|
Therapy
With Leon Redler
 During
the three years of my therapy with Leon Redler, who
was also most directly responsible for the
communities, I absorbed or realized much of the
value-system that was prevalent in the network. In
the beginning we could choose couch at first and
then in a few minutes lay down. Leon pointed out to
me the postures I habitually assumed. Even when I
was thinking I was quite relaxed, I would lie
stiffly with my hands clasped on my chest and my
legs crossed at the ankles. Sometimes I would bend
my right leg over the left knee. I was always
wrapped up and locked in. I was always clutching
myself. Once he suggested that I relax, loosen up,
and lie with my feet apart and my hands at my
sides. I told him that I could not do it. I do not
know now what I meant when I said this or how I
knew it but I told him that I understood this
relaxing or meditation he was asking me to try and
that it was impossible for me. And I was right.
When I unclenched myself and relaxed I had to sit
up in panic after a couple of seconds. I had had a
fantasy of being machined-gunned from the sky by
jet airplanes or of the building collapsing on top
of me. But this experience interested me and I was
annoyed that it was impossible for me to try to
relax without panicking. The posture I found so
difficult is the basic resting pose in hatha yoga,
the corpse posture. This session with Leon was
perhaps my first yoga lesson; in any case I was
moved to begin to take formal classes. I had
scoffed at yoga and meditation in the past. I had
laughed at one therapist when he practiced in the
game room at Kingsley Hall. I had refused to join
the twenty-minute meditation session that Leon
tried to institute before community meetings. But I
think the intensity of my reaction was an
indication of my curiosity and growing
involvement.
During
a later period of my therapy, when Leon was
becoming involved in zen, we usually sat on
cushions on the floor. During this time I felt a
greater freedom. Sitting on the floor was like
having a rest after a walk in the woods. I could
sit close to him and facing him; I could sit
further away and avoid his gaze; or I could move
around the room. Leon had developed a quiet
non-violent manner. One day he was visited by a
young man with black hair and a shaggy beard, a
tall husky fellow with a dangerous reputation. He
had wrecked his parents’ home and the offices
of three therapists. It was his passion. And it
seemed that his intention was to do the same again.
He barged in and confronted Leon, swaggering and
threatening, all set to do his number. But Leon,
deceptively slight in build, sat down quietly on
the floor and refused to respond aggressively. He
all but ignored the stranger’s physical
threat. The man blustered and tried to provoke Leon
but he did not respond as the man expected. Instead
of destroying the apartment all he did was spit at
Leon and miss. At some point Leon told his
secretary to call the police and inform the
intruder that they were on their way. The man chose
to leave before they arrived.
The
apartment was quite large. It was originally shared
by three therapists. Later it was used for
Leon’s therapy and for the Philadelphia
Association seminars. One room was for therapy. One
room was a kitchen, one room housed the
Philadelphia Association library, and one room,
originally used for seminars, was eventually used
for zen sitting. As his interest in zen grew deeper
Leon invited zen masters to stay in the apartment
and to sit in the meditation room. In keeping with
the zen tradition of simplicity Leon did not speak
of meditating or doing zazen but of sitting. We sat
in the therapy room or we sat in the meditation
room; the distinction between therapy and
meditation began to fade.
I
remember the zen masters. There were several who
came and stayed at Leon’s apartment, each for
a period of several weeks. One complimented me on
my posture and then, typically, added that it did
not mean a thing. Another loved to play a Japanese
game on a board, and played with the greatest
amusement and humor, like a happy child. One said
that the world was his temple, that he meditated in
the bathroom as well as anywhere else. Another,
when asked if he had smoked hashish, replied with a
grin, "Opium I know. Hashish I have not tested
yet."
The
sitting was not unduly severe but it was difficult.
