5 Simonetta The Divine Life Society 1st & 2nd December 1980 |
||
Bill has given me much to think about, much to question about my approach to collecting these Interviews. He is now making me a hot drink. I am thinking deep, but not for long. A knock at the door: a dramatic contralto with basso profundo overtones is declaiming the horror of Indian bus travel. The awaited Simonetta is back from a day in horrid Dehra Dun. The aria continues molto staccato: it includes a denouncement of Ashram politics leading into a brilliant caballeta on the well-known theme — The Tortures of Ashram Life. Simonetta, Roman, aristocratic, totally unforgettable, rises to a renewed pitch of excitement as Bill explains I am longing to meet her so that her Ashram news and views can be included in a book I’m writing. Just compiling, I correct weakly. But you writers — she goes on— never tell the truth about Ashram life and… I quickly interrupt -- compilers can only publish the information they are given -- (We have been waiting for the sound of a car outside which would denote Swami Chidananda’s arrival for satsang and which would be our cue to rush out to the lecture hall so as not to miss a word, but without any preliminaries, without asking permission, I turn on the tape recorder, molto rapido)…
Interview 5 …and…I keep telling, and nobody is believing — when will someone write the truth?…the truth that Ashram life is hell! I am also telling — but I know you will never write this — it is not one hell: it is five hells — FIVE! And I can name them all — I have experienced them ALL. Through all the Ashram hell regions have I passed! Is your recorder taking all this down, it’s working? It is, but there’s
not much tape left. Swami Chidananda is already sitting serene, eyes closed, still: he has the most ascetic face I have ever seen. The radiation of a saint can be overwhelming if one absorbs too much —I know all too well it can make you want to go home and stop compiling accounts, however dynamic, however accurate of the rich variety of scenes from Ashram life. But this Swami is light and joyful and is making me want to hear even more of everything Simonetta threatens to let loose. Or is it that I have lived long enough in an Ashram to share some of her joy and discomfort, her trials and moments of supreme bliss? …Now as I was trying to tell you last night…and are you listening?...Ashram life is never portrayed honestly. It is because of the protectiveness of the disciples — protecting the guru, protecting the system — that is at fault. We all know about the blissing-out part. Who ever writes about the frustration-ego-smashing side? There are some marvelous people who are naturally spiritual: there’s no effort, there’s great simplicity, great humbleness. They don’t have to go through the conflicts and excrutiating tests we have to go through. We are going through hell; they have bypassed it. The truth I am saying bold and loud. Perhaps devotee writers
feel it their duty to sugar-coat the life-in-the-Ashram pill. Before you take
me on a tour of all the Ashram hells can you tell me how you landed in this
Ashram? Swamiji was the embodiment of everything I dreamed of: the love, the light, the purity, the beauty. I heard all his talks for the next two days. It was a bewildering experience. Then he disappeared. I looked for him everywhere. I could not find where he had gone. Swamiji just disappeared out of my life. Now I was a very famous fashion designer, and I had a contract with a chain of stores in America for the past eleven years. I had to go there for publicity tours twice a year. I was breaking away from all that so I could concentrate the work in New York: fashion shows, Interviews and so on. My contract was finishing in June 1970, but when I arrived in New York they wanted me to do Chicago and San Fransico also. Fashion didn’t interest me any more so I didn’t want to go to California. But in New York I called up the Divine Life Society to see if they knew where Swamiji was. He was in San Francisco! So my contract — which was to be my last in America — brought me to Swamiji again. Swamiji returned to India in December 1970, and I flew back to Paris to wind up my affairs. By January 1st I was with him in India. I didn’t know anything about the Ashram: I came only for him. But why do you find Ashram
life hell? There is always something extraordinary happening. But all year round we are sure of one lovely unmovable fixture: the food is the same — rice and lentils with a bit of vegetables. At least we are able to boast that food has no longer any importance. Oh, my God, there are so many hells! The animals — we have zoos in our rooms: monkeys and famished dogs trying to get in; ants, scorpions, cockroaches and flies already installed inside; mosquitos having feasted to their fill, wanting to get out. Oh, I forgot the wasps: they also come in to nest. We have to get accustomed to all this. And I must not forget the mice. They are very small, and as no doors fit properly or touch the ground, they stroll underneath: you suddenly see a grey thing that has the cheek to stare at you…he is not even afraid. But then there is a much subtler hell, a more difficult hell: it is having to live with other people. You have to get along with them and not indulge in likes and dislikes, not to get caught up with emotions and sensations generated by them but to relate to them in a detached way. We are collected together for the same reason but from different backgrounds and cultures. It takes much patience to look on everyone as your brother or sister. Now do you begin to see what I mean about the hell regions? The more I go on, the more hells come into my mind. Another is — these reflections are all personal, for we are all at different stages of evolution — yes — the loneliness of Ashram life. Suddenly you find yourself living in a community with people you don’t know and with whom you would never have even met in your ordinary life. There is lack of communication: it is not easy. In this solitude comes the lesson — most important — how to live with yourself and not depend on people and objects. Would you like to say
