Edward Aubyn - On the Edge

Kenneth was pleased with the sharpness of his observation, and with the joke of hearing Adam promote humility, and yet at the same time he was uneasily impressed by Adam’s passion. How could he split himself off so consummately from what he was saying? In the end there was no substitute for self-deception, Kenneth reflected enviously; it left insincerity standing, or kneeling, on the starting line.

‘The Sufis say that there’s a gate for each one of us,’ Adam continued, ‘through which each one of us can enter into the garden of Eden, but the shape of that gate is the shape you make when you’re on your knees. You can’t get through it standing up and you can’t get through it jogging; no guru can take you through it, you have to go through it yourself, on your knees.

‘All these philosophies which have been patriarchal and destructive have said that the point is to get out of here. What an absurd idea to be told that you’re just a pathetic little worm trapped in a million lives of bad karma, brought to this appalling Earth which is nothing but illusion, darkness, suffering and disaster, and the only thing you can do is scourge yourself and batter yourself and purify — never forget that word purify!

‘This is not an illusion,’ wailed Adam, pointing to the pretty view out of the window. ‘This is a masterpiece of the Divine. The Beloved is looking at the Beloved through your eyes. Ramakrishna says that knowledge will get you into the courtyard, but only adoration will get you into the bedroom. Poetry is the sign saying “This way to the bedroom”.’

The bedroom, thought Brooke, that was another place where she might be having a wonderful time.

‘Adoration is the opposite of capitalism,’ said Adam. ‘In capitalism, the more money you spend, the more money you lose. In adoration, the more love you give, the more you feel. The soul’s extravagance is endlessly returned…’

Now that was the kind of investment adviser she really needed! God was great, there was nothing he didn’t do better than everyone else. And yet it was Kenneth, sweating with guilt and probably plagiarizing Adam’s pronouncements, who was in danger of securing her adoration.

‘The Divine wants you to have the whole thing,’ said Adam. ‘Not just a banana…’

A banana? thought Brooke. That certainly wouldn’t be a good return on your adoration investment.

A banana? thought Kenneth. Why not at least say ‘the Presidency’? What catastrophic prompting of the unconscious had led Adam to say ‘banana’? The guy was losing it, thought Kenneth gleefully.

Kenneth and Brooke looked at each other and frowned.

‘The elite, the hierarchies, have not worked,’ said Adam. ‘We’re twenty years away from extinguishing life on this planet. There are people who know all the facts about the forests, there are corporations that know exactly what they’re doing, and still sit swilling Château Lafite, on their electrical chairs, in their Armani suits, discussing how to kill the peasants so they can get their land…’

They didn’t sound that elite, thought Brooke, in their Armani suits. And Adam sounded as if he’d be happy to see them in another sort of electrical chair, being turned into little wisps of smoke.

Kenneth yawned. The trouble with the end of the world was that it was taking so long, it was difficult to hold anyone’s attention. He definitely wasn’t going to mention it in his book.

‘Clearly what is needed at this time is a massive infusion of love into the heart of the world, a vast awakening in everybody of a deep, deep ecstatic connection with the body, and with Nature and with each other, because if we don’t have that connection with bodies and nature and each other, we won’t do everything we can to save the planet. We’ll be sitting on our futons when the last tree is burnt down, saying all this is an illusion, and actually choking to death. It’ll be that stupid.’

‘Adam,’ said a woman with a French accent.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t feel comfortable with you saying … well, you can say what you want…’

‘Yes.’

‘But I don’t quite agree with “Everything else is bullshit”. Because you’ve been through it and so now you can see that it’s bullshit, but for those who want to go through it, that’s OK.’

‘Oh, I agree, I’m just trying to point out that it may be a waste of time,’ laughed Adam. ‘I’m just trying to transmit something.’ He paused.

Thinks that ‘transmit’ makes him sound too much like a guru, thought Kenneth. He’s cornering himself.

‘I think you have to be very aware,’ Adam resumed, ‘of how the ego can entrap you in another game. I think you have to be very aware of how the ego can appropriate the image of the seeker as one of its theatrical roles. I think you have to be extremely aware that you can fabricate experiences for yourself, experiences that you think of as Divine visions. I think you have to be very aware that there’s something hilarious in the whole enterprise of seeking something which you already are.’

Kenneth watched Adam leap from his guru corner on the spring of rhetoric, saw him stiffen with confidence as he regained his audience of seekers by recalling them to these sensible precautions.

‘Unless your seeking has that continual subversive humour, unless it has that continual self-awareness, unless it has that humility about its potential vanity, arrogance and silliness ,’ roared Adam, ‘then you’re going to be trapped by seeking and you’re going to be trapped by every other activity.’

‘And being a lover too,’ said the Frenchwoman.

What an annoying woman, thought Brooke. Why doesn’t she just let Adam fly? He’s such a star, and he’s on my staff.

‘Exactly,’ said Adam. ‘I wrote a book claiming that this woman who is half crazy is the Divine Mother, simply because I was having real experiences which I was projecting on to her. It’s very hard to grow up, and most of us avoid it as long as possible, because then you have total responsibility, and you have to look at all the things in yourself which don’t want the real truth but want magical solutions.’

‘What made you realize that your guru was half mad?’ asked the Frenchwoman.

‘Well, simply when she sat down and said you’ve got to get rid of Yves, and become a heterosexual, and write a book about how the force of the Divine Mother has transformed you into a heterosexual, because homosexuals play no part in the future of the Divine Mother. It doesn’t reek of the holiest of wisdom, and I realized that she was mad and that she was vicious and controlling and very frightened of Yves because he’s very truthful and could see everything.’

‘Why do you think it took you so long to see that?’

‘Because I’m a fool, darling, and you are, and we all are,’ snapped Adam. ‘I think a lot of the relationship with the Master is a rewriting of the family romance,’ he continued more sweetly. ‘I had a disastrous relationship with my own mother which took me years to uncover. I thought I was choosing the exact opposite to her, but in fact I was choosing the same person.’

He’s so compellingly honest, thought Kenneth, so impressively passionate, but honest and passionate about what? It might just be the latest confusion, the latest defence against the delusion before last.

‘I think that what I went through is what the whole of the New Age is going through,’ said Adam. ‘I now believe that the guru system is over. The dribble of scandals about gurus is going to turn into a monsoon. We wanted transformation on the cheap — naughty us. I had a partial awakening through the power of adoration, but I was very lucky because at a moment when I was about to go round the world announcing my guru, the Divine Mother revealed to me that she was not real. If I’d gone forward I would have been locked into a system of my own creation. So the whole thing was broken by the real Mother at a very important point, to help me to get free and also to help me discover the direct path.