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My Guru And His Disciple
"My Guru and His Disciple is a sweetly modest and honest portrait of Isherwood’s spiritual instructor, Swami Prabhavananda, the Hindu priest who guided Isherwood for some thirty years. It is also a book about the often amusing and sometimes painful counterpoint between worldliness and holiness in Isherwood’s own life. Sexual sprees, all-night drinking bouts, a fast car ride with Greta Garbo, script-writing conferences at M-G-M, and intellectual sparring sessions with Bertolt Brecht alternated with nights of fasting at the Vedanta Center and a six-month period of celibacy and sobriety. Seldom has a single man been endowed with such strong drives toward both sensuality and spirituality, abandon and discipline. . . . In these pages, Isherwood has reinvented the spirit of devotion for the modern reader." Edmund White, New York Times Book Review "This book is a humbling tribute to someone who revealed to Isherwood inner grounds for spiritual awareness." Alan Hollinghurst, New Statesman A major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement, Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) is the author of Down There on a Visit, Lions and Shadows, A Meeting by the River, The Memorial, Prater Violet, A Single Man, and The World in the Evening, all available from the University of Minnesota Press.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
24 people are currently reading
450 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Isherwood
165 books1,520 followersEnglish-born American writer Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood portrayed Berlin in the early 1930s in his best known works, such as
Goodbye to Berlin
(1939), the basis for the musical
Cabaret
(1966). Isherwood was a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
With W.H. Auden he wrote three plays— The Dog Beneath the Skin (1932), The Ascent of F6 (1936), and On the Frontier (1938). Isherwood tells the story in his first autobiography, Lions and Shadows .
After Isherwood wrote joke answers on his second-year exams, Cambridge University in 1925 asked him to leave. He briefly attended medical school and progressed with his first two novels, All the Conspirators (1928) and The Memorial (1932). In 1930, he moved to Berlin, where he taught English, dabbled in Communism, and enthusiastically explored his homosexuality. His experiences provided the material for Mister Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1938), still his most famous book.
In Berlin in 1932, he also began an important relationship with Heinz Neddermeyer, a young German with whom he fled the Nazis in 1933. England refused entry to Neddermeyer on his second visit in 1934, and the pair moved restlessly about Europe until the Gestapo arrested Neddermeyer in May 1937 and then finally separated them.
In 1938, Isherwood sailed with Auden to China to write Journey to a War (1939), about the Sino-Japanese conflict. They returned to England and Isherwood went on to Hollywood to look for movie-writing work. He also became a disciple of the Ramakrishna monk, Swami Prabhavananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He decided not to take monastic vows, but he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life, serving, praying, and lecturing in the temple every week and writing a biography, Ramakrishna and His Disciples (1965).
In 1945, Isherwood published Prater Violet, fictionalizing his first movie writing job in London in 1933-1934. In Hollywood, he spent the start of the 1950s fighting his way free of a destructive five-year affair with an attractive and undisciplined American photographer, William Caskey. Caskey took the photographs for Isherwood’s travel book about South America, The Condor and The Cows (1947). Isherwood’s sixth novel, The World in the Evening (1954), written mostly during this period, was less successful than earlier ones.
In 1953, he fell in love with Don Bachardy, an eighteen-year-old college student born and raised in Los Angeles. They were to remain together until Isherwood’s death. In 1961, Isherwood and completed the final revisions to his new novel Down There on a Visit (1962). Their relationship nearly ended in 1963, and Isherwood moved out of their Santa Monica house. This dark period underpins Isherwood’s masterpiece A Single Man (1964).
Isherwood wrote another novel, A Meeting by the River (1967), about two brothers, but he gave up writing fiction and turned entirely to autobiography. In Kathleen and Frank (1971), he drew on the letters and diaries of his parents. In Christopher and His Kind (1976), he returned to the 1930s to tell, as a publicly avowed homosexual, the real story of his life in Berlin and his wanderings with Heinz Neddermeyer. The book made him a hero of gay liberation and a national celebrity all over again but now in his true, political and personal identity.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
May 28, 2025
"Only the wretched little puritan, with his fixed rules of conduct and catalogue of sins, is certain that he can understand, and judge, everybody's motives, including God's."
As long I've been reading Isherwood, I've always side-stepped his spiritual side. I am neither spiritual nor strictly religious, and read A Meeting by the River more for the gay than for the God. The Guru and His Discisciple is Isherwood's most thoughtful exploration of his spirituality, as well as his relationship with his spiritual leader, Swami Prabhavanda, and like his other two autobiographical works, it is simply divine. Between all the meditation there also is a portrait of Denny Fouts, the Best Kept Boy in the World, about whom I've always been curious, as well as details of Isherwood's work at MGM, his sex life, his friendships, and his relationships. His frankness is refreshing, as always. Try not to laugh out at the set of sentences following 'a set of rectal dilators now appeared.' The last few chapters consist almost entirely of entries from Isherwood's journal, since he seems to have felt obligated to include every mention of Swami, and I very nearly needed divine intervention to power through. My Guru and His Disciple (1980) is one of Isherwood's last published works, and it is well worth reading. Isherwood died in 1986.
November 26, 2025
Read this because I was feeling spiritually dry and was always curious about Isherwood’s mysticism. Also just great to read his prose again. This is most moving early on, when Isherwood details his commitment to pacifism and the ‘seeker’ milieu. His dedication to Swami Prabhavananda was difficult for me to completely comprehend, though the book still acts as a loving portrait of the man. Love how non-judgmental and revealing Isherwood is of his own motives.