something now about the benefits of Ashram life, or something about Swamiji’s teachings? This Ashram here in Rishikesh is surrounded by three leper camps, mostly beggars cut off from human contact, rejected by society. They were waiting for death, passive, sad. I made up a programme, and joined Swamiji. He never looked at the programme, he never called me. I was to fly to Paris, so at the last moment he pulled out the papers, but said there was no time to discuss it - so many devotees were waiting for him. He suggested I extend my visa and wait for him at the Ashram. When he returned we visited the lepers together. We started by taking away all the begging lepers and put them in a camp: Swamiji then measured symbolically the first rations. From that day that group never had to beg. They have
food, medical care and clothing. Later, when everything got settled in the camps, and as I was still full of illusions and believed a guru should give so-called spiritual instruction, I started going to someone else for Vedanta instruction. I love philosophy, I am not really a bhakta. I heard Krishnamurti and was fascinated with what he did with people’s minds — he takes the mind and puts it on a higher level; so I decided it was time for me to look for gurus and teachings. I went to the Himalayas, everywhere from Sikkim with Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche in Darjeeling to Muktananda to Krishnamurti, who became my obsession. I even had the nerve to go to a great lama and tell him I had come to learn so that I could understand Krishnamurti better. May I ask who you consider
your guru or gurus? Now I should tell you that Swamiji told me years ago: This Ashram is your spiritual home in India… you can leave your things here… you can travel and do whatever you want… but remember, this is your home. This is what happened. I have traveled all over this country, but I always come back here. Bill told me you are
building a small house in the Ashram. I see in this room of
yours you sleep on the floor and use the bed as a table. You must have lived
a very different life before you came to India. In 1962 Christian Dior died. Capucci, the Italian
designer opened a fashion house in Paris. It was a success, so he persuaded
my husband — who was also a fashion designer, Alberto Fabiani —
to also open in Paris. In Italy we had separate houses: his was Fabiani, mine,
Simonetta. But we merged our businesses in Paris next door to Balmain, Dior
and other big houses. More success. But Paris became the bridge to the East.
Our marriage broke down — he was always flying round the world that way,
and I was flying the other way: we never met. Do you want me to leave
all that in? I ask because… Would you rather talk
about the positive side of Ashram life? I’m sure there’s much that
you have enjoyed here. I have also found that we must learn to be aware of everything during the day; that is a form of meditation. Meditation does not mean to have a rosary in your hand and have your eyes closed. It means to live here and now, to be aware of what’s happening inside and outside. Krishnamurti gives what I call teachings: clues and directions, how to look at ourselves, at things. He gives no conclusions; on the contrary, he puts questions with no answers. Do you keep up with what’s
going on in the outside world? Bill gave me a lecture
last night, so I am going to plunge deep. In your old life you had much fame,
wealth, happiness and much misery also. Now, in spite of the Ashram hells, have
you made any inner progress? Well, should you have
to go back to the West would you be able to re-adapt? Apart from this wish
do you have a goal in your life? Why are you here? That sounds like Krishnamurti. You say we are energies,
does that mean you don’t believe in karma and reincarnation?
But isn’t spirituality
something apart from the mind? Do you have a problem
with your family? Do you ever miss them? At the beginning when we started talking last night about the Ashram hells I missed out one important hell. It is a hell that lies in store for us. It is the hell waiting for us if we ever go back to the West. You see, we suddenly find we do not belong there. That can be a traumatic shock — we don’t know where we ought to be, who our friends are; so much has dropped away — old habits, our old way of living, the old way of thinking. We find ourselves as alone in the West as we are in the East. Yes — we may now have a lovely hot bath, some chocolate, all the things one used to love, but they have lost their meaning. Clothes have lost their meaning, all the things one cared for have lost their meaning. The taste of the West after many years in the East is a serious hell because it attracts and repels at the same time. The only way is to find the famous MiddleWay, the way of detachment.
|
||
© Malcolm Tillis 2006 |