No point, Art.
Come on, Kundalini. What's your old name? I've forgotten.
Sarah.
Come on, Sarah, put away that long face. Stop trying to lay a guilt trip on me with those big dark eyes. Guilt trips went out with the rest of the garbage.
Tell me. What is not garbage to you?
Purusba is not garbage. The eternal present is not garbage.
Don't touch my breasts. I mean it.
What's this protecting your tits again suddenly? We've been friendly-didn V you like it? Multiple o V, every time.
They were lovely but, as you said, partook of flux. Flux and duhkha.
Fuck flux anddubkba. Listen. I need a vacation. Everyman needs a vacation. For a man, a woman is a vacation. I need you to love me the way only you can.
I do love the way you used to say "love."
My luff for you wears a million guises. You are Sbakti, I am Shiva. I am Krishna and you are Radba, shlippery with your own sweat and rajas, your hair all in sbnakes and your clothes torn in delirious disbarray.
No, really-hands off, Arthur. Arthur Steinmetz.
My father used to say Steinmetz was a genius, my mother would say be was a dwarf. The brains behind Edison. The feeling of your ass in my bands, one cheek in each.
Darling, I'm not kidding. We've had it.
Why? Because of names? What does it matter, what name I have? Or you have? A little flick of karma, and I'm a centipede, and you 're a chestnut tree in blossom.
I can't exactly say why. For a woman to give herself-and it's utterly lovely, to give yourself-there has to be an illusion, or it's no good. Maybe "illusion" isn't the word, since everything is 'illusion. There has to be an appearance-a possibility-of progress. There has to be rectitude.
We'll make progress. We'll have rectitude. The garbage's gone, all that drugs and paranoia. Melissa's coming with her moola. Stay here and we 'II build it up again, along more classic lines. Hinayana this time instead of Aiabayana. Less group stuff, more one-on-one. Cut out all 'the commercial crap, keep off TV. Just the bow-to-live books and the less far-out tapes, and go for a more modest operation that won V make waves in the courts. Keep peace with the local squares. This is a great spot, if we don't abuse the water situation.
Why do you want me? In your philosophy, one woman is as good TLS another. We're all lotus to your linga. With this particular lotus, I fear the bloom is off. Though of course I do adore you. More this moment than ever; there're all these new layers of you to get to know.
But no rectitude. Who'd you ever know who bad rectitude? Your husband-what was his name? Charles. Charles the Worthy. Whenever you mention him you get prim and cute and arch your back. What's going on between you two? I get the feeling be and I exist in some sort of symbiosis. It 's making me jealous as bell.
Don't be ridiculous. I can't stand him.
You ask me why I want you. One, you 're a knockout, with these super knockers and a two-bandsful ass.
Keep your hands to yourself. Don't be so adolescent. I'm almost forty-three.
Ripe. That's nice. Two, you 're every inch a lady, and I seem to be a sucker for that. My own social insecurity, no doubt. Everything goes back to having a lousy childhood.
Mine wasn't that great, you know. My mother-
Three, you know the ropes here, and, frankly, I don't. I reach into myself and say what comes but the organizational part of it has always been over my head. There's always been women to do the-
The dirty work.
The nitty-gritty, the stbula side of things.
You would have to do with fewer limos.
Absolutely-that was just an image kind of thing. The humor of it appealed to me, being dragged along these dusty washboard roads like they were Fifth Avenue.
And the diamonds. They should be sold.
Sure, sell 'em-though you won't get half of what we f aid. Again, it was the symbolism, the Buddha Realm bit, the pan-nirvana part of It. It got people's attention; gave 'em a little shock. Stop people short for even a second, and you have that much more of a chance of enlightenment fighting its way past the abam and all that defensive furniture.
I understand the theory; but the practice has proved to be very expensive.
You may or may not believe this, but I really don't give a shit about any of this material garbage. It's all external, it's all just semiotics. I am non-attached, that's not just bullshit.
Then I, too, may be dispensed with.
To you I'm attached. Maybe not forever; as you say, I'm subjected to a lot of temptation. But for now I'd like you to bang around. I'd luff for you to bang around.
Don't do that to me. Say that word that sweet way.
Hey… Flash: Watertown boy confesses emotional dependency on North Shore matron! Ashram recovers, Arizona declares bank holiday.
Thanks, dear, but, truly, no thanks. I figure I've had as much sahasrara as I can stand. And if you or your other in-residence Shaktis try to keep me from going, I'll tell the world you're really Art Steinmetz. Now that would be a news flash.
Don't talk ugly, Sarah. We're trying to get back on an even keel, you and I. I don 't know bow good that is as blackmail-it might leak out anyway, if the media keep working me over, or Durga tries to make a killing on her story. It might not hurt so much. It might just stop people short for that second we were talking about and let in some light… You 've beard me at dar-sban-you can say it 's all bullshit and still they dig it. They think your saying it's bullshit is bullshit. Deep in Kaliyuga as we are, it's bard to come up with bad publicity.
Well, at the least you'd have to scrap a lot of T-shirts. I think you're a teentsy bit bluffing. I think you like being the Arhat.
All it means is "the deserving one." Ideserve all I can get, after the lousy upbringing I bad.
What do the scriptures say of the arhat? "In character as excellent as the gods, in meekness as the ascetic, and in wrath as the thunderbolt."
That's me. Speaking ofvajra, let's lie down to talk. I got to get used to this idea of doing without my Kundalini. I'll miss those multiple o’s.
I'll miss them too. But I think they were just a stage.
Sure. Use me and throw me away.
We throw ourselves away. All of us. Isn't that what "you taught?
Iforget what I taught. I get frightened, Sarah. All this spiritual responsibility is frightening. I need you to give me some structure. I need those big tits of yours to suck. I need to bold on to your ass.
Stop trying to sex me up. That's very chauvinistic, what you imply-that women don't get frightened too.
Buddbatvam yosbidyonisamsritam.
Oh sure. Women are gods. Women are dirt. It comes to the same. Women are just like men are-little bits of purusha caught in prakriti, lost and isolated in all that duhkha. Why did it happen? How did purusha get so 'polluted?
The explanation is, it allowed itself a moment, just a moment in all that eternity, of self-reflection. And, whoomph, everything clouded over. Bingo: maya. But fear not, Kun-dalini. A way out exists. The thinking brain-buddbi-can lead man-and woman, if you insist she needs an out-to the edge of awakening. When prakriti is recognized as itself, it flees the spirit, the Sankhya-sutras put it, like a dancer who has satisfied her master's desire.