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Memoir 1
In the monastery, in San Francisco, we had an oil burning furnace in the basement. When I was up in Swami's kitchen, on the third floor, he asked me if Jerry Seeler had put that powder in the furnace 'to prevent the formation of soot.' I told him that the powder was not 'to prevent the formation of soot' but to cause the soot to burn out of the fire box. "Are you sure?" "Yes, Swami."
"Are you sure?" "Yes, Swami." When this had been
repeated several times, since one can't be that sure of anything,
I said, "No, Swami." Whereupon he stamped his foot on the floor and made the whole building sound like a drum and, in very disrespectful language, called me a liar and several worse things, and that's how the conversation ended at a very high pitch. A day or two later, when
I was up in his kitchen, I mentioned, in the course of the conversation,
that there was a roof between his floor and ours. (Swami Triguantita
had built the third floor as an afterthought, on top of the two story building,
in the hope that Swami Brahmananda would come to America.) Well, Swami
didn't know that there was a roof in there, and challenged me on it. So I said, "Come, Swami, I'll show you." So I got a flashlight, opened the door to the crawl-space on the stair between his floor and ours, which he passes several times a day, and showed him the old roof. It's hard to describe what happened next. He lit up with one of the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen, turned to me and said, "You are right, as usual." He's found out from Jerry what the powder is for.
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