One sat for half an hour, then walked slowly for
five minutes, and repeated this three more times. I
could never stay for the entire two hours; one was
free to leave between sittings. The group met every
morning and evening for two hours. Leon was
invariably present and sometimes lived in the
apartment with the zen master. When a master was
not there Leon would lead the sittings. He enjoyed
this. He would seat himself slowly and with dignity
and humor light a stick of incense. Then to signal
the beginning of the meditation he would hit a
gong, perhaps several times. If he felt so inclined
he could make a sudden startling noise by knocking
loudly with a clapper on a block of wood. If one
was calmly sitting this would not disturb; it would
keep one alert. Leon had fun acting as zen
master.
After
out therapy terminated I realized how much I had
learned, how deeply I had been influenced by my
relationship with Leon. He was quiet and accepting
for the most part; I particularly reacted to the
times he was disturbed by something I said, to the
few occasions he seemed to get angry with me. Once
when I was accusing myself of laziness Leon became
disgusted. He told me that he rejected the concept
of laziness as a useful way of understanding
behavior, that he thought it served to justify a
self-loathing and self-hatred. This did not make it
easier to act but led to paralysis. Calling oneself
lazy was an excuse for avoiding self-examination.
There was always a reason for inactivity; indeed
inactivity could be a good thing in itself. Leon
became quite heated on this subject.
Another
time he seemed to get angry was when we were
looking at some of my writing; he also served as my
editor. As we went through the papers I discarded
some material that was intense, cryptic and
actually quite well written on the grounds that I
had been taking amphetamines when I wrote it. Leon
would not accept this. To him writing was writing
and if it had meaning it was valuable, no matter
what the conditions under which it had been
produced. His attitude helped me resolve a split in
myself, let me integrate my personality as a whole
from its dissociated parts.
Sometimes
I would practice my asanas during a session. Once
Leon got upset because I was holding a cigarette
while attempting a forward bend. He insisted that
one could not practice yoga while holding a
cigarette in one hand and, of course, he was quite
right. Later still he commented that I was doing
the asanas in order to avoid encountering him I
therapy, to avoid conversation, in effect wasting
time.
Leon
did not believe in acting out but he believed in
feeling. He told me to feel my grief and my rage,
and I have learned that whether or not I express
myself in anger or tears there is a great release
of inner energy when the inner barriers are relaxed
when I feel my grief or feel my rage. They are part
of me. Feeling them is a relaxation of tension, an
inner opening, a healing.
I
had learned that depression is the fusing and
destruction of anger and sadness. As I had put it,
"Depression comes when anger and sadness clutch
each other and drown." Now I slowly came to realize
that the emotions were more intense than I had
described them, that they deserved more respect. I
noticed that a feeling of rage was often
immediately followed by a feeling of grief and vice
versa. I realized that the release of these
emotions could be a healing for despair. These
emotions could be important as a source of
hope.
In
my encounter with Leon is evident a movement toward
specific techniques for relieving stress or
exploring one’s inner world. Zen meditation
was one. Hatha yoga was another; classes were given
at the community and elsewhere, and many residents
practiced regularly. I myself have been taking
classes and practicing ever since I overcame my
initial intense resistance. It has become very
important to me. Other techniques include Aikido
and ta-kwon-do, oriental martial arts without the
aggressive factor. Zen walking, moving through
hatha yoga postures and Aikido are all forms of
dance. Massage became an important part of
community life at different times; one of our
residents set up as a practicing giver of
massage.
In
fact we gradually realized that much of what is
called "mental illness" is actually physical
suffering, whether it be skin rashes, insomnia,
vomiting, constipation, or general anxiety-tension.
The schizophrenic experience is endurable and can
be meaningful in a context of minimal physical
stress. Thus zen and yoga have traditionally been
means toward physical health and inner
illumination. The therapists of the Philadelphia
Association experimented with these techniques and
then began to pass them on. Visiting zen masters
gave zazen, B.K.S. Iyengar and his students taught
hatha yoga and various herbalists and
acupuncturists applied their techniques. We
realized the importance of the body, of the
body-mind continuum. To think of mental illness
outside of its physical context seemed absurd. Thus
much of the cooking at the community was
vegetarian; there I received my introduction to the
virtues of rice, beans, and vegetables.
