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THE TRAVEL DIARY OF A PHILOSOPHER
IN TWO VOLUMES
THE
T RA V EL D I ARY
OF A
PHILOSOPHER
+ BY
COUNT HERMANN KEYSERLING
TRANSLATED BY J. H O L R O Y D R E E C E
CIO
VOLUME ONB
NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE &f COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, I925> BY HA.R COURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC
FIRST PRINTING,
PRINTED IN THE U. 8. A. BY
THK QUINN * BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY, N. J-
CONTENTS
Translator's "Preface Introduction
9
The Tropics
PART ONE
BEFORE THE START
THE MEDITERRANEAN
THE SUEZ CANAL
THE RED SEA
ADEN
THE INDIAN OCEAN
13 I? 20 2I 23 20
PART TWO
Ceylon
COLOMBO
KANDY
DEMBULL
TO HABARANE
LAKE MINNERI
POLLONARUWA
ANURADHAPURA
39
42 71 72 73 7^ 80
India
RAMESHVARAM
MADURA
TANJORE
CONJEEVARAM
MAHABALIPURAM
AD YAR
ELLORA
PART THREE
91
95
I12
I]C4
I73
UDAIPXJR 178
CHITOR 184
JAIPUR 1 86
LAHORE 193
PESHAWAR 195
DELHI 199
AGRA 214
BENARES 220
BUDDHA-GAYA 307
THE HIMALAYAS 312
CALCUTTA 334
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
THE fact that no translation, by its very nature, can tie per- fect imposes the duty of choosing the best compromise upon the translator. This raises immediately all the problems which face the translator. In the case of an original text which is written in verse or which belongs to an age antecedent to that of the translator, he may rightly avail himself of every liberty. A passage of verse may be rendered in a line if by that means the rhythm, the cadence, the vowel values can be preserved. He may equally employ a whole sentence to convey the mean- ing of the shade of a single word which is not susceptible of direct translation. In the case of philosophic prose, the prose moreover not only of a contemporary but of a writer who him- self possesses a vast technical vocabulary in the language of the translator, all such freedom is denied. The author of the original text exacts precision above all in the rendering of his thought and in this connection it is my privilege to give the reader an assurance which, had I been dependent on my efforts alone, would be impossible. Count Keyserling, who writes and lectures with ease in English, has worked upon my translation for many weeks with the result that he himself is satisfied that the text which follows here is the accurate rendering of his meaning to such an extent that in so far as any differences of meaning exist between the original and the translation, they are alterations or revisions made personally by the author.
As far as the problem of conveying the meaning is concerned, therefore, my labour and the burden of responsibility are indeed light, and it is only fair to allow the reader an insight into the nature and extent of my indebtedness by saying that in many cases I had so far failed to seize the intention of the author that there are entire passages in the English text from the pen of the author.
The compromise to which my labours therefore appear to be
2 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
confined is the problem of making a match between the mean- ing of the author's text and the requirements of English prose. Count Keyserling defined in no equivocal manner the condi- tions which I had to satisfy. He wrote to me:
'An meinem Reisetagebuch habe ich voile sieben Jahre gear- beitet, und es steht kein Wort und kein Komma darin, dessen Sinn und Ort nicht genau bedacht waren. Niemand wird dem t]foersetzer je verzeihen, der seine Arbeit nicht mit der unbedingten Ehrf urcht vor dem Originaltext und mit der absoluten Hingebung an eine grosse Sache geleistet h'atte, welche Carlyle Goethe gegeniiber bewies.' He then enjoined me to translate 'strikt wortlich, Wort f iir Wort, und Komma f iir Komma, . . . Bringen Sie unter garkeinen Umstanden ein 'urid' an, das nicht im Original text stande (jedes von Ihnen gesetzte 'and7 habe ich ausstreichen miissen), halten Sie sich peinlich genau an meine Kommata, Semikolons und Punkte, ziehen Sie unter garkeinen Umstanden Satze zusammen, die ich getrennt habe und bedenken Sie iiberall, dass Sie es in mir mit einem strengen, dynamischen, konzentrierten Geist zu tun haben, der nicht die leiseste Verdiinnung und Entspannung des Styls vertragt. . . . Bedenken Sie weiter, dass die Ueber- setzung der deutschen Musik in englische, von der wir damals miindlich sprachen, doch nur so zu verstehen sein kann, dass mein genauer Takt, mein Rythmus, meine Melodie nun englisch erklange, nicht dass irgend etwas anderes an seine Stelle gesetzt werden diirf te. Insof era bitte ich, meine Korrek- turen als endgxiltige Verbesserungen aufzuf assent
Conditions of such stringency reduce of necessity the scope of corrections, which even a distinguished stylist could attempt, to a negligible minimum, while they offer to the English reader simultaneously an absolute guarantee that the present volumes suffer in no way from the interposition of the style or person- ality of the translator between the thought of the author and its English equivalent.
If, in the circumstances, I frankly acknowledge the conscious- ness of much which is unorthodox in style, in grammar, in punctuation, and if I confess even to coining words, not to mention the liberty of attaching a special meaning to certain
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 3
words and phrases whose recurrence alone will make them clear to the reader, I will have demonstrated at any rate that the faults of the translation are mine.
My friend, Lyle D. Vickers, has removed innumerable blemishes both in my manuscript and in the proofs in the course of weeks of watches far into the small hours of the night which he kept faithfully from the beginning to the end of my work, and only those who have laboured likewise can appreciate the whole-hearted and unforgettable devotion such service entails.
Another debt it is a pleasure to record is the assistance I have had from Mr. R. G. Curtis, who has typed with incredible speed and accuracy two complete versions of the some quarter of a million words in these two volumes. The printers, too, have lessened my difficulties considerably by their great care and accuracy of composition. Finally if there be any virtue in my work, I dedicate my labour to her, but for whose infinite kindliness and encouragement in the face of almost insurmount- able difficulties, this translation would never have seen the light of day.
J. HOLROYD-REECE
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
HERMANN KEYSERLING was born on the 20th day of V^July 1880* Until the age of -fifteen he was educated at home at the family estates Koenns and Raykiill in Esthonia by tutors, and then went in succession to a Russian school in Pernau, thence to Dorpat. Later he went to Heidelberg, where following in his grandfather's footsteps he .studied geology* In 1902 he took the German equivalent of his B.A. in Vienna, and it is about this period that he began his studies for his future vocation as a philosopher. He read Houston Chamberlain's Grundlagen des 19. *Yahrhundertsy and he met the author, whose friendship encouraged him to pursue his philosophical studies. In 1905 Count Keyserling wrote his Gejiige der Welty and it was while he wrote this book that he first conceived the ideal of personal perfection as opposed to that of professional efficiency.
In the year 1911 he started on his journey round the world, the outcome of which is the Travel Diary of a Philosopher^ but a great many experiences fall into the period 1903-1911, which no doubt influenced considerably the formation of his outlook.
In 1903 he left Vienna to live in Paris. Using Paris as his headquarters he frequently visited England, and his stay in France was largely devoted to reading and studying and also to a certain amount of journalistic activity* He displayed a very great admiration for Flaubert, under whose influence he contributed a series of articles to a Munich newspaper. It is said of Count Keyserling that he acquired much distinction as a causeur, but this elegant accomplishment in no way inter- fered with the serious study of Kant, Schopenhauer, and F. A. Lange. By this time, too, he had made a number of friends, one of them being A. Wolkoff-Mouromtzoff, the Rus- sian painter and art critic, who, according to Count Keyserling,
6 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
exercised a considerable influence upon him. He also became intimately acquainted with Simmel and Bergson, but the human influence to which Count Keyserling feels himself most indebted is the influence of his women friends,
In 1905 he lost his fortune temporarily in the Russian revo- lution and lived for two years in the belief that he was penni- less. From 1906 to 1908 he made Berlin his headquarters, but his stay was interrupted by various travels, especially by his journey to Greece. During his Berlin visit he wrote Un- sterblichkeit.
In 1 907 he gave a series of lectures in Hamburg, which have been published since under the title of Prolegomena zw Natur-
He inherited his father's estates in 1908 and thereupon took up his residence there, that is to say, in Raykiill in Esthonia. Here he spent a good deal of his time in the capacity of farmer looking after his estates, but he devoted much time to corre- spondence with Bergson, Simmel, Walther Rathenau, Max and Alfred Weber, Boutroux, F. C. S. Schiller, Bertrand Russell, Lord Haldane, Arthur Balf our, and Benedetto Croce, To this period also belong various essays now published in book form under the titles of Philosophic als Kmst and Wiedergeburt.
Count Keyserling started out on his journey round the world in the year 1911, and the period from 1912 to 1918 has been devoted to the writing of it. The book as a matter of fact was written in 19145 the proofs of volume 1 had already been passed for press and were in the possession of his publisher when the war broke out, leaving the author in possession of the proofs of volume 2 without any means of returning them to his publisher. Count Keyserling^s estates being on Russian soil, he had no opportunity of communicating with Germany. During the .war years, however, he devoted a great deal of time to going over his MSS., and the latter portion of volume 2 was entirely re-written.
His object in writing this book was to find a means of self- expression. This desire was so strong in him that at one time he almost decided to retire into one of the Korean monasteries.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 7
The war itself made little effect on Count Keyserling. He watched the world's crisis from his retreat in Raykiill, using those four years of enforced solitude for meditation and self- culture.
In 1918 a second crisis occurred in his worldly affairs, for as a result of the Russian revolution he was deprived of his estates and his fortune. He had to begin anew, to live en- tirely by his work as a refugee on German soil. In 1919 he married a granddaughter of Bismarck.
According to his autobiography, Count Keyserling used to feel that his thoughts and his writings were ahead of his own day and that for this reason he would not be in any way representative of his age. The extraordinary success of the Travel Diary of a Philosopher in Germany, however, has dis- proved this, a fact quickly seized upon by his publisher, Otto Reichl, at whose suggestion and at the invitation of the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen, he opened the School of Wisdom in Darmstadt in 1920.
The meaning and aim of this school can be gathered from the English prospectus, issued by the Society for Free Philoso- phy, Darmstadt, Paradeplatz 2, whose scope is to support the School materially. Its particular teachings, which aim at nothing else than a regeneration of mankind on the new basis created by the War, are embodied in Count Keyset-ling's book, Scho$feri$che Erkenntms, published in 1922. He is now the head of a large movement of spiritual renewal, and he spends most of his time as a lecturer and public speaker.
Although the world at large regards Keyserling as a philoso- pher, he feels himself in his activity at Darmstadt rather in the capacity of a statesman or field-marshal. Those who have never met him and are about to read his Travel Diary, should be reminded of the fact that the most remarkable qualities of Count Keyserling are to be found less in his writings than in his life, that is to say in the man himself.
INTRODUCTION
volume should be read like a novel. Although a con- siderable part consists of elements created in me by the external stimulus of a journey round the world, and although it contains many objective descriptions and abstract commen- taries which might well have been written separately, this book in its entirety represents, nevertheless, an inwardly con- ceived and inwardly coherent work of fiction, and only those who regard it as such will understand its real meaning. Con- cerning this meaning I will say nothing in advance. It will be revealed to those who are prepared to follow the wanderer willingly through his many moods and transformations, never forgetting that facts as such never are an object to me, but only a means of expressing their significance, which exists in- dependently of them. They must not take offence when they find that observations on the cultures of foreign places alter- nate with personal introspection, that precise descriptions follow upon poetic re-creations j that many, perhaps most, of my descriptive passages do justice rather to potentialities than to factsj above all, my readers must not be led astray by the contradictions necessarily imposed on me by a change of point of view or mood which I have sometimes forborne to explain in so many words. Those who are prepared to read my book in this spirit will, I hope, before they reach the end, have caught a glimpse not so much of a philosophy possible in theory, but rather of an attitude of soul and mind capable of attainment in practice, in which many an ominous problem will appear to be solved from the beginning, irreconcilable contradictions will pass away, and a newer and fuller signifi- cance will be revealed.
To assist the reader who is concerned chiefly with the recog- nition of specific details I have added an extensive index, in order to save him a laborious search for the various passages which have reference to similar problems.
. . . Thus I wrote in June 1914. My book was to have appeared in the autumn of that year. War was declared and, as a result, until Esthonia was occupied by Germaa troops,
9
io INTRODUCTION
every means of communication between my publisher and my- self was cut off. He had in his possession the first volume ready to go to press and I was left with the proofs of the second. In spite of the long interval of time which has elapsed I am publishing my diary on the whole unaltered. In so far as the book owes its existence to an oriental attitude of mind, it be- longs altogether to the 1911-14 period of my creative efforts, and for this reason any attempt to rewrite it from a different point of view could only have detracted from its merits. Only the last two sections — America and Raykiill — have not only been altered during the war, but rewritten almost entirely. I found this step necessary in order to complete my undertaking. In 19141 was so much influenced by the East that I was unable to express myself adequately as a Westerner 5 as a result, certain relevant passages lacked clarity and conviction} in order to round off and to complete the whole in accordance with my con- ception, in order to give in the ^Finale* the living FazHt of my digressions round the world — for this task I was altogether too close to my object. To-day I believe I have done as much towards this end as my faculties permit. The long, oppressing period of horror came to benefit at least one creative effort. . . -
PART ONE: TO THE TROPICS
I BEFORE THE START
TTTHY should I still go travelling? — My wandering days VV lie behind mej past are the times in which the mere acquisition of material enriched me inwardly. In those days inward growth coincided with the expansion of the surfacej I was mentally in the position of the child whose body must grow primarily before one can speak of development in any other sense* However, no child, no matter how vital it may be, grows indefinitely. At one time or another, every one reaches the critical stage, at which he can go no further in the former sense, and the question presents itself: whether he is to stag- nate entirely or to transfer his development into a new dimen- sion. And, since life, wherever it is not exhausted, is incapable of stagnation, the necessary change of dimension takes place automatically at a certain age. Every individual, as he be- comes mature, strives after greater depth and involution from the very same motives which in his earlier years directed his efforts to expansion and enrichment. If I stop to compare the kind and the degree of my present power and desire for experience with that of a previous period, I notice one fun- damental difference: in earlier days every new impression, every new fact entered into my growing individuality as an integral factor, and my individuality grew in proportion to the quantity of facts it took in. Through every new experience I gained a new means of expression j every new point of view strengthened my consciousness of self, and therefore it was not senseless if I lived in the hope, as it were, of snatching from without what spurred me on from within, though it had not yet revealed itself to me. By the time that my organs grew stronger I had learnt to control them betterj when new formations within my being became less frequent and the soul of the whole came to manifest itself in every particular more and more, my interest in particulars began to wane propor- tionately. It had never been more than preliminary, one may almost say, a pretext to me. To-day no fact as such troubles
13
I4 THE TROPICS PARTI
me any more. I am not fond of reading, I hardly need my f ellowmen, and I am tending more and more towards the life of a hermit, in which shape I can doubtless fulfil my destiny better than in any other. There is no help for it: I am a meta- physician and can be nothing else (no matter what else I may undertake, be it successful or not), and this means that I am seriously interested only in the world's potentialities, not in its actualities. As a matter of habit and partially as a form of self -discipline, I keep up with the progress of the natural sciences, I go on studying the peculiarities of those who cross my path, or I read the books in which they have expressed themselves, but all this concerns me no more. What, then, is the explanation of the deeply rooted instinct which bade me travel around the world — an instinct no less imperious than the one which in earlier days bade me move, in unfailing sequence, from clime to dime, to maintain the equilibrium of my precarious health by external means? It is not curi- osity: my antipathy towards all 'sight-seeing,' in so far as it does not bear any relation to my inner aspirations, has steadily increased. Nor is it in pursuit of any search, for there is no longer any particular problem which my being could take really seriously. The impulse which drives me into the wide world is precisely the same as that which drives so many into monasteries: the desire for self-realisation*
Some years ago, when I determined to live at Raykiill, I imagined that I needed the world no longer. And indeed I would not have stood in need of it had I conceived my goal to be the ripening of ideas which had already begun to shoot in me, for their development is nowhere less endangered than in seclusion, which is poor in, or barren of, external stimulus. But I expected more than that of Raykiill. I had hoped that its seclusion would help me to that ultimate self-realisation, thanks to which the thoughts which would come to me might appear as the pure expression of metaphysical realityj I had hoped that there I would grow beyond all accidental fetters of time and space. This hope was disappointed. I had to recognise, that although in my solitude I became more and more 'myself ,' it was not in the metaphysical but in the em-
CHAP.I BEFORE THE START 15
pirical sense, and that was the precise opposite of what I aimed at. I had to recognise that it was too early for me to renounce the world. For most mortals personality may signify the greatest of blessings: it is the tragedy of tragedies for the metaphysician that he cannot ever entirely overcome his own individuality. Keats says of the poet: 'The poetical nature has no self — it is everything and nothing j it has no character — a poet has no identity — he is continually in for and filling some other body.' He might have added that the poet ought above all to be selfless in this sense, and that only in so far as he suc- ceeds in this, is he capable of fulfilling his calling. The same is true in a higher degree and in a far prof ounder sense of the metaphysician: the relation of the metaphysician to the poet is comparable with the relation of the poet to the actor. The comedian presents, the poet creates} the metaphysician antic- ipates in his mind every possible representation and creation. Therefore he must never look upon any form as final, never feel himself identical with anything or any one j the centre of his consciousness must coincide with that of the world} he must look upon every separate appearance from God's point of view. This is especially so where his own individuality and his own philosophy are concerned. Raykull did not favour this process of interiorisation. I, like so many others, began to regard the possibilities of the world as being exhausted by some purely personal formula, to treat private and accidental peculiarities as necessary attributes of Being. I began to be- come 'Personality.' And thus I recognised how wise Pythag- oras and Plato had been in extending their wanderings Bright into the later stages of their mature manhood. The inevitable process of crystallisation must be averted as long as possible} as long as possible Proteus must remain Protean, because only men with a Protean nature are called to the priesthood of metaphysics. I therefore determined to return to the world. How far does the world help towards the self-realisation which I desire? We are usually told that the world hinders it. It helps him whose nature possesses the corresponding quali- ties, by f orcing his soul continually to ever-new formations. Since I grew up impressions as such do not really mean any-
16 THE TROPICS
PART I
thing to mej my mind does not gain by the mere acquisition of new material. But then again, my psychical being as a whole now reacts differently according to the circumstances in which it finds itself and these differences open up to me vistas of realities which have hitherto been hidden from me. To the immutable, once he has reached maturity, the world can, of course, be of no use; the more he sees, experiences and learns, the more superficial does he become, because he has to under- stand many aspects of reality with organs which have, so to speak, been trained to observe only one particular angle of it, which must needs lead him to receive false impressions. Such a man would do well to remain in his own sphere. On the other hand, the supple individual, who is transformed by new surroundings in accordance with their peculiarities, can never experience enough, for he gains profundity from every meta- morphosis. By feeling in his own body and soul how limited every form is in general, what sensations each experience gives him in particular, how one is linked to another, the centre of his consciousness gradually sinks to the bottom where Being truly dwells. When he has cast anchor there, he is no longer in danger of placing an exaggerated value on any single phenomenon; he will understand instinctively all special ex- perience from the point of view of its universal significance. A God lives thus from the beginning, by virtue of his nature. Man slowly approaches the same condition by passing through the whole range of experience.
I therefore begin my journey round the world. Europe has nothing more to give me. Its life is too familiar to force my being to new developments. Apart from this, it is too nar- rowly confined. The whole of Europe is essentially of one spirit. I wish to go to latitudes where my life must become quite different to make existence possible, where understand- ing necessitates a radical renewal of one's means of compre- hension, latitudes where I will be forced to forget that which up to now I knew and was as much as possible. I want to let the climate of the tropics, the Indian mode of conscious- ness, the Chinese code of life and many other factors, which I cannot envisage in advance, work their spell upon me one
CHAP.* THE MEDITERRANEAN 17
after the other, and then watch what will become of me. When I shall have perceived all the co-ordinates, I ought also to have determined their centre. I ought then to have passed beyond all accidents of time and space. If anything at all will lead me to myself, a digression round the world will do so.
