When I read these pages of the story of my life I seriously
question myself: Is this Sandip? Am I made of words? Am I
merely a book with a covering of flesh and blood?
The earth is not a dead thing like the moon. She breathes. Her
rivers and oceans send up vapours in which she is clothed. She
is covered with a mantle of her own dust which flies about the
air. The onlooker, gazing upon the earth from the outside, can
see only the light reflected from this vapour and this dust. The
tracks of the mighty continents are not distinctly visible.
The man, who is alive as this earth is, is likewise always
enveloped in the mist of the ideas which he is breathing out.
His real land and water remain hidden, and he appears to be made
of only lights and shadows.
It seems to me, in this story of my life, that, like a living
plant, I am displaying the picture of an ideal world. But I am
not merely what I want, what I think--I am also what I do not
love, what I do not wish to be. My creation had begun before I
was born. I had no choice in regard to my surroundings and so
must make the best of such material as comes to my hand.
My theory of life makes me certain that the Great is cruel To be
just is for ordinary men--it is reserved for the great to be
unjust. The surface of the earth was even. The volcano butted
it with its fiery horn and found its own eminence--its justice
was not towards its obstacle, but towards itself. Successful
injustice and genuine cruelty have been the only forces by which
individual or nation has become millionaire or monarch.
That is why I preach the great discipline of Injustice. I say to
everyone: Deliverance is based upon injustice. Injustice is the
fire which must keep on burning something in order to save itself
from becoming ashes. Whenever an individual or nation becomes
incapable of perpetrating injustice it is swept into the dust-bin
of the world.
As yet this is only my idea--it is not completely myself. There
are rifts in the armour through which something peeps out which
is extremely soft and sensitive. Because, as I say, the best
part of myself was created before I came to this stage of
existence.
From time to time I try my followers in their lesson of cruelty.
One day we went on a picnic. A goat was grazing by. I asked
them: "Who is there among you that can cut off a leg of that
goat, alive, with this knife, and bring it to me?" While they
all hesitated, I went myself and did it. One of them fainted at
the sight. But when they saw me unmoved they took the dust of my
feet, saying that I was above all human weaknesses. That is to
say, they saw that day the vaporous envelope which was my idea,
but failed to perceive the inner me, which by a curious freak of
fate has been created tender and merciful.
In the present chapter of my life, which is growing in interest
every day round Bimala and Nikhil, there is also much that
remains hidden underneath. This malady of ideas which afflicts
me is shaping my life within: nevertheless a great part of my
life remains outside its influence; and so there is set up a
discrepancy between my outward life and its inner design which I
try my best to keep concealed even from myself; otherwise it may
wreck not only my plans, but my very life.
Life is indefinite--a bundle of contradictions. We men, with our
ideas, strive to give it a particular shape by melting it into a
particular mould--into the definiteness of success. All the
world-conquerors, from Alexander down to the American
millionaires, mould themselves into a sword or a mint, and thus
find that distinct image of themselves which is the source of
their success.
The chief controversy between Nikhil and myself arises from this:
that though I say "know thyself", and Nikhil also says "know
thyself", his interpretation makes this "knowing" tantamount to
"not knowing".
"Winning your kind of success," Nikhil once objected, "is success
gained at the cost of the soul: but the soul is greater than
success."