At the present time he lives (when at home) a secluded life, mostly absorbed in trance conditions—his chief external interest no doubt being the teaching of such people as are led to him, or he is led to instruct. When however he takes up any practical work he throws himself into it with that power and concentration which is peculiar to a “Master,” and which is the natural corollary of the power, of abstraction when healthily used.
Among their own people these Gurus often have small circles of disciples, who receive the instruction of their master and in return are ever ready to attend upon his wants. Sometimes such little parties sit up all night alternately reading the sacred books and absorbing themselves in meditation. It appears that Elukhanam’s mother became his pupil and practised according to instructions, making good progress. One day however she told her son that she should die that night. “What, are you ill?” he said. “No,” she replied, “but I feel that I shall die.” Then he asked her what she desired to be done with her body. “Oh, tie a rope to it and throw it out into the street,” was her reply—meaning that it did not matter—a very strong expression, considering caste regulations on the subject. Nothing more was said, but that night at 3 a.m. as they and some friends were sitting up (cross-legged on the floor as usual) reading one of the sacred books, one of those present said, “But your mother does not move,”—and she was dead.
When in Ceylon our friend was only staying temporarily in a cottage, with a servant to look after him, and though exceedingly animated and vigorous as I have described, when once embarked in exposition—capable of maintaining his discourse for hours with unflagging concentration—yet the moment such external call upon his faculties was at an end, the interest that it had excited seemed to be entirely wiped from his mind; and the latter returned to that state of interior meditation and absorption in the contemplation of the world disclosed to the inner sense, which had apparently become his normal condition.
I was in fact struck, and perhaps a little shocked, by the want of interest in things and persons around him displayed by the great man—not that, as I have said, he was not very helpful and considerate in special cases—but evidently that part of his nature which held him to the actual world was thinning out; and the personalities of attendants and of those he might have casual dealings with, or even the scenes and changes of external nature, excited in him only the faintest response.
As I have said he seemed to spend the greater part of the twenty-four hours wrapt in contemplation, and this not in the woods, but in the interior of his own apartment. As a rule he only took a brief half-hour’s walk mornings and evenings, just along the road and back again, and this was the only time he passed out of doors. Certainly this utter independence of external conditions—the very small amount of food and exercise and even of sleep that he took, combined with the great vigor that he was capable of putting forth on occasion both bodily and mentally, and the perfect control he had over his faculties—all seemed to suggest the idea of his having access to some interior source of strength and nourishment. And indeed the general doctrine that the gñáni can thus attain to independence and maintain his body from interior sources alone (eat of the “hidden manna”) is one much cherished by the Hindus, and which our friend was never tired of insisting on.
Finally, his face, while showing the attributes of the seer, the externally penetrating quick eye, and the expression of illumination—the deep mystic light within—showed also the prevailing sentiment of happiness behind it. Sandósiam, Sandósiam eppótham—“Joy, always joy”—was his own expression, oft repeated.
Perhaps I have now said enough to show—what of course was sufficiently evident to me—that, however it may be disguised under trivial or even in some cases repellent coverings, there is some reality beneath all these—some body of real experience, of no little value and importance, which has been attained in India by a portion at any rate of those who have claimed it, and which has been handed down now through a vast number of centuries among the Hindu peoples as their most cherished and precious possession.
CHAPTER IX.
CONSCIOUSNESS WITHOUT THOUGHT.
The question is, What is this experience? or rather—since an experience can really only be known to the person who experiences it—we may ask, “What is the nature of this experience?” And in trying to indicate an answer of some kind to this question I feel considerable diffidence, just for the very reason (for one) already mentioned—namely that it is so difficult or impossible for one person to give a true account of an experience which has occurred to another. If I could give the exact words of the teacher, without any bias derived either from myself or the interpreting friend, the case might be different; but that I cannot pretend to do; and if I could, the old-world scientific forms in which his thoughts were cast would probably only prove a stumbling-block and a source of confusion, instead of a help, to the reader. Indeed, even in the case of the sacred books, where we have a good deal of accessible and authoritative information, Western critics though for the most part agreeing that there is some real experience underlying, are sadly at variance as to what that experience may be.
For these reasons I prefer not to attempt or pretend to give the exact teaching, unbiassed, of the Indian Gurus, or their experiences; but only to indicate as far as I can, in my own words, and in modern thought-forms, what I take to be the direction in which we must look for this ancient and world-old knowledge which has had so stupendous an influence in the East, and which indeed is still the main mark of its difference from the West.