N
THE MEDITERRANEAN
ow all external connection with what binds me ordinarily _ , has) been cut off. No news, no letter will reach me. The feeling of freedom is bliss. Of course, in the sense in which the majority understand the word, few men are less dependent than L I have no outward profession, no family to worry about, no duties to rob me of my time. I can do or leave un- done what I wilL But in my sense I would be free only if I were also unfettered by all psychic ties, if I could awake each morning as a quasimodogenitus — and as yet I fail to achieve this end without a certain measure of violence. The ^ mental relationship within which a man lives confines his being not only inwardly, it is simultaneously an ever-present external world to him, and this external world can become so importu- nate that consciousness, especially there where it imagines that it represents the innermost being, in fact only reflects the former and therefore fails to get beyond the reflection of external circumstances. The position is rendered even worse in the case of apparently favoured mortals by the creations which they themselves give to the world. The effect of their own efforts forms a new network of relationships, which naturally interest their originators and often occupy them pleasantly, but inevitably lead them astray from the essential. Strange to say, many mentally active people appear to see an aim worth striving for in precisely that which I regard as a catastrophe. No matter how they may interpret their be- haviour, they are content to be the exponents of, or mere fac- tors in, given conditions and relations. They feel no impulse to live beyond the ready-made world in that more real sphere
i8 THE TROPICS PARTI
where significance is the primary reality and all facts are reborn as symbols. Thus they are satisfied to be heads of schools and mental leaders j thus they venerate in their individuality or in their systems (which in principle comes to the same thing) man's highest possession. I, on the other hand, see in the highest conceivable idea only abstract representation} in the best possible system only a rigid skeleton, in all facts only a chemical precipitate, so to speak, and in all individuality only an expression or a means of expression of that which alone pos- sesses unqualified value. For this reason I cannot content myself with being a factor or an exponent, I cannot see a final aim in representing an idea or in developing one. The ulti- mate problem is not that of placing new phenomena into the world or of preserving and continuing old ones, however useful it may be in the penultimate sense. Our aim must be to recognise or to present in given phenomena, whether they be invented or discovered, that which, being unformed in itself, conditions from within all formations. How can a man suc- ceed in this who has given up his being entirely to any one finite creation? I do not think I have ever given myself up altogether to one, not even to my own creation. Never, as far as I know, have I felt myself to be identical with my individu- ality or with my work. From my youth up I have progres- sively broken with the man of yesterday and rejected every completed piece of work just as the pistil rejects the ripe anther. But I am not yet sufficiently free inwardly to disre- gard all externals. My consciousness is caught again and again in psychic fetters and I need to expend deliberate effort to tear myself away, and sometimes my power to do so fails me. Moreover, the necessary exertion becomes constantly greater because the network of relationships to which I belong, ideally speaking, grows daily, and becomes ever denser and more con- fused. At times I feel something like fear lest I should be entangled after all. . * * Therefore, when all other means fail me, I employ a mechanical device: I take the train and leave my world until I have become so estranged from it that I can envisage it as a whole and regain my mastery of it. I know that many men, and by no means the worst among them, would
CHAP.2 THE MEDITERRANEAN 19
disapprove of such measures; one should be strong enough, they say, to exist without any such artificial devices. Yes! one should be, but what if one is too weak? Is one to give up an attainable goal because one cannot reach it by the shortest path? Is one to dissipate the little power that one possesses in order to conquer something which is not an end in itself, but only a means and one which can easily be attained by a slight digression? I confess that in relation to my soul I am a con- vinced Jesuit, or, expressed more accurately and in a less offensive way: I regard it as a mistake to treat psychic condi- tions with any more respect or deference than those of external nature. This deficiency of character— if it be such— is, after all, an external factor, not my real ego, and to the outer world I owe no reverence. In fact, instead of being troubled that I should have to apply external means, I am content to find that my soul is sufficiently naive to react so energetically and so rapidly to such simple methods as the mechanical exclusion of impressions and the like.
Women reckon with their fundamental weakness as they do with any fact that is self-evident. They regard a man who is unable to excite love as clumsy, unless perchance love means nothing to him. Thereby they show not only a superior knowl- edge of the race but also a prof ounder understanding of life than most philosophers possess. Soul is nature and must be treated and judged as suchj its processes are not primarily related to any spiritual values. This fact, of course, allows us to draw more than one condusion in practice. It is not neces- sary to escape its dictates: if one wishes, it is possible by imagi- nation to graft the highest values upon any natural condition; thus passion has been hallowed in marriage, and murder in the High Court of Justice, and that is right and just. What- ever alternative a man may choose depends upon the aims which he has set himself. My own forbid me, for the present, to continue in any particular shape or form. Therefore I must also not take them too seriously.
PART I
20 THE TROPICS
3 THE SUEZ CANAL
/-T-SHE air that flows about me gives a mighty stimulus to my JL imagination. In the blue-grey moonlit night the violet- coloured desert seems to reach beyond the horizon in the East} above me, at a terrifying height, far higher than I have ever seen them before, the stars glitter in their courses, and high, high above them their vault is spread. Space here seems in- credibly immense and almost becomes spaceless* I am over- come by a kind of honor vacm. I feel as if this dead world cried for life; like the djinn in the bottle which imprisoned him, I feel impelled to grow out of the shell of my body until the emptiness around me shall be filled. And behold! from the travails of my soul, before me, above me, between heaven and earth, finite and yet all penetrating, I see a tremendous figure in the process of materialisation, the figure of One whose body is like unto a thunder-cloud, whose being is the tension of violence held in check. But a little while ago and He was not there. Yet as soon as He is there He becomes the centre of the world. He, the all too personal, is the soul of this impersonal universe! Therefore the meaning of this great silence is only the suspense of our breath before the storm and this deep and solemn stillness is nothing but the prelude to catastrophe. What would happen if He who is above us should give way to burning wrath? In the desert the Samun rises and the sandstorm carries away the dunes. . . .
This is the God to whom the people of the desert pray. He is not Allah, nor Jahveh. He is none of the historical Gods, who from dark beginnings have, thanks to cumulative inherit- ance, risen from minor potentates to be the Prince of Heaven. But He is at the root of all of them, He continues to live in all of them as an ancestor continues to live in His distant descend- ants. And occasionally He appears again in His own intrinsic form. When the languished tribes of Israel believed them- selves to be chastened in the wilderness, it was He whom they saw threatening above them. When the Bedouins hide them-
CHAP.4 THE RED SEA
21
selves before the Samun, it is He before whose terror they quail.
It is the God of the Desert. Wherever imaginative man penetrates into the universe which surrounds him, it brings forth spirits and gods. The creatures thus born into the world appear different according to the peculiarity of the parents; sometimes the maternal, and at other times the paternal, blood predominates. In Greece the gods took after the paternal strain, the maternal one can hardly be discerned; it would almost seem as if it mattered little who they were. In the case of the gods of the desert it was the mother who gave them their character. Irresistibly and apparently inevitably the ex- panse of sand generates the offspring of violent despots. This dead universe calls for life, this rigid equilibrium cries for arbitrariness, as the stillness hankers after the storm. I doubt whether the tribes of the desert possess much power of imagi- nation: how simple, how almost needy are the characteristics of their divinities! Yet the smallest seed implanted into heaven by the desert unfolds itself in an immense apparition, so that the simplest form, like the pyramid, gains greatness by its mere dimensions.
The straight Suez Canal, this immense work of human hands, which cleaves the desert so cruelly in twain, fits mar- vellously into its natural surroundings. This canal too is the product of an arbitrary act, a fate imposed upon the desert by a superior will. Here man has indeed created like a god.
4 THE RED SEA
A LARGE portion of my travelling companions consider that the heat has brought them nigh unto perdition. What lack of imagination! It is true that in the North such intensity of heat might become dangerous, for there it would be un- natural. Under otherwise constant conditions an excessive rise in temperature explodes the balance of the elements which constitute a given dimate, and since our bodies exist in relation
22
THE TROPICS PARTI
to their surroundings, such disintegration might easily destroy their organisms. But here the heat belongs necessarily to everything else — its absolute degree is not too high} anybody sufficiently imaginative should therefore rejoice at it, at any rate at first, for the passage of time weakens our adaptability} but at the beginning the unusual factor of the experience acts as a stimulus and for this reason I would not be surprised if during the first month I should only experience the positive element of this tropical climate.
How beautifully everything belongs together here: the cli- mate, the colours, the outlines, the animals, the sea! Every time when I sight a new being I feel as if a foreboding had come to be realised: an animal in these latitudes must look just as it does and not otherwise. Imaginative syntheses of this kind no doubt include many a Hysteron-Proteron, but the mere recognition of this fact does not solve the question. There really does seem to be a necessary connection between all the component elements of a world, so that the knowledge of some of them should enable one in some degree to foresee the others. I have often, when visiting the zoological gardens, drawn correct conclusions from the mere nature of an unfa- miliar animal of its home, even in cases where I lacked all previous knowledge. Such deductive combinations succeed with ease if one has a sufficient idea of the general character of ^the country and the peculiarities of the type to which the animal in question belongs. In this way the Chinese stag, for instance, can easily be recognised, in fact it would be possible in principle to construct the particular animal a priori if one knows 'Stag* sufficiently and if one is familiar with Chinamen in their own surroundings.
But for all that, it is very hot. I feel as if the hottest days of August were upon me. Slowly my consciousness withdraws from my limbs, which find ample occupation by their changed surroundings, and1 it remains in serene contemplation of the Erythraic coast.
CHAP. 5 ADEN 23
5 ADEN
THE black Continent possesses the greatest creative power of any in the world. Whatever has its origin in Africa remains African for ever in mind and spirit. In the museum the gorilla stands out against his native background, and the zebra and the ostrich conjure the breath of dried-up steppes into the sweetest spring landscape, but the inhabitants of Africa have saturated the country into which they have been trans- planted with their own soul to such an extent that the white man there sings nigger tunes in order to give vent to his feelings. To know this it is not essential to have lived in Africa. And yet, unless I had gone on shore at Adten, I would scarcely have realised to what a degree this apparent abstraction, this ^Africa,' is a reality. Here the rocky land- scape and man, the expanse of sand, the huts of rushes and the vultures, the dromedaries and the burdens which they bear, form one single thundering major chord. There is something absolutely fundamental about this chord and yet each simple note of which it is composed rings out so pure and clear in harmony with the others that each tone which one happens to notice most at any given moment seems to be the key to the chord. Their harmony is almost exaggerated} it is so great that its elements are almost denied all chance of existence: there is no such thing as individual peculiarity here. On the other hand, the hyperindividual significance of everything is so manifest and so powerful that the general similarity does not appear as being stereotyped, but on the contrary impresses us as the highest type — like the type in Greek art — f or which reason of repetition produces the effect of rhythmic sequence. The naked negroes look magnificent. Sculpture in all seri- ousness would be meaningless here. Among ^ us Europeans the body is usually a heavy inert mass, and it is the function of the artist to give expressive values to its substance. For this very reason he means so much to us. In Africa natural form creates, in me at any rate, a greater inner elation than most
24 THE TROPICS PARTI
works of art. There are only very few sculptors who have done better work than Nature, who have realised in a higher degree than she has the possibilities of the human form. Most of them have fallen far, far short of their model, especially in regard to its artistic complex, that is to say, the suggestive power of their creation. Only the very highest art has the significance which our esthetes would have us ascribe to all forms of art. Shall I pronounce it? Artists owe the enormous esteem in which they are held to a drcumstance which, al- though it may continue to exist for ever, does not detract from its accidental nature. The sculptor owes it to the fact that our body, thanks to its having been clothed throughout many cen- turies, has lost the power of manifesting its innate expressive values, for which reason we regard it as a revelation when an artist realises it in his creations. The poet owes it to the fact that most people have lost almost all their sensitivity and must be shown an alien sensation, which awakens a sympathetic echo in their souls, in order to feel.
All men whom I have seen here are beautiful. The negroes, especially in their bodies j the Arabs, who gallop past me again and again through the sandy streets on their noble steeds, in their characteristic heads! These men are as fair as animals j their bodies are equally expressive. The reason is that they all seem typified. Beauty is never an expression of the indi- vidual: its idea includes the perfection of those tendencies of form whose expression marks the outlines of the race. There- fore, in attaining beauty something becomes perfected, which is more than individual. Here lies the reason of her compel- ling universal character, from everybody's point of view, pro- vided they are alive to similar tendencies of formj for every limited possibility is only capable of one supreme form of re- alisation. It is impossible to conceive a higher degree of harmonious and general perfection of the human body than that which Greek art has revealed to us; this is why we call its creations absolutely beautiful! From this point of view alone, on the other hand, can the objective character of aesthetic judg- ments be understood fully: be they related to natural forms, their artistic representations or be they mere arabesques: the
CHAP. 5 ADEN 25
whole of nature is ruled by an identical mechanism and an identical stereometry, so that proportions, presupposing crea- tion to be what it is, are conceivable everywhere which em- body an objective optimum. In such judgments the question of subjectivity does not arise. In the case of types of national beauty (just as in the case of specific styles of art) this ob- jectivity is limited to a narrower sphere} it has a meaning only for those who admit certain premises whose validity may be subject to discussion. But once these premises are admitted, then taste no longer plays any part. The negroes of Aden possess perfect beauty because the type of their race gains per- fect expression in them.
From the above it is evident that beauty in the sense of bodily perfection can never be symbolic for an individual. Not one of the magnificent brows of these Arabs conceals an even approximately comparable intelligence. It was not for nothing that Socrates was the ugliest of Greeks — it is not with- out reason that we are surprised to find intelligence in a per- fectly beautiful woman. Physical beauty and individual sig- nificance do not only belong to different dimensions, they are antagonistic in so far as, everywhere in nature, where the type predominates, the individual suffers accordingly. Beauty in its real sense is always super-individual, that is to say, typified beauty, and a type is generally violated by strong individuali- ties. The truth of this statement is most apparent in only partially developed peoples such as the Germans and the Russians j in their case the important individuals differ physi- cally from the ideal of the race far more than any member of the average population. It is least noticeable in completely crystallised nations like the British. That the latter statement, however, does not give my fundamental assertion the lie, is proved by the fact that the original individual belonging to a completely developed race is almost without exception less original than in the case of incompletely developed ones* Modern England will not produce a Shakespeare.
26 THE TROPICS PARTI
6 THE INDIAN OCEAN
How very northern I am, in spite of all! This sea is more vast and profound than any which I ever crossed — and yet it fails to create the effect upon me which the ocean usually does. The soft, almost sickly colours do not allow my con- sciousness to receive an impression of grandeur. As I look upon the expanse with its pink undertones, I can only think: this is the pasture and the playground of the dolphin.
The reason is: I am a Northerner. There is no actual great- ness in sheer physical expanse: unless it suggests a correspond- ing heightening of the observer's self -consciousness, it does not signify greatness, and whether or not it causes such a process to be set up, depends upon personal factors. Generally speak- ing, magnificent views of nature such as the mountains, the desert and the sea (I do not mention the sky at night because we are too familiar with it, for which reason it has almost no significance in the sense in which I mean) give a sense of ex- altation to every human being. In the face of such a spectacle our hearts begin to f orbode that the limit of our temporal nature does not necessarily limit our being and that it some- how depends upon us whether our being is finite or infinite. The immense forces which we behold outside ourselves, and which we are yet forced to regard as in some sense belonging to us, destroy — just as passion does from within — the armour of our prejudices. Quite unconsciously our ego expands; we then recognise our individuality as an insignificant portion of our true selves j we feel ourselves to be greater, more generous and noble — but also less important and more mean, which in this case comes to the same thing. The only factor which in these typical effects varies in each instance with the special cir- cumstances is its degree. Would an Indian dream of the gods which the vision of the Himalayas quite naturally creates in his soul when he beholds the shimmering icebergs of the North Sea? — Probably he would shiver too much, he would become godless by reason of the excessive cold. I, on the other hand,
CHAP.6 THE INDIAN OCEAN 27
strive in vain in the Indian Ocean to recall the sensations which the Atlantic and the North Sea have created in me so often. The oppressive closeness, the mildness and sweetness of my surroundings, are incompatible to my mind with the elements of grandeur. Their effects dull my nervous system. And just as though I were a woman, I am honestly interested only in the details in the midst of all this vastnessj so, for instance, I delight to-day in the curves which the fishes describe in their whizzing flight from wave to wave.
Yes, indeed, I am a Northerner. . . . Once more Proteus stands at the extremity of his confines j the Indian Ocean is incapable of being the North Sea for him. However easy it be to find a new centre for my psycho-physical being, it is difficult to change its elements. It is a process that becomes possible only through the gradual passage of time. Do I not resemble the criminal who fails time after time to escape from his prison? Again and again I imagine that I have escaped from my personality, and again and again I am caught up in its meshes. I have to recognise, whether I like it or not, that there are certain factors in me which are not subject to my volition 5 that I, however free I may appear to be, as a phenomenon am only a factor in the structure of the world.
CLOTHES are said to lack significance? Creatures who are in the habit of walking about in a dressed condition carry with them their own picture mirrored in their consciousness, and for them their clothes are no less essential than their body. I fancy that the great men are rare (just as the fools are many) who have not at one time or another found their own external style and then been true to it. The divine gift of vanity brought many a good thing in its wake. Anyone who has brought his costume and his nature into harmony satisfies not only his personal and aesthetic requirements, not only his con- sideration for his fellows — he has found in fact a means of expression for himself. Why does a sensitive person change his dothes before joining the social throng of his fellows? Because in changing his garments he changes' the man within
2g THE TROPICS PART i
them. And in the same way the discovery of an external style renders the inner being free. No one is really without vanity, nor should he bej every one looks at himself in the glass.^ For this reason he behaves with much less embarrassment if his appearance corresponds with his being. By this I do not wish by any means to deny the justification of fashion, quite on the contrary: for the large majority it will always furnish the best possible means of expression, because the majority do not possess the peculiarities of distinction, and because fashion as a rule does complete justice to the general requirements of its followers. And the same is true of the distinguished indi- vidual whose greatness depends on the perfection of his type, a Castiglione or an Edward the Seventh. If, however, an artist with an abnormal structure of the skull should fail to wear a flowing mane, he would lose his personal style and for this reason sacrifice a portion of his expressive ability. — How do I come to make this observation? This evening there is a fancy-dress ball on board which I am compelled to attend, whether I like it or not.
There is after all much to be learned from masquerading. Not, of course, in the case of the comedian, where appearance and real nature belong anyhow to two different planes, but especially in the case of people who have little or no talent for acting. In the latter case appearance and reality, in spite of every desire to the contrary, remain in harmony and the result can lead to nothing short of revelation. I do not suggest that because a man looks at his best in the costume of the eight- eenth century, it is thereby proved that the spirit of this age is the spirit of its wearer, but it is true that his fancy dress (which after all is only a method of clothing himself with a certain purpose) assists in expressing certain traits of his being which in the ordinary course of events remain in the background. In this way the process of dressing-up can not only heighten or lessen the man's power of expression: it can indeed bring about self-realisation. A lessening of expressive power is the usual result because the natural expression is normal to the majority. His fancy dress reveals what the man Is, amongst other things, not what he is essentially; it alters, as
CHAP.6 THE INDIAN OCEAN 29
it were, the centre of his being. The same process brings about a heightening of the expressive power in those individuals whose calling and surroundings only permit them, in the ordinary course of their lives, to convey but a part of them- selves. Such people are in their fancy dress more, or in a better sense, themselves than they are otherwise in their *rea? existence. The most interesting case is the extreme instance of that mentioned last — the case where the man is not himself at all in everyday life and is born for the first time at the fancy- dress ball. There is no doubt that many a man does not fit either into his age or into his profession or into the world that gave him birth. Their 'reality5 is, regarded metaphysically, only a semblance. Thanks to a mask such people sometimes find their own truth. I see in front of me two men of the world who are wearing the costumes of apaches, and I am almost prepared to swear that it is not their present simulation but their habitual mode of life which is expressive of their comedy in the eyes of God.