July 5, 2010
Wonderful memoir of Isherwood's appretenceship in Vedanta practice and a loving portrait of his guru, Swami Prabhavananda. The book is also a great "inside" view of the beginnings of the settling of eastern wisdom teachings on western shores, here in sunny southern California. Isherwood's writing is disarmingly clear, terse, and honest, and he writes movingly of his struggles with Vedanta practices and ideas and openly of his homosexuality and sexual adventures. The book moves between reflective historical or personal accounts and excepts from Isherwood's diaries. Mostly the book is about Swami, a seemingly wonderful being who Isherwood devotedly loved. This is a portrait of a real person who appears not to have an ego or any hang-ups. He is patient with and devoted to his students, utterly embracing them, faults and all. I liked most one of Isherwood's lines to the effect of the Swami was the only person he met in his life who loved so deeply and constantly, and who "didn't stand in the way of the light" or put his mind in the way of things - like the rest of neurotics do - but let it shine through everything he did. The Swami's selflessness was not some kind of stoned-out radiance or rocklike sternness, but just his deep love, simple ease, warmth and patience. He's hilarious too.
May 19, 2012
I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. It's one of few books I'm sure I'll read again and again. I almost wished I could wipe it from my memory as soon as I'd finished it, so I could go back and discover it anew right away. Isherwood's writing itself is a work of genius – the descriptions of inner and outer experiences are pure elegant simplicity, completely transparent windows on his experience. His honesty as a spiritual seeker is itself a triumph.
December 11, 2021
Curious as to why so many upper-crust English (not only Isherwood, one of my fave authors, but super-brainy Aldous Huxley!) got into Vedanta I decided to give this a try. The prose is fine, but the subject matter... oy vey! As with all religion, the wisdom is all mixed up with magical thinking and allegedly profound advice that's open to essentially infinite interpretation. Ugh! And though I can see why anti-imperialist Brits might find it titillating to adopt a religion from one of their colonial victims, Isherwood's embrace of The Mystic East still smacks of orientalism. And Being of Jewish extraction, I also couldn't help dwell of the fact that by advocating pacifism during WWII, he was effectively advocating surrender to people who would've baked me to death in an oven. I will confess to having put the book down on page 123, so maybe it redeems itself later, but I wouldn't bet on it.
October 2, 2015
At a youthful age Christopher Isherwood wrote a couple of highly successful novels, successful I think it’s fair to say because although largely deriving from his own experiences he nevertheless viewed other people he’d come across in a very detached and sympathetic not to say amusing way (“I am a Camera”). This detachment diminished over time so that his ‘novels’ became almost undisguised autobiography and his maturer fame to derive not so much from his writing as from his own ‘charisma’, in that sense being far less successful because not, really, as good. This book of ‘confessions’ is interesting enough not so much as literature as a sort of insight into a complicated character, but for whom not everyone might be quite so admiring as he seems to expect them to be. It records, partly from diaries of the time, his progress of ‘enlightenment’ through the guidance of a Hindu holy man whose own authenticity was perhaps dubious; there was always something slightly suspicious about Oriental mystics taking up a palmy residence with the generous assistance of bored well-off Californian cranks adoringly at their feet.
Be that as it may, there’s a more general source of a certain distaste here. All intelligent people introspect over their own existences and many keep journals and diaries accordingly. Virginia Woolf is a well-known example, but hers were only published by others quick to jump on the bandwagon after her death and it’s unlikely that she ever intended them to be read except by a few people close to her. Isherwood was quite unabashed about publishing his himself, and indeed relied on them, for want of anything better, to keep himself in public gaze. By and large these records are at the best of only documentary interest (the price of herrings in 1937, quarrels with daily helps), even her most devoted admirers do not much more than skim Mrs Woolf’s for the waspish comments, and she doesn’t give very much away about herself and her tormented soul for all that. Here, the author is positively wallowing in his, though nor is it clear in his case why such perturbations were necessary. There’s something childish about people brought up in comfortable circumstances feeling indignant and resentful about them while making full use of the advantages. Isherwood, a ferocious atheist in protest against a conventional Christian upbringing, was led into religiosity, we’re led to believe, by the need to justify his stance as a conscientious objector during the last War – although his reason, quite simple, that he refused to take up arms against an army which might include someone of whom he was once very fond, hardly needs this additional padding, and there’s an uncomfortable awareness that he’s just dissatisfied and seeking attention and novelty; something, to be fair, that’s he perfectly well aware of himself.
My Guru and His Disciple is an occasionally enlightening quick read second time (on the first, years ago, I thought it was a complete bore) as, for example, here: “The world at its best isn’t miserable, isn’t hateful – it is mad. The pursuit of worldly pleasures as ends in themselves is madness, because it disregards the real situation, which is that we are living a life that has only one thing to teach us, how to know God in ourselves and in other people. To be sane is to be aware of the real situation. The desire, the homesickness, for sanity is the one valid reason for subjecting oneself to any kind of religious discipline.” But from Plato on all of us too attached to the worldly pleasures say that sort of thing as they get further out of reach; beside which Mr Isherwood, as it turns out, was not too good at the discipline anyway and only took it up when he couldn’t find another source of entertainment. No-one who has had any contact with India other than from a tourist bus or via the lotus-land of Hollywood can be unaware of the perplexities to be encountered in inner searches for the meaning of life and so on, or to be unaware either that no ultimate answers have ever been found, other than that every individual has to discover his own whether that be as a monk or as a bon viveur; there’s no reason you can’t have it both ways come to that without making a noise about it. There’s a passing mention of a visit to India confined to more monkish squabbles and nothing else at all about that fascinating country and where, incidentally, one or two genuinely-devout but unostentatious Hindus I know regard this sort of thing as exhibitionistic, somewhat silly and generally staged for effect for gullible Westerners; real sanctity doesn’t need advertisement. After wading through these prolonged speculations, uncertainties, lapses and all the rest of it, the only conclusion is well, so what, and pass onto something a bit more pleasurable.
