by Sonny Saul
CHAPTER TEN:
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“Now listen Socrates, to a story which, though passing strange,
is nevertheless entirely true, even as Solon, wisest of the Seven Sages,
once asserted.”
Plato, Timeaus
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Let me tell you who I am.
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Kama Mara’s Song
“From my own Guru,
who received it from his,
and so on …
back to the time of our earliest ancestors
who survived that flood
which overwhelmed Aryavartra, when the ice, nine thousand years ago…
which covered so much of our land at that period, melted,
washing away what this world cannot imagine.
‘Close—in’ fashion, face to face—the way I speak to you, I received an account of that event that comes from M A N U —
who became the great L A W G I V E R ,
who saw the end coming—
who, being warned by a Great Fish (our Krishna in disguise) which spoke to him,
knew and prepared,
who, accomplishing what was needed… preserved life,
who, gathering all kinds of seeds, plants, animals,
and likewise the wisdom of the prior age in the persons of seven chosen RISHIS,
began everything anew.
Manu and Seven Rishis
— at first in the Himalayan hills —
and eventually returning to the plains,
made suitable for living by the melted glaciers —
achieved and established an orderly, intelligent beginning,
imagining, initiating, and encouraging brave worlds.”
Changing his posture and tone, Kama Mara moved closer to Gotama and began to speak less formally, “Certain realities have changed. The original Seven Rishis, of course, are no longer among us. Knowledge, of their accomplishments has faded, not to mentions appreciation or gratitude. If they are heard of at all, their existence is doubted. But I am living evidence that a remnant survives and still acts in the world. I carry the most ancient lore. I share the mission, constant since the beginning.”
“My inheritance is not the same as yours. It is fatal in another manner.”
“My daughters and I are the darkest people, from the South, the aboriginal people. You must understand just what this means for me. My ancestry may be traced back through, and to a time before, that most profound, most inspired, and very ancient, high civilization of the Indus and Saravastri River Valleys… to the time of Manu.”
“I have been selected. Once a generation, at various times in various places all around the world, individuals have been, and are continuing to be chosen, Yours will be the last generation. You are last in Aryavartra.
Your personal accomplishment marks the summit and finish. “And now you must know that even though you are not so black skinned as me, even though your ancestry is through a different line, your roots—all of our roots go back to that same small group of individuals who survived the destruction of the previous age.”
Kama Mara, with a rather formal acrobatic grace, legs completely straight, bent at the waist, stretched and placed the palms of his hands upon the ground by his feet. Slowly he leaned forward and balanced his full weight upon them, lifting his feet into the air. Balancing thus, he folded his legs into a lotus like position and lowered his legs and hips through his arms, assuming a seated position on the ground beside Gotama..
Allowing for a quiet interval, Kama Mara, in a more confidential tone, spoke again to Gotama. “Listen. Now to go forward, you will need to go back. Listen. You have begun to hear and understand. From a time even before you were born, I have directed circumstances so as to guide your life. The goal has always been your most complete development in terms of your own nature.”
“With a sure success, when certain key moments unfolded, progress was facilitated. It was I who made sure that—I know you will remember these events—they had such powerful effects since your father had made sure to shield your experience. You did finally get to see an old man, and then a very sick person—also… and finally, you saw a dead man. Was it maybe too obvious a stroke, when next I made sure that you would encounter a ‘holy man’?”
“There are some things, the understanding of which, require a new being. I have worked to create in you this new being… and you have worked too, and are prepared.”
“But, tell me, why were you still sitting here under the tree when I arrived on my elephant, just as if you had never met Desire?”
Gotama was motionless but his mind was alive.
When at last, Gotama responded, he spoke very slowly, most respectfully, but with long spaces between his phrases.
“Isn’t our consciousness merely the last, most recent development of the organic? As such, it is all that is most incomplete, and most precious.”
