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Authors: Christopher Isherwood
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September 1. I find the above desperately frustrating, almost meaningless. All my old resistance to things Indian comes back upon me and I keep remembering Aldousâs objections to formal meditation (which actually made me rather angry when he used to speak of them) and even someone at La Verne (it was Harold Stone Hull, Iâve just looked this up in my journal) saying sarcastically, âWhen do we stop the motion pictures and start meditating?â 36
The only part which is relatively easy and seems helpful is mentally doing the acts of ritual worship. The hardest part is thinking of the universe covered by Brahman as Light. And when I try to assemble the two Ramakrishnas, Maharaj, and Swamiji in the room I get a feeling, where are they all going to sit?
Well, I really do want to watch my reactions to this problem so Iâll write down something about it every day. I know that will be helpful.
Hunt Stromberg called up out of the blue at the end of last week and asked would I be interested in doing a T.V. series, âthe definitive âFrankensteinââ?! So heâs coming round this afternoon.
Don much upset yesterday, said I am never frank with him, jolly him along, why donât I tell the truthâthat his paintings are faggy. I said, even if they are, why the hell shouldnât they be if thatâs your myth? He said, Iâm ashamed of my myth. . . . I write down these lines and they sound funny, but there is a terrific deep problem here which I only partly grasp. (âBecause of a basic inattentionâ? Yes, thereâs that, and thereâs my desire to get on with my work undisturbed and not have the boat rocked. True. But it is also true that Iâm not nearly so perceptive about Donâs problems as Don thinks I ought to be and secretly am and wonât let on to being, lest I have to get involved with them. Of course you can say my stupidity is self-protective and so we go round in a circle.) All is love again now for the moment. But I must pursue this problem. I must pursue it particularly at the times when Don is not disturbed about itâthough usually when I try to do this he isnât inclined to talk about it.
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September 2. Saw Swami last night. I complained about my difficulty with the meditation on Brahman and he said, then just say Om three times and feel that it resounds throughout the universe and that Brahman is Om. I complained about the âcrowdingâ when I try to see Ramakrishna and the others all together. He said, I should try to see them one after the other in succession. (This certainly is easier.) He also said that, when mentally doing the ritual worship, I should sometimes do the offering up of the physical body, the subtle body etc. etc., until Brahman alone remains.
Hunt Stromberg came by yesterday with a boy from Florida [. . .]. Hunt talked about the âFrankensteinâ T.V. special (it isnât a series) and made it sound as if it was a fairly firm offer. He has broken up with Dick Shasta, 37 whom we liked; said Dick was impossible to live with and talked vaguely about a car being blown upâhe didnât actually say Dick did this. As a result, Hunt hired a bodyguard, a seemingly very square ex-marine. Now, he claims, the bodyguard is so fascinated by the âfag sceneâ that he is showing signs of âcoming outâ himself. Hunt described how [the boy from Florida] was sunbathing by the pool and the bodyguard came out and didnât see Hunt and started lustfully looking [the boy] over. Then he saw Hunt and immediately began shooting all over the place with a BB gun to cover his embarrassment!
This morning in the mail came the announcement of the group show at Billy Alâs studio: Moses, Bengston, Bachardy, Bell, Goode, Berlant, Davis, Ruscha, Price, Alexander. 38 (In that order.) This is really a very distinguished gathering and Don is pleased. Irving Blum was very nice about it when
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September 1. I find the above desperately frustrating, almost meaningless. All my old resistance to things Indian comes back upon me and I keep remembering Aldousâs objections to formal meditation (which actually made me rather angry when he used to speak of them) and even someone at La Verne (it was Harold Stone Hull, Iâve just looked this up in my journal) saying sarcastically, âWhen do we stop the motion pictures and start meditating?â 36
The only part which is relatively easy and seems helpful is mentally doing the acts of ritual worship. The hardest part is thinking of the universe covered by Brahman as Light. And when I try to assemble the two Ramakrishnas, Maharaj, and Swamiji in the room I get a feeling, where are they all going to sit?
Well, I really do want to watch my reactions to this problem so Iâll write down something about it every day. I know that will be helpful.
Hunt Stromberg called up out of the blue at the end of last week and asked would I be interested in doing a T.V. series, âthe definitive âFrankensteinââ?! So heâs coming round this afternoon.
Don much upset yesterday, said I am never frank with him, jolly him along, why donât I tell the truthâthat his paintings are faggy. I said, even if they are, why the hell shouldnât they be if thatâs your myth? He said, Iâm ashamed of my myth. . . . I write down these lines and they sound funny, but there is a terrific deep problem here which I only partly grasp. (âBecause of a basic inattentionâ? Yes, thereâs that, and thereâs my desire to get on with my work undisturbed and not have the boat rocked. True. But it is also true that Iâm not nearly so perceptive about Donâs problems as Don thinks I ought to be and secretly am and wonât let on to being, lest I have to get involved with them. Of course you can say my stupidity is self-protective and so we go round in a circle.) All is love again now for the moment. But I must pursue this problem. I must pursue it particularly at the times when Don is not disturbed about itâthough usually when I try to do this he isnât inclined to talk about it.
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September 2. Saw Swami last night. I complained about my difficulty with the meditation on Brahman and he said, then just say Om three times and feel that it resounds throughout the universe and that Brahman is Om. I complained about the âcrowdingâ when I try to see Ramakrishna and the others all together. He said, I should try to see them one after the other in succession. (This certainly is easier.) He also said that, when mentally doing the ritual worship, I should sometimes do the offering up of the physical body, the subtle body etc. etc., until Brahman alone remains.
Hunt Stromberg came by yesterday with a boy from Florida [. . .]. Hunt talked about the âFrankensteinâ T.V. special (it isnât a series) and made it sound as if it was a fairly firm offer. He has broken up with Dick Shasta, 37 whom we liked; said Dick was impossible to live with and talked vaguely about a car being blown upâhe didnât actually say Dick did this. As a result, Hunt hired a bodyguard, a seemingly very square ex-marine. Now, he claims, the bodyguard is so fascinated by the âfag sceneâ that he is showing signs of âcoming outâ himself. Hunt described how [the boy from Florida] was sunbathing by the pool and the bodyguard came out and didnât see Hunt and started lustfully looking [the boy] over. Then he saw Hunt and immediately began shooting all over the place with a BB gun to cover his embarrassment!
This morning in the mail came the announcement of the group show at Billy Alâs studio: Moses, Bengston, Bachardy, Bell, Goode, Berlant, Davis, Ruscha, Price, Alexander. 38 (In that order.) This is really a very distinguished gathering and Don is pleased. Irving Blum was very nice about it when
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