By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin

As You Will

Once again I walked alongside the high walls of the temple, accompanied by the droning of the conch-shells and gongs, hiding my bleeding hand, and everything was the same. Yet never again would things be the same and that absurd wound had set in motion a whole succession of waves, as if that tiny mark on the surface were only the symbol of a deeper wound—oh! everything is a symbol; I am still looking for the thing that means nothing, the wisp of straw blown by the wind, a second's faltering which does not bear the dark echo of a same great wave in movement; and perhaps the capacity of vision is not so much to see the seven wonders of the world but the eighth wonder of minute correspondences?... la huitième merveille des minuscules correspondances? There was one chance in a million that I should meet Björn in that forest, that I should take the northern track, that I should turn to the right, and it was exactly when I wanted to turn back to avoid Björn's invisible presence that I went and threw myself right into the trap... The world is a mystery; all our explanations and our visions exhaust nothing, and the bells of our temples or the troubled gong of our souls will not cease to murmur through our white or grey streets how fragile we are and what immense forces pull our strings, while we go hither and thither and turn to the right into the alley of perdition. But why? Why? I should have liked so much to understand that chance second when we turned to the right rather than to the left.

I walked along by the high walls besieged by the sands and I had the feeling of finding again the same little intimate track, so small, hardly a thread, which linked that shadow of self under the towers with so many other similar ones who had asked themselves the same question thousands of times to the accompaniment of the bells, the gongs, the sirens, or the cry from a minaret; and each time, at the end of the track, it was like a multitude of selves never-dead, and did not that one who walked today turn to the right pulled by some old detour made by that other one? Life is old and hackneyed and we go along the streets of the world as if we were, born yesterday.

Once more I found the narrow street with the white terraced houses and its clusters of palms; the children were still chanting in the school-yard. Then the tiny loggia, the sculptured deities, the low corridor like an Egyptian hypogeum, the patio overflowing with light and the smell of sandalwood in the cool twilight.

And there was Mâ. She was crushing rice in a mortar. She saw me, pulled the end of her sari a little over her forehead and smiled at me. I was in the clear country.

Bare-bodies, a pair of steel-rimmed glasses on his nose, Bhaskar-Nath was squatting in his corner in the midst of his chisels. He raised his eyes. His look went straight.to my hand. He remained silent, perfectly motionless.

—I cut myself.

He nodded his head and resumed carving his statue without a word.

—Dāo.

She took my hand and let some cold water run over the wound. She looked gentle and young, like Batcha's sister.

—E ké?... Who is it? I asked, pointing to the statue.

—Kali.

She raised her hand to her forehead, emptied the water jug on to my hand. It smarted.

—He went out in a great hurry, she said...

She looked at me questioningly, then went away with her water jug. There was not a sound. Bhaskar-Nath was stubbornly silent, bent over his rough cast: she had four arms and a sword, as on that Rock up there.

—Björn is in danger.

He did not turn a hair.

—I said...

I let my hand fall again. It was that statue which fascinated me, it seemed that I had come purposely for it.

—Whom does she kill?

He did not move.

I began to feel ill at ease; the air was heavy with an indefinable something and my eyes returned once more to the idol. And suddenly I had the impression that there was no need to ask anything, to say anything, everything, was said there in that statue with the sword. To look was enough. It is strange, the more I advance, the more I have the impression that every object, every circumstance brings a precise message, as if the very position of objects and beings at a given moment contained the exact transcription of our story, and that their shifting in a place, their appearance or disappearance followed an invisible rhythm which rejoined ours, just as the movement of the moons and the tides rejoin our falls and the return of the curlews to the strands in September. And everything goes together.

Bhaskar-Nath nodded his head. He looked at me. He said simply:

—It is time... C'est l'heure.

My heart contracted. There was a blank second. I wanted to cry out no, no, not yet! as if to arrest time. Oh! I know, I have always known, I await the hour when everything will be broken, trampled under foot. I almost wished it in my heart of hearts. And everything was like a fragile truce poised on a cauldron of vipers.

—Your heart is crying out, child.

—Oh! not yet...

—You are afraid?

—I don't know. I don't understand, I don't want any more tragedy, I don't want any more...

She came back with a handful of marigold leaves, crushed them and pasted them on my finger. Even that smarting was reassuring. She offered me a copper tray of fruit:

—Khāo, khāo, eat, she said softly, it is good.

Exactly the same fruits as in my dream with Batcha.

She smiled at me. For a moment I had the impression that she was feeding me through the bars of a prison—yes, a prison. I was surrounded by walls. The moment before, it was the clear limpid country and then everything reverses, one is in prison. But what is it that reverses?... Suddenly it seemed to me that destiny was that: a prison. And one passes from peace to anguish as from one room to another.

—Child, why are you afraid, we always go towards greater joy. It is the golden law of the world. There is no return to darkness, it does not exist, there are only passages to a greater light... When one sees, all is consoled.

—I don't see.

—But everything is arranged to compel you to see! Look then, blindman, open your eyes instead of whimpering. Oh! child, child, what are you doing, what are you waiting for, every moment of life stretches out its hand to you.