Be that as it may, there’s a more general source of a certain distaste here. All intelligent people introspect over their own existences and many keep journals and diaries accordingly. Virginia Woolf is a well-known example, but hers were only published by others quick to jump on the bandwagon after her death and it’s unlikely that she ever intended them to be read except by a few people close to her. Isherwood was quite unabashed about publishing his himself, and indeed relied on them, for want of anything better, to keep himself in public gaze. By and large these records are at the best of only documentary interest (the price of herrings in 1937, quarrels with daily helps), even her most devoted admirers do not much more than skim Mrs Woolf’s for the waspish comments, and she doesn’t give very much away about herself and her tormented soul for all that. Here, the author is positively wallowing in his, though nor is it clear in his case why such perturbations were necessary. There’s something childish about people brought up in comfortable circumstances feeling indignant and resentful about them while making full use of the advantages. Isherwood, a ferocious atheist in protest against a conventional Christian upbringing, was led into religiosity, we’re led to believe, by the need to justify his stance as a conscientious objector during the last War – although his reason, quite simple, that he refused to take up arms against an army which might include someone of whom he was once very fond, hardly needs this additional padding, and there’s an uncomfortable awareness that he’s just dissatisfied and seeking attention and novelty; something, to be fair, that’s he perfectly well aware of himself.
My Guru and His Disciple is an occasionally enlightening quick read second time (on the first, years ago, I thought it was a complete bore) as, for example, here: “The world at its best isn’t miserable, isn’t hateful – it is mad. The pursuit of worldly pleasures as ends in themselves is madness, because it disregards the real situation, which is that we are living a life that has only one thing to teach us, how to know God in ourselves and in other people. To be sane is to be aware of the real situation. The desire, the homesickness, for sanity is the one valid reason for subjecting oneself to any kind of religious discipline.” But from Plato on all of us too attached to the worldly pleasures say that sort of thing as they get further out of reach; beside which Mr Isherwood, as it turns out, was not too good at the discipline anyway and only took it up when he couldn’t find another source of entertainment. No-one who has had any contact with India other than from a tourist bus or via the lotus-land of Hollywood can be unaware of the perplexities to be encountered in inner searches for the meaning of life and so on, or to be unaware either that no ultimate answers have ever been found, other than that every individual has to discover his own whether that be as a monk or as a bon viveur; there’s no reason you can’t have it both ways come to that without making a noise about it. There’s a passing mention of a visit to India confined to more monkish squabbles and nothing else at all about that fascinating country and where, incidentally, one or two genuinely-devout but unostentatious Hindus I know regard this sort of thing as exhibitionistic, somewhat silly and generally staged for effect for gullible Westerners; real sanctity doesn’t need advertisement. After wading through these prolonged speculations, uncertainties, lapses and all the rest of it, the only conclusion is well, so what, and pass onto something a bit more pleasurable.
May 30, 2021
I enjoyed this book, a combination of spiritual autobiography & portrait of an Indian Swami over a period of more than 40 years. The author digs deep in his honesty about both Prabhavananda & himself.
I'd say the book is not for every reader of personal-growth or spiritual literature, because: a) it stretches through a bygone era (late 1930s to mid ‘70s); and b), the culture gap that was being bridged, especially during the early half of those years, has by now diminished in certain ways.
One reason why I liked it? Besides the details of an accomplished, worldly British-American man’s struggle with his own nature and “ego”, it’s a real-life story of a lengthy & meaningful friendship.
I'd say the book is not for every reader of personal-growth or spiritual literature, because: a) it stretches through a bygone era (late 1930s to mid ‘70s); and b), the culture gap that was being bridged, especially during the early half of those years, has by now diminished in certain ways.
One reason why I liked it? Besides the details of an accomplished, worldly British-American man’s struggle with his own nature and “ego”, it’s a real-life story of a lengthy & meaningful friendship.
March 16, 2023
The last book from Isherwood. It starts with his arrival in America in January 1939. His lover Heinz has been conscripted into the German Army - despite Isherwood's best attempts to find them both a safe haven. If he couldn't imagine himself killing Heinz, as a British soldier (or in any way contributing to his destruction), he extends this resolution to all men and becomes a conscientious objector.
Looking to find some underpinning to his decision, he is introduced by his writer friends Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley to Swami Prabhavanadra who had not long arrived from India and was setting up the Vedanta Society of Southern California. While Heard and Huxley remain in Swami's orbit, it is Isherwood who takes him as his Guru and seriously considers becoming a monk.
I have an interest in Vedanta and the idea that we are all one being, and that being is divine - but not a lot of knowledge. I have read four of Isherwood's book and a volume of his diaries and find his writing an inspiration. I suppose it was natural that I should eventually read My Guru and his Disciple.
To be honest, I did not increase my knowledge much of Vedanta or truly understand how it impacted Isherwood's life. But I did get an insight into the depth of the relationship between Swami and Isherwood and I found the book strangely moving but I am not quite certain why. Even at the end, Isherwood can't speak with 'the absolute authority of the knower' and can offer only this book in the hope that it will 'reveal some inner truth which remains hidden from the author.'
I will have to think long and hard what that might be for me and how Isherwood has pulled off the most difficult of tasks for a writer: talking about their own faith without annoying or alienating the reader. It deepens my admiration for Isherwood the writer.
Looking to find some underpinning to his decision, he is introduced by his writer friends Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley to Swami Prabhavanadra who had not long arrived from India and was setting up the Vedanta Society of Southern California. While Heard and Huxley remain in Swami's orbit, it is Isherwood who takes him as his Guru and seriously considers becoming a monk.
I have an interest in Vedanta and the idea that we are all one being, and that being is divine - but not a lot of knowledge. I have read four of Isherwood's book and a volume of his diaries and find his writing an inspiration. I suppose it was natural that I should eventually read My Guru and his Disciple.
To be honest, I did not increase my knowledge much of Vedanta or truly understand how it impacted Isherwood's life. But I did get an insight into the depth of the relationship between Swami and Isherwood and I found the book strangely moving but I am not quite certain why. Even at the end, Isherwood can't speak with 'the absolute authority of the knower' and can offer only this book in the hope that it will 'reveal some inner truth which remains hidden from the author.'
I will have to think long and hard what that might be for me and how Isherwood has pulled off the most difficult of tasks for a writer: talking about their own faith without annoying or alienating the reader. It deepens my admiration for Isherwood the writer.