And this reminds me of James Moriers3 immortal Hadji- Baba of Ispahan, in which he describes in an inimitable fashion the Eastern power of permutation. Grand Vizier to-day, to- morrow a barber and the day after ascetic, and yet entirely at home in each of these parts. The instability of every situation in oriental life makes it easier there not to take any of its forms too seriously. Accordingly their judgment of values differs in proportion. A man is regarded always as being what he rep- resents, wherefore his behaviour assumes an importance which the modern Westerner can scarcely comprehend. How could it be otherwise? If appearance is not really taken seriously, then its semblance must be hypostatised. We Westerners believe instinctively in the divine preordination of a man's external position in life, and for this reason we consider form of less account than they do in the East} on the other hand, where form appears to us to be a necessity, we credit it with a metaphysical reality. The nobleman must play the part of noblemen in every situation in life and so on and so forth. — On the other hand, what we conceive to be possible in America proves that fundamentally we are not as unwise as we appear:
30 THE TROPICS PARTI
we do not transplant our demands over there. Even the noble- man who was luckless on this side of the water may earn his living on the other as a waiter; there even he will accept dou- ceurs and tips without a flicker of the eyelid's,
A research student whose profession causes him to travel through the length and breadth of India and who appears to be a distinguished connoisseur of the country and of the people, proposed to me that I should join himj I would thereby gain a prof ounder insight into the life of the Indians. The curious position in which I am placed makes me smile: in case I accepted this piece of good luck I would sacrifice the whole purpose of my journey. What do the facts as such con- cern me? And if they did, would I travel for their sake? Specialists have been everywhere before mej their discoveries are at every one's disposal. The observations which I could make would undoubtedly be of less value than those made by men who are specially qualified for such tasks. It would be clearly waste of energy and time for me to do what others can do better. Young and talented people are fond of asserting that man must be capable of everything. However, man is not capable of everything and the small achievements which he may call his own suffer by the diffusion of his attention. It is curious that politicians of all human types, although they are the least thoughtful metaphysically, are the only variety who understand how to differentiate between their person and the brains they make use of. They alone are not concerned who executes a piece of work, provided it is well done. The phi- losopher, however, blushes at the mere possibility that his mind might not be omniscient and instead of increasing his own powers to the utmost by a correct judgment of himself and by undertaking only what his nature is fitted for, and by employ- ing minds better suited to tasks which are alien to his nature, lie spoils his own work by his illusion that he represents the Almighty in propria persona. This protective gesture of vanity is comprehensible in insignificant peoplej the philosopher is an organiser on the vastest of scalesj he could afford to be less fettered in mind. Well, as far as I am concerned myself, in so far as I am free I can only claim to be so since yesterday. To
CHAP.6 THE INDIAN OCEAN 31
think of all the enterprises that I have undertaken since the early days of my adolescence! Passage of time makes one more wise. To-day I trust other eyes better than my own when precise observation is at stake j whenever the impression- ability of the experimentalist may cause an experiment to lose in power of conviction, I substitute my nervous system by that of a more robust nature; if a logical chain is to be construed in order to link recognised premises to a fact which is guessed at, I leave the task, whenever possible, to better logicians than myself, and all intuitions which concern specialists I pass on to them as suggestions whenever they seem to me to be worth considering. As far as my own person is concerned, I confine myself to penetrating into the significance of things. And in this connection the agglomeration of too many facts is not a help but a hindrance. The basic tones of a world can be per- ceived in a few chords by anyone capable of listening to them at all. Too much music confuses the ear.
The necessity of limiting the subject of one's consideration is theoretically recognised by everybody, but very few people seem to know that the tool, the Ego, also requires limitation j this is especially true of the impressions to which the Ego is exposed j for this reason people like myself are so often apos- trophised as cranks, egoists and eccentric individualists. I, for instance, am considered on board to be haughty because I retire whenever and as far as possible from the company of my fellow-travellers, whereas the real explanation is that I can only exercise my specific mental powers in complete seclusion. If I am to do the work which has been set me, my nervous system must be perfectly in tune, my attention disengaged and my mind free. These conditions on their part also involve other conditions. It may well be that such considerations detract from one's merits as a human being in the course of time, but this objection is of no significance j for a mental worker must be sufficiently unselfish to bear the risk of any possible injury to himself. He must — let me describe the position by an extreme and mythical instance — be ready to forfeit his eternal bliss, if an unholy life can help him to a prof ounder recognition. He must live for his problem in the
32 THE TROPICS PARTI
same way as the good mother lives for her child. Unfor- tunately it is not true that all forms of perfection lie in the same direction; the perfection of a work of art demands different conditions from the perfection of personal existence. Now, whenever the choice has to be made between a mediocre realisation of one's self in life and an important one in one's work, the latter is always to be preferred. A profound recog- nition discovered and expressed by an imperfect being may benefit the whole of humanity. To place human perfection in this sense above everything else, as is usually the case, is a proof not only of the most primitive form of egoism but also of a fundamental misconception. Who lives literally <unto himself,' and who could do so? No one. There is no differ- ence in the sight of God between the man who strives after per- sonal perfection or the man who lives for his work or for his fellows or for his children. Everyone aims at something beyond the individual, For even that which probably survives death, that ego whose immortality the Christian postulates, is not to be found in human personality: it is its fruit to which it only gives birth.
I HAVE actually counted twenty-three different nationalities amongst the passengers. One ought to suppose therefore that my fellow-travellers present anything but a homogeneous impression. However, the precise reverse is true} the various individuals hardly differ from one another, if I disregard external similarities or their innermost life and judge them from the point of view of their tangible character alone.
This is the result of simply being together for fourteen days in the not even closely restricted space of an ocean liner. I wonder whether there was any difference whatever between Noah, his lions and his sheep towards the end of their journey during the flood? — Each individual as a phenomenon is only as much as he is able to express, and he becomes greater or lesser, thus or different in accordance with the traits which are accepted by his surroundings: this explains the immense power of milieu. The milieu of Paris, for instance, enlarges every
CHAP.6 THE INDIAN OCEAN 33
mind which is in any way congenial to it. It is possible to understand there what one would never have arrived at oneself and such understanding awakens new ideas. In Paris, whose cultured circles are mentally the most agile in the world, this process of development takes place with such rapidity that thought is never actually at rest and with a sudden impetus one is lifted up from one level to another, reaching a height one could never have attained in other surroundings. For this reason minds which have been trained in great capitals — such as ancient Athens, Florence, Alexandria, Rome, Paris — are always superior to those that have developed in the provinces* — Conversely the herding together for a long period on a steamer results in such banalisation that ultimately the differ- ence between man and beast disappears. In such surroundings only the most banal traits (that is to say, the very traits which fine personalities ignore both in themselves and in others from a feeling of tact) make themselves felt, and since a man's immediate surroundings continually present him with their likeness he becomes so conscious of them that in the end he himself becomes transformed in accordance with the conception that his surroundings have of him. — The milieu of an ocean liner appears to me like the best possible caricature of the World/ that mighty institute for indigence, I am anything rather than hostile to the worldj every one, no matter who he be, must remain in touch with his fellows if he is not to cripple his mentality, and perhaps contact with so-called society is the best means to this end. The manners and cus- toms of social life force one to pay attention to people whom one might otherwise disregard} the average human element predominates and finds expression in a form which makes it appear acceptable. It is precisely men who are mentally lonely, philosophers, who should be men of the world if they mean to prevent fatal retrogression in their development. But there is an immense difference between retaining contact and visiting this world, and becoming its victim. To become its victim always involves serious mental impoverishment. There is, however, one exception and that is the type of man whom I would call the representative type. There are men, above all
34 THE TROPICS PARTI
there are women, who throw away their lives in the most senseless fashion and yet do not deteriorate in the process j in fact, it seems to develop them. The type that I refer to reached its perfection in the eighteenth century. Is a mode of life conceivable, more empty than that of the great ladies of those days? Real love was unknown to them, they had no serious interests of any kindj the whole of their existence was spent in tittle-tattle. And yet many among them were pro- found and their profundity was not impeded by their form of life 5 on the contrary, it gave them a means of expression. It gave a soul to their esprit and to their art of living. And for this reason the frivolity of this period occasionally gives an impression of gravity and profundity which strikes us as being strange and makes one dream. . . .
Milieu. . . . While I am on the subject I would like to pursue a course of thought, odd though it is, which from time to time reappears in my consciousness. In accordance with the surrounding^ in which one happens to be, different traits gain predominance} should this not be equally true in the case of one's own surroundings, of that which most people identify with the word: myself? To my mind the differences of character between a child, a man and an octogenarian are nothing but the reflex action of their surroundings. A child of profound self -consciousness anticipates the wisdom of old age, and the octogenarian who is unfettered in his spirit can remain young to the hour of fas death: I sometimes explain this to myself by thinking that a different set of peculiarities are manifested according to physical coincidences. The nerves of an old man cannot react as those of a child and vice versa. The same is undoubtedly true of men and women if I regard their differences from the standpoint of the metaphysical self. The ascertained facts of heredity would appear to suggest that every individual contains in a latent form all the peculiarities of his ancestorsj and which of these peculiarities are able to manifest^ themselves depends entirely on circumstances. If an individual— as such, the bearer of the inheritance of his whole ancestry— assumes the shape of a woman, then the manly traits cannot find expression and vice versa. This shows
CHAP.6 THE INDIAN OCEAN 35
how ridiculous it is to demand feminine virtues of a man, or to reproach a woman with her insufficiency of masculine quali- ties* It is conceivable that the entity which as a man resulted in Caesar Borgia, might have found her corresponding feminine expression in the character of a sister of mercy. . . . Why should I not consider further possibilities? — The damp heat re- moves all my inhibition. I am beginning to feel quite indiffer- ent to my critical powers of perception} I feel tempted to sur- render myself completely to the sway of unlimited possibilities. — Suppose there be such a thing as Heaven and a continued existence after death: this form of existence, as it is represented universally in the mythologies of all nations, seems quite in- conceivable as long as one assumes that men remain after death what they were before. But would it be impossible to regard ^Heaven* as the kind of inward milieu, in which the negative, the evil and destructive qualities fail to find expression, in exactly the same sense as the feminine potentialities are in- expressible in masculine organisms? On a priori grounds there is nothing to be said against this. Only, of course, life in Heaven could not in those circumstances represent a final phase. . . . The boat once more passes through a crowd of rosy-tinted jelly-fishes whose umbrella-like bodies flap to and fro helplessly in the midst of the rushing waters. How would it be if I were to express myself through the physical medium of such a creature? Most of what constitutes the human soul would no doubt remain unmanifested; only a small fraction of my being could show itself. But this fraction wpuld pre- sumably be one which is incapable of expression in human form.
PART TWO: CEYLON
7 COLOMBO
WHAT becomes of me on the green island of Lanka? Every hour I am sensible of a change in me. I feel that in this hothouse air it is futile to work, to wish, to strive; noth- ing succeeds but what happens of its own accord. And an in- credible number of things do happen here by themselves, more than I had ever thought possible. In fact everything within me is happening of its own accord. My volition wanes irresistibly. I am transformed into a gentle, soft creature who enjoys life without ambition and without any creative desire.
The whole of my life has turned into a process of vegeta- tion. But of course this latter concept appears to be true only when drawn from the flora of the tropics, not from that of northern latitudes. There vegetating implies a minimum of life — a form of existence barely sufficient unto itself. Here it implies a maximum. These plants which rise overnight from the earth to the sky resemble gods in their vitality. In Cey- lon, as elsewhere, vegetating signifies a form of existence which proceeds without effort, but then effort is superfluous here: everything succeeds without it. Here vegetating becomes the form of all life, even of mental life; the mind becomes ram- pant, like tropical plants. Already I realise in myself that the mental life of tropical man is comprehensible only from the botanical point of view. His images blossom forth like flowers, wildly, luxuriantly, confusedly, without effort and without the supervision of the gardener, and are therefore irresponsible. It is in this way, no doubt, that we should ex- plain the history of Indian mythology: the stern teaching of the sages of the North-West could not survive for long in the southern districts; its simplicity soon began to develop into aimless exuberance. Thousands of gods sprang from the fruitful soil like mushrooms after rain. Hindooism in its boundless richness can only be understood as a vegetative process.
Nobody identifies himself with a phenomenon which is self- evident; no one centres his self -consciousness in the mere
39
40 CEYLON PART n
processes of physiological change, in the circulation of his blood. We only recognise as belonging to our nature what somehow depends on our own determination. Thus no West- erner who wishes to be taken seriously would count the material and external world to himself, but he would lay claim in the above sense to the psychic world, the sphere of thought and imagination. On this natural connection those typically West- ern philosophies are based, in which Being appears identified with thought, volition or action. In the tropics — I feel it already — it does not occur to one to judge psychic phenomena by a different standard from physical onesj it never enters one's head to take them seriously metaphysically. Everything that happens in me, develops in me as the plants develop out there. It is not I who think, but something thinks in me, it is not I who wish, but something wishes in me. Actually this k what happens everywhere, but in Ceylon, where nature does everything essential, claiming with emphasis for herself all that belongs to her, so that man shall not misunderstand himself, everyone becomes conscious of this truth. For the most mediocre native, Buddha's doctrine of cognition must be a matter of course, while the most cultured European only very exceptionally perceives its truth. The latter is conscious of action precisely where the Oriental recognises inaction} he necessarily inclines to count a portion of external nature unto himself.
The Maya-doctrine, the teaching which proclaims the un- reality of the world, is typical of the tropics in the same sense in which naturalism is typical of northern countries. In the north, where man must enter ceaselessly into nature in order to maintain its processes, nothing is more natural to him than to take the latter seriously. If he gives way to these tendencies and makes a system of the views to which they lead, a con- ception of the world results, according to which man is con- tained completely within the boundaries of his own psychic processes. , If, on the other hand, the processes of nature are assumed as a matter of course, if the mind does not need to concern itself with them in any way, then it is equally natural not to take any phenomena seriously. Moreover, since the
CHAP.; COLOMBO 4I
impulse of the will is so small that the wish fails to become father to the thought, all appearances are naturally regarded in such a way that concrete events mean nothing but pretence and make-believe. But this outlook signifies— exactly as its opposite, namely naturalism — no more than a passage a la limite, and is for this reason well in accordance with human nature. The significant point to observe here is the following: that the two extremities of the pole harmonise in the position they assume towards the absolute, for they both deny it com- pletely. Naturalism does so because the vivid consciousness of the processes of nature makes their perpetuation into another world seem superfluous j Buddhism does the same for opposite reasons. Everything man can become conscious of in the con- crete Belongs to nature; wherever nature is felt to be unreal, consciousness turns away, as it were, from its possible con- tent^ it becomes more and more empty, till at last noiiing remains. In this way the Buddhist of Ceylon regards nothing- ness as the background of semblance; the world holds no more than that for him. Such a conception can hardly be realised in Europe. Since I am staying in Ceylon I too am beginning to find this point of view tenable.
The doctrine of Maya has been compared with philosophies which in Europe represent the unreality of the world. Such a comparison cannot be made even superficially; all European illusionists, in so far as they can be regarded as honest, were ansemic theorisers who attached greater weight to logical argu- ment than to experience: no Occidental can really believe in Maya. And yet there are minds among us who are justified in sharing the Buddhistic attitude to life. The man whose culture is ancient finds it more and more difficult to realise himself in any form at all; his thoughts, his emotions, his actions mean nothing in relation to himself; he does not and he cannot identify himself with them. Such an attitude is equivalent to that of the Buddhist. But here its consequences are precisely reversed. The condition of the Buddhist is a happy one, for he longs for nothing more than to escape from his particularised existence; the condition of the modem European is tragic, for he is consumed by a passion for exist-
42 CEYLON PART n
encej he regards himself as impotent in so far as he fails of self-realisation. To deny existence absolutely, that saving grace of the Buddhistic nihilist, is an impossibility to the vital European. Therefore precisely the same circumstance which made the teaching of Buddha take root in Ceylon, caused at home the success of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche's doc- trine of the superman is not an expression of greatness, but an expression of the desire for greatness, perhaps the most pathetic expression of that desire which has ever been known.
8 KANDY
THE landscape which unfolds before the traveller, as the spiral of the mountain railway carries him from the op- pressive heat of Colombo to the cooler regions of Kandy, is nothing short of magical. The richness of the flora is over- whelming everywhere, but it has its own marked peculiarities at every level, so that the eye, when it looks far down from the heights, beholds not one but many forms of nature, which are either sharply defined, one against the other, or else pass gradually into one another. Perfect beauty abounds every- where, that beauty which falls to the lot of everything, in which meaning and expression are one. And then Kandy! This peaceful lake encircled by dark green hills, surrounded by trees which blossom like flowers, and embedded between the richest pastures — this lake with its uncertain misty tints in which the brilliant sunshine is reflected only as an echo, looks like a moonstone against a background of dark velvet. When I arrived I was so thrilled that I immediately started for a long walk, and when I returned, feeling weary, I thought, as I reclined in a comfortable arm-chair on my shaded balcony: thou art in paradise. Here even thy boldest expectations have been exceeded, here thy most unlimited wishes are fulfilled} now thou shouldst be completely happy.
Am I? It is ungrateful of -me, but I am not. I am not happy precisely because every wish seems to be fulfilled, and
CHAP. 8 KANDY
43
in fulfilment all longing is neutralised, and without longing the life that I mean ends. I feel as if my innermost possi- bility of life were cut off} I have never been in an atmosphere whose suggestive stimulus was less. At the moment it is true that my surroundings stimulate me, but that is not due to them but to the fact that they were strange to me and that their strangeness incites my senses and my mind to enter into ever new relations with new experience. I could imagine that ex- travagant natures such as those of Gauguin and R. L. Steven- son could find continuous stimulus here, because even super- abundance does not satisfy extravagant natures. As far as I am concerned, however, I am convinced that my imagination would soon become paralysed. Here, where everything is fulfilment, the soil for aspiration is lacking.
Longing and fulfilment! Is the normal relation of these two concepts not also the solution of the whole problem, the problem as to why the moderate, not the hot zone has been the scene of all the great actions of the human mind? In a place where everything is at hand, search seems unnecessary, and the ultimate issues have never been found by anyone who was not a seekerj where everything is supplied from outside, there is nothing to give an impulse to the will and slackness has never yet produced heroic action. Idealism cannot flourish where every possibility is realised. For this reason all the original creations from tropical zones bear features which are curiously lacking in spiritual qualities. In the climate of the tropics imagination vegetates, like everything else. No doubt there are occasions when it produces wonderful blossoms, either extravagant in phantasy like the mythology of the gods in folklore, or else oppressively scented like the lyrics of over- refined court poets} every now and1 again there are products which, like the palm tree, possess strong and powerful outlines. But all these creations, no matter how beautiful they may be, remain in the sphere of nature} they do not emanate from the depths of the mind and the soul, they are not born again of the spirit} they are expressive of spirit only in the sense in which a flower expresses it* Nature, no matter how rich she may be, cannot rise to the heights of spirituality. They can only be
44 CEYLON PART n
reached by the man who through personal effort rises above the sphere of his origin. The inhabitant of the tropics lacks the necessary impulse because everything possible happens of its own accordj and he lacks the energy to desire the impossi- ble.
His consciousness must be appallingly poor: he is conscious only of what does not happen by itself, and when everything occurs automatically, what remains? He cannot know love either. What we call love is based purely on our power of imagination. Where desire anticipates satisfaction, where representation anticipates reality, that marvellous image is born which becomes richer, more tender and more beautiful in proportion as the distance increases between longing and realisation. For this very reason love in the North has pro- duced blossoms so infinitely more precious than in the South, because in the North the mind loves to dwell in the land of dreams, whereas the South possesses a paramount sense for reality. The further south man lives, the more sensuous, in the animal meaning of the word, does he become and the less active in imagination. The road from longing to fulfilment ultimately becomes so short, that psychic creations are im- possible. Experience does not exceed longing and the proc- esses which are born of love in the northern sense become impossible. It appears to be a matter of course in the tropics that those who feel erotic attraction possess each other. When Indian poets speak of longing, they mean the anguish of sepa- rated couples who by their separation cease to satisfy them- selves} they never mean the longing for the unattainable and for the unseen. In the tropics our longing is unknown.
