By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin

She

And daylight broke.

In the white main-street, the pilgrims come and go; the great ernes circle over the high tower; the women go to the well; the call of the conch-shells mingles with the sound of the sea, with the dull rumble of the monsoon and the return of the moons. It was yesterday or today, centuries ago and always. The children were chanting in the school-yard, the jingling horse carts were trotting by in the main-street, and I was going away. I was going away. I saw all those little signs in the main-street: the tea-vendor, the passing goat, the jasmine garlands, the rose pottery... les poteries roses; I would have liked to take all that away with me, the least odour, the smallest gesture and that old woman over there, and that running child.

—Hey! Gopal, hurry up, it's late.

It is late... and the time has passed already. I would have liked to make all enter into my heart, oh! how quickly life passes!... comme la vie passe! And, sometimes, my eyes merged into that street; the passers-by, the shops, the laughter at the fountain, the silvery jingle of the horse carts, everything was dissolved in an infinite haziness, an immense tranquil sweetness which seemed to caress all with eternity, and what is it that passes? I was there, eternally there, I was coming and going: “Hey! Gopal, hurry up...” I was pulling a great sweet memory behind me, my steps were a thousand years old.

—Who wants the pretty conch? Three rupees, the pretty conch!

It was so much the same under the blue sky, yesterday or today, and what is it that changes? I had gone away and come back, come back thousands of times, ah! What remained?... Qu'est-ce qui reste? And then, suddenly the look narrowed—everything became hard, accelerated; it was the fulgurating present, precise, poignant, I was caught, torn apart on all sides, as if I were going to die here, there, there, in those eyes, that smile, that old woman, that passing cry, die everywhere; everything became so intense and painful—I was going away, I was going Away... I would have liked to retain everything in my eyes, glean the least little shadow of a smile, oh! how one goes away! I was so old—and so futile; what remained of all those lives? “Hey, Gopal, hurry up, it's late...” And then Batcha... Batcha, there, less than five hundred metres away. Batcha in a small white-washed patio with a peacock's cry. I was going away, I was going away.

I stopped near the fountain. There was a dragon-fly on the edge. My throat felt like lead. I held out my cupped hands; a woman poured water into my hands, she smiled at me.

She smiled at me.

Then, for a second, I looked at her, and such love flowed into my heart! Love... I know not, a cry of gratitude, an instantaneous flame, as if it were always the same in all eyes, the same encounter in the depths. A very tiny second which was like the sole luminous drop of all these lives, the grain of gold in the depths, the “all-that-remains” of a thousand gestures and days. Oh! I have been neither prince nor king, but I have been that little flame within, I seem to recognize it everywhere, on all faces and in the smallest gestures, as if I had existed thousands of times. One runs... one runs, and then it is there; one runs after a tiny drop of “that”: and it is the complete story, in one second... en une seconde.

—O sadhuji,²¹ are you going to the station?

He was young, twenty years old perhaps. He was a sannyasi.

—I don't know. Yes... No.

He looked at me. And suddenly I wanted to cry like an animal: “You see NiI, you have not changed; it's yes and then it's no!... If it continues you will make yourself ill.” I stopped dead. We were at the cross-roads. The station was to the west, the dunes rolled away towards the south. And I no longer knew what I wanted. I no longer knew anything.

—The train leaves in half an hour; we can travel together if you like.

He had clear eyes, he was dressed in a saffron robe; I saw, him as if through a mist—go where? To what other paddy-field did he want to drag me? There were no more paddy-fields! had lost Batcha.

I walked with, him towards the station. The pilgrims were hurrying along; a water-carrier passed by; we could hear a song:

O Tara, O Mother...

He was alone near the station he stretched out his hands towards the sun:

O Tara, O Mother,
Thou art the creatrix
The All-Will
It is thou who doest the action, O Mother
And they say: it is I who do
I am the walker on thy journey
Thou art the winding of the path under my feet
Thou art the hand which strikes
And the hand which heals
As thou goest, so go I

And I did not want to go away any longer, I wanted to cry out: no-no... And I looked at those dunes, I looked at that drifting sand.

—And your staff?

—My staff...

A little chipmunk crossed the path, scampering... scurrying... I whirled round and ran towards the southern track.