February 18, 2020
I (still) know next to nothing about Vedanta, but then I knew next to nothing about Isherwood's parents, Kathleen and Frank, and immensely enjoyed his biography of them. Most of Isherwood is at least half about him in addition to/in relation to the subject. This is no exception--this is really about Isherwood and Prabhavananda's relationship throughout the years, and focuses on the space in between what Swami says and what Isherwood does. If the book has flaws compared to his other autobiographical books (Lions and Shadows, Christopher and His Kind, Kathleen and Frank), it's in the amount of undigested diary entries compared with new writing. I would have liked him to try and summarize a little bit more, and relate a little bit less.
Are you new to Isherwood? If you ever see it, pick up the Quality Paperback Book Club edition of his novels Berlin Stories [including Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin], A Single Man, and A Meeting By the River. Then read all of everything else he wrote.
Are you new to Isherwood? If you ever see it, pick up the Quality Paperback Book Club edition of his novels Berlin Stories [including Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin], A Single Man, and A Meeting By the River. Then read all of everything else he wrote.
December 8, 2016
In his final book Isherwood attempts to chronicle his struggle to be an adherent of the Hindu religion. Over the many decades of study he is not always successful, and yet there are times in which he attains a certain level of satisfaction—particularly concerning his relationship with Swami, his guru. Importantly, Isherwood seems never to stop struggling, and the last two paragraphs of his book capture his feelings:
“Meanwhile, my life is still beautiful to me—beautiful because of Don, because of the enduring, fascination of my efforts to describe my life experience in my writing, my fellow travelers on this journey. How I wish I were able to reassure them that all is ultimately well—particularly those who are quite certain that it isn’t; that life is meaningless and unjust! I can’t reassure them, because I can’t speak with the absolute authority of a knower.
All I can offer them is this book, which I have written about matters I only partially understand, in the hope that it my somehow, to some readers, reveal glimpses of inner truth which remain hidden from its author” (338).
November 24, 2011
I find it difficult to understand how a man of such literary talent desired to leave the material world behind and follow an Indian holy man into a Hindu cult. Actually, Christopher Isherwood never was completely successful in renouncing worldly pursuits, especially sexual relationships, though he briefly took up residence in the temple and aspired to be a monk. But his friendship with the guru was strong enough to withstand a return to his heretical lifestyle. It was a complex relationship. He both adored and revered the man and also had an ordinary friendship with him that lasted over thirty years. I must admit that it was a bit tedious to read of all the Hindu holy men and gossip that surrounded the Hollywood temple.
November 4, 2017
This book is one of my favorite books of all time. Isherwood combines reflections and diary entries to paint a picture of his relationship with his teacher. I found so much of it moving, honest, and very human. He describes himself without pretense and it is so refreshing. I had the feeling reading it like I was sucked into a romance novel, only the romance wasn't with a sexual partner, but with a love of
God and his guru. So beautiful.
God and his guru. So beautiful.
July 7, 2023
THE AUTHOR RECOUNTS HIS TIME WITH PRABHAVANANDA AND VEDANTA
Author Christopher Isherwood wrote in an introductory section of this 1980 book, “This is neither a complete biography of Swami Prabhavananda nor a full account of my own life between 1939 and 1976. It is my one-sided, highly subjective story of our guru-disciple relationship. Many people who were closely associated with Prabhavananda or with me, during that period, have little or no part in this particular story and therefore appear in it only briefly or not at all.”
He recalls in the first chapter, “I knew… that [Gerald] Heard and [Aldous] Huxley had become involved in the cult of Yoga, or Hinduism, or Vedanta---I was still contemptuously unwilling to bother to find out exactly what these terms meant… Christians I saw as sour life-haters and sex-forbidders, hypocritically denying their rabid secret lusts. The Hindus I saw as stridently emotional mysterymongers whose mumbo jumbo was ridiculous rather than sinister.” (Pg. 7)
But soon, “after talking to Gerald, it became obvious to me that I had been misusing the word ‘soul’ to mean my ego-personality… Among the various areas of knowledge that Gerald was opening up to me was the history of mysticism… I was learning that there had been thousands of men and women… who had claimed to have experienced union with what is eternal within oneself…” (Pg. 12-13)
Later, “I can’t remember why … I didn’t immediately contact Gerald’s Swami Prabhavananda… it wasn’t until late in July that Gerald took me to see him…” (Pg. 21) He continues, “I have absolutely no memories of my first visit… the Swami and I arranged that I should come back alone a few days later… One of the Swami’s characteristics … [is that] he chain-smoked cigarettes. Since I, too, was a heavy smoker, this wouldn’t have bothered me… I wish I could remember how my question was worded… In essence it was: Can I lead a spiritual life as long as I’m having a sexual relationship with a young man? I do remember the Swami’s answer: ‘You must try to see him as the young Lord Krishna.’ … I wasn’t at all discouraged by the Swami’s reply; indeed, it was far more permissive than I had expected.” (Pg. 23-26)
He recounts, “Prabhavananda was invited to Los Angeles, to give a series of lectures on Vedanta philosophy. It was then that he got to know Mrs. Carrie Mead Wyckoff… it seemed natural for the elderly lady and the youthful swami to form a kind of adoptive relationship… she offered him her home… to be the center of a future Vedanta Society of Southern California… At first the Society was very small… Then, around 1936, the congregation began to expand. Prabhavananda had become well known locally as a speaker… word had got about that he wasn’t a swami in the usual California sense but a teacher of religion… And then donors appeared with enough money to pay for the building of a temple.” (Pg. 34-35)
He explains, “In the beginning, the most important aspect of my relationship with Prabhavananda was that I was British… feeling strongly drawn to Prabhavananda, I had to get around my prejudice by telling myself that he was … not even a typical Hindu… I refused to think of him as weak, so I dwelt on his youthful image as the student terrorist…” (Pg. 36-37) He adds, "My only tool for Prabhavananda study was my own intuition. It certainly wasn’t infallible… Still, it… already assured me that Prabhavananda wasn’t in the least crazy and wasn’t in any sense a charlatan… But the astonishing fact remains that, during … 1940, I very seldom went to see him.” (Pg. 43-44)
He states, “I had to admit that the very Indianness of Vedanta was helpful to me. Because of my … anti-Christian prejudices, I was repelled by the English religious words I had been taught… and was grateful to Vedanta. I needed a brand-new vocabulary and here it was, with a set of philosophical terms which were exact in meaning, unemotive, untainted by … associations with clergymen’s sermons…” (Pg. 49)
He notes, “The refugees weren’t the only ones who drew me into their midst and away from Prabhavananda. There was also an assortment of men and women whom I will call ‘Seekers’… I couldn’t imagine any of them as disciples of Prabhavananda… What was I looking for, amidst these people? I have to admit… I was associating with the Seekers in order to find weaknesses in their faith and contradictions in their creeds… If their treasure was non-existent, then Prabhavananda’s might be, too. This I kept rediscovering in myself an active underground force of opposition to Prabhavananda’s way of life---insofar as it threatened to influence me.” (Pg. 51-52)
He recalls, “Because of my Protestant upbringing, going into a Catholic church still gave me a slight sense of … doing what was forbidden… Having entered the pew, I became a Vedantist again and meditated according to my instructions. After all, we had Christ’s on OUR shrine, so why shouldn’t I regard myself as … welcomed by Christ… if not by his priesthood?”(Pg. 59)
He states, “Prabhavananda often told us he believed that no one who came to seek instruction at the Center did so by mere accident. ‘Ramakrishna chose you, ALL of you.’ … Did I believe this?