There is only one form of longing which they can feel and which can remain alive and increase to such a point that finally it appears as a power capable of moving the world: the longing to escape from all superfluity and all abundance. There have been minds in northern countries which have rejected reality, but their motive was never desire for liberation from reality, but dissatisfaction with what it offered. Their negation lacks a really profound motive, their attitude has never therefore
CHAP. 8 KANDY 45
become productive on a large scale. In the tropics the longing to be out of the world has proved to be the most creative im- pulse. It is this longing alone which has brought the pro- f oundest elements to the surface because the roots of this long- ing alone really plumb the depths. Indeed, where nothing is left to be desired, superfluity implies limitation in the same sense as does real want in other circumstances} here abundance becomes an obstacle to energetic action, it weakens our sense of life and threatens to strangle self -consciousness* Here it is precisely the powerful mind which is most inimical to the world. It is for this reason that the teachings which seem weakest to us and appear as the excrescence of degeneracy, the teachings which show the worthlessness of existence, are precisely those which possess vigour in the tropics. Spirit seems powerful here only in so far as it tries not to create reality, but to deny it. — The crescent moon is reflected in the lake, in the tops of the palms rumbles the humming of a thousand insects. How I long for Nirvana! How I long for an existence where creation is not over-powerful, where nature does not smother the mind with its luxuriance! How I long for a non-individual, non-defined condition of existence, in which I could be free from all that binds me now, free from joy and sorrow, free from gods and men, and free from myself. ...
I AM trying to watch the pknts grow; it ought to be possible in Ceylon. The undergrowth literally jumps from the soil} the bamboo shoots upwards to the sky. The whole of creation seems in a constant state of flux; one needs no Heraclitus here in order to make this plain. What a different thing a forest is in the tropics and at home! In the moderate zone 'forest' is a collective concept which embraces in our sense a large number of single trees. Here the forest is the more concrete concept as opposed to the trees, which abstract themselves, as it were, only with difficulty out of the chaotic greenery, and the process of growth is so rapid, so rich, luxuriant and unlimited, and all
46 CEYLON PART n
forms are so interwoven and so inextricably merged into one another, that their outward appearance does not tempt one to formulate a theory of Being: everything is demonstrably in a process of 'becoming/ and beyond this process nothing is to be found. Every minute that you look about you proves the truth of Buddha's phenomenology.
The latter is undoubtedly the most precise theory of vege- tation which has ever been enunciated. In so far as the life of the plant is typical of all life, Buddha has spoken the truth for men also, and that is saying a great deal; all ultimate prob- lems are presented and solved as completely in the plant as in the most highly developed human life and destiny, the problems of freedom, immortality and the ultimate roots of Being. Nevertheless there is something dissatisfying in partic- ularising about man from the nature of plants; one does not wrong his being, but one does injustice to the peculiarities of his nature. In emphasising man's similarity to the plants his essential difference from them is overlooked. While studying the teachings of Buddha I frequently asked myself whether he wished to make plants of men; there is no doubt that he did so. His teaching aims so strongly at the unification of life that the beings who have followed it were bound to develop towards what is common to all. The passivity of the Buddhist has no other significance than that he is a plant-like being.
Since I have been in the tropics I am no longer surprised that Buddha has based his doctrine of salvation on the phenom- enology of plant life. Life here is vegetation; body as well as mind vegetates and this vegetation exhausts all the possibili- ties of physical existence so completely that the question of a possibly higher destiny for man does not arise.
THE influences of this tropical world have changed my organism sufficiently to enable me to enter into and remain in the Buddhistic consciousness. It is an experience which teaches me much. It is not difficult to do justice to the theory of Bud- dhism, for its theory is all of a piece with every empiric system of the West j the psychology of Taine, Ernst Mach, William
CHAP. 8 KANDY
47
James, the outlook of Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Wil- helm Ostwald and even Bergson correspond in fundamentals with the teaching of Buddha, provided each one is regarded from a certain angle and that the measure of common ground is admitted to be limited in certain directions and to a cer- tain degree* The reason is that all empirical thinkers con- template action in its actuality. On this assumption the possi- ble results are predestined} in so far as empirical thinkers dis- agree, disagreement must be traced to differences in perspec- tive and talent. Spencer and Ostwald and Mach would have taught much the same as Bergson did, if their minds had been equally acute, for their intentions were originally the same. The philosophy of Buddha shows the greatest similarity with — of all the Western systems — that of Ernst Machj both philosophies possess the same advantages and the same weak- nesses. The advantages depend on exactitude of observation, and the weaknesses on insufficient profundity of observation. It is conceivable, of course, to see the whole range of reality and possibility condensed in actuality. Acvagosha, the founder of the Mahayana-doctrine, succeeded in doing this six hundred years after Buddha, and Bergson in our day succeeded in doing the same. As a feat of philosophic recognition, regarded from the human point of view, such an achievement must be con- sidered as particularly valuable because the picture which this point of view presents, portrays the peculiar character of the world most completely and with the least possible distortion. But then, Buddha was unable to understand actuality so pro- foundly, he was unable to contemplate simultaneously that which is and that which is in process of transition} he noticed 'becoming' alone.
It is perf ectly intelligible that the abstract minds of scholars are satisfied with an outlook such as that of the Buddhist} a man like Mach felt no metaphysical need, he possessed no religious feeling and he was therefore contented with his phenomenological relativism. A man, on the other hand, who, by powers of recognition, has attained Buddhist results and is moreover in living relation with the universe, will as a rule incline to absolutism; he believes in the absolute in some form
48 CEYLON PART n
or other. This was the case with all the sages of India whose phenomenological outlook agrees in all essentials with that of Buddha5 the same is true in the West in the case of Auguste Comte, who even created a religion which was ^emotional to the extreme. Fundamentally the same may be said of William James, who believed in a personal God, and also Herbert Spencer, to whom the Unknowable became almost a sub- stance as he grew older. Buddha, on the other hand, founded a religion which is nothing but phenomenological relativism, He did what Ernst Mach would have done if he had an- nounced the result of his analysis of sensations as a gospel. This explains what seems a paradox to the Western observer, what makes the wise Brahmin despise Buddhism and which has hitherto estranged me too. Now, however, I am begin- ning to understand. Given the physiological assumption which exists for man in the tropics, Buddhism really does mean a gos- pel or can at any rate mean one.
I need only analyse my own consciousness and how it has been changed in the course of each day. My normal need for action has decreased perceptibly, all my initiative has gone and instead of acting myself I allow events to happen to me. And this gives me the distance to myself normally, which even the most contemplative man in northern countries experiences only rarely. It gives me simultaneously that inner calm which must necessarily precede clear self -recognition. In fact, as I wrote already in Colombo: in the tropics it is not difficult to perceive psychic action objectively. But there is something further: this vegetative faction — organic processes resemble vegetation wherever they occur without determination by the ego — is enormously intensive, much more intensive than in northern latitudes j both in body and mind I feel myself to be continuously growing, budding, blossoming and also continu- ally changing and decaying, I have the feeling as if I were being driven onwards restlessly through a ceaseless sequence of births and deaths. The result is twofold: firstly that I am conscious with extraordinary intensity of the true nature of action which is an endless chain of birth j secondly I realise
CHAP. 8 KANDY 49
that it is impossible for me to look beyond this Samsaraj I cannot discover that beyond or outside its instability there is any stability at all. All my consciousness of existence is ab- sorbed by changing formations. On the one hand I do not feel myself identical with these formations, on the other my consciousness of this non-ego process is so intense that there is no room for an independent ego-consciousness. If I now listen to the teaching of Buddha, from this new basis of ex- perience, according to which there is nothing but a process without beginning and without end, in which unending series of accidents occur, according to which all apparently solid formations are only transitional manifestations in the course of change, according to which, moreover, there is no ego beyond this change, no self-determined soul, no personality, then I recognise in this teaching a marvellously dear conceptual rendering of my own experience. I do not feel estranged any longer by this teaching; in a sphere in which there is no ego- consciousness one cannot demand its continuation. Where no consciousness of immortality underlies experience, one does not long for immortality either. The non-ego doctrine, once you presuppose the physiological basis on which all conscious- ness rests in the tropics, signifies precisely what the teachings of the ego and its continuation signify subject to European presuppositions. And I now understand very well how the disciples of Buddha could rejoice at a doctrine whose recog- nition among intellectual Westerners would have produced despair. Man always experiences joy when some one else makes clear to him his own experience.
This recognition removes all the difficulties of the Bud- dhistic Nirvana concept. The man from the tropics feels him- self imprisoned by the non-ego, by an omnipotent nature which fills his consciousness on all sides. As long as he is satisfied with this process he asks no questions, just as no youth full of vigour of life enquired after heaven in the West during the Middle Ages. But when the day comes, as it usually does, on which he tires of his condition and on which he suspects higher possibilities, tropical man can conceive these only in the sense
50 CEYLON PART H
of release from the fetters of nature. He cannot transplant his ideal into her in the sense of a life in heaven, because every conceivable form of life would be identical with the very form of which he is tired; his ideal therefore is of necessity dissolution. What now does he really understand by Nirvana? How can he define this conceptually? He does not possess an ego-consciousness as opposed to fluctuating nature and for this reason cannot assert that he longs for a higher and positive existence. No more can he assert that he wishes to perish in nothingness, because, the moment that he wishes to escape from the processes of nature, he admits that he does not feel himself being absorbed into them completely. He possesses a very definite feeling of longing to escape from the turmoil of change and decay; he has a definite feeling of long- ing which is connected with an indefinite expectation for a positive improvement. It is this feeling which in Ceylon I experience myself. But when I try to realise what this feeling means I find that I am no more successful than the Buddhist sage. There is a very good philosophical reason for^the fact that Buddha has not taught anything definite concerning Nir- vana, that, in fact, he condemned as heresy any attempt at such definition. All that I could say is the following: The longing for Nirvana signifies the longing for relief from the fetters of nature; it is the common human longing for libera- tion which ultimately underlies all eschatological conceptions. This liberation will be related to a positive idea in a man who has a strong ego-consciousness; he will imagine eternal life or, if he is more thoughtful, like the Brahmin, a condition beyond all individualisation in which, after dispensing with his person- ality, he would become himself in an even higher degree. But what of him who lacks ego-consciousness? The same effort towards liberation leads him to totally different psychical formations. What he wants is simply to escape from nature; he knows no other longing. Where the consciousness of nature is omnipotent and the ego hardly existent, self -consciousness cannot reach a degree of positive assertion. The longing to get beyond the realm of appearance is the metaphysical ex- perience of the Buddhist It is his ultimate experience — beyond
CHAP. 8 KANDY 51
this he does not question. And if anyone should question further, he only proves that he misunderstands.
THIS is the third day which I have spent almost exclusively in the atmosphere of the Buddhist church. I have attended a great many services, have talked to priests and monks and I spent many hours in the cool and homely temple-library up in the Cupola with the beautiful view over the lake. I have studied the Pali texts while the sound of the litanies or the shrill notes of the clarionet, which, accompanied by the beat- ing of drums, calling the faithful to prayer, rose up from the hall beneath. Once more I am made aware that the knowledge of the abstract content of a teaching does not by any means make one know it} there are always surprises in store for the man who realises what they mean in the concrete. No matter whether a church represents the *pure' doctrine — it is the living expression of its spirit. Even if a church has demonstrably misrepresented its doctrine, this doctrine becomes more appar- ent in it than in the most perfectly preserved original text, just as even a cripple expresses life better than the best theory of it.
I must confess that the Buddhist priest surprises me by the level to which he attains. I do not mean his mental level but his human onej his type is superior to that of the Christian priest. He possesses a gentleness, a capacity for understanding, a benevolence, an ability to rise above events which even the most prejudiced person would scruple to describe as charac- teristic of the average Christian priest. The reason for this is undoubtedly the perfect disinterestedness which Buddhism develops in its disciples. In theory it may seem more beautiful to live for others instead of for oneself, but if you take men as they are, active love of their neighbours does not make them more generous but more mean in heart} it is only in exceptional cases that it does not develop into importunity and ^tyranny. How tactless are all the people who insist on improving their fellows ! How narrow-minded are the missionaries ! No mat- ter how open-hearted a man be by nature — no matter if the
52 CEYLON PART ii
faith he confesses be the most universal in the world — the mere desire for proselytising limits him, for psychologically it always signifies the same thing: the imposition of your own view upon another human being. Anyone who does this is ipso facto limited, and anyone who does it continuously or even professionally must needs become more and more limited from day to day. For this reason meanness, aggressiveness, tyranny, lack of tact and lack of understanding, are typical traits of the Christian and especially of the Protestant priest. A religion such as Buddhism, which teaches the care for per- sonal salvation as the only motive in existence, is incapable of evoking such traits. It would appear that in their place Bud- dhism should develop the crassest egoism, but this does not happen for two reasons: firstly, personal salvation in Buddhism does not imply the eternal bliss of the individual but, on the contrary, the liberation from the limits of individuality; ego- istic desires therefore signify misunderstanding, because benefi- cence and compassion appear to the Buddhist as virtues whose practice favours and accelerates more than anything else the liberation from the ego. It is this combination of the ideals of disinterestedness and love of your neighbour, then, which has produced the atmosphere which above everything else gives its superiority to Buddhism, I mean the specifically Buddhist form of charity. Charity in the Christian sense means wishing to do good; in the Buddhist sense it means wanting to let every one come into his own at his own level. And this does not imply any indifference to the condition in which another man finds himself, it means that it implies the sympathetic understanding for the positive qualities of every condition. According to the general Indian point of view every man stands precisely on the level to which he belongs, to which he has risen or fallen by his own deserts. Every state there- fore is inwardly justified. Of course it would be desirable that every one should reach the highest level, but this cannot be attained by a jump but only by a slow and gradual rise, and each level has its special ideal. Whilst Christianity, as long as it was ascetic, judged the life of the world to be inferior to that of the monk and would have loved to place the whole of man-
CHAP. 8 KANDY 53
kind at one swoop into the cloister, Buddhism, whose attitude is in principle more inimical to the world than the original Christian attitude and regards the condition of the monk expressly as the highest form of life, nevertheless refrained from condemning the lower states for the sake of the higher ones. Every state is necessary and in so far as it is necessary it is good. The blossom does not deny the leaf and the leaf does not deny the stalk nor the stalk the root. To be friendly to man does not imply the desire to change all the leaves into blossoms, but it does imply letting the leaves be leaves and understanding them lovingly. This marvellous and superior form of love is written on the most insignificant face of every Buddhist priest. Now I am no longer surprised at the un- paralleled veneration which the Buddhist priest enjoys among the people. At first sight it seems paradoxical that the man who is disinterested should enjoy more veneration than the one who actively concerns himself for the benefit of his f ellows; in practice this is the same everywhere. Men do not wish to be tutoredj he who tries to convince others is at much greater pains to do so than the man who unintentionally and without ulterior motives does for himself what seems right to him. The intentless, selfless, pure life which the Bhikshu leads is, according to Buddhist theories, the highest which a man can lead. Thus he who serves the monks, serves his own ideal.
The atmosphere of this Church is wonderful to me. I have never before been amid such peace. And yet I realise more dearly than ever that Buddhism is an impossible religion for Europeans. To be as creative and positive as Buddhism has been among the Cingalese, the spiritual material must differ accordingly — it must differ very considerably from that which we could supply. In our case, we who say yea to the world, who cannot rest, whose whole energy is kinetic, living f or^our own salvation would immediately develop into crass egoism, general compassion and good intentions would degenerate into the silliest prevention of cruelty to animals business, and the strife for Nirvana would manifest all the evils which dis- honesty against oneself inevitably brings in its wake.
54 CEYLON PART n
Southern Buddhism is undoubtedly only suited to inhabit- ants of the tropics j one must never forget that. But, once this is admitted, and it is really clear that Buddhism is necessarily related to a gentle and indolent form of nature, then we cannot but admire the formative power which it has evinced* It is almost inconceivable to what a degree Buddhism has ennobled the masses. I have not yet been in India, but, unless all reports are false, there is no doubt that the effect of the teaching of the Brahmins has not been nearly so beneficial to the lower orders j in fact, their teachings have never fully recognised them. The great deed, socially and politically, of Buddha consists in the fact that he removed the clear-drawn distinction between esoteric and exoteric wisdom, and that, like Christ, he pro- claimed a gospel for all. The character of this gospel, as I have already observed, was designed to suit very special cir- cumstances. All traditional accounts agree in saying that, in giving the Hinayana doctrines, which are professed by the Southern Church, Buddha did not reveal the whole of his wisdom, but only such portions thereof as could be beneficial to the less highly developed Southerners. As a teaching, it is really rather elementary and hardly adequate . to cultivated minds. But then the wisdom with which it adapts itself to the soul of the people is amazing. In this connection it is superior to the teachings of the Brahmins and to those of Christ. Brah- minism did, in fact, develop a special teaching ad usum populi, but there the best and profoundest qualities of its teaching were lacking* The Brahmins contented themselves with the conceited assumption that the plebs could never do justice to their doctrines. The message of Christ is indeed addressed to all and sundry, but it is addressed to them lock, stock and barrel, from the angle of an absolute ideal, without any regard for reality. No matter how much the Catholicism of the Mid- dle Ages has attempted to bridge this difficulty, it is a weakness which it is unable to eradicate altogether. The Catholic Church, like the Brahmins, differentiated between a higher and a lower form of truth, and the masses in both cases are the posers. Protestantism, the last attempt to make the pure spirit of the Gospels effective, robbed Christianity, on the one
CHAP, 8 KANDY . 55
hand, of its formative power (Lutheranism), or else it caused a reversion to the religious type belonging to the Old Testament (Calvinism). It is not true that the spirit of Jesus Christ has ever been understood fundamentally by the masses of people who confess His faith. His influence has been everywhere one which has acted from the surface to the centre, and in most cases it has remained to the last an external manifestation. How glaring is the contrast between the profession of the average Christian and the manner of his life! You do not notice this contrast in Buddhist people. Buddha formulated his teaching in so masterly a manner that it has taken real possession of the souls of those who profess it. By means of simple, easily comprehensible phrases and directions, he em- bedded the deepest wisdom in the heart of the simple man, so deep that neither superstition nor practical aberration has ever succeeded in repressing the essential Buddhist outlook. Bud- dhist virtues are the virtues of most Buddhists to an amazingly high degree.
Whence this advantage of the doctrine of Gautama, whence his capacity of giving so effective a form to his profound recog- nition? It is impossible to analyse genius. And yet I think there is one general consideration of great importance: namely, that Buddha was the offspring of a ruling house.
Talent, brains, intelligence, metaphysical profundity, or the power of religious intuition are neither dependent upon noble birth nor are they their natural attributes. On the con- trary, men of noble birth are rarely one-sided enough to de- velop one special talent to the utmost. In far-sightedness and ability to rule and govern, on the other hand, the aristocrat always has the advantage of the plebeian. He alone stands above every party by nature, is without resentment of any kind, only he has a purely objective relation to the weaknesses of men, for the very reason that he rarely suffers subjectively from these influences. And for this reason he excels, when it is a question of considering men as a whole and doing justice to their collective needs, even the more talented individual of low extraction. The whole teaching of Buddha bears unmistakably the stamp of such a princely mind} he was a typical Kshattrya.
