CHAPTER I
THE DISENTANGLEMENT OF THE ME
“Why this exaggerated sense of thine importance,” Khalid asks himself in the K. L. MS., “when a little ptomaine in thy cheese can poison the source of thy lofty contemplations? Why this inflated conception of thy Me, when an infusion of poppy seeds might lull it to sleep, even to stupefaction? What avails thy logic when a little of the Mandragora can melt the material universe into golden, unfolding infinities of dreams? Why take thyself so seriously when a leaf of henbane, taken by mistake in thy salad, can destroy thee? But the soul is not dependent on health or disease. The soul is the source of both health and disease. And life, therefore, is either a healthy or a diseased state of the soul.
“One day, when I was rolling these questions in my mind, and working on a reed basket to present to my friend the Hermit as a farewell memento, his serving-monk brings me some dried figs in a blue kerchief and says, ‘My Master greets thee and prays thee come to him.’ I do so the following morning, bringing with me the finished basket, and as I enter the Hermitage court, I find him repairing a stone wall in the vineyard. As he sees me, he hastens to put on his cloak that I might not remark the sack-cloth he wore, and with a 220 pious smile of assurance and thankfulness, welcomes and embraces me, as is his wont. We sit down in the corridor before the chapel door. The odorous vapor of what was still burning in the censer within hung above us. The holy atmosphere mantled the dread silence of the place. And the slow, insinuating smell of incense, like the fumes of gunga, weighed heavy on my eyelids and seemed to brush from my memory the cobwebs of time. A drowsiness possessed me; I felt like one awaking from a dream. I asked for the water jug, which the Hermit hastened to bring. And looking through the door of the chapel, I saw on the altar a burning cresset flickering like the planet Mercury on a December morning. How often did I light such a cresset when a boy, I mused. Yes, I was an acolyte once. I swang the censer and drank deep of the incense fumes as I chanted in Syriac the service. And I remember when I made a mistake one day in reading the Epistle of Paul, the priest, who was of an irascible humour, took me by the ear and made me spell the words I could not pronounce. And the boys in the congregation tittered gleefully. In my mortification was honey for them. Such was my pride, nevertheless, such the joy I felt, when, of all the boys that gathered round the lectern at vespers, I was called upon to read in the sinksar (hagiography) the Life of the Saint of the day.
“I knew then that to steal, for instance, is a sin; and yet, I emptied the box of wafers every morning after mass and shared them with the very boys who laughed at my mistakes. One day, in the purest intention, 221 I offered one of these wafers to my donkey and he would not eat it. I felt insulted, and never after did I pilfer a wafer. Now, as I muse on these sallies of boyish waywardness I am impressed with the idea that the certainty and daring of Ignorance, or might I say Innocence, are great. Indeed, to the pure everything is pure. But strange to relate that as I sat in the corridor of the Hermitage and saw the light flickering on the altar, I hankered for a wafer, and was tempted to go into the chapel and filch one. What prevented me? Alas, knowledge makes sceptics and cowards of us all. And the pursuit of knowledge, according to my Hermit, nay, the noblest pursuit, even the serving of God, ceases to be a virtue the moment we begin to enjoy it.
“‘It is necessary to conquer, not only our instincts,’ he continued, ‘but our intellectual and our spiritual passions as well. To force our will in the obedience of a higher will, to leave behind all our mundane desires in the pursuit of the one great desire, herein lies the essence of true virtue. St. Anthony would snatch his hours of devotion from the Devil. Even prayer to him was a struggle, an effort not to feel the joy of it. Yes, we must always disobey our impulses, and resist the tyranny of our desires. When I have a strong desire to pray, I go out into the vineyard and work. When I begin to enjoy my work in the vineyard, I cease to do it well. Therefore, I take up my breviary. Do that which you must not do, when you are suffering, and you will not want to do it again, when you are happy. The other day, one 222 who visited the Hermitage, spoke to me of you, O Khalid. He said you were what is called an anarchist. And after explaining to me what is meant by this––I never heard of such a religion before––I discovered to my surprise that I, too, am an anarchist. But there is this difference between us: I obey only God and the authority of God, and you obey your instincts and what is called the authority of reason. Yours, O Khalid, is a narrow conception of anarchy. In truth, you should try to be an anarchist like me: subordinate your personality, your will and mind and soul, to a higher will and intelligence, and resist with all your power everything else. Why do you not come to the Hermitage for a few days and make me your confessor?’
“‘I do not confess in private, and I can not sleep within doors.’
“‘You do not have to do so; the booth under the almond tree is at your disposal. Come for a spiritual exercise of one week only.’
“‘I have been going through such an exercise for a year, and soon I shall leave my cloister in the pines.’