Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

‘And God?’ whispered Georges, in exasperation. He had led me somewhere in Montpalais, and he had come prepared, after penitence and prayer, to finish off his work. ‘God after all is. And God is good.’

‘God is, and goodness is part of that is-ness. The good can only be the true, as the Greeks say.’

‘Then what makes the night?’

‘Absence.’

‘And day?’

‘Itself.’

There was a long, unsteady silence, like some silence on a mountain. If one went to the east or to the south, in either direction the snow was deep, and one could see the avalanche go down on the other side of the valley. It was now not a question of the path, but of instinct — something in the silence, not in the geography of the mountain, that spoke. Truth is withdrawnness. God is affirmation. Georges, who saw the avalanche, stood fascinated. He only heard the stream murmur below, and the flight of birds.

‘Cézanne, you know,’ I went on, ‘knew Baudelaire’s Une Charogne by heart. And Rainer Maria Rilke, who was deeply moved by the works of Cézanne — I don’t understand painting, but I admire Rilke — well Rilke said, “The presence of Une Charogne has added a new dimension to human understanding.” Indeed, the recognition of evil is the beginning of sainthood. Do you remember those terrible lines of Baudelaire?

Alors, o ma Beauté, dites à la vermine

Qui vous mangera de baisers,

Que j’ai gardé la forme et l’essence divine

De mes amours décomposés.

‘There you are!’ said Georges, happy.

‘Yes, there I am, and that is why Rainer Rilke got lost amongst the angels, and gave his body such importance that when he fell mortally ill, he would not allow a doctor to touch him. The holiness of the body is like the duty of the devadasi 1— it functions within its own dimension. The body can no more be holy than the mind be pure.’ ‘So?’

‘So man must seek not purity of mind and body but to be purity itself. Man must not wish to taste the sweetness of sugar like that old bishop Madhavacharya said in the thirteenth century — I always think of someone sucking a bonbon! — but one must become, like the Vedantins say, sweetness itself.’

‘Who is there to know it is sweet?’

‘Are you serious?’ I asked.

‘Serious? Why yes, of course.’

‘Then come,’ I said. I knew the path in the mountain. I had in my feet the knowledge of the avalanche, I had in my nose the identity of air currents. There was no fright, for in that silence you could hear your own feet move. Madeleine was in between us, and sometimes I could almost hear her prayers. ‘Where is the sweetness, when you feel it? In your tongue?’

‘Yes, so it is.’

‘Because the bonbon, or call it sugar if you like, is on your tongue, does it make sweetness? If you put it on the tongue of a dead man or of a sleeping child, they would not wake up and say, “Oh, what a wonderful bonbon!” No.’

‘No, they could not.’

‘And so the tongue must move, the saliva must rise, the chemical agglutinations must take place — and when it comes down the throat it becomes sweet. Just as it is not at the moment you drink coffee that you feel it is good — it is when you have a thrill at the back of your spine that you say to Madeleine, “Wonderful, Madeleine, what wonderful coffee!”’

‘That’s true of Madeleine’s coffee!’

‘Or mine for that matter,’ I laughed. ‘Anyway, the bonbon is on your tongue — it has melted. Sweetness begins when sweetness is recognized. That is, in sweetness — wherever that may be — you taste sweetness. A rank absurdity.’

‘But a fact.’

‘As the Great Sage has said: In experience there is no object present. There is only experience.’

‘Well, how is that?’

‘The sensation must finish its function before knowledge dawns. In Knowledge there is no object present — if so, who has knowledge of it? You might say, “I.” And the I has the knowledge of the I through?—’

‘Through Knowledge,’ said Madeleine.

‘So Knowledge has knowledge of the I through Knowledge, which means Knowledge is the I.’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘That is why sugar is not sweet but sweetness is sweet, or Georges is not a man but Man is Georges.’

Madeleine sat fascinated. She wondered where I had gathered all this wisdom. She did not know I had felt the mountain and the mountain was in me and not I on the mountain.

‘Georges knows all men in Georges,’ I continued.

‘Yes. Go on,’ he said.

‘Georgeshood is known only to Georges.’

‘Let us admit that.’

‘Georges sees men, many men, and says there is Man, an abstraction.’

‘So it is.’

‘But Georges has seen no Man. He has seen men.’

‘What is manhood then?’ he asked.

‘Manhood is the essence of all men — the truth of all men. And Georges?’

‘He is a man.’

‘Is the Manhood of the man different from the Georgeshood of Georges?’

He thought for a long time and said, ‘Certainly not.’

‘Then what is Georges? Georges is Man. So Georges is not Georges — Georges is Man. And Man is simply Man: a principle, the Truth. So Georges is the Truth.’

It was like a bath in the Ganges for me — my sins were washed away. Georges looked so distant and elevated; he seemed to be in tears. I could almost hear him mumble a prayer. His hand was spread over his forehead, and he was looking into his own eyes. Evening was invading us from all sides — the birds were clamouring. Madeleine took my hand and pressed it against her cheek. This time I had wholly won her: I knelt before no alien God. The God of woman must be the God of her man. Pau, and the solitude of the mountains, had given me back to myself. Now I could go back with Madeleine to the cathedral in Auch, kneel beside her and be not afraid. When fear knows itself it is the truth itself.

I was not happy, I was simple. The world seemed a large and round place to live in. The evening was beautiful, and we went up the hill on a walk. September had come and gone, and yet winter had not set in. The leaves were lovely under the arch of evening. Far away, like a truth, I thought, the sea must stretch itself. You could smell the rough air, you could feel the salt in your nostrils. Standing on the elephant I sang, ‘Shivoham Shivoham’; I sang it as never I had chanted, with the full breath in my lungs;

Natovyoma bhūmir natéjo navayur,

Chidananda Rupah Shivoham Shivoham.

Not hearing nor tasting nor smelling nor seeing,

But Form of Consciousness and Bliss;

Shiva I am, I am Shiva.

The noble periods rolled over the hills and to the valley with the assurances of Truth.

Aham nirvikalpi nirakara rupih

Chidannada Rupah Shivoham Shivoham.

I am beyond imagination, form of the formless,

Form of Consciousness, and Bliss;

Shiva I am, I am Shiva.

Where was the evil hid that evening? Where at any moment of time is evil hid? Where at any point of time is there no sun? I ask you. It is your belief in the lack of light that makes the night. But the day always is. Evil is a superstition, the name of a shadow.

I felt such tenderness for Georges that evening. He seemed so childlike, so rested — he looked a saint.

I was a hero now, and all the indrawn compassion of Madeleine went to Georges. Madeleine was won and so I felt free. For days on end I went on chanting Sanskrit verses on my walks and all about the house, and I worked very well. My theory— my philosophy of history — explained many things about the Albigensian heresy that had seemed, it appeared, so abstruse to European historians. It was not the Pope, it was the orthodoxy, the smartha that won.