THE
OCEAN FELL INTO THE DROP –
TERENCE STAMP
'Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night,' as
The Kinks once informed us in Waterloo Sunset. Terry being Terence
Stamp and Julie being his girlfriend at that time, Julie Christie.
And of course he does and will do so forever more through being
immortalised in song. Stuck in a moment forever. In perpetuity. No
matter that Ray Davies has since denied the song is about them for if
anything this serves only to make it all the more strangely frozen in
time. Cast in stone.
Terence Stamp is someone who came to define the Sixties and Swinging
London in the same way as did others from a similar background such
as David Bailey and Michael Caine. Working class chancers all, from
impoverishment to the world at their feet in almost a single bound.
The Ocean Fell Into The Drop is his memoir and the immediately
refreshing thing about it is how you can tell by the quirkiness of
the writing that it was actually written by himself rather than it
being ghost written. Unlike a lot of books of this type as well, it's
not bloated and full of its own self-importance but comes in at only
a modest 176 pages.
It's a parody almost of his 1979 film Meetings With Remarkable Men
where he played Prince Lubovedsky in the film adaptation of the book
of the same name by philosopher and mystic G I Gurdjieff. It's
written with good humour and much respect, and like Gurdjieff's book
tells the story of his encounters with various remarkable and
enchanting people.
As might be expected, during his heyday Terence met them all and
dated a fair few of them also: Peter Ustinov, Laurence Olivier, Sarah
Miles, Samantha Eggar, John Lennon, Francis Bacon, Ken Loach, Jimi
Hendrix, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Brigitte Bardot, Vidal Sassoon,
etc, etc. It's a veritable panoply of stars that he waltzes us
through, all dearly loved in one way or another. Clearly, he liked
his ladies and clearly they liked him back. And why not? Terence was
talented, cool, good looking, had beautiful eyes and was a bit of a
cheeky chappie. Or as his father is quoted as describing him in full
Cockney twang: “Ee's a very lucky boy”.
Of all the people he met and worked with, however, the one who
touched him most deeply and had the most impact upon him was Indian
philosopher J Krishnamurti, whom Terence met seemingly quite by
accident. It was whilst filming in Italy with Federico Fellini that
he was invited to a dinner party at which Krishnamurti was also in
attendance. It was only years later that Terence discovered that
Krishnamurti had specifically requested Terence be invited after
seeing film footage of him whilst being entertained previously by
Fellini. “I'd like to meet that boy,” Krishnamurti had
said to Fellini, and so Terence ended up sitting opposite him at
dinner, not quite knowing exactly who Krishnamurti was.
After the dinner, out of all the guests there, it was Terence who was
invited for an after-dinner walk with the great sage. Whilst not
having spoken during the dinner, strolling along together outside
Terence babbled away about general subjects of chit-chat, still not
fully understanding who Krishnamurti was.
“Look at that tree,” said Krishnamurti to him, as he
touched Terence upon the arm. Terence acknowledged it and continued
chatting away. “Look at that cloud,” said Krishnamurti,
again touching Terence upon the arm. Again Terence acknowledged it
and continued chatting, slightly confused as to why Krishnamurti's
main engagement in conversation with him was to highlight a tree and
a cloud. The effect upon Terence from this meeting and this
apparently one-way conversation would prove, however, to be profound.
All other encounters with remarkable people over the course of his
career are almost superfluous to this initial encounter with
Krishnamurti and it sets him on a path that he has remained on ever
since, even during the periods when his film career had ground to a
near halt.
With the end of the Sixties came the end of film offers, due
apparently to Terence being so closely associated with that decade
and the world having moved on. Subsequently, Terence spent much of
the Seventies in India searching - for want of a better word - for
enlightenment. For a time he even became a sannyasen under the
tutorship of 'controversial' Indian guru Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh.
Throughout this whole time, from afar Krishnamurti continued to keep
an eye on him.
Throughout the book, Terence offers up anecdotes about all the people
he gets to meet, the most amusing concerning Marlon Brando on the set
of Superman where Brando has arrived with an entourage of two
sisters. “See those two girls over there,” Brando says to
Terence “They want your dick”.
At one point in the book he tells us of the time when he asked
Krishnamurti what it was like when Krishnamurti first experienced
total consciousness, or illumination. Krishnamurti considered the
question for a moment and then replied “The ocean fell into the
drop”. Hence the title of the book. It's a good, almost perfect
Krishnamurti quote and as it's been used as the title for Terence's
memoir, it's worth considering.
'The ocean fell into the drop' is a simple but at the same time very
clever statement, the reverse of course, of 'the drop fell into the
ocean', and very easy to grasp the meaning of. Is it, however, what
might be called an 'absolute truth'? Almost, I would say, but not
quite.
If there is an ocean and if there is a drop it implies an imbalance,
the greater weight and the greater capacity being with the ocean.
Both the ocean and the drop, however, are of equal importance and of
equal measure in the meaning to each other. One is not complete
without the other. The vessel holding both the ocean and the drop –
whether that be the Universe or the singular person – is not
completely full or not whole without being full to the last drop.
Without the ocean, the drop is not complete and without the drop, the
ocean is not complete. Understanding the importance of the ocean to
the drop and the drop to the ocean leads to wholeness and balance –
and perfect balance at that.
Krishnamurti never declared himself to be The Light, he did the
complete opposite, in fact. All he did was to point the way to The
Light. With this in mind, it's easy to see why Krisnamurti gently
admonished Terence on learning of his travels in India seeking out
various gurus and his association with the sannyasens: “You
don't find this in a supermarket” he tells Terence.
Why Krishnamurti took an interest in this young actor by the name of
Terence Stamp rather than anyone else at the dinner party where they
met (and remember this party included such luminaries as one of the
greatest film directors of all time, Federico Fellini) remains
unclear even to Terence. Perhaps he saw in Terence a kindred soul?
Whatever the reason, to have had Krishnamurti keeping an eye on you
throughout life is one of the most blessed gifts. Summed up, indeed,
by what Terence's father – an ordinary, uneducated, working class
tugboat man from East London – had deduced very early on at the
start of his son's film career and without any need to travel to
India to seek out gurus: “Ee's a very lucky boy”....
John Serpico
