By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin

A White Island

I had wandered in those stations for so long that I no longer dared to leave them, it would have been like leaving the shore for an unknown land. I stayed in the shade of a margosa tree and watched the little jingling horse-carts go by on the sandy road which made a bend and dipped into a palm-grove. I did not know where I was, and it was very pleasant to be there without knowing, simply holding the thread of that little vibration which filled me with wonder and a feeling of absolute security. It had been there since yesterday, it was really something which vibrated very softly in me, around me, like a current or like a light little stream which linked me to that great blue silence, so light that I was afraid of losing it, almost afraid of moving, but I had only to remain quite still for a moment and remember, and it was there—it was always there! That was the wonder: it did not vanish, it did not disappear like the other countries of one day or of one minute; I had only to pull the thread a little, take a little breath within, and the great blue country flowed limpidly.

J'étais partout chez moi... I was at home everywhere.

I had only to think of it.

And I felt that I could go anywhere, do anything, I was borne along, enveloped, as it were, in a great azure mantle, I was safe.

—Oh! you have arrived.

He had magnificent black eyes! A child—of about eleven perhaps—who stood planted before me and stared at me with a sort of voracity as one might stare at the window of a sweetshop. He smiled, I smiled. I was at ease, one did not knock oneself against a wall.

—You want me to show you the way?

I had not a single paisa.

—Are you going to your brother's first or to the temple?

—To my brother's?

He took my hand and we set out. The air smelt of salt, life scampered by like a little chipmunk, it was simple, it was limpid. I had done so many strange things with that Sannyasi that I no longer tried to understand, and when I tried to understand, everything vanished, re-entered the hole, like the little animals of the forest. Another law seemed to govern life, a charming law, which disappeared as soon as one looked at it. It was like a softy almost amused, light breath, which pushed here, pushed there, to make a certain gesture, another gesture, a certain step, a certain turn, to cross this road without any reason, and it was always the right thing. A small, right law... Une petite loi juste. And as soon as one noticed it, it escaped through one's fingers as if thought chased it away automatically. And sometimes, one stopped right in the middle of a station or a gesture, astonished, as if one had trapped a host of little winks everywhere.

—Have you come for the temple?

—The temple?... No.

He looked surprised.

—Everyone comes here for the temple. Your brother also goes to the temple. Your brother is so handsome!

—Aah...

—He is a prince.

—And you, little frog, who are you?

He drew himself up to his full height:

—I am Bala-Chandra, son of Bhaskar-Nath, the greatest sculptor in the country.

—Aah...

—My father is a hero, he added with an air of finality. And who are you?

I was taken aback.

—You don't want to tell me your name?

I had to pull at a shadow from far behind me, it was dark like a lie.

—My name is Nil.

—And what does that mean?

—Ah! well... you see...

I wonder. A name, one should have a name! A real name, something which says what one is, like a bird's cry which says what it is. And suddenly I realised that the Sannyasi had never asked me my name.

—It means nothing.

—Oh!... nothing—nothing at all?

He seemed struck with respect.

—As for mine, it means “little moon”... They also call me Balu. Here, look.

And I stood open-mouthed. It was an extraordinary landscape. I had seen beauty many times in the forests of Brazil, in Rio and on the banks of the Loire; but this was not simply “beautiful”, it was “my” country all of a sudden, as when one discovers the face of one's beloved.

Dunes, nothing but dunes of white sand as far as the eye could see, resting there like Arctic birds against a dazzling sky, and palms, great clusters of green, golden palms, almost buried in the sand, which emerged at the end of stunted black trunks... I bent down and let the sand run through my fingers. It was soft, cool, smooth, it flowed; all the dunes flowed towards the village like a great white tide. And the high violet towers of the temple dominating the coconut-grove and the white terraces of the houses.

—It's terrific, eh?

Balu looked at me with perfect understanding.

—It's over there, at the end of the street. There are only two streets, you can't go wrong, one to the station and the other to the temple.

The silvery tinkle of little jingling horse-carts filled the whole street. It was almost white, with its uneven flagstones covered with sand. It was yesterday or today—very long ago. It was in this life or another. I was Nil or somebody else. We plunged into the strong scent of jasmine garlands and spices, amidst little shops, wandering goats and rose pottery; it was in this country or another, under the curved flight of the great ernes, and I was going towards I know not what story or what destiny, led by the warm hand of that child. Was it really another destiny, or still the same one, centuries afterwards? I walked as at the beginning of a life, it was vast and light, it was soft like the dunes, I was in a great tranquil rhythm, I was above or behind myself; and perhaps I was Nil, but I really had no name, or not yet, I had lost it on the way, I was coming back from the great journey.