O Tara, Tara,
Thou hidest the lotus in the mud
And the lightning in the clouds;
To some thou givest the light,
Others thou makest choose the night
O Tara, O Mother,
As thou goest, so go I

The dunes were poised like great Arctic birds against the blue sky. I took the southern track in the midst of the palms; the crows cawed; the afternoon was coming to a close. A child passed with a copper pot on its head:

—Are you going to the Tantric's house?

His hair was tousled, he had big black eyes like Balu. It seemed that everything was beginning again. But I no longer had any brother here, the story was finished, or did it want to begin all over again?

—The Tantric's house...

—It's over there.

And something said no-no, it is not there, it is not that that I am seeking! I was like a leaf driven by the wind.

I turned to the right, climbed the dunes. The sand was soft, like Kashmiri wool; sometimes a black trunk emerged from a cascade of golden palms. It was there that I had talked with Björn for the last time, there that I had listened to the story of the Silver Birch. I climbed still higher. All was quiet and sweet in the dunes, even our footprints had gone, oh! what remained?... oh! qu'est-ce qui reste? I bent down, I took a little sand in my hands and let it run through my fingers, and everything was so peaceful here, as if our misery had never been! I felt, I almost touched that bed-rock of sweetness of the world, that peace so fresh and candid, oh! which does not know—which does not know that there is misery, anguish, death; it was only thought which drew its veil of tragedy over that patient sweetness—one draws the curtain and everything disappears, the misery, the false music of the world. And everything starts to sing.

Over the dunes from here
Over the dunes from there
Our steps go together
Our isles are travellers
I leave, still I am...!

And the sky was so blue over the great dunes, a thick purple cloud drifted through isthmuses of snow. She was there, so close to me, we were walking together, always together, and it was really like that; only my eyes saw badly, only my blind body did not believe... Oh! one day in a truer, clearer, less animal world, we shall be able to see and live in all the worlds at the same time, without separation, without distance, without blindness of the flesh—all will be there, instantaneously there. The body is only a shell! Thought veils, it cuts up into a grey matter the great unbroken rainbow of our lives.

Then everything narrowed again, the look hardened, became opaque: it was misery, anguish again. It was the implacable present and the cawing of the crow, and the train whistling behind the dune—and it was that, death, the falseness of the world. Our time is false, we know nothing of time! We have invented clocks which mark only our misery and our idea of the world. We are not yet in complete time, we are not really “man”!

In twenty minutes, the train will leave.

Then I came out from under the Silver Birch... and I stood rooted, wonder-struck.

Hundreds and hundreds of black, or perhaps dark grey-blue birds were circling over the lagoon, when all at once, as though at a sign, at the far end of the dunes, they veered on the wing all together, threw back their immaculate, shining throats, in a burst of sunlight, transmuted suddenly into great polar birds, then swooped down over the sands as though over a great smooth-flanked swell; drew out into a single file, passed in front of me, and disappeared in the distance, jet black amidst the scintillating waters of the lagoon and the mauve, foam-rimmed quicksands.

And hardly had I time to catch my breath, than they came back; veered again... black... white... black... white... And each time they veered, immaculate, shining, and I veered with them, caught up in that snow-white flight at the end of the dunes, by that cry of light, like the cry of my soul suddenly torn, asunder: yes, that, that, that absolute rending of no return,-with nothing behind, that fusion of light, that “yes” fore ever, that traceless bursting into the absolute; and then that blackness which returned, glided, plunged, disappeared into the distant foam. My eyes turned to and fro, and each time it was like a cry, a strand of my soul which snapped at the end of the duties, a tiny white flare: yes, yes! there, there I am going! there I am; from there I come; to there I return; there is my home, it is my eternal country, my great white-winged truth, my primal flight; there, there I abdicate; there I merge; there, it is true, it is purely true, it flows from the source, it is life truer than life; that exists, that alone exists, that alone is true, it is my cry, my fullness of light, my primal fire, my great, white fire above the worlds, it is there that I am going!

And then the blackness again. And then Batcha's little voice which returned to pull at me: An'mona! An' mona! Nothing-at-all, Mr. Nothing-at-all!... Rien-du-tout, Monsieur-rien-du-tout! And I was so small and so poignant in those great dunes, a mere nothing, so alone and so lost; no! it was not possible, I could not go away; I am going to run over there, to throw myself at Bhaskar-Nath's feet; we begin all over again, we forget everything, it will be a festival with tears of joy! I shall be a fisher of shells, I shall be the guardian of your temple, I shall sweep your sanctuary, your door-step, I...