I would have liked to… But for the present, I put Prabhavananda’s statement into my ‘suspense account’ … [which] contained many items whose disposition couldn’t be determined---and might never be.” (Pg. 67)
During the World War, he was helping refugees from Europe (‘Jews and non-Jews’) who were waiting at a hostel for eventual resettlement. “The thought that I was serving God within the refugees came to me often… [Yet] most of these human temples of the God I was service would have unhesitatingly described themselves as atheists.” (Pg. 91-92)
He reports, “Swami was well aware that I had written novels and that they had scenes in them which some people considered shocking… he was rather amused by the idea of their shockingness and proud of my celebrity… Swami didn’t tell me NOT to write any more novels. He simply took it for granted that I would devote all my available time and my literary abilities to our Gita translation, articles for our magazine, and similar tasks. The fiction writer was thus being forced to go underground.” (Pg. 124-125)
He states, “I don’t remember that Swami ever made any objections I was about to use in rewriting our translation … of the Gita… To him, since childhood, the Gita had been sacred---every line of it equally so… Looking through our Gita today, I find many transitions … which I can’t justify logically… But Swami, whose faith in my literary taste was stronger even than mine in his spiritual discrimination, passed nearly everything---only objecting… when I used a word or phrase which strayed too far from its Sanskrit original.” (Pg. 152-153)
He observes, “there was still some hope of my suddenly deciding that I had a monastic vocation… What I actually needed … was either complete freedom or much stricter monastic discipline. Life at the Hollywood Center … was so permissive … that its few rules were merely an irritation… It wasn’t until the early 1950s that Swami began making the rules stricter… because… the number of monastics had increased… When I ask myself, shouldn’t I have left the Center much sooner than I did, I find that I can’t say yes… By staying on, I was getting that much more exposure to Swami, which was all that mattered. Every day I spent near him was a day gained.” (Pg. 187-188)
He acknowledges, “When I did finally move out of the Center, at the end of August 1945, it … had nothing to do with the Vedanta Society. I had recently met a young man with whom I wanted to settle down and live in what I hoped could become a lasting relationship.” (Pg. 189)
He recounts, “Swami somehow got to hear about a book … which described its author‘s unsuccessful search for a suitable spiritual teacher… The author had at first felt attracted by Ramakrishna’s personality but had decided against him on the ground that he… had to struggle hard to overcome his lust for his young disciple later to be known as Vivekananda. Swam was outraged. He met with the author, who was persuaded … into deleting this passage from the manuscript.” (Pg. 247)
He recalls, “American and British reviews of ‘Ramakrishna and His Disciples’ began to appear in April 1965… The majority of them were unfavorable. And I suspected that some of the few favorable reviewers of being fellow believers rather than purely literary admirers.” (Pg. 287)
He concludes, “The reader may ask: Now that your Swami is dead, what are you left with? I am left with Swami. His physical absence doesn’t make nearly as much difference to me as I had expected it would. I think about him as constantly as I ever did. What I do seem to be losing touch with is Swami’s Hindu pantheon of god, goddesses, and divine incarnations… I have had no visions of Swami since his death; no dreams of him, even, which were memorable… It is when I am saying my mantram that I very occasionally feel I am in communication with him.. Such moments reassure me that ‘the real situation’ does indeed exist and that an acceptance of it is my only safety. I recognize this in a flash of sanity from time to time. Then I lose it again.” (Pg. 335-336)
This book will interest those studying Prabhavananda and the Vedanta Society.
Author Christopher Isherwood wrote in an introductory section of this 1980 book, “This is neither a complete biography of Swami Prabhavananda nor a full account of my own life between 1939 and 1976. It is my one-sided, highly subjective story of our guru-disciple relationship. Many people who were closely associated with Prabhavananda or with me, during that period, have little or no part in this particular story and therefore appear in it only briefly or not at all.”