We
had become aware of dance, of the movement of the
body; we also became aware of music. This took
longer. Music was always important to us, whether
listening to records, playing the flute or canting
the Heart Sutra. Laing is an accomplished pianist
and clavichordist. He would come visit us and play
the piano, or organize a group beating of drums. At
one of the last households I knew, however, the
consciousness of music became intense. This was a
musical household, notable for its common room
containing a piano, guitars, flutes, recorders,
gongs and drums, and for the number of musicians
who were residents.
III.
I Remember Ronnie Laing
I
remember Ronnie the day I met him, the day I moved
into Kingsley Hall, Good Friday, 1970. I had been
invited to a special Good Friday dinner by a girl I
had met there several weeks earlier. I was in the
kitchen, drinking wine and slicing vegetables when
persons of obvious importance began to appear. I
was expecting to meet my future therapist and
others of significance that evening, so I examined
each new arrival carefully, looking up from my
carrots whenever someone slipped into the
kitchen.
Then
I recognized him—how I do not know—and
called out with excitement: "Excuse me, are you
Doctor Laing?" But I had made a serious error of
protocol, and Laing was displeased. Outside, on the
streets, in the offices, in the psychological
meetings he might be Dr. Laing; but within the
confines of the Hall, in the sanctuary, inside the
asylum, he was always Ronnie.
"Doch
torr Leh eeng…" he replied with sarcasm and
hostility, to the amusement of those assembled.
"Who is Doch torr Leh eeng?" I was surprised, hurt
and shocked into silence. During the meal which
followed I got some satisfaction by using both his
names whenever I addressed him, always calling him
‘Ronnie Laing’. After the meal he lit a
Gauloise and put the burnt-out match on my plate. I
was annoyed; but I was startled, touched and
pleased when he put on top of it, making a cross,
an unused match. I did not understand this. Perhaps
it loosened me up, because afterwards I was able to
speak to him when I encountered him in the hallway.
In fact I attacked him, grabbed him not ungently by
the lapels and cursed him. "Ronnie Laing, you are a
fucking ass hole."
He
laughed, seeming almost pleased by the physical
contact, and asked, "What is a fucking ass hole?" I
could only laugh too.
I
remember Ronnie tiptoeing timidly through the front
door of a house in the community; laughing
raucously, almost braying, a parody of laughter:
but good breathing; entering the room, carefully
folding his jacket to sit on, in order to avoid
giving pain by refusing the offer of cushions
silent for ten minutes and then a gushing flow of
monologue; sometimes drunk and seeming insensitive,
especially when finances had to be discussed;
telling tales of enchantment of the yogis and
healers he had met in India; arguing violently
about the availability of cotton turtleneck shirts
in Oxford Street.
Once
when my therapist was going on a month’s
holiday, he told me he had arranged that I have a
session with Ronnie. So when Ronnie was next
visiting the community I found him and abruptly
asked him for a meeting. He was startled and as he
tried to respond to my request he began to stammer.
But I remember that he looked me in the eye and
stammered so calmly and carefully that neither of
us was made anxious. My own stammering has never
been the same since. I saw Laing once in therapy,
when my regular therapist was on holiday. The event
was not remarkable, except for my nervousness
beforehand, and for the fact that I could hear
Laing haranguing the client before me in a
humorous, melodious way. This was reminiscent of my
visits to the room of a very quiet, almost mute
young man in the community, when I would be the
only speaker.
When
I went to visit Ronnie for my hour, I was so
nervous that I was early and sat on a bench in the
park, breathing deeply with my eyes closed, trying
to calm myself. As I sat with him in a room in his
home, I remember that for almost our entire time
together he was massaging and cleansing the insides
of his nostrils with his finger. Before going to
see him I had decided to open my wallet and let him
take whatever he wished, but by the end of our
meeting I had forgotten this plan. But we were
discussing money anyway, for some reason; I was
telling him that in spite of my anxieties I did
have enough money for whatever I decided to
do.