—Do you want some pistachios?

He pulled me by the arm. I returned to the small shadow.

—Oh! Balu, where are we?

—Where do you think? In the street of course!

He looked at me with a comical face. However, it was of no importance, it could have been the north or the south, before or after Christ—I was borne along, guided, every step was exactly as it should have been that one and no other, on that paving-stone and no other. Everything was microscopically precise. And immense at the same time. At that moment I had the impression that in any other village in the world, in any other town, and, perhaps, during any other period in history, I should have taken exactly the same step, made exactly the same gesture, in the same way, at the same moment—only the name changes!... il n'y a que le nom qui change. And little primrose and green villages on latitudes marked in Indian ink. Life does not happen only where one thinks—it spreads out in all directions, we are moving all the time in another geography. And sometimes that coincides, then it is perfect precision: the inner degree touches the outer degree, every step is thousands of years old and one moves in the great rite.

—It is here, we are in it.

The house was dilapidated. It was the last one, at the end of a little street of balconied houses; after that, there was just a path of ochre sand and a forest of thorny trees. Balu leaped up three steps. I found myself in a sort of smoky caravanserai, full of pilgrims, bundles of clothes, kitchen utensils, children in all the corners, and insatiable goats which feasted on some laundry hanging between the blackened pillars—an exotic “cour des miracles” which nevertheless smelled of incense. Balu ran up to the first floor. It was deserted. I was in a long corridor lined with tiny monk-cells on either side, which ended abruptly above the thorny forest, like a carriage at the end of the line. The cells were empty. I went forward. In the last one on the left, his legs in the air and his head on the ground, a man was performing the sirsasana. A white man. An alarm-clock under his nose. Balu rushed up to him:

—Nil has arrived, yes, your brother, he is here!

The stranger fell back on all fours, amazed. He looked at me. He had a curious red triangle between his eyebrows, flaxen hair like ripe wheat, a sailor's build—he looked like a Nordic type. For a fraction of a second he stared at my rags, then took me by the shoulders and kissed me.

—Sit down, brother, you are welcome.

His voice was so warm that I felt silly. He pushed a mat towards me. Balu was devouring him with his eyes.

—Sit down. Don't be afraid... my name is Björn.⁴ I'm glad to see you.

The cell was bare, except for a tin-trunk and graffiti on the walls.

He's called “Nothing”, you know—Nothing-at-all!... Il s'appelle “Rien”, tu sais—Rien du tout!

—You are tired and hungry... Balu, go to Minakshi's and get some dosais,⁵ coffee, and some pistachios for yourself.

The child did not want to leave Björn.

—Go on, run along!

I had not a word in my head. I had forgotten how to speak as well.

—How happy I am, brother, you are heaven-sent!

—...

—Don't speak, you need not explain, you are my brother, Balu said so. Wait...

He started rummaging in his trunk, took out a white dhoti⁶ and a scarf of fine cloth. I was completely bewildered.

—Balu is never wrong. You are not a tourist, I can see that, so... It is rare to meet someone from there...

He seemed apologetic.

—Oh! I'm so lucky, brother... Look, the well is down there. You'll need a towel and some soap.

He began to rummage again in his trunk.

—So you have come from Europe, eh, you have run away. Oh! brother, men do not know how to love. It is good to love. Go, and be careful of the monkeys, they steal everything. Yesterday, they guzzled up all my tooth-paste.

He pushed me by the shoulder.

—I have been waiting for my brother for three years now. Do you realise... three years. And it is you who have come. How strange destiny is! Go, tell you all about it, we shall make discoveries together...

I went down to the well like an automaton. I was completely bewildered and far, far removed from all that sentimental fuss, without the slightest reaction: a stone, nothing responded. All Björn's vibrations pursued me, pulsating, battering in my head, I could almost measure their intensity and frequency: they were dark red, dense, in little dashing waves and extremely disturbing. I wanted to get out of there—only the sun and the blue over my head. And no more words. I felt ashamed. I emptied a bucket of water on my back and swept Björn away. Then I realised that I had become someone else. Yes, transparent—like crystal; not frozen, because it was very sweet, but without reaction: that saw clearly, received everything with acuity and an extraordinary exactitude—simply it looked, without moving, without a trace of feeling. A wide, exact look. And I discovered that I had lived months—or years?—in a place without human beings, right in the midst of the crowd, in trains, in stations, and yet I was thousands of kilometres away from everything! It was like having to learn life all over again, from another point of view. I pulled the thread of my little vibration once more; it was there, always there, limpid, jerkless, cool like a spring, so sweet. I was overwhelmed, I was filled with such gratitude, there, at the edge of that well, because there was that... ҫa, because that existed, it was there—that inexpressible sweetness, that secret royalty, and free, free, thousands of kilometres away from all that noise of the world, that confusion of the world, that separation in a body. Oh! who can understand the miracle of that royalty in the midst of everything: one is a prisoner in one's own skin, and then, one second of remembrance and one soars above; one looks, one laughs!... I emptied a bucket of water over my body, and all the waters of the world could not have been as soothing as that coolness. I picked up my rags... The Sannyasi's knife fell onto the edge of the well. For a second, I felt like throwing it into the well—I can still see myself with my arm raised—and then, I do not know why, I hid it in my belt and went back to Björn.

