A Step Away from Paradise: A Tibetan Lama's Extraordinary Journey to a Land of Immortality (53 page)

“Where?”

“Harvard. I taught medieval European history. Though if before the war my studies—if my entire life—seemed shallow, upon my return from India it all seemed completely devoid of meaning. There I was at the highest seat of learning in America and I kept asking myself: Who is this serving? And to what end?

“The war had torn the mask of civilization from the barbarism that still lurked beneath the surface of Western Civilization. Harvard was self-serving and self-satisfied—a self-perpetuating institution whose sights rarely went beyond the world of academia. It excluded more than it included. Academia constituted a world set apart from the real world, the world of experience.

“Before the war I never felt at home—anywhere. I came back from India seeing more clearly why I had always felt out of place. I probably
was
cracked in the head. But I knew that the world around me was cracked as well. Healing cannot come from a society that itself is cracked. I had to leave. I had to leave or risk going mad. So I taught a while longer, and taught myself Sanskrit. The entire time I dreamt of returning to India. I was sure India could help put my twisted life in order.

“While at Harvard I got married. A few years later my wife and I set out for India. We went by boat. Oh, yes, and we took our dog, for we were moving there, you see.”

He turned to look again out the window. A long time passed, so long that I thought maybe he was finished with his story. But then he turned again.

“This move upset my father. He said I’d be throwing everything away. What he meant was everything dear to him. He was right, of course. I would have had standing, everything that comes to a fully tenured professor at Harvard. I probably would have authored many books. A friend and I had worked out some new theories on education. We even spent an afternoon at the White House presenting our ideas to Eleanor Roosevelt, when FDR was president. I met with her once after that, when she was living in New York. She was quite a woman, Eleanor Roosevelt. She had a keen interest in India, you know.

“All that promise and more my father said I’d be throwing away. He called India the ‘great intellectual graveyard.’ He said it had claimed many great minds in the past.”

Ed Spencer’s words trailed off. Then he continued, almost in a whisper. “The spiritual life is one of purging, you know. That was my first renunciation. The next one came soon thereafter.

“The boat brought us to Ceylon. From there we took a train to Bihar to see Thakur, my teacher. But from the very start my wife didn’t like India. She detested the dirt, the poverty, the ragged millions—and the oppressive heat. And when she met Thakur she wasn’t at all impressed. He didn’t strike the slightest chord within her. To her, he was just another sordid piece of a subcontinent that was itself fetid and backward.

“Before long my dog died and my wife left me—two devastating blows. My wife returned to the States and divorced me. I never heard from her again.

“All my ties with my old world—the West—had been broken; yet a new center was beginning to grow within me. It wasn’t easy: it was torturous most of the time—believe me. I left all comfort and security behind. I staked my life on following my will in my pursuit of truth. I was desperate. If I hadn’t been desperate I never would have taken such desperate steps. But there was no turning back. I
had
nothing to return to, even had I wanted to. I had to continue stripping away at myself or perish. Thakur was instrumental in this. He saw the truth in me, buried beneath a lifetime’s falsehood. I would have perished long ago if it weren’t for Thakur, probably by my own hand.

“Thakur taught that the highest truth is love. What gets in love’s way is the ego’s selfish desires. I was full of ego, and my ego was full of cracks. I tried to love Thakur perfectly. I was looking for a human love to fulfill my destiny. But can any human love truly satisfy the heart?”

“How long did you stay with Thakur?”

“Years. Decades. But in the end we had a falling out. It was easier for the Indians. Indians are practically born believing their teachers are beyond fallacy.”

Ed Spencer took a deep breath, and then continued. “Thakur’s cook died. He committed suicide. I knew he’d committed suicide and I knew Thakur knew it too. But this was late in Thakur’s life. The village that had grown around Thakur by the time I met him had turned into a small town. He commanded an empire of tens of thousands of followers. He was embroiled in politics and had to hold up appearances. He was concerned with his image.

“Thakur said publicly that the cook had died by natural causes. I knew this was a lie. But when I confronted him he denied the truth. His eyes would not meet mine. All those years I had tried to aspire to
his
truth, only for him to prove false in the end. I felt betrayed.

“Where on this earth—amid all the disappointment and disillusion—where in this ‘vale of tears,’ as the Bible puts it, where even the highest proves false, is that to which one can aspire?

“Thakur had taught me that the way to the highest truth was littered with the ego’s clinging attachments. I realized that Thakur was but another of the false attachments I had to sever to find the truth.

“So I hit the road.

“At first I had some money, not much. I bought a flute with some of it and the rest time wore away. I started off with a small bag, but soon that was gone. In the end I had only the clothes on my back.

“One evening I walked into a little mud-and-thatch village. All I had left was a twenty-five piasa coin—a quarter of a rupee, worth a few cents American. As I entered the village a beggar approached me, his hand outstretched. I reached into my pocket, but caught myself: I thought it unwise to give away my last coin. So I passed him by and found a place to sleep in a little courtyard that was overgrown with trees and bushes where no one would bother me.

“The next morning I awoke just before sunrise. And there lying beside me was the beggar from the evening before. On the previous evening he had looked pained and hungry; now, in his sleep, he was peaceful. His smile was like a child’s. His head was propped upon his outstretched arm and his hand was half open as it lay in the dirt. I took that last coin from my pocket and carefully, so not to wake him, I put it in his hand. As I said, it was my last coin, and I gave it away. And the moment it was gone I knew I was free.