And then... nothing.

I came and I went, and every time a strand snapped in my soul, a very tiny strand which caused an intense pain... If I closed my eyes, it would be the end. I was going to leave. It was annihilation, death in the light: the great white peace, the void of-everything, one goes off into a crystal smile—and after?

After?

The train whistled a second time.

I closed my eyes, I called the truth, the truth—the light, the god of the earth, something, anything, an answer, a sign!

Then I heard a little gong, far, far away in the distance behind the dunes, the sound of a very tiny gong which rose in the clear air... It seemed that everything had stopped; a breath of silence had fallen over the sands, even the crows no longer cawed in the palms. The rumble of the sea could be heard in the distance. I turned round. There was nobody—nothing, only the black trunks of the palms sliding down to the Tantric's house, and then that faint, quivering little sound which rose, rose behind the dunes: tim-tim-tim... tim-tim-tim... Three times, always three times, three distinct little notes repeated endlessly, three, and again three: tim-tim-tim... tim-tim-tim... which filled me with anguish, filled me with panic; I was fixed there, staring at that track where it turned round the dune in front of the Tantric's house: tim-tim-tim... tim-tim-tim... Three little staccato sounds which rang out, which filled all the dunes.

And suddenly, I knew. I knew. A cold sweat broke out on my forehead. No, it is not true!

They appeared at the turning of the track: first the little gong-carrier, then a group of white-clad men, and then a little red form, there, over their heads: her.

I was horror-stricken.

I stared. I stared like one demented: that pure white forehead, the jasmine garlands, the red sari—Batcha. They passed in front of me. They turned to the left at the foot of the dune. She was white, so white. And then her long black hair flowing over her breast. They turned again. I could no longer see her face, I could no longer see her... I could only see that small red form which floated over their heads. A little spot which wound through the dunes. And I stared... I stared without believing. The little gong resounded across all the dunes. I looked at that little red spot which was moving away, moving away, so small amid the dunes.

Who was staring? I do not know. There was no longer anyone in there. There were only two great, open eyes which remained fixed there, stupefied, looking across centuries of stone and malediction in an Egypt turned into dust.

They laid her on the pyre.

They left the little gong. The dunes were completely silent in their whiteness of eternity. She was alone now on her pyre, all alone and red, there where the waters of the lagoon meet the waters of the sea.

They chanted.

They went round the pyre seven times.

Seven times, they went round. She was enveloped in, and as if rocked by the foam of the sea. She was facing north.

Then they moved aside. Only one remained.

Their chanting stopped.

A flame sprang up.

There was no chanting any more.

There was nothing any more.

Nothing more.

I looked right to the end; I looked, motionless.

I do not know how long I looked. I suddenly heard a crow cawing. I heard a voice say: “Now, it is time.” Then I took a step. My legs were like cords. I was like an old puppet set in motion again.

I descended the dunes.

The voice said: “That way.” I went that way. I crossed the dunes. The sun was setting. I walked through great purple valleys... and then I came out again. I was going towards the pyre over there. I could hear the roaring of the sea.

There were some men near the pyre squatting in the sand. There was a small heap of fire in the sand. I stopped in front of it. I looked.

I looked.

And then I fell on my knees in the sand. And then I prostrated myself in the sand, I buried my head in the sand; I sobbed, sobbed all I could.

It was the end.

The sea roared on.

I got up again onto my knees.

There was still a little flame. I said, “Mâ...” Mother.

The wind blew on my face.

There was a blank second—I saw no more, I heard no more; I was emptied, dead—without sorrow, without anything: nil. I was on the other side.

And then that flame suddenly sprang up. I opened my eyes on a flame—I was that flame. I was only a burning flame, oh! without pain, without sorrow, without memory: a flame, a simple solitary flame which burned—everything. It burned me, it burned the sorrow, it burned today, yesterday, Batcha, the Sannyasi, and all the faces, the times, the places, the memories, it burned everything. I no longer had any pain, I no longer had any “I”. I no longer had anything at all. I was the fire that burns. It was like love. It was pure like the fire, with nothing else but the fire. A love-fire. And it rose... rose. It was like burning joy. It was intense like joy. A love-joy. But without a trace of sentiment, without anything in it, absolute: only burning fire, clear, clear—imperious. I said Mâ once again. Then I felt as if my whole being tilted over, expanded, were sucked up, drawn into a great orange flame. There was no Batcha any more, no more life, no more death, nothing more, no more dunes, no sea: only orange fire. And then it descended:

A cataract of warm Power.

