“So l went and lived in Paris for a while, and in Vienna and in Rome, because it was my duty to learn how the West thinks, and in what way it is self-deceived. And thereafter I returned to Tibet, wondering. It did not seem to me that I was one step forward on the path of destiny. I could see (for I had walked the length of India with pilgrim’s staff and begging-bowl) that the West was devouring the East and the East was inert in the grip of superstition, inclined, if it should move at all, to imitate the West and to corrupt the Western energy by specious flattery, hating its conquerors, yet copying those very methods that made conquest possible.
“An unfathomable sadness overwhelmed me. It appeared to me that all my knowledge was as nothing. I doubted the stars in the sky; I said ‘These, too, are a delusion of the senses. Who shall prove to me that I am not deceived in all things?’ ”
Tsiang Samdup paused and thought a while, stroking Diana’s head.
“My son,” he said presently, “it was as if the knowledge that was born within me, and all the false Western doctrine I had studied, were as waters meeting in the basin of my mind, and in the whirlpool my faith was drowning. It is ever so when truth meets untruth, but I did not know that then.
“I went to the Tashi Lama—the successor of my teacher. He was but a child, and I was ashamed to lay my heart before him, though I laid my forehead on the mat before his throne, for the sake of the traditions and my master’s memory. And to me, as I left the throne-room sadly, one of the regents, drawing me aside said: ‘I have heard a destiny awaits you.’ I asked: ‘From whom have you heard that?’ But he did not say. To him I laid bare the affliction that was eating out my heart; and to me he said: ‘Good. This is a time of conquest of self by the Self; I foresee that the higher will win.’ Thereafter he spoke of the folly of stirring molten metal with a wooden spoon. He bade me let my thoughts alone. And because he saw in me a pride of knowledge that was at the root of my affliction, he appointed me a temple neophite. He who was set over me had orders to impose severe tasks. I hewed wood. I carried water. I laid heavy masonry, toiling from sunrise until dark. I labored in the monastery kitchen. I dug gold on the plateau, where for nine months of every year the earth is frozen so hard that a strong man can with difficulty dig two baskets-full. By day I toiled. By night I dreamed dreams—grand dreams full of quiet understanding—so that to me it seemed that the night was life, and the day death. I was well contented to remain there in the gold-fields, because it seemed to me I had found my destiny; the miners were well pleased to listen to me in the intervals when we leaned on the tools and rested, and when the blizzards blew and we were herded very close together for the warmth, with the animals between us in the tents.
“But when the Tashi Lama, who succeeded him whose chela I had been, came to man’s estate he sent for me. And after he had talked with me a while on many matters he promoted me. I became a Lama of the lowest rank, and yet without the ordinary duties of a Lama. I had time to study and arrange the ancient books; of which, my son, there are more than the West imagines; they are older than the West believes the world to be, and they are written in a language that extremely few can read. But I can read them. And I learned that my dreams were realities—although the dreams ceased in those days.
“Once, that one who had come to me when I lay sick in this place on my journey southward, came to me in Lhassa, where I was pondering the ancient books and rearranging them. And to him I said, ‘Lo, I have met my destiny! I see that it is possible to translate some of these into the Western tongues.’ But he answered: ‘Who would believe? For this is Kali Yuga. Men think that nothing is true unless they can turn it into money and devour what they can purchase with it. If you give too much food to a starving horse, will he thrive? Or will he gorge himself to death?’
“Said I; ‘Light travels fast.’ Said he; ‘It does. But it requires a hundred million years for the light of certain stars to reach the earth. And how long does it take for the formation of coal, that men burn in a minute? Make no haste, or they will burn thee! They have Plato and Pythagoras and Appolonius—Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed—and others. Would you give them a new creed to go to war about, or a new curiosity to buy and sell for their museums? Which?’
“Thereafter the Tashi Lama sent for me, and I was given no more time to study the ancient books. But I was promoted to the rank of Gelong, and became a Ringding, whose duty was to teach the people as much as they could understand. I discovered it was not much that they could understand. They knew the meaning of desire, and of the bellyache that comes from too much eating. I found that if one man learns more than another, he is soon so filled with pride that he had better have been left in ignorance; and I also found that men will accept any doctrine that flatters their desires or excuses ignorance, but that they seek to vilify and kill whoever teaches them to discipline the senses in order that their higher nature may appear and make them wise. There is no difference in that respect, although men are fond of saying that the West is quite unlike the East. East or West they will murder any one who teaches them to think except in terms of the lower self.
“There was an outcry against me in Lhassa, and there were many Lamas who declared I should be put on trial for heresy. I was stoned in the streets; and the great dogs that devour the dead were incited to attack me. So I said: ‘Lo, it may be then I have fulfilled my destiny. For he who was my teacher prophesied that there is that in me which must inevitably bring me to a violent end. Nevertheless, I have told no lies yet, that I know of!’