56 CEYLON PART ii
In philosophical profundity he was far behind the Brahmins } in fact, he did not attach too much importance to philosophy, like most politicians and military leaders j but, as no one before him in India, he understood and knew men, knew how to do justice to their needs and allow for their weaknesses j and he succeeded in issuing his commandments in such a form that they resulted not only in a religious but also in a political and social optimum. At this point Buddhism proves itself decid- edly superior to Christianity. Buddha, the son of princes, the man above party, gave the world a doctrine which did not negate specially anything in existence (it negates everything which passes away at one fell swoop) and for this reason it could excite no intolerance and lead every one equally along the path of positive good- Christianity was originally a re- ligion of the proletariat j it was in opposition to the favoured classes from the beginning. Prejudice in favour of lives which have failed and resentment against those who are happy belong to the soul, if not to the spirit, of this religion, and it therefore carries, wherever it turns, the seed of disruption. It is of the greatest significance that the religion of peace $ar excellence has caused the greatest discontent. No matter how high- minded its founder was, his mind was not superior to the problems of the world.
How charming is the worship of the Buddhist! When the sun has gone down, the bellman calls the community to prayer} then these gentle brown creatures, with their long, bluish- black glossy hair and their exquisite hands (men and women are scarcely distinguishable) stream into the Dalada Maligawa. All who can afford it, present a candle, and every one carries an offering of blossoming flowers. The kindly priest in his yellow garment ^stands before the sanctuary in which the tooth of Buddha is enshrined behind the glistening golden door with its precious decorations, and he receives the gifts of the com- munity with an encouraging smile.— Even in Ceylon, where the original teaching exists in all its purity, Buddha is wor- shipped as God by the people, and he is surrounded by many other mythical creatures— angels, saints, Hindu gods and divinities from the Tamyl Pantheon. Marvellous to relate,
CHAP.S KANDY 57
however, all tnese excrescences have failed to divert the signifi- cance of the teachings of Buddha, nor have they reduced its power of manif estation. As far as I know the Church has never attempted to oppose the growth of myths. Here the world of appearances is almost insignificant5 these people are born with the teaching of Maya. Myths are never taken quite seriously, and no one concerns himself whether one confirms or contradicts another. Every one knows it: concepts belong to the vegetative life of the mind which grows and buds and blos- soms as a matter of course — all essentials belong to a different dimension. The teachings of Buddha apply to all, irrespective of their confession, just as Buddha never attempted to destroy in his disciples their belief in their gods. He only taught them that even the gods, like all appearances, are insubstantial and transitory.
How infinitely more easy it is for the inhabitants of the tropics to evince profound religious thought than it is for one of us! Of course, no concept is necessarily related to its meta- physical reason} Buddhism is right. The Westerner, however, is organised physiologically in such a manner that he cannot recognise this truth without further ado. He is too much entangled in the realm of appearances to attain the necessary distance for judging them. Hence the enormous importance played by dogmas in the history of Christianity. For Chris- tianity as a religion, it was a question of life or death as to which concept a man professed. Excrescences and new de- velopments, which by themselves were insignificant com- pared with those which have grown up round the doctrines of Buddha without in any way endangering them, have robbed Christianity at times of its very spirit. And for this reason it seemed really essential to fight for the 'true f aith' and to demonstrate the relation of the deity to the world in concepts valid by themselves, because our path can only lead to signifi- cance through the media of appearances j for this reason again, every appearance which does not express its immediate significance leads the mind into channels where it gets lost. How infinitely better off are the inhabitants of the tropics! They do not need to search for correspondingly exact ex-
5g CEYLON PART n
pressionj every form, or none at all, suits them. For, thanks to their mere physiology, they are conscious, as a matter of course, of the very things which, among us, are only revealed to an exceptional mind. t .
Thanks to this fortunate fundamental trait, tendencies which among Northerners have acted as destructive elements, take on a beneficent form among the Cingalese: I am thinking of the tendency to fanaticism. This morning I wandered afield and visited a distant and insignificant temple which is hardly ever visited by foreigners} it was inhabited by a real fanatic, a type of such a passionate temperament as I would never have suspected among this gentle, sexless people. At first he was suspidous and cautious, and addressed a series ^ of questions to me, as elementary as Wotan addressed to Mime, or Gurne- manz to Parsifal. Like them, I failed at first to replyj there is no more certain trick of delivering your opponent into^the disgrace of ignorance than to enquire after absolutely obvious things, for in the first moment the innocent suspects some dis- tant meaning behind the obvious. This method was particu- larly successful in my case, because, in my endeavour to enter into the mental processes of my interrogator, I entirely forgot to answer him. When, however, I eventually succeeded in proving that I was not altogether ignorant of Buddhism, his heart went out to me. Yes, he was a fanatic, one who was passionately in earnest in the cause of truth, and who was filled with fury by those who misconstrued the true doctrine. — Did he want to fight against them? — No, what for? What good would it do if the same people professed new concepts? — Did he not intend to influence their souls directly? — Yes, he would like to do that, but could much be gained that way? You had to be prepared for the teaching to be effective, and that was just what his evil contemporaries were not prepared for. Their souls were manifestly too young. It was his conviction that the only method of eradicating error from this world was that every individual who knew the truth should strive with the utmost energy to achieve his personal perfection. This would give an example more effective than any mania for prosely- tising.— The only way in which this fanatic expressed his out-
CHAP.S KANDY 59
look was, after all, in the greater intensity which he devoted to his own perfection, and that he suffered his fellow-men a little less gladly.
This discussion with the half -naked man in his yellow gar- ment of penitence taught me a great deal. We conversed in the courtyard of the temple, in the shadow of a bodhi-tree. A few earnest female ascetics in white robes listened reverently, while a swarm of brown children with gleaming eyes and gaily coloured scarves round their loins thronged inquisitively and noisily about us on all sides.
I AM already so accustomed to the presence of the monks that I would not like to be without them. There is something so extraordinarily peaceful in the regularity with which they perform their duties. Now they are going with their beggars' bowls into the town to fetch their daily meal5 then they go to bathe and to meditate, then they give lessons in holy writ and religion — everything is done at its appointed time. I am begin- ning, like the Cingalese, to regard these people as a portion of myself. For them they signify the incarnation of their ideal, the living image of what every one ought to be like. There is nothing to which man is more deeply attached than such symbolic images, even there, where they suggest to him, in Goethe's words: 'constant reproach.' These Bhikshu images, however, are not in any way associated in the minds of the Cingalese with the idea of reproachj the teachings of Buddha in their wisdom have obviated from the beginning all possi- bility of resentment. Even if the monk leads the best of lives, his truth in no way denies that of any otherj every one has a right to his own place. How delightful it is to serve an ideal which is so understanding and so generous! Especially since so little is needed to attain to it! — It is usual to consider Bud- dhism as a pessimistic philosophy, and, according to the strict letter, this is true. Since the letter, especially where we meet with it again and again, undoubtedly permits us to draw con- clusions concerning the mind of him who penned it, the possi- bility cannot be rejected that Buddha himself, at any rate at
60 CEYLON PART ii
times, experienced pessimism in our sense of the word. Why else should he have spoken constantly of suffering? For in fact he has made suffering the headstone of the corner in his teaching.— But modern Buddhism lacks every suspicion of pessimism, it transfuses life, quite on the contrary, with the mild glamour of peaceful joy. Nirvana signifies primarily the same to the inhabitants of the tropics as eternal bliss to the Westerner} almost everything which causes us to regard Bud- dhism as a pessimistic philosophy is characterised in the con- sciousness of its disciples as a blessed revelation. But this is not all. It is, above all, the certainty that salvation is not difficult to achieve which secures for the Buddhist of Ceylon so happy and so peaceful an existence. How simple are the rules which must be followed! How little wearying is the life even of those who have, as monks, finally embarked upon the path of salvation! Neither austerity nor efforts which are beyond any man's means are expected of him. As a result, the men in the yellow garments appear, not only joyous, but mostly cheerful as well. It seems to me that the teachings of Buddha have won for tropical men what Luther conquered for the Northerner: the possibility of a blessed existence in this world. Buddha, as well as Luther, denied the authority of the Church and declared man responsible; they both taught a doctrine according to which all differences between men are non-exist- ent, in which the inspired mortal is no nearer to his Maker than the simpleton. Both of them have given a halo to every- day life. It is true, of course, that Buddha did not get rid of the monastic orders j in fact, he raised them, on the contrary, to unprecedented importance. But then in India, monastic life does not mean the same as it does with us. It does not repre- sent an abnormal and extraordinary phenomenon, it only makes the condition in which every one lives normally, after he has done his business, appear organised. If I stayed long enough in Ceylon I fancy I too would experience the longing to wear the yellow toga.
Yes, these monks are delightful people. If I consider their peculiarity, I must, however, recognise that in them the wrea mediocritas seems idealised, for there is nothing really admi~
CHAP. 8 KANDY 61
rable in them. In Buddhist monasticism the disadvantages of too easy an idealism appear perhaps more prominently than anywhere else. At first this idealisation of mediocrity does in fact sublimate itj it acquires profundity. Lutheran fervour and Buddhist tolerance signify positive conditions which could only be achieved through the medium of such idealisation. On the other hand, it prevents the approach to a higher level, it causes relaxation, and is opposed to noble strife. This, of course, is the same wherever mankind is offered an ideal whose emulation is not impossible j for only the impossible can be aspired to without the possibility of retrogression. These dis- advantages are not so serious in the case of Buddhism as they are in that of Lutheranism, because no high form of idealism can exist in the air of the tropics. The disadvantages exist, for all that. It is probable that even among the Cingalese more im- portant types could be produced than actually exist, if only the Bhikshu did not embody their uttermost ideal.
IN fact, the real difference between Buddhism and Chris- tianity is greater than the theoretical consideration of the rules and regulations, which agree in so many respects in both sys- tems, would allow us to suppose. The essential shade of difference seems to me to have been seized upon by the Chinese statesman, who differentiated Oriental ethics from those of the West by saying that the Oriental teaching commands: Do to no one that which thou wouldest not have done to theej and the Occidental doctrine says: Do unto others as thou wouldest that they do unto thee. The former is essentially reticent, the latter essentially aggressive. And this is true. The love to- wards their fellows of the Buddhists differs from the Christian attitude in nothing more than in the fact that it does not aim at any amor mititans. From our point of view, such love is too lax and cool, and in spite of all its profundity of mind, too reasonable to appear great. This is admitted, but how should active love appear as an ideal to one who does not take seriously the individual with his joys and griefs? The insignificance of the individual is presupposed as a matter of course in the case
62 CEYLON PART H
of the Buddhist, whereas, in the case of the Christian, the fundamental assumption is the inestimable value of the human soul. The general Indian ideal of detachment has found its extreme historical realisation in Buddhism.
Every true sage will personally prefer the Indian ideal, and justifiably so. Anyone whose centre of consciousness is an- chored beyond the stream of phenomena, cannot possibly con- tinue his ideals on the surface. Independence will not make such a man cold or indifferent, because he has risen already on the ladder of life to such a high level that pure giving is for him the highest joy, and his well-wishing no longer requires his dependence. That the whole of India recognises the ideal of the sage as her own is due to the fact that her philosophy of life was thought out and invented by sages. But in Brahmanic India the ideal of detachment is general only in so far as the latter are regarded as the highest type of humanity, and this type should be detached. Those whose life is on a lower level, on the contrary, are taught that they should bind themselves, and that it is only thanks to the shock which is occasioned by the interchange of joy and suffering that they can hope for any form of progress. Buddhism has raised the specific ideal of its sages to be applicable to the generality of men.
Buddha's achievement is the logical consequence of his Anatma theory. If there is no I, if there is no substance be- yond the flow of conditions of consciousness, then it is sense- less to accept appearances as things of value even temporarily, after the manner of the Brahmins. This shows with rare clar- ity that erroneous theoretic presuppositions inevitably result in pernicious practical consequences} this is true even if they almost escape notice by themselves, and if the sphere of their effectiveness is considerably reduced by ideas emanating from a Afferent spirit. Buddhism has overlooked in one important direction all differences between men: this has brought them all to one level, and its lofty ideal of charity could not prevent this.^ Compared with Christians, Buddhists in the mass appear strikingly colourless and lacking in character. The detachment ideal acts as a damper to the vitality of all who are not sages by
CHAP. 8 KANDY 63
birth. Average man can perfect himself only by assenting to everything vital in him, by plunging deeply into this life. If he leaps his barriers prematurely, he withers. For this reason the Buddhists of Ceylon are lovable, spiritually cultured, good and sometimes even wise people, but they are never complete. In this connection Christianity seems undoubtedly superior to Buddhism. Christianity, too, exercises a levelling influence, but if one ideal should be valid for all, then the Christian ideal of attachment is the more desirable. Christian love is anything rather than superior to this world; its root, its actions, its realisation, are inextricably bound up with it, and since it affirms its link to the soil, it awakens all the spirits of life. And the fundamental Christian commandments of readiness to help, working for the glory of God and for the salvation of the world, keep men in constant tension. This, then, explains the unique efficacy of the Christian faith in relation to the progress of life on earth. Effectiveness does not necessarily imply metaphysical truth, but it does so in this case. If phenomena are taken seriously at all, then the consciousness of the attach- ment signifies, not only the practical, but also the prof ounder consciousness as opposed to that of detachment. He who can love in earnest is prof ounder than the cool sceptic. Only that which is plainly positive has absolute value. Of course, it is possible to be positive and independent simultaneously, but this never applies to a man who is indifferent, for he is negative. The very element which signifies freedom on the highest level of existence expresses itself on a lower one as courage to be dependent, courage to suffer, to .sacrifice and to lose. Hence the average Christian who accepts joy and sorrow cheerfully is on the better road than the average Buddhist.
+
THUS, Southern Buddhism — to express it in one phrase — signifies the ideal religion of mediocrity. It contains no acceler- ating motive, it favours no high idealism; it does not raise or make more profound. In the one-sided light of Buddhism the highest form of existence appears as no more valuable than the lowest. Every definite form of life is evil, Nirvana alone
64 CEYLON PART n
offers salvation, and a raising of the human condition in no way leads nearer to Nirvana. Such an outlook on the world gives to a great man, as Buddha was himself, an unique superi- ority, Nothing is more grandiose than a contempt of life on the part of one who, in the eyes of everybody, embodies the highest value. The small man is not m^ade greater by it. On the other hand, it does not spoil him, which is what Christianity does, in proclaiming blessed the lowly, and in persuading him that he is more than a great man. Buddhism, imbued by a princely spirit, allows validity to every condition $er se. The prince remains a prince for him, the servant a servant, before God as much as before men. The empirical differences are without transient significance for him. The prince, as prince, is no nearer to God than the slave, as the Egyptians thought, nor is the latter nearer to Him because he is lowly, as certain Christians would have us believe. Regarded from the angle of the goal, every condition appears to be of equal value. Thus Buddhism cultivates in the soul of the lowly individual a detachment, a superiority, which would otherwise only fall to the lot of favoured mortals. It does not cultivate an atmo- sphere of cheerful endurance in the hope of eternal reward, as in the case of the suffering Christians, nor Epictetus* Atar- ania, — nor the cynicism of a Diogenes — both of which are ex- pressions, not of real freedom, but of protection by the armour of reason — but it cultivates the superiority of the grand sei- gneur. I have met again and again with qualities in middle- class Buddhists which I conceived possible only in great men of this world: proof enough of the psychological genius of the son of the Sakyans. — The other day, for purposes of compari- son, I re-read Thomas a Kempis, who is regarded as a shining light by the whole of Christianity, and I confess that I felt disgusted. How very inferior is the state of soul which ex- presses itself in imitation! This grovelling before God, this undignified subordination, this constant fear of doing things badly, this process of torturing oneself for the sake of eternal bliss, has something offensively plebeian in it. And yet Thomas a Kempis possessed without doubt a pure and a noble mind. His outlook had been spoilt by a traditional education
CHAP. 8 KANDY 65
which assisted an absurd relation between God and the world as though empirical inferiority possessed metaphysical value by virtue of its inferiority. In distinguished individuals among Christians this heresy had probably done little damage because it ne^er controlled their lives directly, but rather assumed a contrapuntal relation to them5 all the more did it reduce the stature of the man who was small by birth. It has throttled every potential superiority from the beginning, in encouraging men not to rise above their condition} it has, more- over, implanted and ripened in their souls a sort of meta- physical malicious pleasure in the discomfiture of others, a spiritual haughtiness, whose practical climax is the assump- tion that mediocrity as such has a right to support and comfort* To-day, when this idea is dissociated from eschatological con- cepts and associated with social ones, its effect is more repulsive than ever and has often filled me with serious apprehension as to the future of Western culture.
Surely it is a matter of tremendous import whether spiritual truths are revealed and fostered by psychological and philo- sopical csdentes or nescientes.' Jesus was not less enlightened than Buddha. His consciousness has been excelled in pro- fundity only by very few of the Indian sages, and the signifi- cance of his teachings implies a gospel which mankind will never deny. But he lacked in every way the powers of analyt- ical thought, he never found dear concepts in his own mind to account for his knowledge, and it is therefore not surpris- ing that all too many of the teachings which are based upon the letter of his preaching, embody more misunderstanding than revelation. What sort of humility is it on which so much depends? Not subordination and lack of dignity, but pure receptivity towards the influences which emanate from the prof oundest depths. In what way ought one to love one's neighbour more than oneself and sacrifice one's ego? Not in the sense that other lives are more valuable than one's own, but in so far as the highest ideal is, like the sun, only to give and not to take. In how far is inferiority to be preferred to great- ness? Not in so far as the lowly'are more pleasing in the sight of God, but because the latter feel induced to dbg to appear-
66 CEYLON PART n
ances in a lesser degree, and so on. The true, that is to say the objectively correct, significance of Christian teaching has hardly been understood by Christianity up to the present, Chris- tianity has, therefore, given us, apart from treasures of good, also a rich harvest of evil. It has lowered the mental level of the Westerner. The disgusting materialism of our day is the grandchild of the mediaeval struggle towards heaven } the increasing danger of a dictatorship of the vulgar plebs over finer and mentally superior elements is the immediate conse- quence of the fact that the poor in spirit have been proclaimed blessed for more than a thousand years. At last they have believed that they alone are of real and intrinsic value, and they are now drawing the practical conclusion from this belief. The religious leaders of India knew the significance of their revelation, and they took every care to prevent misrepresen- tation. They knew very well how corrupting such misinter- pretations may come to be, in view of the essential paradox (from the point of view of the world) of every spiritual truth. And for this reason the average Buddhist, no matter what his faults may be, appears to be the child of a nobler spirit than his brother in the West.
THE timg has come when I turn once more to my body in order to examine what has happened to it in the tropics. I find that it has undergone no unimportant change. The change is similar to that experienced by my soul: my body too has been, if it is permissible to coin a word, buddhified. My reactions to external influences are different now, and I enjoy and suffer in a different formj my needs have changed, and this pro- gressive metamorphosis brings me nearer to the Cingalese every day. I am sure that, if I fell ill, I would have to imbibe other healing draughts than I would at home. In all proba- bility the household remedies of Ceylon would be more benefi- cial to me than the mixtures of our tropical clinics. At the same time, there is no question of a change in my real centre of gravity. I can therefore doubt no longer that the power of acclimatisation depends entirely upon the degree of one's
CHAP. 8 KANDY 67
imagination. The fact that the inhabitants of hot countries flourish better in northern latitudes than vice versa, and that most tropical animals can endure a northern climate fairly well, whereas those from the north rarely survive the tropics for long, is due — if I disregard specific circumstances — to the fact that severer conditions of life inevitably stimulate vitality, whereas luxuriant conditions can only be supported by those who are trained to them from birth. Animals, too, possess very little free imagination. Man, who possesses it in a suffi- cient degree, ought to be able to live in any climate and, as a matter of fact, he can. All he must do is to adjust his manner of life to the peculiarities of his surroundings, in order not to upset the biological balance, and anyone possessing imagina- tion acquires this knowledge by instinct. The unimaginative naturally succumb in the process of such experiments. Just as the animal, whose actual mode of being is his only means of expression, withers away in unusual surroundings, no North- erner can assert himself in the tropics if he lacks this power of transformation. In this connection it is interesting to ob- serve that Englishmen flourish pretty well here in spite of the fact that they retain the British mode of life,. which, as such, is the most unhealthy that can be imagined for the tropics. The explanation, and at the same time a new proof of it, is the fact that the Britisher possesses, of all Europeans, the most concentrated powers of imagination. For there are two kinds of rigidity: one which is the result of incapacity, and another which implies the utmost tension. The latter variety is well known enough in the case of the Stoics: the sage never loses his equilibrium because he is entirely complete in him- self. It would appear that the same must be assumed in the case of men whose bodies take no harm in any latitude, although they do not change. Thanks to centuries of physical culture, the British organism has developed into a world of its own so much that external circumstances affect it only slowly, if at all. And for this reason it is really more im- portant for him to consider his personal tendencies than the climate in which he lives.— This trait of the Englishman is, from a practical point of view, the most advantageous} if for
68 CEYLON PART n
no other reason, for the remarkable simplification of the prob- lem of life which it involves. But he who strives for recog- nition can thank his Maker that his imagination has not yet become a power of cohesion, but goes on expressing itself in change. Such a man, thanks to the plasticity of his being, is in equilibrium with the world, and his equilibrium is the more reliable in so far as no serious shock need be catastrophic, which is generally the case in the rigid individual. But above all things, the versatile man alone is capable of perceiving the true significance of his surroundings, because he alone is di- rectly influenced by them and consequently capable of entering into sympathetic relations with them.