He recalls in the first chapter, “I knew… that [Gerald] Heard and [Aldous] Huxley had become involved in the cult of Yoga, or Hinduism, or Vedanta---I was still contemptuously unwilling to bother to find out exactly what these terms meant… Christians I saw as sour life-haters and sex-forbidders, hypocritically denying their rabid secret lusts. The Hindus I saw as stridently emotional mysterymongers whose mumbo jumbo was ridiculous rather than sinister.” (Pg. 7)
But soon, “after talking to Gerald, it became obvious to me that I had been misusing the word ‘soul’ to mean my ego-personality… Among the various areas of knowledge that Gerald was opening up to me was the history of mysticism… I was learning that there had been thousands of men and women… who had claimed to have experienced union with what is eternal within oneself…” (Pg. 12-13)
Later, “I can’t remember why … I didn’t immediately contact Gerald’s Swami Prabhavananda… it wasn’t until late in July that Gerald took me to see him…” (Pg. 21) He continues, “I have absolutely no memories of my first visit… the Swami and I arranged that I should come back alone a few days later… One of the Swami’s characteristics … [is that] he chain-smoked cigarettes. Since I, too, was a heavy smoker, this wouldn’t have bothered me… I wish I could remember how my question was worded… In essence it was: Can I lead a spiritual life as long as I’m having a sexual relationship with a young man? I do remember the Swami’s answer: ‘You must try to see him as the young Lord Krishna.’ … I wasn’t at all discouraged by the Swami’s reply; indeed, it was far more permissive than I had expected.” (Pg. 23-26)
He recounts, “Prabhavananda was invited to Los Angeles, to give a series of lectures on Vedanta philosophy. It was then that he got to know Mrs. Carrie Mead Wyckoff… it seemed natural for the elderly lady and the youthful swami to form a kind of adoptive relationship… she offered him her home… to be the center of a future Vedanta Society of Southern California… At first the Society was very small… Then, around 1936, the congregation began to expand. Prabhavananda had become well known locally as a speaker… word had got about that he wasn’t a swami in the usual California sense but a teacher of religion… And then donors appeared with enough money to pay for the building of a temple.” (Pg. 34-35)
He explains, “In the beginning, the most important aspect of my relationship with Prabhavananda was that I was British… feeling strongly drawn to Prabhavananda, I had to get around my prejudice by telling myself that he was … not even a typical Hindu… I refused to think of him as weak, so I dwelt on his youthful image as the student terrorist…” (Pg. 36-37) He adds, "My only tool for Prabhavananda study was my own intuition. It certainly wasn’t infallible… Still, it… already assured me that Prabhavananda wasn’t in the least crazy and wasn’t in any sense a charlatan… But the astonishing fact remains that, during … 1940, I very seldom went to see him.” (Pg. 43-44)
He states, “I had to admit that the very Indianness of Vedanta was helpful to me. Because of my … anti-Christian prejudices, I was repelled by the English religious words I had been taught… and was grateful to Vedanta. I needed a brand-new vocabulary and here it was, with a set of philosophical terms which were exact in meaning, unemotive, untainted by … associations with clergymen’s sermons…” (Pg. 49)
He notes, “The refugees weren’t the only ones who drew me into their midst and away from Prabhavananda. There was also an assortment of men and women whom I will call ‘Seekers’… I couldn’t imagine any of them as disciples of Prabhavananda… What was I looking for, amidst these people? I have to admit… I was associating with the Seekers in order to find weaknesses in their faith and contradictions in their creeds… If their treasure was non-existent, then Prabhavananda’s might be, too. This I kept rediscovering in myself an active underground force of opposition to Prabhavananda’s way of life---insofar as it threatened to influence me.” (Pg. 51-52)
He recalls, “Because of my Protestant upbringing, going into a Catholic church still gave me a slight sense of … doing what was forbidden… Having entered the pew, I became a Vedantist again and meditated according to my instructions. After all, we had Christ’s on OUR shrine, so why shouldn’t I regard myself as … welcomed by Christ… if not by his priesthood?”(Pg. 59)
He states, “Prabhavananda often told us he believed that no one who came to seek instruction at the Center did so by mere accident. ‘Ramakrishna chose you, ALL of you.’ … Did I believe this?
I would have liked to… But for the present, I put Prabhavananda’s statement into my ‘suspense account’ … [which] contained many items whose disposition couldn’t be determined---and might never be.” (Pg. 67)
During the World War, he was helping refugees from Europe (‘Jews and non-Jews’) who were waiting at a hostel for eventual resettlement. “The thought that I was serving God within the refugees came to me often… [Yet] most of these human temples of the God I was service would have unhesitatingly described themselves as atheists.” (Pg. 91-92)
He reports, “Swami was well aware that I had written novels and that they had scenes in them which some people considered shocking… he was rather amused by the idea of their shockingness and proud of my celebrity… Swami didn’t tell me NOT to write any more novels. He simply took it for granted that I would devote all my available time and my literary abilities to our Gita translation, articles for our magazine, and similar tasks. The fiction writer was thus being forced to go underground.” (Pg. 124-125)
He states, “I don’t remember that Swami ever made any objections I was about to use in rewriting our translation … of the Gita… To him, since childhood, the Gita had been sacred---every line of it equally so… Looking through our Gita today, I find many transitions … which I can’t justify logically… But Swami, whose faith in my literary taste was stronger even than mine in his spiritual discrimination, passed nearly everything---only objecting… when I used a word or phrase which strayed too far from its Sanskrit original.” (Pg. 152-153)
He observes, “there was still some hope of my suddenly deciding that I had a monastic vocation… What I actually needed … was either complete freedom or much stricter monastic discipline. Life at the Hollywood Center … was so permissive … that its few rules were merely an irritation… It wasn’t until the early 1950s that Swami began making the rules stricter… because… the number of monastics had increased… When I ask myself, shouldn’t I have left the Center much sooner than I did, I find that I can’t say yes… By staying on, I was getting that much more exposure to Swami, which was all that mattered. Every day I spent near him was a day gained.” (Pg. 187-188)
He acknowledges, “When I did finally move out of the Center, at the end of August 1945, it … had nothing to do with the Vedanta Society. I had recently met a young man with whom I wanted to settle down and live in what I hoped could become a lasting relationship.” (Pg. 189)
He recounts, “Swami somehow got to hear about a book … which described its author‘s unsuccessful search for a suitable spiritual teacher… The author had at first felt attracted by Ramakrishna’s personality but had decided against him on the ground that he… had to struggle hard to overcome his lust for his young disciple later to be known as Vivekananda. Swam was outraged. He met with the author, who was persuaded … into deleting this passage from the manuscript.” (Pg. 247)
He recalls, “American and British reviews of ‘Ramakrishna and His Disciples’ began to appear in April 1965… The majority of them were unfavorable. And I suspected that some of the few favorable reviewers of being fellow believers rather than purely literary admirers.” (Pg. 287)
He concludes, “The reader may ask: Now that your Swami is dead, what are you left with? I am left with Swami. His physical absence doesn’t make nearly as much difference to me as I had expected it would. I think about him as constantly as I ever did. What I do seem to be losing touch with is Swami’s Hindu pantheon of god, goddesses, and divine incarnations… I have had no visions of Swami since his death; no dreams of him, even, which were memorable… It is when I am saying my mantram that I very occasionally feel I am in communication with him.. Such moments reassure me that ‘the real situation’ does indeed exist and that an acceptance of it is my only safety. I recognize this in a flash of sanity from time to time. Then I lose it again.” (Pg. 335-336)
This book will interest those studying Prabhavananda and the Vedanta Society.