When
I left his home he had asked for no fee, although I
had been told when I first arrived in England that
he charged eighteen guineas for a consultation with
an American. I soon realized that he would send me
no bill, that the consultation was free, a meeting
between equals. This gave me such joy that it was
some weeks before I could tell anyone about our
meeting without bursting into a great release of
tears. This I will never forget.
During
our time together I spoke at length, explaining,
confiding, confessing. Due to my need to talk there
was little silence between us; I wanted to tell him
about myself, I wanted him to know about me, but I
gave him little chance to respond. Yet I was
attentive to him and he was attentive to me. I did
later somewhat regret my compulsive
conversation.
I
felt, however, that he knew and liked me and I came
to trust him. Several months later I was going
through a critical change in my life. I had stopped
drinking and started to practice hatha yoga and was
experiencing great tension and turmoil; I was
myself unstable, going through inner experience
which was turbulent and full of potential meaning,
yet which I was able to control to a sufficient
degree that my behavior did not become bizarre. I
tried to reach him on the phone and was told by his
secretary to ring back in half an hour. I did so
and Ronnie himself told me to ring again in half an
hour. I persisted in spite of my tension and
frustration and finally was able to speak with him.
I told him what was happening to me. I immediately
received his full attention.
I
told him about the strange experiences I was having
and asked him what to do. I knew he would
understand and was prepared to listen to what he
might say. I remember what he told me and this is
what he said. Avoid such things as coffee, tea and
sugar. Find yourself a space large enough to sit
and to stand and to pace about and to lie down.
Have in the room a supply of foods that do not have
to be cooked. He told me that I should be careful
who I talked to, as the experience I was having
might be labeled schizophrenic. He was warm and
sympathetic and eager to help me. I followed his
advice, to great advantage.
I
remember Ronnie visiting the community one day; we
gathered and sat with him in the room of Linda, the
poetess. I was sitting next to him at one point,
and I picked up a piece of paper and wrote on it,
"all therapy is harshan." He glanced at my words,
turned the paper over and read what was written on
the other side, the first draft of a poem by Linda.
It began "the wind was in my head." Ronnie looked
up and said "wait until the wind is in your
bones."
Linda
was annoyed as well because she knew that the poem
Ronnie saw was not one of her best. She would never
have shown it to him. She had taught me about
poetry: that a good poem present a feeling or
feelings purely and clearly while a bad poem is
muddy and confused. So I was not offended by her
annoyance.
Ronnie
also said that he was planning a trip to America,
for lectures and the Johnnie Carson show. I was
afraid for his safety; I did not think he would
return alive; I imagined he would be killed or
mutilated by my own countrymen. I told him that I
had experienced a sudden fantasy of plucking out
his eyeballs with my thumbs. I remember how quietly
he laughed.
IV.
Members of the Community
Roger
Roger
was musical, he was unusual and he liked to wear
green. I met him on my first visit to Kingsley
Hall. I should say that I encountered him, because
we only caught a glimpse of each other that first
day. He was a striking figure, gaunt, unkempt,
unearthly, with long dark hair hanging straight, a
beard that came to a point, and burning prophetic
eyes. He lived in a small room with a door and a
window that opened onto the neglected roof garden
at the very top of the Hall, with a dried-up
fountain, an empty pool and the headless statue of
an unknown goddess.
He
was a distant figure, remote from the world, a
disturbing personality. He was loved but disliked;
he could not be ignored. He had rebuilt or
resurrected an old record player and he played his
music very loud indeed and in the middle of the
night. At last William appointed himself
representative of the decent citizens, walked to
Rodger’s room with his axe and tried to chop
the record player to bits.
