Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Creator of El Topo

I tried to cry, then I tried to vomit. Impossible. My legs were tingling with loss of circulation; my eyes were burning, swollen with fatigue. I felt empty but not clean. In my life I had been actor and spectator, and both of them had been sick. The koan had come like a breath of wind, sweeping away the dark clouds that prevent the spectator from knowing the self as impersonal and unlimited. Yet the spectacle of my ignorance, vanity, and so many other miseries caused me great suffering. I felt an unbearable hollowness in my chest. I had never been able to love, because I did not know how to love myself.

Almost insensibly, perhaps because of the fatigue of insomnia, my body arose and went back downstairs into the zendo. Suddenly, I found myself standing before Ejo, sitting in meditation on his platform. I ventured to interrupt him:

“Ejo, I am leaving for good. I am filth. I do not deserve your friendship.”

As if feeling my sadness in his own heart, he placed his palms together at his chest and offered me a new koan. “When Master Kyo-o abandoned his mountain monastery, he was given fire as a parting gift. How was he able to carry it?”

Without answering, I walked out of the small meditation room, sat down on the doorstep, and put on my shoes. What good would it do to answer? Whatever my words, the master would make fun of them. If the only true response to a koan is something beyond words manifesting an attitude of living fully in the present, why strive to resolve absurd questions with words? Yet I felt frustrated. I could not help thinking that the fire that Kyo-o was given was spiritual awakening, which he carried by realizing it. He did not leave the monastery in a spirit of rejection; quite the contrary. He left it as a butterfly leaves its caterpillar chrysalis, for his metamorphosis is accomplished. Kyo-o left as a victor, but I was leaving as a loser. What is enlightenment? The truth was, I still imagined it as a marvelous object of attainment, a gift, a fire that would fill my mind, consuming everything — my concepts, my self-image, the mirages that I called reality. . but Ejo Takata had given me nothing save blows and mockery. At that moment, I thought, “I am nothing, I know nothing, I can do nothing,” and I began to weep convulsively.

The next thing I knew, Ejo was beside me, caressing my head.

“Do you know what Kyo-o did when they offered him the fire? He opened the large sleeve of his kimono, and said ‘Please put it here.’ Sometimes, giving is knowing how to receive. Sometimes, offering is not giving. Who can give you what you already have? Is awakening a sort of currency that passes from hand to hand? How can fire be offered apart from the wood in which it burns? Life is the oil that saturates the torch, and the torch is you. It is you who burn. When you consume yourself and there is no more wood or flame, you return to ashes, scattered by the wind. And your ashes are like mine, like those of Kyo-o or the Buddha. You have put all your energy into trying to possess something. Have you ever once surrendered?”

“Ejo, the truth is that my head is full and my heart is empty. I have lost the capacity to receive without barriers. I have deprived myself of the fire that this word enlightenment has perverted. I want to change, but I do not ask myself why I want to change or what I want to become. I try to eliminate the symptoms rather than the cause of my suffering. Among the gamut of pains, I have chosen the least. I cannot imagine feeling good; I aspire to feel only not too bad. . But where is the joy of life in all this? How can each new day become a day of celebration? Will I ever resolve the primary koan of accepting to die? Will I ever be able to say, as the old beggar says: ‘I am even greater than God, because I am nothing’? Sincerely, I don’t believe so.”

Sadly, I murmured, “ Arigato (thank you),” and I left the zendo, deciding then never to return.

As I went back to my home along the endless Insurgentes Avenue, a dark-skinned, effeminate boy, fifteen years old at most, approached me with an uncertain smile. He wore tight pants and a sleeveless shirt.

“Give me twenty dollars, and I am yours,” he said.

The frustration that had accumulated in me because of my failure in Zen washed over me like a raging sea, and I punched the poor boy in the chest. He fell down, sitting. When he got up, I ran after him for almost a block, kicking at his behind. Then, continuing on my way, I began to speak to myself aloud: “I, too, deserve to be kicked in the ass! I’m a spiritual whore, inviting the Buddha to possess me and offer me enlightenment as payment. I’ve had enough! Meditating, immobile as a statue, serves no purpose! I must be honest with myself. I must confess what it is I am really looking for.”

That same day, the Gurza brothers contacted me, surrounded by their usual aura of marijuana smoke. They owned many animals, which they rented to the film studios at Churubusco. “The Tigress saw your photo in a magazine. She said you please her, and she wants to meet you.” I was terrified. They were referring to Irma Serrano, a famous Mexican pop singer. A millionaire whose strange beauty was due to extensive cosmetic surgery, she was rumored to be the mistress of the president of Mexico. It was also said that he had lost an eye when she broke a chair over his head in a fit of jealousy. Yet in spite of my fear, I decided to visit her that very evening at her theater. Perhaps this Tigress was what I was looking for: a ferocious female who could help me to take root in this land of Mexico, which so fascinated me.

Her voice was grating and harsh, like the sound of the lid of a badly made coffin.

SILVER KANE, LA HIJA DEL ESPECTRO

(THE SPECTER'S DAUGHTER)

Behind the dilapidated post office, amid bars, billiard halls, huge fruit stores, and hideous apartment buildings, the Frou-Frou Theater’s doors were open like an absurd flower. At the end of a long corridor whose walls were covered with photos of the Tigress, there stood a coffinlike counter and a cagelike ticket office protected with iron bars. Gloria, the cousin of the star, was counting the receipts of the performance already underway. To my great surprise (we had never been introduced), she emerged from her cage and embraced me enthusiastically.

“I heard about the reception of your film in Acapulco. The audience wanted to lynch you. Bravo! The boss will be very happy to see you — she loves scandals.”

She ushered me into the theater. Proudly, she showed me the vast salon and bar decorated in “French” style with two dominant colors: crimson and gold. There were little angels, floral motifs, Louis XV armchairs, dwarf palms, satin drapes, frivolous posters — and standing right the middle of all this bric-a-brac, there was a larger-than-life statue representing the naked Tigress. It had an upright bust, stringy arms, and voluminous thighs on colossal legs. Such bad taste made me want to laugh, but all mirth died on my lips when Gloria pointed to a certain place on the floor and told me: “Under that spot three sheep lie buried. To ensure prosperity, my boss had them slaughtered in a satanic ritual. Ever since, we’ve had sold-out houses every night.”

Then she led me into the theater, and offered me a special seat. Most of the audience seemed to be working-class males. There was an odor of mingled sweat and church incense. “This is the last act of Nana ,” she whispered. “A prostitute lives in luxury, kept by bankers and aristocrats, but everyone abandons her in the end when she catches smallpox. I’ll take you backstage when it’s over.”