—It's that wretched Tantric's fault.

—It's nobody's fault. Moreover, you have no right to insult that man. The fault, what fault? If there were just one fault in the world, the world would collapse—Joy only can create!

—Joy is all right when everything goes well.

—But your “well” is microscopic So it is broken a little from time to time so that you can go further, towards a greater good.

—But we must do something, we must appeal to that Tantric, we must...

—What?

Bhaskar-Nath raised his eyes.

—In fact, I don't know what can save Björn. Except he himself, admitting that he is “lost”. Ah! child, I cannot see any “loss” anywhere; even the shavings that fall from my chisel serve to make-incense, and every stroke of the chisel perfects my beauty.

—He is going to die perhaps.

—You also. Batcha also. One dies only when the time comes, not a minute before. But do try to understand, you stubborn one! There is no injustice, no error, no accident. You understand nothing of the world if you don't understand that the obstacles also are a part of perfection. We are full of ingratitude for a Marvel which makes of every minute of the earth a miracle, oh! when one sees that... It is so compact, it is fulgurating with innumerable miracles everywhere at the same time. Then it is a bursting of joy: with no return.

—But we must do something for Björn.

—Bhaskar-Nath did not reply. But I felt that he saw; I felt his patient, loving compassion, leaning over me, over Björn, but I wanted to do something, I could not just wait with my arms folded for Björn's death. And there was that kind of catastrophe hanging in the air.

—If your “Marvel” does everything, then what am I doing here?

—Yes, it does everything. And one cannot understand that the Marvel is always marvellous, even when things go badly. Listen, if you feel that it is necessary to “do” something, do it. Your action is also part of this Marvel..., your errors too. But I would like you to see.

Abruptly, he seized a chisel.

—Do you see this chisel?

He took his statue in the other hand;

—Do you see Kali? She is the Mother of the worlds.

He raised the statue. He looked like a god.

—... She holds a sword in her right hand and She cuts off the demon's head—She acts, She “does” something, as you say. But there are not three different forces; one which acts through the Mother, one through the demon and one through my chisel. It is the same force, there is but one Force in the world, one single force which passes everywhere: everything is the divide Force in action—in the gods, in the demons, in men, or in my chisel (call that “divine” if you wish, it does not matter, what matters is to taste the Thing). And my knife can carve or it can kill, that is all. If it cuts off your hand, you say that “it is bad”, because you don't see the god that is carving in you. If Björn suffers, you say that “it is that demon of a Tantric”, because you do not see that he is necessary for Björn—we meet all the obstacles necessary for our perfection, not one more. Because it is Perfection that is at work in the world. Because it is Joy that is at work in the world. There is but one Force in the world, a force of joy, and as long as we do not understand the absolute MEANING of everything... l'absolu SENS de tout, we shall go to the devil we choose. We see only a fragment of the story, a fraction of the course. But She is there. At every moment She is there and She wants joy for us even if we cry out and weep. There, that is all.

—So then...

—There is no “so then”. One has to get out of the little man and enter into the consciousness of the Whole, then one is free, and one understands. And one has joy.

I heard the rustling of a skirt.

She entered like a whirlwind, hopping on one foot, a schoolgirl's satchel in her hand, then she stopped dead in the middle of the patio. Bhaskar-Nath looked at her, she looked at me. She became as red as a poppy and ran out into the courtyard.

He laid down his statue, startled. I heard laughter, the grating of the pulley over the well.

—Master...

—I am not Master.

—It is not only Björn, I too am menaced.

He arranged his tools in silence.

—What is it?... What has happened, tell me? I feel that something is weighing on me.

He did not reply, he was like a wall.

Shikhi set up a singing clamour on the terrace. Then everything fell silent again. And Batcha's words came back to me from far, far away, like music: “Shikhi perches on the terrace and cries out in triumph”...

Bhaskar-Nath stared into a corner of the patio, lost elsewhere.