+
YESTERDAY at sundown I saw birds of the size of eagles, flying in great hordes up the valleyj and then I suddenly recognised that they were not birds _ but— bats. ^They were flying dogs. — Strange how little surprise one feels in the midst of tropical surroundings at the unexpected! Apparently, our minds are prepared here for the most powerful contrasts, in the same way as our bodies, once accustomed to extremes of light and dark, regard the most curious phenomenon as normal. Would I be surprised if, in the midst of the jungle, I met with a god? Hardly. He could not appear more incredible than . so many creatures do, which I behold before me ^ every day. The compass of possibilities is so large in the tropics that one learns to be neither surprised nor appalled. The strongest con- trast, speaking objectively, which I have observed so far is the one between the exquisitely blue sea lapping against the palm trees on Mount Lavinia and the dreadful, armoured and evilly black-looking crabs which crawl sideways along the strand in hundreds. No animal would look better in hell, and if I perceived one on a northern shore, I am sure it would call forth the most horrible images in my soul. On those of Ceylon, however, I am delighted by their appearance. Even if I were to imagine them enlarged hundreds of times — as a rule, the surest way of being horrified — they do not look any more grue- some for all that. Thus it is quite probable that the gigantic
CHAP. 8 KANDY 69
saurians of the prehistoric world, which, viewed in our own, would spread fear and terror, might, in their natural sur- roundings, which must undoubtedly have displayed greater contrasts even than the tropical world to-day, have appeared as quaint and amiable creatures.
TO-MORROW I begin a carriage tour through the interior of Ceylon. I spent the last few days exclusively in observing nature, in order not to enter the jungle without any kind of knowledge of it* I find it extraordinarily difficult to see in the light of the tropics. The excess of light prevents all shading of colours to such an extent that even the most gaily tinted creature seems almost invisible against its coloured background j and thus the forests round Kandy seem to be more lifeless than any which I have seen hitherto*
I succeeded at last to-day, after having turned over hundreds of stones and poked in many rotting tree-stumps, in catching a glimpse of one of those enormous centipedes which inhabit the tropics. They are revolting creatures. Everything in their appearance is opposed to the positive tendencies of human nature j every one of their peculiarities, adapted or transported to the realm of men, would make monsters of us, and I am surprised that primitive Buddhists, who made such admirable use of the scarecrow for furnishing their hell, entirely failed to notice this beast. It is truly a loathsome animal. ' And yet it could never occur to me to question its right to existence, although this is my first thought when I behold inferior speci- mens of humanity} these centipedes are perfect in their way. Once the presupposition of this creature is admitted, then it must also be granted that its execution has been admirable*
How do I know that the centipede is perfect? I am unable to give special reasons, but the facts are evident to every one who has the power of placing himself in the position of other beings. There is something very peculiar about this evidence, which is true of all perfection, because it is apparent, within certain limits, even to the most unobservant. No example proves the point better than that of the Englishman. When-
7o CEYLON PART ir
ever I meet one of the representatives of this people I am shocked by the contrast between the dearth of their talents, the limitation of their horizon and the measure of recognition which every one of them exacts from me, as from everybody else. Even the more eminent Englishmen (the really eminent remain, as everywhere else, beyond the confines of generali- sation) can hardly be taken seriously as intellectuals. They affect me like animals who, furnished with a number of un- erring instincts, control a certain sector of reality perfectly. For the rest, however, they are blind and incapable. No matter how near to the springs of life they may be, they lack originality to an extraordinary degree. They all think, feel and act alike, there are no surprises in the inner lives ^of any one of them. However, I am forced to accept the British in exactly the same way as I accept the animals} they ^ represent, as they are, the perfect realisation of their possibilities} they are completely what they might have been. ^ This explains their powers of convincing others, their superiority over the other peoples of Europe (which at present cannot reasonably be contested)} it explains also the contagious nature of their peculiarity. They alone are really ^ perfect in their way amongst all Europeans, and to perfection every one bows the knee. The infinitely richer nature of the German has not yet found its form, and on this account he is not accepted any- where unless there be some compelling reason. The fact that perfection is within the realm of the attainable even for him, is proved, however, by the one and only type of German who has hitherto been perfectly expressed: the Austrian aristocrat. He may not be very efficient, the same thing may be true of him, which is so often true of cows: his breeding for cform> may have deteriorated his 'capacity.* None the less, he is perfect in his way. For this reason he is accepted everywhere} he is flattered, imitated and admired, and the haughty Eng- lishman is the first to seek intercourse with him. '
CHAP. 9 DEM BULL 71
9
DEMBULL
I AM not likely to forget this first portion of my coach journey through the country. It was a long drive, through silent, primeval forests. It led upwards to a steep, bare mountain, into whose summit rocky temples had been chiselled. Forest was round about me as far as the eye could reach j the extrem- ities of its out-runners stretched with their tree-tops as far as the outer courtyard of the Temple of Dembull; and the grey top of the mountains looks defiant in the midst of all this greenery. It was the interior of the sanctuary, however, which made the greatest impression upon me. Here a miraculous flora, transplanted, as it were, in the dead stone by the mind of man, covers the ground. Hundreds of gaily coloured Buddhas blossom there peacefully side by side} but in the midst of them, every now and again, just as we find weeds in the centre of a well-tended flower-bed, we meet with a full-blown Hindu god. Thus Nature can never deny herself. Nothing seems less in accordance with the spirit of Him who has overcome the world than such a flora of sculptured saints before which the faithful bow in prayer j Gautama would probably have destroyed them himself. And yet the Cingalese are right} they see no antago- nism between this lovely garden and the stern sermon of Buddha. This bed of flowers means nothing but the teaching of the nothingness of existence} it is this teaching itself which is expressed in the language of the tropical zone.
A recumbent Buddha, just chiselled out of the rock, gives the effect of an independent being. He lies there alone, ab- stracted, solitary amidst his seated counterparts} he is as lonely among them as the bare top of the mountain is in the midst of the greenery. Yet he does not seem to be unique or of a differ- ent substance from the rest} it is only in appearance that he possesses a life of his own. It is in this way presumably that Gautama himself regarded his personality. No matter how unique and lonely and omnipotent he may have appeared to his disciples, he knew that it was only on the surface that he
72 CEYLON PART ii
was different from them. He had already lived for a long time in the consciousness of those depths where all multiplicity is realised as well as resolved in unity* ... I dreamed for a long time in front of this vision. As I looked out through the gate over the tree-tops, I beheld hordes of monkeys who pursued, in a silent tight-rope dance, their fodder for the evening meal.
HS
10 TO HABARANE
row poor is the power of receptivity of civilised man! I [fail to differentiate all the various zones of the jungle, with the exception of the most coarse and obvious ones, and I think in envy of the elephant who can find his path, in a wild district he has never visited before, as easily as we find our road after consulting a signpost. At home, in the forests of the north, where the eye of the hunter is accustomed to observe delicate shades, I know my way about fairly well} but here I am lost from the beginning. I could not explain why certain birds only appear in this place, and not in another, which does not look very different; nor could I say why at certain spots, and only there, hundreds of butterflies appear. I am blind, that is all. More favoured creatures would recognise the di- visions and the structures of the primeval forest with their eyes, just as mine would in the case of St. Petersburg. This is even true of the ocean. As a matter of fact, in cases where the most receptive of men contemplate the magnificence of uni- formity, what actually spreads itself before one is an infinitely rich world, no more uniform than the primeval forest. I noticed, during my journey through the Indian Ocean, that the flying fishes rose in masses only from certain places, and after we had passed certain limits they were entirely missing. And again, I observed that there, and only there, jelly-fish reddened the water in hundreds, and that the dolphins could be observed at their graceful games only in certain streaks. I am sure that these facts are connected with the outlines of
CHAP, ii LAKE MINNERI 73
different conformations* I am too blind, however, to perceive them.
What do we see? Only that which corresponds to our human needs* In the town, on the street and in the field, perhaps we perceive the essentials, and it is possible that we perceive cor- rectly whole countries, such as Holland or Japan, who owe their fundamental character to their inhabitants. But this gauge fails entirely in places where nature has no necessary relation to manj there, all our schemes and systems are, from nature's point of view, mere folly. How stupid, for instance, is the rubrication which we have adopted in regard to the sky at night! I am rather proud of the fact that up till to-day, although I have gazed upon the starlit sky many a night, I have not yet discovered the Southern Cross. It is true, of course, that I have quite intentionally not allowed anyone to point it out to me. Once it has been shown to me, no doubt the stars in question would have formed the same constellation in my consciousness, just as the unhappy creature to whom the similarity of some rock to Napoleon had been pointed out is condemned for ever to see his image in the mountain. Men always try to impose human connections upon non-human ones. But this much is true, and no one can take it from me: I have not discovered the Southern Cross for myself, which proves that my mind has not yet lost its independence alto- gether.
ii LAKE MINNERI
i
N the days of my childhood and adolescence, when I hated ^books and found all my happiness in observing, hunting and taming animals, this primeval lake would have seemed to me like a paradise on earth. I have spent hours along its shores, and again and again I have sighted new creatures. On sandbanks there lay crocodiles resembling tree trunks guarded by stilt-birds} cow-herons and bitterns fed among the buffa- loes j grey- and silver-herons stood on little peninsulas and in
74 CEYLON PART n
the tree-tops. The water was covered with droves of pelicans, kites and eagles were cradled in the airj one of these, which was quite strange to me, silver-white with dark covering feath- ers, was one of the most beautiful beasts of prey that I ever saw. The snake-necked fisher-birds, however, supplied the key to the picture, and their conventionalised form and heraldic attitude gave a mythical turn to the whole impres- sion.
How delightful it is to be in a world which was finally cre- ated on the fifth day! Here all power is still unbroken, here everything is primeval and true. Among men this is only true of children and of the greatest and rarest individuals} the appearance of most of them tells us nothing of their nature. Animals are always perfect, they are always what they might be; they are the comprehensive expression of their possibilities. It is said, in reply to this, that they are so limited. Of course they are limited, but this does not detract from their value. It is not in this sense that the fact of our lesser limitation is an advantage, but in another sense (lack of limits in itself being no ideal), that we possess various possibilities of perfection instead of only one. In the case of men, perfection also means the highest possible achievement, and perfection necessitates limita- tion. We regard the man who acts from necessity, by virtue of an inner law, as being on a higher level than the one whose action is dictated by his whims j we value, as the highest thoughts, those whose expression is final. And the same is true of art, and in fact of every expression of life. Thus even in the human realm the ideal lies in limitation, not in independ- ence. The respect in which we differ from animals is not in the ideal, it is in the elements by means of which the ideal is to be realised, ^ If this is so, I do not know why the limitation of animals, which are always perfect in their univocal signifi- cance, is quoted as proving how uninteresting they are. On the contrary, it is for this very reason that they are interest- ing, more interesting than all imperfect human beings. I, for one, would revere as a demi-god the man who as a personality stands on the level on which, as a product of nature, every snake-necked fisher-bird of Lake Minneri stands. I am sure
CHAP. 1 1 LAKE MINNERI 75
I owe more enlightenment and stimulus to animals than to most men with whom I have had prolonged intercourse* It is too easy to survey menj the number of specimens whose understanding demands an enlargement of our existing con- cepts is all too rare, whereas the meanest animal requires such an enlargement if his nature is to be fathomed. He who wishes to understand some low sea-creatures must learn to realise in himself a state of consciousness which may con- ceivably be likened to that of a potentialised stomach, whose ever so strong reactions to specific stimuli and ever so unusual powers of physical and chemical imagination can never lead, in their final synthesis, to more than a general and uncertain feeling- A crayfish does not represent one, but two or three entities; his consciousness is not centralised in our sense. Any- one who wishes to penetrate the soul of a fox must succeed in experiencing the powers of scent as his central sense and in re- lating all impressions to this sense, as, in the case of men, they are related to his sense of sight. In the case of a bird the prob- lem is different again, and so on and so forth* This probably explains why most truly great minds have preferred 'nature* to human society. The latter limits, the former liberates and helps us beyond the confines of humanity. And in so doing it raises our consciousness of the true root of things. For at the root all creation is one, and from the root emanate all the forces of evolution.
How exquisitely beautiful is the evening! The lake reflects the last light of the western sky. The screeching of the sea- mews and the many-voiced croaking of the frogs rises to my lodging, and the last pelicans fly majestically towards the forest. In the immediate vicinity is a pack of wild elephants} I have already heard them trampling. My brown host has promised to wake me in case they should come out into the open during the night.
ONCE more I wandered out into the playground of the ani- mals. I have stalked many a magnificent eagle and caused legions of water birds to flee before me. And every time when
76 CEYLON PART n
I step from the morass into the jungle, the tree-tops become alive with long-tailed monkeys, who jump or almost fly away at my approach.
It is amazing how much one gains during such hours of exclusive observation! Regarded from the angle of the mind, pictures of reality are on the same level as the creations of the imagination} in this respect there is no essential difference be- tween experiences and ideas. He who observes with an open mind is productive for an equally long period; the man who could have noticed everything would have re-created the world by his own powers. But then the soul needs rich and various diet if it is to flourish and develop, and no brain is creative enough to invent its own requirements in sufficient quantityj for this reason no one can afford to live on his own ideas. External experience is necessary also because the mind is never free as long as it is constantly surrounded by its own products. All those must shrivel who confine themselves within their own worlds, no matter how wide these may be. Their inner life does not grow richer but poorer; they ossify more and more in their peculiarities. I have experienced this myself. During the years which I spent in large cities I had ceased to look about me, because the activities of the towns did not attract my interest. The consequence was that my ideas began to crystallise, and I was in danger of being imprisoned by them. At the age of seven and twenty I was very nearly suffocated within a system I had produced myself. . . . For- tunately I realised the danger I was in before it was too late. Now I force myself to observe, even when I do not feel in- clined for it; I cultivate the small zest of curiosity which I have still preserved, and I am grateful for every impression which tears asunder the webs which are woven by my brain.
Yes, one must know how to see. . . . Can I really do it? In the sense and the measure in which I would like to do so, I confess I cannot. Several times I had the intention of de- scribing one or other of the marvels I had seen, and each time I had to recognise that this was beyond me. That means that I have not really seen them. Of course, it is not true that feeling creates the power of expression — creative power and
CHAP. 1 1 LAKE MINNERI 77
the power to experience belong to different dimensions — but, on the other hand, as I have already said, observation and ideas, regarded from the angle of the mind, are on the same level, so that we only realise perfectly what we might have in- vented. In my case, I could never invert single phenomena, and therefore I can never perceive them as such outside myself. My imagination leads each individual phenomenon immedi- ately back to its inner cause, and from this point of view, not its reality, but its possibility, so to speak, appears as its essen- tial. That this interpretation of my attitude is correct is proved by the opposite test which can be applied to my powers of memory. A clever friend suggested years ago that I would have to appear at the Last Judgment with a secretary, because my memory for events was so bad. And I really cannot re- member any single event or fable. Conversely, however, I seem to be incapable of forgetting a general connection; I only have a memory for details during moments of productive ten- sion.— How I have struggled against this limitation! Again and again I have tried to acquire an inner relation to some particularised subject, to enter into a single human being, a single picture or a single period, completely and continuously; again and again I gave myself up to the influence of minds who possessed this quality which I lack — it was in vain. And thus I had to content myself with the recognition that it is a mistake to attempt to exceed one's empirical confines. One must see to it how far one can get within them and by their means.
There is still a great deal of uncertainty amongst psychol- ogists and sesthetidans concerning the different kinds of our powers of comprehension. Profundity is often assumed in painters, and philosophers are frequently credited with pictur- esque powers of observation. Such judgments are generally wrong. Anyone who presents perfectly the appearance of things, which is what the great painter or poet does, in fact expresses its spiritual significance — but his soul may be igno- rant of it. He who, conversely, can seize the inner meaning, also does justice to appearances — but he does not need to be actually aware of them. The most interesting instance of this
78 CEYLON PART n
kind is Leo Tolstoi* I do not know a more profound presen- tation of human life than his epic on the great French war, but I know that Tolstoi, as an individual, lacked all philosophical profundity. As in the case of most Russians (and all other young and undifferentiated races) Tolstoi lacked the power of intensive abstraction, the capacity of summing up the partic- ular in the general, which is another definition of profundity. On the other hand, he possessed the eagle eye of the savage. Now if anyone presents appearances which he only beholds without understanding them, and does so perfectly, the thoughtful reader will inevitably regard this representation as possessing profundity — in fact, he will discover greater depths than he would do in really prof ounder poets whose vision is less acute.
12
POLLONARUWA
THE remains of past glory have never made such an im- pression upon me as the ruins of the residence of King Parakrama. This is not on account of their artistic perfections; they are beautiful, but I have seen others more beautiful still. The strength of the impression is due to the fact that I have never hitherto been permitted to see buildings which express the specific beauty of ruins — a beauty which is conditioned by totally different laws than artistic beauty — to such perfection. Ruins exercise a greater magic upon us than well-preserved works of art, not merely because they suggest to our souls, in the image of the past, the idea of transitoriness; nor because the work of art corroded and worn by time stimulates us just as the unfinished work of art does, by inducing the mind to supply what is lacking in reality: the essential magic of ruins is due to the fact that they show human powers of creation as a part of the forces of the cosmos, by which transposition they acquire an infinite background instead of the limited background of one personality or one age. A temple in marble, glimmering in gold, may present the highest measure of human
CHAP. 12 POLLONARUWA 79
creative effort. When time, however, has left its imprint on the surface, when its contours display the traces of Nature's eternal toil, then such a temple has become her integral com- ponent. Many an image of Buddha which is preserved in the cave-temples of Ceylon expresses the soul of the Buddhist community in an ennobled form. But the colossal statues at Gal Vihare, whose surface has long since assumed the character of its surroundings, signify more than that. They are forms of nature, like the canons, which were hollowed out by gigantic streams in the course of thousands of years; they are like the valleys, carved out by glaciers, and the creative power of the human mind does not seem less but more mighty still when placed by the side of the forces which control the courses of the stars. The ruins of Pollonaruwa are more magnificent than any which I have seen hitherto, because the nature of Ceylon is incomparable in its creative exuberance, and has done its utmost to magnify their effect. The columns and remains of the temple, which are strewn far and wide throughout the jungle, have themselves become part of the jungle. Plants have substituted the decayed mortar, trees have completed broken cupolas. Enormous daghobas, where preserved, have become the foundation of a new nature. One sees a dead past infused into eternally young life, like a skeleton in living flesh. My thoughts wander irresistibly to the distant shores of Greece. The Greek landscape cannot bear comparison with that of the tropics, and for this reason Greek ruins are not nearly as effective as those of Ceylon. Undoubtedly the tem- ples of Hellas appeared greater still in their time as perfect human creations, than they do to-day as manifestations of nature. But what the latter in the course of time has failed to do, the spirit of the Greeks achieved beforehand* Every Greek sanctuary was planned originally as part of nature, and in its necessary relation to its surroundings. As a result, the little which has remained seems to be a component part of the landscape so effectually that the total impression only differs from that created in Pollonaruwa in so far as the ruins do not belong to the living realm of nature, but to the dead realm of mountains and the sky.— The living element is more con-
80 CEYLON PARTH
genial to my temperament than any dead perfection} for this reason the primeval forest means more to me than the Acrop- olis. On the other hand, the power of the Greek genius has never impressed my consciousness more vividly than in the midst of a landscape which has succeeded in assimilating com- pletely the transfigured image of Gautama.