William
was unsuccessful. Roger brought the remains of his
machine to my room where there was another
broken-down machine for music and we managed
somehow to marry them, to create out of the two
dying record players one that was alive. Union or
rebirth, a new source of music. I remember that we
played Procol Harum, "A whiter Shade of Pale", and
the beauty of this music was like the phoenix out
of the ashes. This unexpected rebirth, this
healing, this music where there had not been the
possibility of music was a constant theme of my
time in London.
George
George
would shout all day and all night; he would scream
at the top of his voice; he would shriek and wail,
giving voice to several persons in a semblance of
conversation until he was hoarse. What was
happening inside him that was so overwhelming in
its power that it manifested probably only a
fraction of its experienced intensity in such a
frenzy? Where he got his energy no one knew; how he
survived his early years of suffering so great that
it was almost unendurable to live with him no one
knew. He was the central figure of the community
for at least five years; he posed the most
difficult question to the existential philosophy of
madness. Can this extraordinary person, chronic
schizophreic, manic-depressive psychotic, whatever
he is, continue to exist? Can we accept him? Can we
allow him to work out his destiny in his own
extraordinary way?
George
had been a computer specialist, had lived in a
Marxist Catholic commune and had found he could no
longer do work that was used in military
applications. He had ended up in a mental hospital,
and then became and early resident of Kingsley
Hall. He lived in a manic frenzy, racing through
the building screaming up one set of stairs and
down the other. The day I met him he was sitting in
the upstairs kitchen at the Hall with a bucket to
one side and in front of him a table with a box of
three by five cards. He was in an intense state of
creativity, absorbed in the work of writing a sort
of poetry in printed capitals on the cards and
arranging them in the filing box. He was disturbed
in this concentrated effort of creation by a nausea
so severe that every few minutes he vomited into
the bucket at his side. The experience of meeting
someone in this state was one of the wonders of my
first days at Kingsley Hall.
I
paid a minimum of attention to George that day; he
was self-absorbed. But several days later, the day
I formally moved into the house, the day I met
Laing and the others, Good Friday of 1970, I could
not ignore him. George was unusually excited that
day presumably because it was a special occasion
and there were visitors. During dinner it became
necessary for one or another of us to take turns
sitting on George or to put a hand over his mouth
in order to stop the endless and intolerable flow
of yelling. George did not mind this restraint by
his dinner companions; in fact it was done with a
remarkable degree of humor. He was pleased because
Ronnie, whom he loved very much was there. Ronnie
danced with him.
But
I was upset to see George being manhandled; I felt
that if he wanted to talk someone should be willing
to listen. I did not like to see him gagged. So I
impetuously invited George to come with me to
another part of the house. I would prefer to forgo
the party in order to listen to what he might have
to say. But what a surprising experience I had.
George and I proceeded to another room at the top
of the house, where I hoped a conversation between
us would come about. As we reached the room we
achieved a closer contact, a greater intimacy that
I had expected. He abruptly and gently attached
himself with his teeth to my cheek and remained
attached to me for some seconds. He did not bite
me; he caused me little pain; but he greeted,
welcomed, and acknowledged me in a way that took me
completely by surprise and emptied my mind of any
thought save the consciousness of being for some
seconds irremovably attached to another person.
Then with a decisiveness equal to that with which
he had sunk his teeth into my cheek, he let go. He
left me bewildered and almost enlightened, with a
bleeding nose and broken glasses and he ran away
from me down the stairs along the hallway back to
the group from which I had thought it better to
remove him. And he was calling and calling:
"Ronnie…Ronnie…Ronnie…"
George
and I were the only two residents of Kingsley Hall
who moved directly to the new community at Archway.
We lived in different households about a mile apart
so I was not too deeply involved in his suffering
at first. But George did not have in his house the
space he was accustomed to. He was a person who
needed to express himself and to move around. So
the activity which had taken place within the large
structure of the Hall now took place partly on the
streets of Islington and partly within the confines
of the smaller houses which made up the new
community. This was a misfortune. George’s
energy could barely be endured by the other
residents; there was not enough room for it. And
when he took his frenzy outside he presented an
extraordinary spectacle to the neighbors and was in
frequent danger of being arrested.