December 23, 2022
Novelist Isherwood, he of The Berlin Stories (origins of musical Cabaret), a man who fully ditched his English aristocratic background and Cambridge education, who sought out sexual indulgence with the willing young men of pre-war ‘30s Berlin, nearly became a Hindu monk in California in the ‘40s. How? Why? Many sides and angles there. Short answer: love and acceptance. Swami Prabhavananda, the Guru of the title, did not condemn Isherwood’s homosexuality, unlike Leviticus quoting Christians. The Swami always offered Isherwood love, guidance and a home.
Did Isherwood really nearly become a monk. Well. No. He was sincere in his attempt at living in a Vedanta Center, even celibate for a while (quite the feat for him), but knew he could never fully devote himself to such a life. His worldly wants and calling as a writer were too strong. Plus, he knew he was prone to playacting and didn’t want to playact the role of a spiritual devotee. He always felt affection for and from Swami Prabhavananda, helping translate texts like The Bhagavad-Gita and making mantra and prayer a (kind of, not always) regular part of his life. Isherwood’s spiritual practice ebbed and flowed. His love life and writing struggles tended to dominate. But his adoration for and loyalty to Swami was lifelong, something very evident in this book.
Much of this book is culled from Isherwood's diaries, so if you've read those then you shouldn't expect a radically new story here. He does comment on and clarify some of those entries and it's all edited well. His humor and honesty are fully on display. Isherwood doesn't try to portray Swami Prabhavananda as a perfect man because he wasn't, and if he had been then Isherwood probably wouldn't have been as attracted to him as a Guru.
This book will probably mostly be of interest to readers of Isherwood, but I think anyone who is curious about how other people come to a spiritual life (for lack of a better phrase) will find something of value in this book.
Did Isherwood really nearly become a monk. Well. No. He was sincere in his attempt at living in a Vedanta Center, even celibate for a while (quite the feat for him), but knew he could never fully devote himself to such a life. His worldly wants and calling as a writer were too strong. Plus, he knew he was prone to playacting and didn’t want to playact the role of a spiritual devotee. He always felt affection for and from Swami Prabhavananda, helping translate texts like The Bhagavad-Gita and making mantra and prayer a (kind of, not always) regular part of his life. Isherwood’s spiritual practice ebbed and flowed. His love life and writing struggles tended to dominate. But his adoration for and loyalty to Swami was lifelong, something very evident in this book.
Much of this book is culled from Isherwood's diaries, so if you've read those then you shouldn't expect a radically new story here. He does comment on and clarify some of those entries and it's all edited well. His humor and honesty are fully on display. Isherwood doesn't try to portray Swami Prabhavananda as a perfect man because he wasn't, and if he had been then Isherwood probably wouldn't have been as attracted to him as a Guru.
This book will probably mostly be of interest to readers of Isherwood, but I think anyone who is curious about how other people come to a spiritual life (for lack of a better phrase) will find something of value in this book.
May 29, 2017
I hadn't read Christopher Isherwood in a long, long time and I don't ever remember knowing that he had pursued a spiritual life, albeit on his own terms. I admired his honesty in this book, it's what makes it so easy to read, the fact that Isherwood was doing his best to be 'good' without going on a diet to avoid sex, drugs, alcohol and more sex. After briefly considering becoming a monk, he realises that it's not for him but continues to nurture a spirituality that he can return to again and again. At the end, the seventy-five year old reminds us that, thirty years later, the book is about stuff he still didn't entirely comprehend. He was held in great regard by the Hindu Guru, Swami Prabhavananda, their friendship was not hindered by Isherwood's sense of duty and loyalty to his relationships, affairs and identity as a bestselling writer and screenwriter. I did feel slightly jarred by the years covering 1940-45 in which the war was hardly mentioned but, at the same time, it was refreshing to see that it was possible to think of other things. He's easy to read and comes across as an immensely likeable and compassionate person. I now want to read 'Christopher and His Kind' about his life in Berlin during the 1930s.
April 23, 2018
It took me a while to get into this book. I don't know if that was me taking a while to get into it or Isherwood taking a while to warm up. At any rate, a few dozens of pages in it grabbed me. I really enjoyed this gentle, honest, revealing account of Isherwood's relationship with Swami and his religion. There was a sense of peace and enlightenment unfolding throughout the text. It felt less detatched than some of his other autobiographical works, with names and details less obscured, and more connected to Isherwood's real feelings; or at least, what seemed to be Isherwood's real feelings. His feelings of imperfection in his devotion made the whole thing feel all the more honest. I'm glad to have read this.