13
ANURADHAPURA
WHAT wonderful men the old kings who erected the gigan- tic monuments of Ceylon must have been! These build- ings are not memorials to idle riches, nor the whimsical crea- tions of an uncontrolled imagination. They exhale severe and simple greatness, which, in the midst of tropical luxury, seems almost unnatural By the side of the rocky fortress of Sigiri, the retreat of the father murderer, Kassyapa, the castles of Europe seem like the toys of children j the mere bath of this robber is a structure resembling one of the royal tombs of Egypt These daghobas are like natural mountains, and yet it is 'mind' in its highest meaning which gives its character to their contours. But the wonder of wonders of Ceylon is the rock of Mihintale, where Mahinda, the son of King Asoka, the great apostle of Buddhism, spent and ended his days. This retreat — a narrow terrace on the highest point of the moun- tain, hewn by the hand of an artist out of the rock — is more regal than anything I have yet beheld. It is overshadowed by steep cliffs which descend abruptly to the valley in front of it. Beneath the infinite primeval forest expands, whose holy silence is only interrupted now and again by the trumpetings of elephants. No one but a king could have chosen such an eyrie for his residence. It is impossible to spend even the briefest time in this place without progressing inwardly. Ma- hinda appears to my imagination in the typical attitude of a contemplating Buddha of enormous proportions, as they used to represent him in stone. It is thus that, immovable and gentle, he must have gazed down upon the blooming life of the
CHAP.IS ANURADHAPURA 81
valley, like a man who has, out of the fulness of his power, renounced everything*
How well the legend has chosen its words in comparing these rulers with tigers and elephants! That is exactly what they were. The hothouse air of this region does not, as a rule, pro- duce great individuals, to whose development it is unfavour- able* The jungle is a thicket, not a forest j and its fauna, in general, is rich and luxuriant rather than important, as regards its individual plants. Every now and again a single tree seems to touch heaven with its crown, but if you look more closely you perceive that this giant is not a single entity: roots shoot downwards from its branches, and* where the eye imagines that it beholds a personality, it is confronted in reality with a pedigree* The classical instance of this is embodied in the holy Bodhi tree of Anuradhapura, which demonstrably grew out of a cutting which King Asoka brought from Buddha-gaya. This oldest tree of history presents itself as a young and slen- der stripling: the thing which lives and flourishes before my eyes is the latest descendant of the original crown of the tree which dropped its roots down again into the earth. Growth in Ceylon takes place at an almost giddy speed I have seen shoots twelve months old here of a size which corresponds to about fifteen years5 growth in Central Europe. Here trees shoot up like grass. They die, however, equally rapidly: all that redly lives here is youth. The same applies to animals and men. From the point of view of type, they are^ eternally immature j they multiply in terrifying numbers at terrific speed, and one generation succeeds another equally quickly. ^ How- ever, nature, which in Ceylon, as a rule, has neither time nor inclination to create individualities, brings forth occasional spec- imens none the less. It is as if a brake were put upon the wheel of action. Such an inhibition to fundamental energies results in creatures so enormous, so powerful, as no other clime could produce: the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger. And even within the realm of men, this flow of growth has been accumulated once or twice into single personalities; they were men of immense dimensions, who were quite rightly compared in legend with elephants.
82 CEYLON PART n
Now I understand why, in the early days of our planet, when palm groves still crowned both poles, those gigantic creatures could be created and could exist whose skeletons inspire us with incredulous surprise. Kings like Mahinda, Parakrama Bahu, Dutthagamini, were beings of quite a different kind from the great emperors of the East. The latter were person- alities of such power, of such immense force of will, that their greatness seemed independent of external circumstances} they created the conditions which they needed. The great kings of the tropics were not men on a smaller scale j perhaps they were even mightier. But the reason for their existence lay to a lesser extent in themselves, than in nature, of which they were component parts j creatures of their peculiarity could only exist amidst tropical luxuriance. They required an excess of food, to be supplied to them without any effort on their part, they needed a minimum of material resistance and surroundings which were easily and instantly swayed according to their wish. They could not have existed under any other conditions. The same must have been true, once upon a time, of the saurians. Those giants also were conditioned by their sur- roundings} they could come into life and flourish only in the midst of a nature which was more rich still than that of the tropics of to-day. In those days the bulk of all created things must have grown and died rapidly — their traces are all gone. In consequence, the rare specimens of the age, who in the midst of this change were destined to endure, grew to pro- portionately greater dimensions.
The days of such greatness are past. Nature is too poor nowadays to support life on such a monumental scale. To- day cheapness seems more suited to our circumstances, and, as far as mankind is concerned, its under-wood has grown too self-conscious to allow a free road to the individual giant-tree. It may be that this is to the good} I do not know what, per sey is more desirable — an indifferent populace which permits the development of great and important individuals, or a higher general standard which only suffers the individual to rise above its own level within very limited confines, and which throttles
CHAP.IS ANURADHAPURA 83
every offspring of the giant race. I wish it were possible for a high general standard and giants, in the sense of the prehistoric world, to co-exist. Unfortunately, however, intimate laws of nature seem to oppose such a hope. No matter what attitude we adopt, we are forced to choose one of two evils, and I for my part confess that I would gladly sacrifice the whole race of rabbits in order that the contemplation of an atlantosaurus could make me forget once more the pettiness of quaternal existence.
DURING my wanderings through the ruins to-day, I hit by accident upon a hut which was occupied by a young English- man, who dwells there, in the midst of hundreds of serpents. He is an eccentric creature which only Albion could produce. There are plenty of snake-charmers, snake-hunters, and friends of serpents, and in the latter group I may count myself too, for I have always taken special delight in the perfect curves of these creatures. But more intimate contact with reptiles re- quires a special attitude which by nature is not normal to men, and this can be observed invariably in every Indian snake- charmer. This Englishman, however, lives with the creatures who share his house as if he could not do otherwise, and as if such communion were a matter of course. They represent nothing extraordinary to him: he neither admires them nor does he do business with them, nor do they interest him from a scientific point of viewj these writhing creatures signify his natural surroundings. There were enormous pythons and furious-looking hooded snakes in full possession of their veno- mous stings. He had caught them all himself, and he played about with them in front of me until I began to feel most uncomfortable. The natives declare that he is exempt by virtue of a talisman, but he said himself coolly that a certain amount of dexterity and familiarity with their peculiarities makes cobras quite harmless. It seemed to interest him when I told him that there are effective antidotes to their poison j he him- self had never heard of them, and never weighed the question
84 CEYLON PART n
in his mind. He noted down the address of the institution where the serum is prepared, but I doubt whether he will ever make use of it.
The interesting feature of this home of snakes is that the mentality of its curious owner has created the surroundings in which the serpents are innocuous — in the same sense in which lunatics present no danger to both nurse and visitor in a well-conducted asylum. People whose minds are deranged are never really harmless, but in the asylums they are allowed to move about freely, and there they do not, in point of fact, do any damage. Just in the same way, cobras can never be really tame — they are, and will remain, dull, senseless and infuriated creatures, incapable of intelligence or friendliness. Neverthe- less, this Englishman handled even the wildest of them with- out being hurt, and he knew how to calm even those which shook with fury, by placing his hand gently on their heads, in the time-honoured way, and then pressing their heads down slowly. In fact, in his company even I could wander about amongst these snakes with a minimum of danger. It was an experience which I count among the most important that I have had. In the case of intelligent creatures, such as normal men and women and the higher orders of animals, the enormous influence exercised by methods of treatment and surroundings does not seem very remarkable, because in their case psychic limitations, of which they are conscious as so much objective reality, signify objectively no less than material barriers. Any- one who possesses free powers of choice at all reacts to good and evil generally in a manner best suited to the circumstances. Only obtuse animals and equally obtuse men are not capable of being influenced in this sense. But lunatic asylums and this home of serpents which I visited to-day prove that a certain degree of influence is still possible where the question of psychic barriers hardly arises. Here the effect is purely objec- tive, here it depends entirely upon the intensity of effect whether a change in behaviour results or not. Thus it is possible to conceive surroundings even for a cobra in which she would be harmless. Now mentally deranged people are much happier in the asylum in which they behave themselves,
CHAP.IS ANURADHAPURA 85
than outside it. This makes me think that moral superiority must somehow correspond to objective expediency^ and the only interpretation I can put upon this is that moral behaviour (I speak of behaviour, not of intention!) is nothing but the natural expression of adaptability. Criminals are, as a rule, very honourable among themselves, and a perfect connoisseur of men can find true servants among the most unreliable people. A contented man is seldom malicious, all of which proves that expediency conditions moral behaviour. If I translate this state of affairs into inner relations, or regard it from an inner point of view, I can deduce that cmoral in- stinct/ as postulated in the eighteenth century, does exist in so far as psychic well-being is linked to external expediency, and that every one strives after well-being. Such a 'moral instinct' is, of course, in no sense an ethical quality j the serpent has no character} it is only above a certain level of the development . of the soul that the impulses of nature can be subordinated to
.5 • /i~t 1 n « • *» • ~
the spiritualisation of tendencies which, as such, already exist in the snake. Herein is rooted the truth of the conception of paradise. A world could no doubt be conceived in which there- is no evil, in so far as there would be no evil intention at the bottom of any action. We Europeans will never create a para- dise in spite of all the charity which we wear on our sleeves, because our animal instincts are too strong. The Indian Bud- dhist world in many ways gives an impression of paradise, be- cause their faith forbids them to harm an animal, and they thus have no antagonistic relation to man. They tolerate man's existence, as one genus tolerates that of another, remember- ing that there is room for all. In India people are less afraid of a tiger> and justifiably so, than they are in Europe of a stag at rutting time. — Here we are also at the root of the truth, which as such goes back to Plato, with which all Christian mystics are familiar, but whose theory has been most perfected by the Persians, the truth that divine love lives within every one, and that it depends upon externals whether it manifests itself or not. These externals may be inclination to a woman,
86 CEYLON PART n
the influence of appropriate surroundings, or a hard fate, which cause the soul to change—the problem is always that the in- strument, *man,J shall be attuned in such a way that God may play upon it. Of course it is so.
+
ONCE more I wander through the gigantic town of ruins, and the great arteries of the palace and its mighty artificial pond. It is evening. Pious pilgrims are playing in front of the Ruangweli-daghoba. The liturgy is intoned in a well-modu- lated voice by a monk, and the laity job in the rhythm. The altar is covered with blossoming gifts of flowers. Round about the sanctuary, as far as supplies have been available, the faith- ful have placed their candles j and now that they have been lit and the twilight has turned to night, they stand out against the stony background like stars against the sky. What deep poetry lies in this service to the old relics! Here a pious people, led by a more pious ruler, have, in the course of years of toil, raised a mountain above a souvenir, so that it shall never on any account come to harm. The relic in all probabil- ity does not really come from Buddha— what does it matter? The important fact is that it shall give content to the worship. The lover often prefers a worthless memento to a precious one, because the one which has no value expresses, in the purest and most unadulterated form, the significance which it has for him.
It is most momentous that this worship of relics has been so highly developed by a faith which attaches least importance to anything transitory. The more transitory a possession is, the more precious does it become to men: in this way Buddha's assurance. that he would in every sense cease to exist after his death, has led to the precise opposite of what he intended: his followers cling all the more firmly to that which remained of him. Not only have all his words been preserved faithfully, all his teachings and the legends of his life, but his earthly re- mains have become the object of a cult, and he himself has been transfigured into a god. Simple folk cannot understand the doctrine of Nirvana in the way in which the enlightened teacher wishes to have it understood. To them, the Nirvana
CHAPES ANURADHAPURA 87
of the Perfected One signifies that, although removed beyond the realm of time, He continues all the more eternally. But, of course, they feel no certainty, for the monks daily teach them the reverse. Prayer therefore assumes, in these holy places, the character of Mass said for departed souls. A sweet melancholy reverberates through the liturgy, like the atmos- phere of mourning for a creature dear to us who, we pray, has gone to a better world.
PART THREE: INDIA
Ai
RAMESHVARAM
bthe night began, the Brahmins signed to me to enter the temple. I followed them without knowing what I was to do. There I beheld pilgrims without number, hierophants and temple servitors, round elephants decked out like ikons, and carriages and stretchers gleaming with gold in the light of torches. They were preparing for a procession. And before I knew where I was, I found myself at the head of it. In front of me, elephants, the most trusted bearers of tradition, moved with their dignified motion. Behind me followed the goddess, aloft on her high throne on a precious palanquin. Thus we paced amidst the rattle of drums and the harsh sound of clarionets, in a solemn round until late at night, through the most marvellous cloisters in the world. The walls were lined with the faithful, whom one could behold only when suddenly illuminated by the torches, bowing in fearful reverence.
What a wondrous introduction into the land of India! The Temple of Rameshvaram, on the southern extremity of the peninsula, lies there lonely, in a palm grove surrounded by the sea. It is a building hardly smaller than the largest mon- asteries of our Middle Ages, and its passages cannot be rivalled for beauty of form and colour anywhere else on earth. This temple is said to have been founded by Rama himself after he had conquered Sita from Ravana. It is considered the second most holy place of Hindustan. Every one who can possibly manage to do so makes the pilgrimage to this place after going to Benares. And indeed, the whole of India seems to be represented here. I can see every colour, eyery costume, every type, from the dusky Tamyls to the white-skinned men from Kashmir; I find proud Rajputs on the one hand and Sanyassis on the other, whose hair has turned to a mass of felt. Languages and dialects without number resound in the air, a hundred different traditions speak from the different facesj caste rubs shoulders with caste, and prejudice with prejudice. I have never seen such a variety among men be- fore.
91
92 INDIA PART in
What strikes me is that, in spite of the extraordinary differ- ences among the pilgrims, somehow or other they are the expression of one mind. In what sense? In that of faith? Perhaps that is so, but that is not what I meanj I mean some- thing which I have never seen before. I do not mean the metaphysical consciousness that everything external somehow belongs together inwardly, for, no matter how characteristic it may be of the best type of Indians, in those who are gathered together here — mostly simple, humble folk, incapable of speculation — this quality is probably developed only to a very small degree* What impresses me so much is the existence of a state of consciousness which permits them to perceive reali- ties which are quite beyond the average Westerner. These pilgrims apparently understand the significance of symbols. And in their case it is not a question of holding that childlike belief which expresses the relation of the uneducated Catholic to his cult, nor is it a case of the direct understanding of the cultured individual, in whom # posteriori realisation springs out of reflective recognition. These pilgrims seem to perceive the significance of symbols absolutely directlyj their souls appear to be affected directly by holy words (mantras). This presupposes a state of consdousness which differs materially from that of the average European. I am not unfamiliar with it. He who can transfer the action of his consciousness from the sphere of material things into the world of mental images, so that he takes these more seriously than material phenomena and sees in them that which is essentially real, will discover that, in^the process, he acquires new possibilities of experience. While in the ordinary course of events, conceptual relations gain their significance only in connection with external nature, he now perceives their true significance, which is entirely inde- pendent of all externals. And this shows that concepts may have a significance in a double direction: in the usual sense, as pictures or images of objective realities, or else as direct mani- festations of a meaning which originally belongs to them. Every one who has gone to religious ceremonies with an open mind will have experienced that their effect varies} some of them do not move us at all, others move us strongly. There
CHAP. 14 RAMESHVARAM
93
seem to be normal forms for the progress of inner experience, just as there are forms or laws of nature. Certain associa- tions of sounds and concepts seem to correspond, with extraor- dinary constancy, with certain psychic meanings. No doubt our consciousness must move on a certain level before these underlying laws can be perceived} the modern European, whose soul is in the average condition, feels little enough of this. From his point of view, he is not unjustified in deny- ing them, because to him they do not apply} they do not apply to him in the same sense in which the laws of musical harmony are invalid for an unmusical person. As a rule he will be conscious of the special connection which exists be- tween sounds and psychic realities only in the case of music, and more rarely, in the case of poetry, for in these cases he surrenders himself freely to rhythm and the sequence of men- tal images, and thus realises what would otherwise be beyond his power of experience} just so, divine services may move him when a severe shock has temporarily transferred the centre of his consciousness. Nevertheless, even he can know that in symbolical actions, which are executed in accordance with ancient tradition, it is not always a question of accidental association between significance and appearance. But, know- ing and experiencing are two different things. What most Europeans recognise in theory belongs to the self-evident ex- perience of most pilgrims who have piously gathered together in Rameshvaram. Their faces reveal unmistakably their un- derstanding of the significance of the ceremonies which they attend. If they are told that a certain Mantra is Devata (that a certain association of sounds represents the true body of the deity), that imagining certain images in a certain sequence would really bring about the intended reality, that invocations were truly potent, that spiritual exercises trained the soul, then they would not only believe but also understand} they might understand what was intended. I understand too. I know that psychic phenomena are just as objective as material ones, that mental images can become precisely such an incarnation of metaphysical realities, as solid bodies do, and I understand that in principle it is possible everywhere to influence matter
94 INDIA PART m
through mind. However, what I understand and know is not of interest. The significant thing is that these simple people possess this knowledge. They are not thinkers whose business it is to understand j they are incapable of anticipating a reality in their minds j they must actually experience, as actually as they eat and sleep j they must, to put it briefly, possess the same relation to psychic realities as the Westerner does to physical ones.
To-day I do not propose to continue these observations, and I do not wish to anticipate experience in imagination. How- ever, I feel driven to express this much: if the normal state of consciousness of the pious Hindu is really such as it appears to me to-day, then a great portion of the most extravagant asser- tions of their philosophy of ritual (Tantra) may be true. If formulas, ceremonies and incantations are accepted as corre- sponding directly with their significance, then it is easily possi- ble that they can work 'miracles.' In this case they may really lead to all the results to which, in extreme instances, they are capable of leading. And personally, I hardly doubt that the necessary presuppositions are correct. I behold the pilgrims round about me: they all have the eyes of dreamers, they all look out into the world with curious inattention. On the other hand, they seem to be singularly attentive to conditions which are overlooked by the precise observer of nature. Their true home lies in another world. Is it real? This question is diffi- cult to answer, because the gauge which we would use to answer it does not seem to be applicable now. If psychic phenomena are accepted as being fundamental, and mental images as being the densest form of reality, then dreams and experiences are of equal value, and invention and discovery are equally true. Then, too, there is hardly any difference be- tween lies and truth. From our point of view, we would have to come to the conclusion that the Indians live in unreality, and, as a matter of fact, they generally fail in this world. But this would not solve the problem. Every form of conscious- ness reveals a different layer of nature. He who dwells in the world of the Hindu is subject to influences and has experi- ences unknown to others* In his case there are sequences of
CHAP, is MADURA 95
causation which cannot be demonstrated in other circumstances. And it is perfectly possible that, from the level at which he lives, the path to the final and prof oundest self-realisation in thought is shorter and easier than it is from our level. Thus, I dare say that I have found the key to the problem of the Indian outlook on the world. The Indian regards psychic phenomena as fundamental} these phenomena are more real to him than physical ones. Regarded from the angle of the absolute, this difference of accent makes his position as errone- ous as that of those holding the opposite point of view, who believe that physical phenomena alone are real. But just as the Westerner has understood the nature of matter so pro- foundly because he has valued it too highly, so the Indian has penetrated more deeply into the psychic world than any- body else, because he has not taken any other than psychic phenomena seriously.