I
can see and hear him now, walking rapidly carrying
a collection of electronic bits, string, wood, or
sometimes the derelict remains of a television set,
a man who looked both emaciated and physically
powerful. At the same time wearing blue jeans tied
with a cord, a tee-shirt or an old coat and shoes
without socks or laces. He was always active; if he
was not pacing the streets he was picking things up
or putting things down or putting one things on top
of another. He was never silent; whether he was
inside the house or outside walking he surrounded
himself with or trailed behind himself a flow of
speech. He seemed a focal center of sound more than
a man, shouting not to the skies but from the skies
as he hurried through Islington, sometimes followed
by children who were irresistibly attracted to him,
and who shouted back. A conversation between sky
and earth.
He
was arrested several times and taken to mental
hospital; it seemed to us that this was usually by
his own choice. He could have avoided trouble with
the police if he really wanted to. But on the other
hand his arrests tended to occur when the tension
between himself and other residents was at its
greatest, when we had expressed our difficulty with
his behavior. I remember one such event with
particular vividness because I was centrally
involved. The people at his house had finally
decided that they could stand him no longer, that
if he stayed a number of the other residents would
leave and that household would not be able to
continue as it had. There was a major crisis; the
existence of the community as a whole was
threatened. We finally decided that George could
move from the one household into the other, into
the one where I lived. He was to take the room next
to mine. I remember that in the process of his
moving his assorted gear the oscilloscope blew-up
and started emitting a white smoke with a curious
odor.
George
had been upset before; he was upset by his
rejection and the forced move; and when he finally
tried to settle into his new home it was
impossible. He was moving into and out of the house
through the front door, sometimes carrying bits of
his possessions, in a very angry and disturbing
state. He had an altercation with a building worker
on the street. No blows were then exchanged but
when I went out to persuade him back into the house
he began to hit me, again and again and always on
the same place on the solar plexus. I could not
control him: it was suggested to me later that I
could have stopped him by holding his wrists but
this did not occur to me.
Eventually
the police arrived. Our relations with them were
surprisingly good; perhaps they appreciated the
service we were providing of community-based care
as an alternative to hospitalization. The police
knew George well indeed and knew that he was a
resident of one of our households but the neighbors
were disturbed by his violent appearance. One of
the officers therefore told me that if I could keep
George in the house and off of the streets there
was no problem. But I was alone and I was
unsuccessful. He went back outdoors and let the
police take him. In his rage and pain and despair
he made it clear to us that we had failed him, that
if we did not want him he did not want us and that
he preferred the relative acceptance of the
official psychiatric institution.
So
George was taken to the local bin, the Friern
Barnet, a large mental hospital where he was given
injections of a powerful tranquilizing drug in
order to control his behavior. This happened
several times and each time he was asking us
whether we would make the effort to get him back.
And each time we made the effort, agreeing amongst
ourselves that we would try once more to live with
him if he would try to live with us. So after
varying lengths of time George would return from
the hospital calmer from the medication and fatter
from the hospital food. I think he knew that we
would take him back, although he seemed perfectly
willing to remain in the hospital if that should be
the way things turned out. In fact some of us
wondered whether he found life there preferable to
life with the nervousness and tension at the
community. We wondered whether it was only because
his wants were taken care of and he was given a
certain degree of security in the institution. For
we realized over time that he found the supposedly
saner residents at the community to be difficult,
objectionable, and self-righteous in their
behavior. Perhaps he sometimes felt we just were
not worth bothering with.
But
he always came back to us. He became our secret
source of strength. Others stayed for a while and
the left, following their paths that led elsewhere.
The fate of others was to come and stay and then to
go. The fate of George, his chosen destiny, was to
remain as the pivot or axis around which the whole
life of the community revolved. Where he was there
was the center. I remember visiting George one day
at the house in the community where he lived.