He was squatting at the end of the corridor, wrapped in white like a prince. A strange prince, indeed, with that red mark between his eyebrows... A little theatrical, I thought.

All the same, I liked him.

—You see, this is my poop-deck.

The corridor opened onto a forest of acacias. There were no dunes, no palms: only thorny trees like Chinese umbrellas leaning over the sands, and sometimes, the tall pale green foliage of a tamarind tree or the fretted shadow of a banyan. Then a solitary rock over there, at the edge of the sands, like the colossus of Memnon.

—That is Kali's rock.

—But where are we?

—To the north of the village.

—But which country?

—You didn't see the signpost at the entrance to the bridge?

—The bridge...

—But from where have you fallen! Didn't you cross a bridge to enter the island—2054 metres... 6739 feet, it is written at the entrance, you were sleeping? A one way bridge—the White Isle.

—An island...

—You! really!

—Can one see the sea?

—Calm yourself. First eat, and then we'll go.

He spread out a banana leaf with some dosais.

—My island is beautiful, you will see. Every morning, when I get up, I come here and prostrate myself before the beauty of the world...

I looked at Björn, somewhat taken aback.

—Good. And who brought you here?

—A sannyasi.

—Ah.

He made a face.

—I don't like sannyasis.

—Why, what have they done to you?

—Nothing, precisely. They have chucked everything. They do not know the secret of the beautiful world.

I felt rather nettled.

—And you, do you have the secret... with your feet in the air?

—Oh! that's nothing, I do it for my health. There is something else, I tell you, my island is a treasure island!

Björn took me by the arm, he looked feverish:

—But, first of all, you tell me, what are you seeking?

—I... I no longer know.

—Well, I am seeking power. Oh! not for myself: power for my fellow men—power, you understand—to change the world. In fact, I am ashamed, we have run away—we are deserters.

—Deserters?

—Ashamed to be here. They are miserable, they live like madmen. But I'm on the scent, we are going to find out; I tell you, my isle is a marvellous isle...

He threw off his scarf, his blue eyes were shining like a child's.

—Tell me, brother, they eat, they sleep—they are miserable. They have central heating, libraries—they are miserable. They do not know the Great Adventure, they know nothing, they do not know the secret of life!

Björn stopped suddenly.

—What are you seeking?

—But I don't know, Björn! It's simple, it's there. It flows.

—You fled from them, eh, they are detestable. But I love them. Listen, brother, we'll work together, we shall discover the secret, I am going to introduce you to Guruji...

His gaze was fixed on Kali's⁷ rock, then he began to speak forcefully, slowly, as if he were seeing something:

—The fact that you have come here this evening has a meaning, an object, no? But what meaning? What does this meeting here this evening mean, thousands of kilometres away from everything, like exiles?

—But I am not an exile!

—If one is not with them, if one cannot breathe their air, what sense has it? What does it mean? This is what I ask. For the last three years I have been asking the same question. And one stifles more and more, oh! Nil, it's as if we were at the end of one world, or at the beginning of another... Never has the earth been so bound and never have they spoken so much of liberty; it is the age of gnomes, it is the reign of anti-life, anti-liberty, anti-fraternity; it is the age of Falsehood, Kali Yuga, the Dark Age.

A crow began to caw above the well, I started to slip away elsewhere. But Björn would not let go of me.

—And I have looked everywhere: I have looked in Europe, in Oslo, in Paris, I have looked in Africa, in the Himalayas, in the confines of Tibet. I have been a nihilist, a buddhist, expelled from the navy as a saboteur. It's as though all the doors have closed one by one in order to compel us to find the secret. And what remains, tell me? Let's take our bearings... There are no more Americas to discover, it is the end of adventure, it has been commercialised, revolutions are faked, conquests at an end—they will go to the moon, yes, they will carry their Falsehood to the moon... ils emporteront leur mensonge sur la lune, they will take themselves everywhere, they will be miserable right up into the seventh galaxy. So where is the door, the way out, what is there to breathe? The fatherland sends us to the barracks and the Churches promise us heaven, and the others... their mechanised future resembles a gigantic week-end in Deauville. They will not even leave a pyramid behind them, they will leave only a heap of scrap iron. Here...