“As I walked out of the village a fair wind blew. My steps came effortlessly. The village still slept. I was as free as the clouds that floated across the sky. I was ecstatic. No money! Free! The way of God is free! I danced in sheer delight. The birds were singing in the trees and a song came to me.”

“Does that song have a name?” I asked.

“Yes. I call it the Road Song.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you sing it for me?”

Ed Spencer laughed now. He cleared his throat and began to sing. His voice had the bravado of a midnight drunk:

“A roamer, a rover, the whole world over,

As happy as me, you’ll seldom see.

At the Lord’s own boards each day I dine,

From the Bearing Straits to Palestine.

Each mile, a smile, from a man’s pure heart,

Jump in that truck or bullock cart!

This nook, that brook, will ring the bell,

No need of dough, it’s God’s hotel.

No pills, no bills, no therapy,

Sun, air, and sea are ever free.

There’s light and right in every code,

And a heap of God on the open road.

One shirt, no dough, was Christ’s motto,

Then do the same: let heaven flow.

A roamer, a rover, the whole world over,

As happy as me, you’ll seldom see.”

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed.

He smiled.

“What happened after that morning?” I asked, eager for more.

“I continued down that dusty road, and then I went down another and another. I went through village after village and town after town. I was free. Giving up that last coin had set me free. And I was at peace.

“I was filled to the brim, and the universe upheld me. Not that I didn’t lose what I’d gained that morning, not that I didn’t fall from those heights. Not that I wasn’t tested. I lived through incredible hardships. Nothing could sway me; I simply accepted whatever came my way.”

His eyes took on a far away look. “I loved the very simple ones,” he said, “the ones with dancing love in their eyes and dirt on their hands. I joined them for a while, lived with them. It was so easy, so good. But only for a while, for no one was perfect. No one loved me. They loved me for themselves. Even the poor. Eventually the desire in them would surface and I would depart. I came to understand what the Bible says about Christ: he committed himself to no man because he knew what was in the heart of man.”

First I had thought that Ed was one of those who couldn’t live up to society’s standards; I now knew it was society that couldn’t live up to his.

“How long did you travel?” I asked.

“About ten years,” he answered.

“Without money? How did you eat?”

“When you exchange food—or anything else—for money, you compromise both yourself and the person you’re dealing with. ‘I’ll give you this and no more if you give me that’: is that any way to live?

“Christ said, ‘Love ye one another.’ Does money have anything to do with love, with the ideal? I was in search of Truth—at all costs. Though I didn’t really know what I was looking for, I had no choice but to live by the ideal. Anything less would have been a compromise. I had given up too much to compromise.”

“But still,” I said, “how did you eat?”

“Whatever I needed always came my way. Sometimes people gave me food. Sometimes I found it. Other times I had no food. The body craves food every day, but it isn’t necessary. I went days and sometimes weeks with little or no food. Once I lived on nothing but the leaves of the betel tree. They are rich in vitamin C. You don’t need money. You’re better off without it. Take the money out of your pocket and put yourself in the hands of the unknown.”

“Perhaps in India you can travel like that,” I said. “There’s a tradition, isn’t there, of wandering holy men? But surely you couldn’t do that in the States.” I tried to picture him rambling past shopping malls, or on freeways, trying to catch a ride without a penny to his name, but always a police car came into the picture. Having no money in America is a crime.

“I travel the same way everywhere I go,” he said, dismissing my question with a single unequivocal blow.

I didn’t think he was lying, but it seemed fantastic. His story reminded me of a line from William Blake’s
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
, and I quoted it to him: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

Ed laughed. “I like that, though I wouldn’t say I’ve been excessive. I’ve merely done what I’ve had to. But Blake is right: how else are we to find wisdom?”

“I’ve never been outside America and Europe,” I said, “though now that I’ve lived on Europe’s edge, I long to go farther. India—what another world altogether it must be.”

Ed looked me straight in the eye. He took the toothpick from his mouth, and said, “I think you should come with me to India.”

A rush surged through me, the type you might feel if someone opened an airplane’s hatch, revealing a mile of open space below. My stomach dropped. Immediately—as if ready made—fears welled up; they congealed and took form. One hears stories of people who go to India only to become so frightened by what they see that they jump on the next plane out. One hears about people who catch nasty diseases there, people who are never quite the same.

But then there were those like Ed, whose lives India had transformed in some mysterious way. They were the ones I feared most, since something had happened to these people I couldn’t understand.

Ed was still staring me in the eye, awaiting my response.

“There are cheap flights from Athens,” he said. “That’s where I’m headed now. If we can get a flight to Bombay, I have friends there. When you’re a bit acclimated and your feet are back on the ground we could travel together, maybe to the south.”

“Look,” I said, “I have to think it over.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “you must consider it carefully.”

“I need some air,” I said. “I need air to think this through.” I stood up. It was all so fast.

Ed realized what a shock his sudden offer had caused me. He laughed. “Yes, you do that. Take your time.”

I went to the boat’s stern and leaned over the rail and watched the sun sink into the sea. The sky was brushed with red. Italy was disappearing beneath the horizon. Seagulls rode gusts of wind behind the boat, gliding back and forth, first high against the fiery sky then dipping gracefully back to the ocean. They rode the air currents, making a passage across the sea to Greece. Did they know where this boat was leading them? Did they care? The gulls called to one another above the sounds of wind and wave. The sky took on deeper and deeper shades of red as the sun dipped beneath the horizon.