrange for us to go to darshan and would also find a place for us to spend the night, as the ashram and the hotels were already crowded. As we passed through corridors I had an unpleasant sensation. To me it seemed like another convent and I have always wanted to forget my convent experiences. Women in nunlike costumes were whispering in corners and the whole place had a deadly atmosphere as well as a theatrical one. This was not surprising, as the Mother, who was the supreme influence there, had been on the stage in France. She had evidently not lost her sense of theatre over the years.

I asked Margaret Wilson, who had been a professional soprano that often performed before army camps during the war and had served as the First Lady in the White House for her father after her mother died, if she was happy. She said she was and that not for anything would she want to leave the ashram. She said she hoped to die there and only a few years later she got her wish.

That night Margaret arranged for us to stay in the house of a French lady — a Madame Yvonne Gaebele. Darshan was to be at five o’clock in the morning. Madame Gaebele graciously served us tea and cakes at three o’clock in the morning and around four we went to the ashram with our garlands and fell into line with the many people who had been holding their places all night. Madame Gaebele was well known at the ashram and because of her and Margaret Wilson we were allowed to go almost to the front of the line. There was great tension and an extraordinary silence as everyone waited for Aurobindo to appear and take his place on a huge chair on a high platform. Everything was in readiness when suddenly a disciple appeared and made the astounding announcement that Aurobindo would not give darshan. He explained that Aurobindo had sprained his ankle and was in too much pain to give it. He said the Mother would give darshan in his place. I could hardly believe my ears. Thousands of poor people who had traveled hundreds of miles, many Of whom had been journeying for months, were to be disappointed because of a sprained ankle. There was a hush, and a wave of depression ran through the crowd that was almost staggering. Many people wept, but I was angry. « If a spiritual leader can disappoint so many people how can one find fault with a government leader or a politician? » I asked out loud — but no one answered me.

The Mother appeared and mounted the platform. Made up within an inch of her life, her lips scarlet and her hair brightly dyed, she wore a trailing chiffon dress, and as she took her place on the chair I wondered if anyone in that crowd could experience darshan. But we all filed past her, placing our garlands at her feet. I felt like a first-class hypocrite. Some years later Vincent Sheean told me that when he was in the similar position before the Mother she had slyly winked at him. I was glad to hear this. It at least made me feel better to know she had some humor. But strangely enough, opinions differ. Consuelo was impressed by the Mother and by the whole place. She wanted to stay there. I, however, said good-by to Margaret, and sadly enough it was really a last good-by. As I left the ashram I wondered how such a great man as Aurobindo could have allowed himself to be so exploited. He is now dead, but the Mother still carries on in the ashram even though the Light has gone out.

Mercedes De Acosta.