Men and the art of satsung in the Castro
It was 1970, and Adrian Brooks was lying
naked on a sofa in a New York art gallery. Not passed out or posing,
either -- he was portraying a corpse in Andy Warhol's The
Adventures of Brigid Polk. Yet the young actor was disobeying
Warhol's orders. "I didn't want to be a dead body, so I started
moving," Brooks recalls. "Not really moving -- just
sloooooowly slipping off the couch. It was more interesting
than doing nothing."
Flash forward 29 years, and guess what? Brooks is still refusing
to play dead. HIV positive he reckons for some 20 years, the
51-year-old attacks his newest role with all the enthusiasm of an
ingenue: Brooks is a guru.
Born into Philadelphia high society, he long ago bucked his
family's expectations by embarking on a career in the arts and
activism. Now, taking a page from the great Hindu texts, Brooks
instructs his San Francisco disciples in the painstaking practice of
detachment from the body.
On this rainy Sunday afternoon in the Castro, Brooks is teaching
half a dozen students who sit cross-legged in a circle in his living
room satsung, Sanskrit for "being with truth." The hour is
equal parts meditation, philosophy and group therapy. "It's
wonderful to have satsung here," he tells us. "Not just in
this house, but in this neighborhood -- the heart of the gay capital
of the world."
But the gay guru goes on to voice mixed feelings about his
ghetto. "Gay men are seriously off track with this crazy cult of the
body," he says. "It's a no-win situation. How can you possibly age,
come to awareness or greet death if you're supposed to devote your
days to looking like a 23-year-old with washboard abs?" Brooks
smiles. We all smile back, secretly sucking in our stomachs.
So does enlightenment equal life? "I don't know how my virus
responds to my mentality, but I'm still here," a post-satsung
Brooks tells me. "And whether my life goes on for another two weeks
or 35 years, I'm fulfilled. The opportunity to recognize the truth
and share it with people -- that's what I wanted in this life."
