Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

Sans coeur suis et sans coeur demeure

Je n’ai membre, ni pied, ni main.

Sans amour en amour demeure,

Vivant, faut-il donc que je meure.

That is the perfect picture of Paradise.

To be orthodox, to be a smartha, I said to myself, is to accept the real. Stalin is orthodox; he is crude and smelly like some Jesuit father, he the product of a seminary. But Trotsky promised us beauty, promised us paradise. There is a saying that when Trotsky was talking of the beautiful world revolution, Stalin was making statistics of the bovine riches of Soviet Russia. He wanted to know whether the peasants had enough to eat and drink, and their children had enough milk.

Again, Bonaparte turned the French Revolution and made it realistic. He built roads and bridges, started a military academy, established jurisprudence, innovated the system of education and turned Robespierre’s Republic into a total human experience. (‘Robespierre himself,’ said Péguy, ‘that royalist. ‘) But Bonaparte went wrong when, after changing his world, he established himself as the cause of the change; from the Consul Bonaparte he made himself the emperor of the French. From an impersonal revolutionary he made himself into a hero; as a person, an ego, he entered history. This he knew to be improper, which explains his desperate desire to be crowned by the Pope, to be sanctified, to recover the impersonal — the thief of the Absolute, to become identical with the Absolute. And thus on to the emperor N-N-N-N… Otherwise Napoleon would have ended, almost as Hitler did, on the bunk of a dug-out.

The Cathar, the pure Hitler, who ate only green vegetables, lived in some Montségur (remember Tristan and Parsifal) and ended in the crudity of his own myth. He married Eva Braun: that had to be his death. Paradise ended on that bunk.

Beatrice, O Beatrice is beautiful in Paradise. But what an impossible tyrant she becomes. It is she who wants to show the Truth to Dante.

Apri gli occhi e riguarda qual son io;

tu hai veduto cose, che possente

sei fatto a sostener lo riso mio.

She who should see light through him, now wants to show the light to him. It is the inversion of Truth. Where the world cannot annihilate itself, whether it be in Buddhism or in Christianity, it has to make the world feminine. Just as progeny is through woman, child after child, generation after generation, you may have as many paradises as you care to have. Buddhism went to Tibet, and gave itself many paradises. Tantra entered Hlinduism, and worshipping the women, made the world real. Man became thus the everlasting, the Superman, the slave of himself, and all such supermen must end in stink and on the bunk of a dug-out. Eva Braun showed the world was real. The ogre, the superman Hitler, inventor of the gas-chambers and the concentration camps, died a simple man. Almost an anonymous person. Ravana was defeated by his ten heads. The miracle must for ever end in emptiness.

But the smartha — some Innocent III — knows this world is intangible, and all worlds therefore are intangible, and turns his vision inwards. Paradise vanishes where you are — the interior intimo meo of St Augustine. And the world continues as it is. The two are not distinct experiences, but it is experience seen as the totality of Experience. Whether you see the world or you do not see the world you are.

Writing this I am reminded of a very moving story of Radha and Krishna:

‘One day Radha had a very possessive thought of Krishna. “My Krishna,” she said to herself, as though one could possess Krishna as one could possess a calf, a jewel. Krishna, the Absolute Itself, immediately knew her thought. And when the Absolute knows, the knowing itself as it were, is the action of the act, things do not happen according to his wish, but his wish itself is his own creation of his wish, as the action is the creation of his own action.

‘So, Durvasa the Great Sage was announced.

‘“He is on the other side of the River, Lord,” spake the messengers, “and he sends his deep respects.”’

‘Then Krishna went into the inner chambers and said to Radha, “Radha, Durvasa the Great Sage is come, my dear. We must feed him.”

‘“Oh, then I will cook the food myself,” said Radha, and Krishna was very happy at this thought. So he went back to the Hall of Audience, and not long after, Radha came in with all the cooked food. “Yes, the meal is ready, my Lord. And I will take it myself to Sage Durvasa.”

‘“Wonderful, wonderful!” exclaimed Sri Krishna, pleased with the devotion of his wife to the sages.

‘“I’ll go and come,” said Radha, and hardly had she gone to the palace door, than she remembered the Jumna was in flood. No ferryman would go across. She came back to Krishna and begged, “My Lord, how can I take the food? The river is in flood.”

‘“Tell the river,” answered Krishna, “Krishna the brahmachari 5wishes that the way be made for you to pass through.”

‘And Radha went light of heart, but suddenly bethought herself it was a lie. Who better than she to know whether Krishna be brahmachari or not? “Ah, the noble lie, the noble lie,” she said to herself, and when she came to the river, she said, “Krishna, the Lord, the brahmachari, wishes that the way be made for me to pass through.”

‘And of course the river rose high and stood still, but suddenly opened out a blue lane, small as a village footpath, through which Radha walked to the other side. And coming to the opposite shore, she thanked the river, and saluting the Great Sage Durvasa, in many a manner of courtesies and words of welcome, spread the leaf, and laid him the food.

‘Durvasa was mighty hungry and he ate the food as though the palm of his hand went down his gullet. “Ah, Ah,” he said and belched and made himself happy, with curds and rice and many meats, perfumed and spiced with saffron, and when there was nothing left in leaf or vessel, he rose, went to the river and washed his hands. Radha took the vessels to the waters, too, to wash, threw the leaf into the Jumna, and stood there to leave. Then it was she suddenly remembered, the river was in flood. Sri Krishna had told her what to say while going and not what to utter while coming back.

‘Durvasa understood her question before she asked — for the sages have this power too — and he said: “Tell the river, Durvasa the eternal upavasi, 6says to the river, ‘Open and let Radha pass through to the other shore.’”

‘Radha obeyed but she was sore sorrowful. “I have seen him eat till his palm entered his gullet, and he has belched and passed his hand over his belly with satisfaction. It is a lie, a big lie,” she said, but she went to the river thoughtful, very thoughtful. “River,” she said, “Durvasa who is ever in upavasa says open and let me pass.”

‘And the river opened a lane just as wide as a village pathway, and the waves held themselves over her head, and would not move. She came to the other shore and returned to the palace in heavy distress. “Yes, nature is a lie, nature believes and obeys lies. Lord, what a world,” she said to herself, and going into the Hall of Sorrowing, shut herself in and began to sob. “Lord, what a lie the world is, what a lie.”

‘Sri Krishna knew the cause and cadence of this all, and gently entered the Hall of Sorrowing: “Beloved, why might you be in sorrow?” he said.

‘“My Lord,” she answered, “the river believes you are a brahmachari, and after all who should deny it better than me, your wife. And then I go to Durvasa and he eats with his palm going down his gullet, and he says, ‘Tell the river, Durvasa who’s ever in upavasa asks you to open and let Radha pass.’ And the river opens herself, makes a way large as a village pathway and I pass over to this side. The world is a fib, a misnomer, a lie.”