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Authors: Michael Murphy
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book.”
“I’ve looked at your outline. Jacob asked me to. And the articles about Bernardine Neri. I can see why the two of you made this connection.” She pulled the manuscript toward her. “It’s quite a thing really, quite a thing—all these examples you’ve got. It’s impressive. You’ve got to give us a seminar one of these days. But let’s talk about what happened. You don’t know much about him, do you?”
“Not much. I guess he told you about the thing at the church.”
“He told me something about your experience—and the others. But you’d better tell me in your own words. It’s still unclear what happened.” She nodded toward the bedroom with ironic good humor. “As you might guess, things can get confused around here.”
I briefly told her the story. As I did she listened intently. “We’ll have to talk more about this,” she said when I finished. “And talk to the others if we can, that lady and the priest. Because whatever happened then connects to last night. But maybe it would be best if I told you something about Jacob so you’ll have a better sense of what’s going on here. The trouble is—where to begin.” She looked down at the table, her green eyes darkening. “How to begin . . . well, since you know so much about this,” she tapped the manuscript, “let’s start with first things first. To say it simply, Jacob is religiously gifted, strangely and terribly gifted. When he was sixteen, he had the kind of realization you’ve written about, a kind of nirvikalpa samadhi if you will.” A subtle change came into her face, a sad ironic look. “But he had to enjoy it in a mental hospital. I guess you’ve heard about that sort of thing.”
I said something about Ramakrishna, the Indian saint, that he and other mystics might have been locked up too.
“That’s right,” she said. “He wasn’t acting out, or hurting anyone. It was just that he couldn’t get around very well. He was simply lost in ecstasy.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, who can really tell? He says that it started much earlier—I don’t know when exactly. We had met the year before, in ’46. And fallen in love. God!”—suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t often tell the story. Forgive me.” She threw back her head. “Oh, I was madly in love at sixteen. We had gone up to the Sierras on a camping trip with some other kids when it happened. No warning. No hint to the rest of us. Just whoosh!” She spread her arms wide. “He was gone. There was nothing we could do but take care of him.”
“Could he function at all?”
“Not for the first couple of days. But by then we had him back in the city and of course his parents were frantic. Sweet people, but poor and uneducated—putting him in the hospital was the only thing they knew how to do. The only thing any of us knew how to do . . .” She paused. “So he was in there for a couple of months, until some shock treatments brought him out of it. Fortunately he came around fast, after the third or fourth one, I think.” She straightened her back and smiled as if the memory refreshed her. “He was shaky for several months, but full of a light. Even the doctors saw that. One of them—I’ve got to hand it to him—called him a genuine mystic. He knew what was happening, I think, somewhere down deep in his little psychiatrist’s head. After they let him out some other people saw it too. I certainly did. It meant the end of our romance, for one thing. At Lowell that year—Lowell High School—he was a pretty odd figure, but somehow he managed to get through it. He hardly ever studied. Just spent the day in some kind of reverie, they said. Then his parents sent him to live with their friends, the Echeverrias. Ever since, he’s lived right here.”
“In this building?”
“That’s right. He’s been here ever since. For twenty-three years I guess. Yes, twenty-three years. Then after high school he went to Berkeley for a
“I’ve looked at your outline. Jacob asked me to. And the articles about Bernardine Neri. I can see why the two of you made this connection.” She pulled the manuscript toward her. “It’s quite a thing really, quite a thing—all these examples you’ve got. It’s impressive. You’ve got to give us a seminar one of these days. But let’s talk about what happened. You don’t know much about him, do you?”
“Not much. I guess he told you about the thing at the church.”
“He told me something about your experience—and the others. But you’d better tell me in your own words. It’s still unclear what happened.” She nodded toward the bedroom with ironic good humor. “As you might guess, things can get confused around here.”
I briefly told her the story. As I did she listened intently. “We’ll have to talk more about this,” she said when I finished. “And talk to the others if we can, that lady and the priest. Because whatever happened then connects to last night. But maybe it would be best if I told you something about Jacob so you’ll have a better sense of what’s going on here. The trouble is—where to begin.” She looked down at the table, her green eyes darkening. “How to begin . . . well, since you know so much about this,” she tapped the manuscript, “let’s start with first things first. To say it simply, Jacob is religiously gifted, strangely and terribly gifted. When he was sixteen, he had the kind of realization you’ve written about, a kind of nirvikalpa samadhi if you will.” A subtle change came into her face, a sad ironic look. “But he had to enjoy it in a mental hospital. I guess you’ve heard about that sort of thing.”
I said something about Ramakrishna, the Indian saint, that he and other mystics might have been locked up too.
“That’s right,” she said. “He wasn’t acting out, or hurting anyone. It was just that he couldn’t get around very well. He was simply lost in ecstasy.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, who can really tell? He says that it started much earlier—I don’t know when exactly. We had met the year before, in ’46. And fallen in love. God!”—suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “I don’t often tell the story. Forgive me.” She threw back her head. “Oh, I was madly in love at sixteen. We had gone up to the Sierras on a camping trip with some other kids when it happened. No warning. No hint to the rest of us. Just whoosh!” She spread her arms wide. “He was gone. There was nothing we could do but take care of him.”
“Could he function at all?”
“Not for the first couple of days. But by then we had him back in the city and of course his parents were frantic. Sweet people, but poor and uneducated—putting him in the hospital was the only thing they knew how to do. The only thing any of us knew how to do . . .” She paused. “So he was in there for a couple of months, until some shock treatments brought him out of it. Fortunately he came around fast, after the third or fourth one, I think.” She straightened her back and smiled as if the memory refreshed her. “He was shaky for several months, but full of a light. Even the doctors saw that. One of them—I’ve got to hand it to him—called him a genuine mystic. He knew what was happening, I think, somewhere down deep in his little psychiatrist’s head. After they let him out some other people saw it too. I certainly did. It meant the end of our romance, for one thing. At Lowell that year—Lowell High School—he was a pretty odd figure, but somehow he managed to get through it. He hardly ever studied. Just spent the day in some kind of reverie, they said. Then his parents sent him to live with their friends, the Echeverrias. Ever since, he’s lived right here.”
“In this building?”
“That’s right. He’s been here ever since. For twenty-three years I guess. Yes, twenty-three years. Then after high school he went to Berkeley for a
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