“For a while, I must remain alone … sitting … not doing anything … I have not carried my path all the way to an end…”
“In Nature before a function has fully developed, fully matured, a threat is posed to the organism… Think of any developing young animal subject to the domination of its mother. Isn’t it well—maybe even necessary as a protection, that while anything is growing or evolving it be subject to some kind of a tyranny? This is how I now understand what my way of living has been about… And I thank you if you have facilitated this.”
Kama Mara acknowledged all this with a long low bow.
Gotama, surprising himself with the flow of his words, and with his readiness to speak, continued, “There always lies, so near to us, a realm in which we escape entirely from all we know; but who has the strength to remain in it for long? As soon as any relations to our will, to our person, or even to those objects of our pure contemplation, enters consciousness, the magic is at an end, we fall, habitually, back from the arch type to the individual thing which is the link of a chain to which we also belong.”
“Still, for a while more I must remain alone. For now, I must continue to look; seeking and seeing within, not from outside.”
“I mean no offense, but with language there is always a grain of contempt; the speaker immediately vulgarizes himself. We are no longer esteeming ourselves sufficiently when we communicate ourselves. Our deepest and most profound experiences are not garrulous. And you are certainly right, that they could not communicate themselves if they tried. Whatever we have words for, that is what we have already gotten beyond.”
And then Gotama added with a smile, “And, you must know that the Initiate always at first rejects the Master.”
Hearing in this speech a rare sense of proportion and then, an even scarcer humor, Kama Mara was beginning to like him.
Abruptly, an intuition announced the presence of his daughter, Desire, “in the wings”—and Kama Mara, wishing to conclude the interview, said, “Of course I understand. Your initially absurd overinvestment, your misunderstanding, has had functional consequences, hindering your development. You are not yet prepared. A disease of thought cannot be terminated. It must run it’s natural course. Slow cure is the only cure. Sit, as you wish, as you must…”
He was laughing as he stood to leave, and then, not to Gotama but in soliloquy, he said, “Until now these threats and temptations have been a ritual, a game. But suppose, imagine … what if my girls let themselves be carried away, beyond the game? I’m thinking about Desire. What if she becomes so involved that she destroys and replaces everything? There has always, so far, been a point, a false detail, to remind her to stop and to withdraw, but what if she gets so carried away that she no longer recognizes anything, and you too (he looks at Gotama), leap with her?”
Then, directly to Gotama he said, “Be ready! Every creature is driven to pasture by a blow.”
Completing a deep and sweeping bow—a gesture which effectively swept away the scene—Kama Mara, like a tumble
r, mounted his elephant and withdrew, moving away slowly in a lazy walk to the edge of the clearing where he had sensed the presence of his daughter.
I entreat the reader to turn for inspiration, as I did, and to imagine the end of this scene as if had been painted upon one of the giant canvases of the great Venetian, Tintoretto (1518-1594)
Of course motion is not possible in a painting, but the forms depicted are fundamentally that of movement and drama. The way the two figures are placed—With Kama Mara, on the elephant, head up and body leaning down, with his right arm extended and bent at the forearm in a right angle, coming forward from the center, and Desire in the foreground more to the left, her left arm extended above her head and her right drawn in around her breasts (she’s ready to be lifted)provides the setting and focus for an overall impression of vigorous life.
The clothing of both Desire and Kama Mara is rendered with an internal illumination, which radiates and imparts translucency. The whole is an animated swirl of light, color, and line, as are each of the individual units and details seen to be, upon closer examination.
The great force of movement infused into Kama Mara’s gesture towards Desire is communicated by means of the broad, isolated line of color, which defines the contour of his arm.
Behind and above Kama Mara, occupying significant pictorial space, and extending rhythmically across the canvas, areas of light are accentuated and placed in contrast with areas of broad and rich color. Particularly striking are the ribbon like streaks of light which set off the deep colors of the sky,
Kama Mara, moving out of the picture, in yet another expression of his repertoire of inexhaustible physical grace, elevates Desire, who responding like a most practiced dancer / acrobat somersaults onto the back of the elephant. “Let him be awhile.” Kama Mara said to her. “Wait. But then, when you see him, put aside cleverness. Invoke the most secret depths.”