Henri Michaux - A Barbarian in Asia

Even the saint, he who has renounced, does not begin by doing violence to himself. Here is his life-table. Four successive states.

Brachmarya —Adolescence and its virtues of chastity and of obedience.

Grihasta —Marriage — life in common. Social life.

Vanaprastha —Progressive detachment.

Sanynasa —Life of renunciation.

One sees how carefully nature is handled.

The obstacles to holiness are in fact: (1) ignorance, (2) sexual curiosity as opposed to natural love for the woman and for the family with its natural responsibilities, (3) curiosity concerning the world.

Their gods behave like heroes or like men. They have not done violence to themselves. They are men with magic powers. But they have no moral elevation. They are not known for their abstemiousness; only the saints of the highest order are like that, and in fact, the gods are overthrown by them.

Siva was making love to his wife when two gods, Vishnu and Brahma, I believe, entered. Does he stop? No, indeed, he goes right on. He had been drinking a little. Vishnu and Brahma went out. Siva recovers his self-possession and asks what has happened. He is told. He then says these profoundly human words (I quote from memory) concerning his ‘nature’ as one used to say: ‘And yet, this also is my true self.’ And continuing: ‘He who will adore it, it is myself he will adore.’

And today India is full of lingams . There are hundreds of millions of them, and not only in the temples. If you see more-or-less polished stones set up under a tree, that is a lingam . They are worn as a necklace in a small silver case.

At first even the institution of caste may well have been a formula that permitted everyone to live without denying himself anything, and sharing, as it were, in divinity — the result, in fact, of being in the service and under the orders of the Brahmins.

As for the ‘outcasts,’ and for the great shame that caste has become today, it would be well to remember, concerning them, that good Samaritans are very rare in India, more so than elsewhere, and that the Hindu adores keeping someone under his heel.

The Hindu has always had a desire to merge all the gods, all the religions. He succeeds in doing so in Southern India and Ceylon.

But when it comes to the Moslems this is not so easy. The Moslem says: ‘There is no other God than God and Mohammed is his prophet.’ That settles it.

And then there are the Christians. But the Christians are active white men, conquerors and missionary-born, delighted with the words: ‘Go and evangelize the earth.’ It is they who endeavor to convert the Hindus. Notwithstanding, the latter are still seeking a universal, all-embracing religion.

Vivekananda is willing to go so far in psychic science as to seek the ecstatic union by means of the Moslem, Christian, Buddhist, etc., technique. ‘And he succeeds in doing so.’

A man traveling for the first time in India, with not much time to spare, should be very careful not to spend it on the railway.

Twelve thousand kilometers are not unusual — nor are they obligatory.

He will regret that the intellectuals from whom he might get some excellent information live in the cities, he will regret it, but he will not linger there. And in the villages he will pray and meditate.

He will limit himself in the use of lamplight. Preferably he will use the dark as much as possible.

And above all he will get it into his head, once and for all, that he is an alcoholic, and if he takes no alcohol, that he is an alcoholic without being aware of it, and that his sort is a thousand times more difficult to treat.

He need seek no further — meat is the alcohol.

If the stares of the natives annoy him, he will not lose his temper, he will not say: ‘Those mules’ eyes make me furious,’ he will know that their eyes annoy him because they have in them an element that may be elevated or not elevated, but which he does not grasp .

He will get it carefully into his head that meat is an evil, an evil determined to come out into the open. It comes out in gestures, wickedness, work. And cursed be these three!

He will be wary of the egg, which is not so inoffensive itself, with its own form of aggression ready to be launched.

He will learn how to sit down in a way denoting acquiescence, not criticism and an air of always being on the defensive.

He will fast, remembering the words of Mohammed that fasting is the gate of religion, and he will live by his lungs, the organs of complete acceptance — (what you do not eat, you must breathe).

He will absorb the air, the pure air, the air that escapes, the expansive air, the air without a face, the unlimited air, the air that belongs to no one, the virgin air, the intimate air that nourishes without interfering with the senses.

To inhale it is nothing, expelling it is all, into the centers, the lotuses, the centers of the abdomen, the proud centers, the frontal center of white light, and into the thoughts, into the friendship of all the thoughts and into the beyond of thought.

The Ganges appears in the morning mist. Come, what are you waiting for? Adore it! You must do so, isn’t it obvious?

How can you stand there upright and stupid like a man with no God, or like a man who has but one, who clings to him all his life, who can neither adore the sun nor anything else? The sun mounts on the horizon. It rises and stands straight up before you. How is it possible not to adore it? Why always do violence to yourself?

Come into the water and baptize yourself, baptize yourself morning and evening and undo the cloak of stains.

Ah! Ganges, great being, who bathes us and blesses us.

Ganges, I do not describe thee, I do not draw thee, I bow down to thee, and I humble myself under thy waves.

Fortify in me renunciation and silence. Permit me to pray to thee.

In India, if you do not pray, your journey is in vain. It is time thrown away.

The decency and modesty of the Bengali women and young girls, which is often so irritating to Europeans, is nevertheless admirable and restful. Covering a part of their faces with a veil as soon as they catch sight of a foreigner, and above all, immediately leaving the middle of the pavement and walking on the extreme edge of it — compared to them, European women seem w… s. I who had found the English woman reserved. In comparison to the Hindu woman, woe is me, shame on them, with their breasts visible, their legs almost bare, with nothing to protect them, they might even be touched by a passing dog.

And they look at you, mind you. They do not look down. They do not hide their faces. They look at you. And then their breasts are in evidence, ready for who knows what attack.

I was present when a factory (a jute factory) was letting out workmen and women. The latter hardly spoke, they were distant, and very proper with the sari wrapped around them. What deportment! 8

Each one in herself. A Hindu crowd is always amazing. Each one for him- or herself. As in Benares, in the Ganges, each for himself and looking after his own salvation.

To the Hindu, religion matters and so does caste — the rest is mere detail. He bears clearly and distinctly on his forehead, in big horizontal strokes of cow dung, the signs of his cult.

To the Hindu, regulations and the artificial are what count.

One must say, with wants as meager as his have always been, this orientation seemed inevitable. When the European reaches the point of satiation, he rests, but the Hindu has no wants. It is all the same to him if he takes one meal or three; one day he eats at noon, the next day at seven o’clock; he sleeps when he happens to be sleepy and wherever he happens to be at the time, on a blanket laid on the ground.