MASTER MORYA

(Extract: From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan 
Part 26. SCORCHING HEAT. THÂKUR’S CALM ATTITUDE. REVEALING CONVERSATION WITH THE THÂKUR. THE THÂKUR’S MYSTERIOUS POWERS. THE THÂKUR’S RECORDED VOICE IN ÂKÂSHA. THE THÂKUR SENDS A CHELA WITH INSTRUCTIONS.

“No doubt, Miss B. is an awful, an awful woman – an egotist and as excitable as... as… a Mexican mare!…,” he cut short, not finding a better simile. “All that is true. Besides she is English, haughty and starched like her own petticoats, ready to burst at any moment like the frog in the fable, from personal pride and national conceit!… In other words, she is plain silly!... However, she is a Fellow of our Society!... Isn’t that so?” he ended by addressing me.

“As long as she remains a Fellow of our Society there won’t be much sense in it,” I answered, “as she does not keep the statutes herself and confuses others.”

“She is nevertheless a useful Fellow of the Society,” retorted the Colonel, “useful precisely because she is English and a patriot. She and Mr. W. are our defense… a sort of living protest against, for instance, that idiot over there in his white uniform, who is now drinking his twentieth peg (Wiskey and Soda with ice) on the verandah and mistakes us for spies, like himself… If she dies, what shall we do?”

“Don’t worry, Colonel, she will not die,” casually remarked the Thâkur.

“She won’t!…. So you vouch for it, my dear Thâkur?” exclaimed the American joyfully.

“To vouch for the life or death of a sick person would be too daring on my part, not being a doctor,” replied the Râjput, laughing. “But judging by many years of experience, if she lived through the first half-hour and no symptoms of some other illness appear to complicate the sunstroke, the main danger can be considered passed.”

“And you... Pardon me, my dear, my highly esteemed friend, you won’t assail her with other similar symptoms?” asked the Colonel, mysteriously looking around and bending low over the Thâkur.

I was sitting on the other side, leaning against a post, silently listening. The words of the president made me shudder; they seemed to be an echo of my own unexpressed thoughts and deeply buried feelings, a faithful echo at that. Nârâyana, with an extinguished bîrî (Biri is a small native cigar made of the green leaves of the mango tree.) in his mouth, stood next to Gulâb-Singh. I saw a shadow cross his face, and he swiftly looked at the Colonel. In this glance I clearly read anger and a silent reproach for the insolent question.

In the deep, dark and abysmally enigmatic eyes of the Thâkur, I did not now catch that burning, sudden flash of light which, like lightning behind the clouds, lit them up when Miss B. made a silly and offensive remark about the natives; I did not see in them this time that spark, which I must confess always frightened me, arousing in me a feeling of supernatural fear, a feeling of which I was ashamed, but which I could not overcome. Now his look was quite calm and indifferent; he merely smiled somewhat ironically...

“In other words, your question is a direct accusation that it was I who made her ill in the first place?” he asked the Colonel, looking straight into his eyes.

The Colonel blushed, but did not attempt a useless denial. He frankly looked with his somewhat blind but honest eyes at the Thâkur and haltingly confessed:

“Yes, it is thus that I understood this unfortunate event… But you must not call it an accusation.”

“Hm! It can’t be said, however, that such a suspicion is especially flattering,” the Râjput added smilingly, after a short silence, looking into the distance. “Avenging yourself upon a woman for her silly language by threatening her with death is even less a habit of the robber tribes of Râjasthân, than of the civilized Europeans. But I cannot condemn you for such a thought, for knowing that you had arrived at an exaggerated idea of my... psychological powers, I had nevertheless left you to draw your own conclusions and deductions… You are right in your own way.”

The American lifted his clear blue eyes and, thoughtfully stroking his beard, meekly remarked:

“We came to India across a distance of 10 000 miles to study psychology and all that relates to the spiritual being of man... and… in compliance with your call. We chose you as our guru (teacher), and now that we have discovered in you alone the embodiment of the ‘secret science’, will you turn away from us?”