Björn got up. He seemed to be bathed in a red vapour.

—You will see.

He dashed towards his room-cell and came out with a letter.

—It is from my brother Erik, it's dated a week ago. Listen... He was seeking also, and he left everything. We wandered all over the world together. And then, the Sahara, that's all he found: the desert. Now he bores for petrol in Ouargla. Listen:

Ouargla, September

c/o S. A. M. E. G. A. B. P. 77
(Dept. of Oases)

I shaft, 2 shafts, 3 shafts, 4 shafts...
Whether there is oil or not, it's all
the same to me.
Yet, I am wrong, for I am “in petrol”.
I may even succeed perhaps, in getting
used to these shafts, pulleys and gears
but at what price, damn it?

Affectionately,
Erik

Björn remained silent. I saw his brother's suffering on his face, it was hard, contracted, a sudden darkness—almost a lie. Suffering is a falsehood... La souffrance est un mensonge.

—Nil, what can we do for our brothers? We must have power, you understand, to love is not enough.

He fixed his eyes on me, I was completely engulfed in that avalanche, I could no longer see clearly, I could no longer see anything. He had befogged the whole atmosphere.

—You have nothing to say?

He had become aggressive now. Everything could change into hatred in Björn... And it was the other side of the same thing. And that dosai which lay heavily in my stomach and gave me a vague feeling of nausea, everything vibrated in my body as though I had swallowed Björn's revolt and Erik's darkness as well. I was like a sieve, everything entered.

—Yes, I know, the sannyasis have found the trick: they give up everything; they run away to the heights. It is very convenient.

—Oh! Björn, you don't know what you are saying. Does one give up a prison?... One gets out of it, that's all. And I assure you the air is devilishly light and clear when one gets out of the box. So?...

—So that's the whole question. One gets out, and then one can do nothing more for life.

I closed my eyes. I felt beaten by that tide of little red waves.

—Nil, are you listening? Where are you? Have I tired you?

He took my hands. It was the real Björn coming back, affectionate, fraternal.

The atmosphere began to be less tense; one could breathe again. And suddenly, I understood. What could men see in that mental chaos? They wanted to see, they wanted to know the cause, the course of events, the line of action, but every thought was like a pebble in the pond: one could no longer see anything.

—There is a secret, Nil...

He sat up straight. I was struck by Björn's beauty. A small silvery flame began to float into that red mass which became paler, almost roseate, and Björn's voice was no longer quite like a noise:

—It's curious, Nil, for three years I have not ceased to study the story, our story, and the more I study it, the more it seems to me that it's not at all what one thinks it is... a series of progress, of discoveries which pile up, and we become more and more knowledgeable, more and more intelligent, until the moment when we shall know everything... No, it is not that.

And at that instant, there was a tiny white spark, like a diamond.

—It's rather a series of exhaustions... as if each epoch knocked at a door, explored a domain, arrived at a dead end: a series of perfectionings without any outcome. Then it breaks down and one begins again on another line. There has been the spiritual knowledge of India, the occult knowledge of Egypt, Greek knowledge and scientific knowledge... And our epoch is not more knowledgeable than the others, that is the illusion I It is not nearer to the goal; it has only perfected one line. One way of looking. It has, perhaps, only the merit of being at the last door and there are no more.

I looked at Björn against that breach of light, and he was really handsome, a Viking conqueror who had come back here for I know not what adventure. And I saw myself at his side, smaller, but of another colour it seemed. I was looking at all that, I heard Björn, but I was not really there; I felt as if I were held somewhere, far, far away, and that I had to cross expanses of sweetness to find Björn, a great meadow of blueness, so enchanting that at every moment I wanted to slip into it with closed eyes, and to merge into that noteless, voyaging music. And my body... I do not even know whether I was in my body; rather, the body was in me, and Björn too. I was only sensitive to the modulation of his voice, which was like a silvery spiral sometimes punctuated by a spark... une étincelle, and it was that little flame that I followed, as if the words had meaning only because of it, were carried by it, contained in it, and that formed an exact music—the words were a sort of useless outgrowth, I knew instantly everything he had said.

—...So, the time has come to invent. When we touch that secret, all the lines will meet simultaneously and we shall be at the heart of the Thing.

He took me by the arm.

—You have gone away again.

—But no!

—We have no right to go away, do you hear! It's our only excuse. We are here to discover.