January 11, 2023
Excellent memoir of Isherwood's life as a disciple of Prabhavanada; sometimes he feels like his life as a gay man who has sexual adventures on the beach or goes to gay bars and drinks on occasion doesn't match up, but his guru always makes him feel welcome and loved. He almost becomes a monk at one point, but doesn't, to the disappoint of his guru, but his guru ends up accepting his long-term partner. He writes a book about Ramakrishna and a translation of the Gita with his spiritual master. Fascinating, excellent writing, good read.
July 19, 2024
I hardly ever read memoir but I'm glad I read this account of Isherwood's relationship with his guru. It was very enjoyable and spiritually encouraging. It was quite strange for me, because much of what he said felt familiar to me from my own spiritual adventures. There aren't many people who have overlaps with my experience, so I felt an affinity with Isherwood. I was also predisposed to like my first Isherwood book because Cabaret is such an awesome film, though Nazi Berlin and counter-cultural L.A. are quite different vibes.
January 31, 2022
Though certainly more enjoyable if you're familiar with Isherwood's oeuvre, this "spiritual" memoir – or perhaps more apt, these reflections of a seeker – offer a glimpse into the writer's lifelong quest for meaning, as described through his relationship with his guru, Swami Prabhavananda.
April 25, 2023
I knew nothing about this part of Isherwood life so found this book somewhat engrossing, 3.6
July 29, 2014
I only read 25 pages of this book in an anthology but I'd highly recommend it for anyone interested in spirituality and literature, and the strange crossroads between the two. Isherwood was a famous underground gay English novelist that the Swami asked to help him write a book, so his place in the group was never really sustained, not being a true believer, but almost, and this was an interesting position that Isherwood wrote from, both of privilege and contempt. I really liked how the book drifted between journal entries, and reminiscences of those memories, kind of like a photography book I had of Ginsberg, that had his handwritten comments, or streams of thought, on the photos of an era. "My Guru And His Disciple," is an interesting title, and I always felt out of my reach to understand, but maybe it's really simple... Isherwood found a guru, and the guru found a disciple, but the relationship would never leave that place, due to Isherwood's libertine lifestyle, that wasn't exclusive. I'm surprised this book wasn't more popular among the hippies kind of like Herman Hesse began, but it's really a deep book, with lots of reflections and memories of great things the Swami would say, both ridiculous and deep, but I'd never heard of it until recently. I'm not sure if this is because Isherwood was gay, or just an accident of fate, like the great record that never got heard. Admittedly, you might have to be searching for God, to find much meaning in this account, but I think it's very creatively conceived and could be enjoyed by lots of people.
October 1, 2014
This book (the last he wrote in his lifetime) takes up Isherwood's story from the time he lands in America through to nearly the end of his life. However this isn't really a memoir, more a study of his relationship with his 'guru' Swami Prabhavananda. Surprisingly he maintains a belief in this for the remainder of his life and wasn't a flash in the pan - predating the hippy sixties by nearly 30 years. This isn't as interesting as the other books I've read by him, partly because to me it's all a bit 'Mumbo Jumbo' but partly because by the end of the book it's effectively a series of diary entries...so with that in mind I'm knocking a star off..
May 30, 2015
My priest gave this book to me to read, probably because, as Edmund White said in his New York Times review, "Seldom has a single man been endowed with such strong drives toward both sensuality and spirituality, abandon and discipline." I would say that pretty much describes me--sensuality and spirituality, abandon and discipline!
I learned much that I didn't know about Isherwood. As the author's blurb on the back of the book says, He was a "major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement." What courage to live so openly so early in the twentieth century. We owe much to him, whether we be gay or not, spiritual or not.
I learned much that I didn't know about Isherwood. As the author's blurb on the back of the book says, He was a "major figure in twentieth-century fiction and the gay rights movement." What courage to live so openly so early in the twentieth century. We owe much to him, whether we be gay or not, spiritual or not.
November 29, 2014
This is probably one of the books on which I fell asleep more often since I started. I´m still unsure whether to attribute the responsibility of my drowsiness to Isherwood or to the topic (even if I really wanted to read this book), but I think 50/50.
Questo é probabilmente uno dei libri sul quale mi sono addormentata piú spesso da quando l'ho iniziato. Sono indecisa se attribuire la responsabilitá della mia sonnolenza ad Isherwood o all'argomento (anche se io volevo leggerlo veramente tanto questo libro), ma credo sia 50 e 50.
Questo é probabilmente uno dei libri sul quale mi sono addormentata piú spesso da quando l'ho iniziato. Sono indecisa se attribuire la responsabilitá della mia sonnolenza ad Isherwood o all'argomento (anche se io volevo leggerlo veramente tanto questo libro), ma credo sia 50 e 50.
July 8, 2016
This started off promisingly but didn't really play to its strengths. The use of direct journal entries becomes overbearing and tedious and it becomes hard to see the forest for the trees. It seems like the most important parts of the story are always happening off page, and Isherwood makes very little effort to step back and explain the significance of some of his experiences with Swami. Not quite interesting enough to be a document of the times (Huxley, Heard etc. aren't given much time in the narrative) and not really profound enough as a spiritual journey.
May 19, 2008
Not the type of book to which I am usually drawn, but I love his writing. A very personal account of the unfolding of one man's spiritual life. Very interesting to see how people in the 1930's reacted to concepts like yoga and meditation, things that are often taken for granted now.
March 6, 2012
What I liked about this book was how open minded and forgiving the guru was to Isherwood when he "confessed his sins". Unlike Christianity which can be such a judgmental religion, Hinduism is very welcoming, without the guilt tripping.
August 16, 2025
An honest and sometimes tender account of Isherwood’s “conversion” to Hinduism and his decades-long relationship with his swami, along with insights into his life as a private citizen, a noted author and somewhat public person.
April 17, 2012
"A classic of spiritual literature", I could not agree more. This book makes me want a Guru! The devotion that Isherwood has toward Swami, his Hindu priest, is certainly something to be admired.
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