15 MADURA
ATTVHE Temple of Madura at night causes associations of A horror to rise in my soul. When I walk about in the dusky, ill-illuminated corridor with its oil lamps, and watch the curious play of shadows emanating from the strange perform- ances of those who pray around greasy lingams, while hordes of bats flap their wings about me and wheel and squeak in the air j while I regard the many-armed gods, whose appearance is so much more terrible in artificial light than by day, I am re- minded of the rites of the Phoenicians, which have been de- scribed so impressively by Flaubert, I know quite well that nothing terrible is happening. Hinduism, as practised in the holy places of Southern India, is gentle and kind, but its traditional forms bear unmistakable signs of the more savage times in which they were created. Kali demanded human sacrifices, and she really demands them still. And Kali is the spouse of Shiva, .to whom the Temple of Madura has been consecrated j and Shiva himself is, from many points of view,
96 INDIA PART m
terrible enough. ... I can't help it: all the images are terri- fying which are occasioned by the impressions of this night. But the horror thrills me. Now I can well understand why the earliest forms of worship were terrible and had to be so. I am reminded of the words which Dostoievsky places in the mouth of Dimitry Karamazoff, the primitive man among the broth- ers: *What seems disgraceful and dishonouring to the intelli- gence appears as pure beauty to the heart — so does beauty lie in Sodom? — Believe me, she dwells in Sodom for the majority of men. ... It is awful that beauty is not jonly terrible but also mysterious. There the devil wrestles with God — and the battlefield is the human heart.' That is to say, that man re- gards as beautiful that which enhances his consciousness of life. This result is brought about in primitive creatures only by the ecstasy of the flesh. Only in process of intoxication, lust or cruelty do such people get beyond themselves, only thus do they experience what developed man experiences in the serene contemplation of God. For this reason, the cults of the most deeply religious people are always especially cruel in character during the early stages of the race} at that stage their reli- gious consciousness, as it were, exhausts its passion. Then orgies of lust and cruelty are perpetrated, men enjoy and suffer frantically, life is created and destroyed in wild con- fusion. And it must be so. Primitive men are profound only in their instincts} only sensual enthusiasm unites them to their substancej they can only experience and express what is deepest in them in instinctive actions. And is this true only of human beings in an undeveloped condition? What is the significance of the cult which has again and again been made of the love of a man for a woman in Europe, and which not infrequently finds expression in the most brutal form — what is it but a reaction against too intellectualised an outlook on the world? How many people are still in need of 'spiritual' drinks, of carnal excitement, of wild sensations, in order to rise to their own levels! They are all still, at any rate with a part of their being, on the level at which orgies and human sacrifice would mean the adequate expression of religious emotion. . . . The Hindus do not need human sacrifice — they are too feminine
CHAP, is MADURA 97
and gentle — in order to satisfy their lusts for destructions. But the whole of their cult is permeated by the spirit of animal procreation. Here, for the first time in my life, I behold the display of sexual activity, not regarded as something unclean, but as something holy, .as symbolising the divine in nature. There was no obscene association in the minds of the faithful present at the feast of Rameshvaram, who beheld the union of Shiva and Shakti symbolised by puppets. None of the women who bowed before the lingam to-night seemed to differ in their attitude from that of a Spanish nun who prays to the ideal of the Immaculate Conception. Every Hindu devotee reveres sensual love as the image of divine creative force and uses it as the vehicle of pious thoughts of sacrifice. The Shastras teach that man and wife shall never approach each other without thinking that in this way Brahma is acting through .them. They are taught to honour each other as divine while they love one another, not in the spirit of carnal enjoyment, but in the sense of God-like pouring-out of life. Thus animal instincts are sanctified as the expression_of divin-
I have never seen expressions so well adapted to the spirit of fertility as the swaying motion of the dancing girls in the temple during their solemn march round the images of their gods. And as I turned my gaze from the girls to the images, with their curiously exaggerated stylisation, I suddenly became conscious of the identity of the spirit in both appearances. These images are the embodiment of our fundamental instincts, and they are the best possible embodiments. What are our instincts and passions without reference to the spiritual unity, to what we call I, or soul? They are beings by themselves, truly demonic, to whom human form is hardly appropriate. Any one who has met berserkers or satyrs, embodiments of lust or of the fury of destruction, will know from experi- ence what I mean: such creatures are not human beings; they lie in so far as they represent themselves in human tormj they are the personification of the elemental forces of nature. But this applies not only to these images, it applies to all who are possessed entirely by one single passion. It applies to
98 INDIA PART ra
mothers, who are entirely obsessed by their maternal instinct, to brides, to whom their lovers are everything} it applies to the holy men and women whose heart embraces the world in the divine joy of giving. Every instinctive emotion endows the human face with a new expression which changes its whole character: in the one case it makes of man an animal, in the other it beautifies him, transforms him into a devil, or ennobles him to such an extent that we are right in speaking of a process of transfiguration. The means of expression possessed by physical nature are often insufficient to express these things ade- quately. The religious suspect behind appearance a special spirit which obsesses man from time to time} the artist feels impelled to create a special body which expresses his own being perfectly} in this way legions of divine images have been fashioned all over the face of the earth. Most of them are not what they ought to be. Aphrodite is not the personifi- cation of love, and the Virgin Mary is not personified ma- ternity. Both goddesses are only images of human beings, not independent embodiments of fundamental forces. The mental outlook of the West was too scientific even during the Middle Ages to express irrational forces perfectly. But this is just what the Hindu succeeded in doing. The figures in the Indian Pantheon, in so far as they embody primary forces, are so convincing that I am inclined to believe the seer who told me once that they were the true likenesses of divine reality. In all probability those men alone are capable of similar creative activity who have not yet been crystallised into intel- lectual personalities. They must be men who are swayed by a variety of emotions, who are possessed now by one, now by another instinct, without a dear consciousness of the unifying tie. Such beings, regarded from the Atman point of view, are superficial, because they know nothing of their real selves. But it is just for this reason that the prof oundest in them can give soul to the surf ace, in a manner which is denied to the spiritualised. The particular elementary instincts are then con- densed into so much substance, and they grow into beings of such terrific power, that it is not surprising if many among us still believe to-day that they are essentially profound. It is
CHAP. 15 MADURA 99
in this sense that the Indian Pantheon, although a superficial product, yet possesses profundity. It is so tense and exhaus- tive an expression of the superficial in man and nature, that it could never have been discovered by a prof ounder set of human beings*
+
I AM not surprised that European visitors find it difficult to do justice to Drawidian art, for none of the usual criteria are applicable in this case. There is perhaps nothing in this temple which can be understood purely with one's reason. There is no unified plan which underlies its structure j no general motive has controlled its execution and decoration, nor is it the expression of some particular mental concept. Its grandeur, its monumental nature,, lack symbolic significance; it is the accidental product of rich means. Its castellations seem to have sprung up haphazard like the arms of a coral reef, and its ornamentation resembles wild growth. The best comparison that I can think of is to compare this temple with an agglomeration of buds which grow and jostle each other in extravagant numbers, and the general appearance, which can only be discerned with difficulty, affects us as a freak of nature in the same way as some of those so-called Gothic cathedrals which the climber meets with in the Dolomites in the Tyrol.
But there is a profound significance in this art to anyone who has understood its fundamental motive. It is the highest expression of physical imagination. Yesterday I wrote of the significance of the various Indian divinities, and^ I said that fundamental instincts were materialised in them in a manner which no other people could rival} and I added that such creations could only emanate from a non-unified psyche which was still essentially composed of many parts and had not yet been condensed into mental unity. The plastic ^art of the Hindus in its generality signifies the rebirth in imagination of the whole of the unintellectualised forces of life. Hardly anything in life is by nature subject to reason, nor can it^be traced to a mental cause. Desires, feelings, sensations, im- pulses, aspirations, the longing for growth and expansion, and
ioo INDIA PART ni
the renunciation of age, are all essentially irrational phenomena, and we rob them of their nature in trying to rationalise them. This peculiarity of their nature is expressed in Indian art with a unique degree of truth. The Temple of Madura seems to have been created just as a primitive organism grows, without plan, without aim, without self-control, following every im- pulse blindly, changing suddenly from one phase to another, and only confined within its boundaries by fate. All the better does it express, for these reasons, every one of its moods } it knows nothing of renunciation or prejudice, and stands there, full-blown, full-blooded and full-coloured. The effect of the whole is necessarily imperfect, but its details are generally beautiful. The mastery of the Hindu in detail, as opposed to his insufficiency in great structural concepts, is here given its deepest explanation and reason.
While I was in Ceylon, I spent a great deal of my observa- tion in noting the vegetative character of mental creations in the tropics, and I expressed the assumption that Hinduism also, in its unlimited wealth, should be understood as a vegetative process. I was right in principle, but I did not know then what tremendous potential forces lie within its spirit. Even there, where it possessed tropical men, it preserved, in all the positive phases of its life, a controlling power to a very high degree. That which is absolutely true of Buddhism is true of Hinduism only in so far as it forms the background of its structure. But of course, in this case also, there is no question of free mental creation, but rather animal-like development. Its processes are akin to nature just as much as the vegetative processes we have noted, only they are more active, more self -conscious and more deliberately aimed at a certain goal. An energetic spirit lies at the bottom of its growth, which gives its creations a force and tension which are lacking in those of the Buddhists. I am thinking of the astounding exaggeration which character- ises all Indian mythology. In one case a sage drinks up the oceanj in another, a prince holds his nuptials with 10,000 virgins in one night; Gautama has passed through many lakhs of reincarnations before he became Buddha, and Krishna wields millions of arms. I am thinking too of the superabundance
CHAP. 15 MADURA 101
of gods which go to make up the Indian Pantheon, of the endlessly varied rules of Tantra ritual, of the excessive number of words and concepts which are the vehicles of Indian thought — all these are excrescences, they are vegetative, but so fruitful an imagination underlies them, and they are in themselves so vital, that in comparison we think of the bodies of animals rather than of the most luxuriating plants- When I behold the realm of Indian forms, it seems to me as if the imagination of the flesh had created themj as if the imagination of a great poet had invaded the cells of the body, so that the latter is now creative in the same sense as the poet is in the psychic sphere. What would happen if an unlimited imagination were inextricably linked to flesh? — The result would be forma- tions such as are characteristic of Indian mythology. The concept of maternity would be expressed exactly as in the main Gopuram of the Temple of Madura, in an unending series of superstructures of milk-laden breasts} omnipotence would be embodied in thousands of organs, and so on. Thus the body would create if he had the gif t of poetry. Thus the spirit of the Hindus did actually create at the height of its power. Its art seems to be totally unintellectualised, without unity and without any need for it, but just for this reason it is more expressive where it tries to express the irrational than anything or anyone else. Hindu art alone has perhaps succeeded in manifesting invisible things in the visible world. In Hinduism the dark creative forces which usually exhaust themselves in the formation of material organs have led to great art. One single dancing Shiva embodies more of the essence of divinity than a whole army of Olympians.
THE spirit of polytheism takes possession of my receptive soul more and more. I accept, as a matter of course, all forces within and without me as being substantial, and my pantheon becomes richer from hour to hour. My experiences gain corre- spondingly in colour. In so far as I recognise a special being in every special manifestation, I notice these manifestations more than before, and the quality of my consciousness is
102 INDIA PART III
gaining in degree. Our universe seems to me to be a coloured chaos of an infinite number of monads, each one of which is clearly characterised, yet none may be traced to another, nor are any of them governed by identical considerations. On the other hand, however, none contradicts each other. As a matter of fact, I no longer perceive a possible contradiction, for this concept no longer means anything to me. What is one to do with unity, connection and consequence, in a world m which there is nothing but a string of qualities? There is no general denomination for qualities. And thus those problems no longer concern me which are so momentous to the seeker after God: the problems of evil, and of its reconciliation to good, the all too frequent unprofitableness of a virtuous life, and other similar considerations. There are simply good and evil forces, moral and amoral ones. Power is not necessarily connected with love, nor knowledge with good intentions. The individual fate of man, and the general fate of the world, are dependent on the interaction of so many individual variable factors, that even Brahma, in his capacity of mathematician, could hardly understand events in the light of a general formula. The essential point is to keep one's eyes open, to observe as many special phenomena as possible, to facilitate and induce favour- able influences, and to obviate, by all the means in one's power, the effectiveness of unfavourable ones. And, thanks be to all the gods, there are rules for this purpose. Again and again they have taught us prayers and rituals which effect this or that, again and again they have given us indications of what we ought to do and leave undone in various circumstances. And as long as one obeys faithfully what the Shastras and Tantras command, and if only one does not fail to consult wise Brahmins in all the decisive moments of life, then life itself seems, in a world permeated by spirits of every kind, hardly more dangerous than it does to the man who does not believe in supernatural forces. Undoubtedly such a life is more interesting. Every moment something is happening, something is to be observed, to be reflected upon, which gives transcendental significance to the most insignificant event. Everywhere forces are at play which in any case are curious.
CHAP. 15 MADURA 103
And thus I take greater delight in myself as a believer in gods than I have ever done heretofore. I am richer and more versatile in my powers of experience and perception. I am no longer surprised that great artists only flourish under polythe- ism (for the Catholic Church is a polytheistic system, and most great poets, such as Goethe, have, at any rate as artists, sub- scribed to polytheism). Art can only create something great in circumstances where special phenomena are allowed their right to existence, where the forces of imagination, instead of re- ducing these phenomena, strive to ennoble and magnify them. Conversely, every artistic nature reveals in its type a trait which defines polytheistic peoples: the un-unified nature of their souls. If Shakespeare had concentrated himself into a deep-rooted intellectual personality, he would never have been able to give a soul to so many men* Monotheism, sooner or later, unless other forces specially oppose the process, takes the place of the richer faith of polytheism. Once the soul has become unified, once a single ego-consciousness has taken the place of multiplicity of instincts, then even the substance of the gods, however diversified hitherto, is condensed into one divinity. And thus order, law and coherence take the place of the original confusion. Simultaneously, however, the uni- verse becomes contradictory; now, when everything is to har- monise, we recognise how little it really is attuned. More- over, the world becomes poorer in the process, for now that one ideal floats above all creation, those forces which have no posi- tive relation to this ideal are denied, ignored or opposed. And as there are a great number of such forces, nature becomes impeded in its unrestricted growth. The world is stabilised and moralised; everywhere among monotheists, their char- acters are stronger, their principles firmer, the forms of life purer. On the other hand, their souls are more colourless, more rigid, and more sterile. A friend of mine, formerly a most fortunate Don Juan, had turned into an exemplary hus- band. I asked him what it felt like. He replied, with a sigh: 'There is much to be said for virtue, but I feel that my nature stagnates; too many of its sides suffer for lack of use; I fear that it is not good for men to live only for one woman.'
104 INDIA PART ni
Poly- and monotheism are contradictory. The mystic, how- ever, whose consciousness of God is generally so wrongly called pantheism, is never opposed to polytheism: quite on the contrary, it is in this mental atmosphere that mysticism has developed best, as, for instance, in Europe within the Catholic Church. It is only partially true to assert that the mystic experiences the unity of divinity j his experience lies beyond all enumeration. When he speaks of unity, he refers to something which has neither unity nor multiplicity, and simultaneously possesses both. He calls it unity, because this concept here on earth probably implies both these concepts. In any case, how- ever, he is never a monotheist in the Jewish, Puritanical or Islamic sense, although, of course, many mystics have come from these monotheistic groups. A mystic is a contemplative man, whose life emanates entirely from within, who lives in the essence of things and for that essence alone, whose conscious- ness has taken root in Atman, and who accordingly is com- pletely truthful and pours out his inmost being without any inhibition. Such a man cannot deny any expression of life. He perceives divine power at work in every one of them, he reveres every expression of life, and any naivete, no matter how it is expressed, is more sacred to him than any phenomenon limited by external form and prejudice. It is therefore self- evident that to Indian consciousness, which is more alive mystically than any other, there is no opposition between animal Hinduism and the clarified wisdom of the Rishi. Tc him they are both expressions of one and the same thing on different levels. An unprejudiced and truthful primitive man cannot help but regard himself as a multiplicity of instincts j the wise man without prejudice cannot but realise that he is superior to all manifestations. And the experience of both has the same significance. Of course, it would be a mistake tc believe (as Indian scholastic teaching would wish to demon- strate) that diversified manifestation is primarily the symbol of one force. Originally it all grew forth like a mass oJ budsj originally there was no kind of unity at the bottom oJ the Indian Pantheon. On the other hand, its multiplicity sig- nifies exactly the same as the consciousness of unity in th<
CHAP. 15 MADURA 105
higher stages. For this reason, the priests are justified meta- physically in declaring all belief in God to be orthodox and compatible with the Vedas and the Upanishads. From an empirical point of view, a great deal is to be said against their interpretation. The greater portion of all their legends of the gods originated outside the Brahminic tradition, and belong to the folklore of non-Aryan aborigines, which were only absorbed into Brahminism later, where they eventually acquired a significance which undoubtedly they did not possess originally. These facts have probably been recognised and explained correctly by Sir Alfred LyalL However, the falsi- fication which the Brahmins practised was justified meta- physically. The gods are, and signify really, that which the Brahmins assert. When they teach that a local deity of an obscure tribe is actually a Vishnu-Avatar, and as such one aspect of the one and only Brahma, they express, in a mytho- logical way, a metaphysical truth. There is divine activity in every impulse, every surface derives its soul from the depths, and can thus be regarded as its expression. And in being re- garded thus, it becomes profound. Folklore gains depth by the interpretation it receives through wise men, so that, that which originally was finally true only symbolically, becomes true empirically, and to this extent it becomes the expression of the highest knowledge.
Not a single sage of India, not even Buddha, has opposed the popular belief in gods. Most of them, above all Shankara, the founder of radical monism, subscribed to this belief themselves. They were so conscious, on the one hand, of the inexpressibility of divinity, and, on the other, of the infinite number of possible manifestations, that generally they preferred the manifold expression to the simple one. I am reminded of the famous hymn to Mahadevi (from the 5th Matamya of Tshandi) in which she, the goddess, is revered as Ishwara, the highest being, then as Ganga, then as Saraswati, and again as Lakshmi, where in one verse, after declaring that she dwells in all the beings of the world in the form of peace, power, reason, mem- ory, professional competence, abundance, mercy, humility, hunger, sleep, faith, beauty, and consciousness, it is added that
io6 INDIA PART in
she also dwells in every creature in the form of error. It seems to me that this multiplicity in its connected form is a better expression of what the pious Indian means, than any single formula could be, however profound.
+
HOW could our clarified concepts do justice to the irrational animal formation of the Indian mind? It is perhaps not an accident that in Sanskrit there are more words for philosophic and religious thought than in Greek, Latin and German put together. The language of primitives, if they are gifted, is richer in descriptions of concrete phenomena than that of more developed people, because primitive men are incapable of making abstractions and therefore require many special ex- pressions, where more developed races can manage with a few general ones. For this reason, the vocabulary of the old Indians (although they were, as a matter of fact, capable of abstractions! ) was so rich, and became richer with every gener- ation, because it was found to be impossible, even by means of the most discriminately chosen general expressions, to cope with their excessive wealth of ideas. General concepts are of use only where the object to be recognised is rational or ca- pable of rationalisation, and this is never true of the Indian world. Everything alive in this marvellous country has grown irresponsibly like flesh, quite haphazard and without purpose or decided aim. Not only can we find no fundamental plan in the temples, nor discover a unified and guiding idea within its forms of belief} in India there is also no nation, no spirit of the race, no national consciousness of the people j there are no Hindus in the sense in which there are Germans or English- men. Syntheses of this kind can exist only where reason sways the growth of thought, no matter how imperceptibly, where there is a natural tendency towards generalisation and a striv- ing for unityj all these are lacking in Hindustan. Here the most extraordinary manifestations grow aimlessly and in con- trast. At times they are sharply and permanently divided, at others they enter upon the most improbable connections.
CHAP, is MADURA 107
Every form is justified as such, and no attempt is ever made to eradicate its peculiarities} there is room for everything in the world. One should not imagine that Brahmanism