Then I buckled myself to the words it was an immediate degradation, a lowering of tension.

—I do not know, Björn, but when one is in a certain condition, everything seems so simple.

—For you.

—But it's a true state, in it one sees truly!

—Of what use is your true state, if it can do nothing for the world?

—Oh! Björn, how impatient you are.

—Do you see this triangle?

He placed his finger between his eyebrows.

—It is the Tantric triangle, the point turned downwards, towards Matter. No escape towards the summits: the descent of Power into life and into matter. We are here to discover, you understand, to invent—to invent something which neither science nor religion has found. We are at the last door, we are at zero hour, we are a new race of adventurers!

He stared at me with his lavender-blue eyes.

—We have looked for continents, oil-wells, laws, machines and still more machines—we have exhausted everything. We are sitting on the gold-mine and we don't know it! Power is within... Le pouvoir est dedans, Nil, the adventure is within. Our machines are not the sign of our progress, but of our impotence. We are at the doors of a world which will create by the inner vision, we are the adventurers of the powers of the soul.

He hesitated a moment.

—Moreover, it is not without danger.

—Björn!

Someone rushed into the corridor.

—Guruji is calling you.

He jumped up, his gaze fell on me and I felt uneasy: he looked like a haunted man.

—You will find some money in the tin-trunk, in a red wallet. If I return late, go and dine at Minakshi Lodge.

He wrapped himself in his scarf. But it was no longer Prince Björn, it was another person.

—I shall explain to you, he is my Master, he has great powers. It is he who has the key. We are going to find the secret together.

Then he left hurriedly.

I remained a moment looking at the acacias, the sands, and the mauve shadow round the well. The tumult had ceased with Björn's departure, everything was as peaceful as at the beginning of the world except for the lone cry of a raven, but even that cry was a part of the silence—it is men who make a noise, even when silent they make a noise!... même dans le silence ils font du bruit! And suddenly; all the weariness of having listened to Björn fell over me; I felt wrinkled all over—thousands of little wrinkles were pulling at my face, constricting my temples, and that tiny trepidation vibrating in my head, so artificial—the noise of artificial things.. A mask. I had entered into a mask and all life was a mask—a complete lack of truth, even in suffering. In half an hour with Björn, there had been one true second, just when that little white spark had burst forth. Everything else: noise supposedly to understand each other. Yes, they speak of their suffering, they speak of their hope, their revolt, but it is not even the cry of an animal which is thirsty or in pain, it is simply superimposed noise, plastered on... something which does not suffer, which needs nothing, sorrows for nothing; a bedrock of tranquil reality which is there, so tranquil, and really very near, like a well of tenderness for all the miseries of the world—one leans forward, one lays one's forehead there, and everything is refreshed, de-wrinkled for ever. And no one wants it! How can this be?... I looked at Björn, Erik, and all those men, my brothers, those strange artificial creatures who no longer had even the qualities of the animal—who constructed iron towers, steel wings, and who did not even fly; who heard nothing, saw nothing, except with antennae and a helmet; who suffered, laboured in order to try and reproduce the simple miracle of the ages without man. And they sang, they sculptured and poetised to express the misery of their lives, their powerlessness behind all that false power, or something behind which they wanted so much to grasp. And when that was grasped, it was finished—there was no man any longer! No world, nothing, one streaks to heaven, so be it. To become man, was it simply to forget man at the end of the story, that moment of artifice, and return to the peace of unthinking things—to the tranquil vast which no longer says “I”, because it is “I” everywhere nowhere...

   a drop of blue water
a sea lost in its millions of clear drops?

O apprentice
Be patient awhile,
Nothing is lost
But your foolishness

I closed my eyes. Everything dissolved instantaneously, bluified, spread out—words, miseries, questions; they were only hardenings, creases of the “I” which wants to retain immensity in a cage and cannot and suffers because it cannot—”I” lets go of itself, and everything is filled with infinity. It is smooth, full, without a ripple—where is the suffering, where the evil? Where is the question? There is not one ripple! It is, and it is perfectly. And everything is the same but flexible, vast, rhythmical, instead of being full of knots and broken up by that obturating “I” who makes hollows, bumps, moments, pain—and everything is a pain because everything is cut up... Et tout est une peine, parce que tout est coupé. I sank there, melted into that smile. But I do not know whether it was Björn's shadow or some particle of the “I” in a corner, I thought I felt a kind of limitation in that immensity, a sudden inadequacy—it was full, as full as a jar could be, but it was a jar all the same, something which was closed at a point. And there, also, I touched an invisible frontier of dissatisfaction.

There was still something to be demolished.