As for me, I wanted to know, to understand that kind of faceless enigma that weighed upon me; which seemed to disappear, then reappear suddenly for a “mere nothing”: a sound, an odour, an insignificant fact yet which meant something. It was like an old familiarity reawakened; an invisible door which opened with a breath, and everything was changed—charged with another meaning, as if I had entered suddenly into the other story, the true story. I closed my eyes. One could hear the droning of the conch-shells in the temple, a kaddalai¹⁵ vendor passed in the street. It was such a well-known world, so intimate, more intimate than a being or a place, than Batcha even—it was something in the quality of the air,—more permanent than a face, deeper than a country or a sky, or was it, perhaps, the essence of several places, several beings, a kind of vibration or a very particular note that one had heard many times and which came back from far, far away, as through corridors of opal, naves of silence, deep vaults where the stalactites of forgotten memories drip like pearls with a whole retinue of waves and restrained emotions, sudden odours, formless apprehensions; such an intimate wake that it seemed to follow the ever same old pass. One could see nothing, yet everything was there. I was intent upon that infinitesimal track, that opal thread, and I wanted so much to know, oh! what is there, but what was it in the distance down there, what was it coming back from so far away? And I held my breath, I listened, listened, I pulled the thread, pushed against that darkness as if the door would finally give way and open into the treasure-vault. I was like a motionless well, a sapphire-blue mass which pressed down, penetrated, sank centimetre by centimetre into that enormity of night, trying to remember, clinging to an odour, a breath, a nameless vibration, an atmosphere of an ancient country, oh! as if the memory would suddenly yield—but what is it, what is it then?... And it was no longer Nil nor the gold-seeker, nor the vagabond, the outlaw; I was no longer from here or from there, from this island or another; I was an obscure line of beings who advanced step by step, a confused genealogy which went back over the tracks of a hundred countries—deserts over deserts, tropics, empty palaces, moon and dust besmirched temples,—who was pulling the opal thread, the nameless thread through a myriad corridors, Sargassos of sudden odours, sands of despair, black Nubias... It was elusive. But it was there. As elusive as a dream, as present as remorse or a dead beloved one. And suddenly, I had the impression that there was no memory, no “something” to remember: that I was the memory, a formidable living memory, a cleft into an abyss of more than one world, the obscure body of a thousand bodies, a life crammed with a-thousand lives, and that there was nothing to find—I was the residue of the end, that is all, that yawning chasm opening onto something, that beam of tensions which was pushing in one direction. I was a direction, that is all; I was a certain note, that was my story, my own unique vibration through all the ages, all places, all bodies—my note. But what... Mais quoi?

I let go of everything. Everything fell back to the bottom of the well. There was just that little Nil on the surface—that direction which did not know its direction, that mystery unto itself, that gold-seeker of nothing—and I was travelling through the great forest of the world, clasping to my heart some wisps of memory, the colour of a dress, the cry of a peacock, a gold bangle, a passing song—an odour of a thousand odours—and that something which was weighing down behind like a fatality. Oh! what do we know? We are there, dancing on the surface, passengers of a little island, a little beach of life, shipwrecked from how many worlds, travellers from how many islands... voyageurs de combien d'îles? Haunted, besieged by all that we have done, and all that we have not done, dragging behind us the dead who never stop dying and mountebanks who never finish their tricks. What force pushes us to the right, what weft weaves all these lives together, what triumph did that peacock cry out? Or what return of things?

O Son, you forget
You forget the sweetness
Which made you yearn to live
And the Rose which will bloom
You forget the golden isle
Which gave birth to this voyage
And the season of clarities
And the smile of meeting again

He shrugged his shoulder.

—Maharaj¹⁶, tell me...

He pushed aside his tools with a single gesture and looked straight into my eyes.

—No, I will not tell you.

I was startled. Bhaskar-Nath never spoke so harshly.

—I shall not tell you. Because if I told you the past, you would rush to begin the story all over again.

—So there is a past.

—Yes, there is a past, and Wisdom is very wise to place it under the seal of forgetfulness. Look at Björn, he is running to his funeral pyre, he is rushing there, it is so interesting and dramatic, oh! there is a charlatan in every man.

—It seems that Björn's story is a rehearsal of something which awaits me.

—Yes. Well, I will not allow you to run to your funeral pyre. Or if you run there, it will be with your eyes wide open, knowing the truth.

—What truth?

He remained silent a moment.

—The truth is that men do not like joy. That's all.

—But there is a destiny, something that pushes?

—Yes, there is a destiny.

—Then tell me.

—If men knew in advance, they would not commit the errors necessary to achieve the perfection of the Goal.

I remained open-mouthed. I had the impression of having touched a tremendous secret, and then...

Bhaskar-Nath continued.

—Do you believe your actions began yesterday? Destiny is a past in reverse. One opens up paths and returns to them, automatically. That's all.

—Then, one goes necessarily into the trap, one cannot escape.

—One goes necessarily towards joy. One goes up to the moment when one chooses to prefer suffering to joy—death to joy, tragedy to joy.

—One chooses?

—Yes, always.

—Then there is no destiny.

—There is the destiny that you will. When the bull charges at you, you can jump on his back and he carries you off, or you can refuse and he crushes you. It is as you will... C'est comme to veux.

He stopped. Then he hammered out his phrase:

—It is-as-you-will.

—One can escape?

—Yes. Not escape: make a leap forward.

—He was like a mass of power before me, with his shaven head and his naked torso.

—...There is a moment as brief as lightning, as poignant as a death, a moment of clarity, really, when the Force descends upon you—the force of the past, the force of all the old things, the old habit of suffering and dying and starting all over again always; if, at that very second, you have the courage to seize that Force by its horns—that Farce which really wills you joy, which comes to compel you to joy, which falls upon you in order to shake off your chains (for Destiny is really the other face of the Angel of Deliverance), if in that second of light, you have the courage to seize the Force and to say “yes” and change your suffering into joy, then you live. It is a new life. We die because we can no longer contain joy, we die in order to start over again with more joy.

He straightened up, he was like Kali in front of me.

—The secret is not behind, in the past, it is in front, in the other one that you must become through the very force that wants to destroy you.

He caught hold of his chisel and drove it into the ground with a blow of his fist.

—It is as you will. It's the same force which kills or saves.