Kingsley Hall had been one unit, a solid monolith,
a block of space within which people lived with
limited space to move around, to meet and to
separate. At Archway there was a difference. Not
from design but because of the housing situation in
Islington we invariably had between two and four
smaller homes each of which developed a character
of its own. This had the advantage that a resident
could more easily be private or meet in a small
group, that individuals who did not get along could
be kept apart, and that people could visit.
I
was feeling nervous that day and went over to the
other house. I walked into the kitchen and found
George standing there. So slowly did he raise his
head and gave me his gentle gaze that my anxiety
was gone and I was prepared for the humor in his
eyes when he looked up at me. I sat down, others
arrived and George went upstairs.
When
he came back down someone looked at him and said in
a tone of shock, "But George, your hands are
shaking." And they were. He looked slowly down at
his trembling hands, as if noticing them for the
first time in his life and then as if they were
pleased at the attention they quit their unseemly
vibration and became still. George looked at them
for a second or two longer and then back up at us,
a grin on his face.George would spend hours or day
in his room, his famous room filled with an
unimaginable clutter or array of his collected
stuff and possessions. Books, pamphlets, papers,
3x5 cards written on in his cryptic printed
handwriting. He wrote on the covers of books, front
and back, on blank spaces inside the books; if he
did not like what he had written he had a special
white paste to paint over his words and obliterate
them. He wrote on the posters and papers he had
stuck to the walls. He wrote on the walls
themselves. It was a room filled with words, a
dense interweave, the large print of the epigrams
on the walls would catch one’s eye first, then
the writing on the papers and the books, and
finally one might discover hidden in a book a 3x5
card covered with a list of logical fortran
propositions or of references to the ancient gods.
George was given the job of naming the household
cats and like to name them after divinities. One he
called Ishtar for the forgotten Sumerian goddess
from the Gilgamesh epic. One he similarly called
Marouk.
Under
and around the books and papers was another level
of George’s collections or creations, this one
electronic. He had a reputation as a repairman for
electrical machines, which I thought for years
derived only from the mass of broken down
televisions and radios and the scatter of
electronic parts in his room and from the fact that
he had been a computer specialist in early years. I
thought the reputation was undeserved. For he did
not appear to do any repairs to the objects that
were brought to his room. But one day it occurred
to me to offer to pay him to fix the transformer
and wiring from my tape recorder, a difficult
electrical and mechanical task, and he did an
excellent job. He was capable.
Then
George would descend the stairs, sometimes calmly,
sometimes in a frenzy of talk and activity. He
wrote on the walls of the kitchen or the common
room, his face strained and red, his hair flying
and his beard afluss, dressed sometimes only in his
underwear with a towel wrapped around his waist.
Sometimes he would be dreadfully upset, shouting or
muttering to himself, jumping onto a char to write
on the wall near the ceiling, running through the
rooms or up and down the stairs, unable to sit
down, unable to eat or drink.
One
day when I was visiting I decided to give George a
yoga lesson, to persuade him to relax his body and
calm his breathing. I could have served him better
perhaps by giving him a massage or a hug. But I
thought to teach him some yoga. I wanted him to
stand and breathe, to sit and breathe or to lie
down and breathe. But he would not stop talking,
much though I insisted. And while I was
demonstrating a forward bend and he continued to
talk something astonishing happened. I was sitting
on the floor bending my upper body forward, trying
to show him the pose, when he sat on my back on
exactly the right place to allow me to breathe and
stretch further and further. He who I thought knew
next to nothing about yoga was showing himself the
perfect yoga teacher, doing exactly as my teacher
would do in one of the classes I had found so
useful. I changed my attitude entirely. No longer
did I tell him to stop talking; no longer did I try
to demonstrate the poses so that he could imitate
me. Now as I realized that he knew enough to help
me to stretch I felt that I should imitate and
learn from him.
|
![Colloquia Topics Index [link]](../colloqui2.gif){kind=small}