It took everything, filled everything, immobilised everything. I was inside it like fire in fire, like the torrent in the torrent, the joy in joy, without I, without you, without difference, without elsewhere, without here, without there, without far nor near, nor inside nor outside. There was only that. A motionless cataract of warm Power—golden. And above that cataract or behind it something like a white light, pure, dazzling, scintillating, full of an absolute, triumphant joy, oh! which looked at all that with a love so joyous, so translucent, sparkling... an immensity of luminous delight, a scintillation of delight, and tranquil, tranquil, unshakable: a rock of eternity. And there death no longer existed, there had never been any death, it looked and there was not a trace of death: there was an inexpressible Joy, a joy which loves, a radiant love-joy which pierced through everything, changed everything, changed the look—oh! it is for that, for that, that one lives! A total plenitude. A vermilion fire-flower sinking into its own fire as in a delight of sheer meeting, as if the body touched at last the living truth: that! that! I am in it, I bathe in it, it is there, there, the living heaven! A motionless cataract of living joy which swept away the shadows, irradiated bodies, kindled things, as if death were only an invention of our senses, suffering an invention of our senses, the fixed hardness of the world an invention of our senses, and yesterday and the day before yesterday and all the pasts of the world, the separations of the world: there was only that, present, eternally present, here-present, continuous, without a break, the true substance of the world! A solid, golden, immutable eternity, and yet unimaginably vibrant, intense, active, like the gold powdering of an endless world creation—She, only She.—Elle, seulement Elle... a torrent of creative joy which recreates everything at every second, as if everything which touched that entered into a completely new life without limits; a breaking of all frontiers, of all possibilities, all impossibilities—that could do everything. It was Power. It was the great reversal of the senses, the shattered appearances, the fulgurating golden look of the Future. And all the millions of faces and beings of the world were only a spark of that. Where was the other, where is she not? Where is tomorrow, yesterday, the night, the day? There is only that everywhere, and which loves everything for ever and which is everything: Batcha and the Sannyasi, Mohini, the flute-player, and all those men and the birds on the lagoon. And what is missing? Where is the void, the absence, the gap, the not-there? Where is the side which is not of here, where then the beyond? Everything is there and I have everything for ever—burn, my love, burn... brûle, mon amour; brûle...; a million times I love you, in all that is, in all that lives; you have merged in me, I have merged in you, merged everywhere, in all that loves, in all that cries out; we have passed the portals of death, we are born for ever, millions of times we are! O Tara, O Mother, it is Thou who doest, Thou who lovest, Thou who drivest, Thou who drawest us through day and night, through good and evil, through sorrow and joy, towards the Light which loves; O Tara, Tara, O Mother...

I stood up, I walked towards the sea.

It was like an immense turquoise at the foot of the dunes. I left my clothes on the beach; I plunged into the sea. Then I heard a quiet, impersonal voice which said: “A third time you have conquered.” But who had conquered and who could conquer? The “I” was the screen, the resistance, death in the dark. It was misery alone in a body.

The great birds veered over the lagoon: white, black, white, black..., it is as you will. Already the sun was going down behind the dunes, their wings were tinted with gold. In truth, a great golden heaven inhabits the night of the world.

I climbed back onto the beach. I picked up my rags.

—Leave this robe, child.

Bhaskar-Nath approached. He laid his hand on my shoulder he held out some white clothes for me:

—Go, now you are free, you can wear the robe of the world.

Then I opened my eyes once more onto the world of men. Batcha was in front of me, she ran towards me with her arms outstretched: she was dressed completely in white:

—Look, the birds are coming, the birds are coming!... Les oiseaux arrivent!

We were going through the great dunes, it was at Fayoum or Ramnad, in this age or another, under the curved flight of the great ernes. The sea was scintillating, I was playing the ektara. We were on the happy isle; we were on the isle of Truth. We were walking together towards a greater beauty... Nous marchions ensemble vers une beauté plus grande.

Only the clothing changes;
The colour of a sky over a little, white beach;
Only the sorrow goes;
And a child
On a pure, little beach
Looks with wonder
At those who come and go
And no longer recognize each other.

Pondicherry
15th September 1968