There was a very sad note in the voice of our president. The Thâkur quickly looked up at him and, after a pause, answered quite calmly and even kindly: “It is true that I have been initiated in that which is known to us as gupta-vidyâ – secret science...”

„These sciences are then known to you? You have finally decided to acknowledge this to us, your ignorant but wholly devoted disciples?”

“I never tried to make a secret of it and could not have done so even if I wanted to. I am a brahmachârin. (A kind of lay monk, consecrated from birth to celibacy and to the study of the siddhis – the science of theurgy or white magic and wonder-working.) But this term and the one of ‘secret sciences’ often mean a great deal, and their meaning is very elastic. Many thousands of years have elapsed since the glorious days of the Rishis; India has fallen and degenerated,” He added sadly. “Now you will find brahmachârins in every large city who substitute for a legal wife not permitted to them by caste rule a secret harem – the zenânâ – and who are usurers; you will often meet charlatans preparing and selling love potions in the name of the ‘secret sciences’! Would you try to chase after these also and honor them for their name only?…”

I could not help looking at the Colonel, and we both felt embarrassed. Before we left Bombay, after great precautions and persistent requests, a certain great sâdhu (saint) and alchemist, as he was represented to us by Mûljî and others, was brought to us. The “saintly” anchorite emitted a most offensive odor and made all sorts of strange noises with his mouth and nose, but all of this was ascribed by the Colonel to his renunciation of all earthly interests, as well as to his saintliness. Having received from us, including the “silent general”, several hundred rupees with the promise of transforming them into an “elixir of life” and a protective powder against all ills, and having publicly accepted signs of servile devotion on the part of the Colonel (this time with the rightful indignation of the Englishwoman), the saintly old man left us for his unknown retreat; en nous disant: “je reviendrai!...” as runs the line in the Favorite (an Italian Opera). We are still waiting…

“What are the ‘secret sciences’?” continued the Thâkur, turning our attention from this unpleasant memory. “To me and to all those who have dedicated their lives to them, these secret sciences contain the key to all nature’s places of concealment and to the worlds both seen and unseen. This key, however, is much more difficult to discover than you may think. Gupta-vidyâ is a two-edged weapon and you cannot approach it without at the very outset sacrificing all earthly things, nay, even reason itself, as she overwhelms and destroys anyone who does not succeed in subduing her. Ancient fables are not built on imagination alone. In our antediluvian Âryâvarta you will also find the Sphinx, similar to the Egyptian one, and for every single Oedipus there are thousands of victims. This science is especially dangerous to you, Europeans and whites. That is why I hesitate to accede to your determined but foolish desire even to try a period of probation.”

“Thâkur, for the sake of all that is dear to you,” exclaimed our president in an imploring voice, “I beg you in the name of our entire Society, in the name of science and the whole of humanity!… You know that I am not a coward. I do not set a high value on life, and if even towards its end I do not catch a glimpse of the truth, well ther... the sooner this end comes… the better!… If you but once show me the path that leads to truth, I swear never to betray it...”

The Thâkur’s reply was slow in coming.

“All right,” said he suddenly, to the great joy of the Colonel, “now that you probably will be free tomorrow from your two English people, I will invite you to my own estate at D. You have two weeks left before your trip to Svâmi Dayânanda. At home I will subject you, Colonel, to a small preliminary test. If you are successful, you will be my chela for seven years. If not – well, then everything will remain as of old. Do you consent?”

“With pleasure, with pleasure,” exclaimed our Colonel joyously. “And you will see, Thâkur, that I will not fail in any test.”

At the end of this talk, the Thâkur asked me to go to ascertain the condition of Miss B. The other three, namely, Gulâb-Singh, the Colonel and Nârâyana locked themselves in the tent. When I returned an hour and a half later, two bodyguards were marching up and down in front of the closed entrance, and three others were lying motionless across the entrance. In going to my own tent in the darkness, I nearly bumped into the blond spy, recognizing him rather by his strong breath of liquor than by his dress or figure. He evidently was trying to listen to what was going on, and quickly disappeared into the darkness on my arrival.

"SEVEN TIMES SEVEN THE WHEEL ROTATES"