Darnu ascended the mountain.
It was a hard climb. It was very evident that a human foot rarely passed
over the neglected path, but Darnu cheerfully defied all obstacles and
finally reached the half-ruined gates, above which was the ancient
inscription: “I am Necessity, the mistress of every movement.” The walls
had no other sculptures or decorations save fragments of some numbers and
mysterious calculations.
Darnu entered the sanctuary. The old walls spread abroad the peace of
destruction and death. But this destruction apparently had grown weary
and left undisturbed the ruins of walls which had witnessed the march of
centuries. In one wall there was a broad recess; several steps led up
to an altar, on which was an idol of a gleaming black stone; the deity
smiled strangely as it gazed upon this picture of ruin. From beneath it
bubbled a brook which filled the wondrous silence with the murmur of its
water. Several palms stretched their roots into its course and towered up
to the blue sky, which freely looked down through the ruined roof....
Darnu involuntarily submitted to the wondrous spell of this place and
decided to question the mysterious deity, whose spirit still seemed to
fill the ruined temple. The sage scooped up some water out of the cold
brook and gathered some fruit which an old fig-tree had shed and then
he began his preparations according to all the rules in the books on
contemplation. First of all he sat down facing the idol, drew up his
legs, and looked at the image a long time, for he wanted to impress it
upon his mind. Then he bared his abdomen and gazed upon that spot where
he was bound to his mother before his earthly birth. For it is well known
that all knowledge lies between being and not being and hence must come
the revelations of contemplation....
In such a posture he saw the end of the first day and the beginning of
the second. The heat of noon several times replaced the cool of evening
and the shadows of night gave place to the light of the sun,—but Darnu
remained in the same position, rarely plunging his gourd into the water
or absent-mindedly picking up some fruit. The eyes of the sage grew
dull and fixed; his limbs dried up. At first he felt the inconvenience
and pain of immobility. Later on these sensations passed into complete
unconsciousness, and before the stony gaze of the sage another world,
the world of contemplation, began to unroll its strange apparitions and
shapes. They no longer bore any relationship to the experiences of the
meditating sage. They were disinterested, disconnected, and concerned
only themselves, and that meant that they were the preludes to a
revelation of the truth.
It was hard to say how long this state continued. The water in the gourd
dried up, the palms quietly rustled, the ripening fruits broke off
and fell at the sage’s feet, but he let them lie on the ground. He was
almost freed from thirst and hunger. He was not warmed by the noontide
sun nor chilled by the cool freshness of the night. Finally he ceased to
distinguish the light of day and the darkness of night.
Then the inner eye of Darnu saw the long expected vision. Out of his
abdomen grew a green trunk of bamboo tipped with a knot like an ordinary
stem. From the knot grew another section and thus, rising ever higher,
the trunk grew to consist of fifty joints, a number corresponding to the
years of the sage. At the top, instead of leaves and blossoms, grew a
something resembling the idol in the temple. This something looked down
on Darnu with an evil smile.
“Poor Darnu,” it said finally. “Why did you come here and take so much
trouble? What do you want, poor Darnu?”
“I seek the truth,” answered the sage.
“Then look on me, for I am what you sought. But I see that I am
unpleasant and disagreeable to your sight.”
“You are incomprehensible,” answered Darnu.
“Listen, Darnu. Do you see the fifty joints of the reed?”
“The fifty joints of the reed are my years,” said the sage.
“And I sit above them, for I am ‘Necessity,’ the mistress of every
movement. Every act, every breath, everything existing, everything
living is impotent, powerless, helpless; under the control of necessity
it attains the aim of its existence, which is death. I am that which
has guided the fifty joints of your life from the cradle to the present
moment. You have never done a single thing in your whole life: not a
single thing of good or evil.... You have never given a coin to a beggar
in a moment of pity nor dealt a single blow with hatred in your heart
... you have never cared for a single rose in your monastery gardens nor
felled a single tree in the forest ... you have never fed a single animal
nor killed a single gnat which was sucking your blood.... You have never
made a single movement in your whole life without it being marked down in
advance by me.... Because I am Necessity.... You have been proud of your
actions or lamented bitterly for your sins. Your heart trembled from love
or hate, but I—I was laughing at you, for I am Necessity and write down
everything in advance. When you entered a square to teach fools what to
do or what to avoid,—I was laughing and saying to myself: just see wise
Darnu reveal his wisdom to those naïve fools and share his sanctity with
sinners. Not because Darnu is wise and holy, but because I, ‘Necessity,’
am like a stream and Darnu is like a leaf carried away by the current.
Poor Darnu, you thought that you had been led hither by your search for
truth.... But on these walls among my calculations was marked the day and
the hour when you had to cross this threshold. Because I am Necessity....
Poor sage!”
“I loathe you,” said the seer with aversion.
“I know it. Because you considered yourself free and I am Necessity, the
mistress of every movement.”
Then Darnu became angry; he seized the fifty joints of the reed, broke
them off, and flung them away. “So,” he said, “so will I deal with the
fifty joints of my life, because during these fifty years I was merely
the tool of Necessity. Now I will free myself, because I have seen and I
want to break my yoke.”
But Necessity, invisible in the darkness which surrounded the dull gaze
of the sage, laughed and repeated:
“No, poor Darnu, you are still mine, because I am Necessity.”
Darnu opened his eyes with difficulty and suddenly he felt that his
feet were swollen and painful. He started to rise, but at once he sank
back again. Because he now saw clearly the significance of all the
inscriptions and calculations in the temple. As soon as he began to move
his limbs, he saw that his desire to do so had already been written on
the wall.
As from another world, the voice of Necessity came to his ears:
“Rise now, poor Darnu; your limbs are swollen. You see 999,998 of your
brothers in darkness do it.... It is _necessary_.”
In disgust Darnu remained in his former position, which now became still
more painful. But he said to himself: “I will be one of those in the
darkness who will not submit to Necessity, because I am free.”
Meanwhile the sun had reached the zenith, and as it looked through the
holes in the roof, it began to parch the ill-protected body of the
sage.... Darnu stretched out his hand toward his gourd.
But he at once saw what was written on the wall under the number 999,998
and Necessity again said:
“Poor sage, it is _necessary_ that you drink.”
Darnu left the gourd untouched and said:
“I will not drink, because I am free.”
There came a laugh from a distant corner of the temple and at the same
time one of the fruits of the fig-tree grew too heavy to hang any longer
and fell at the feet of the sage. At the same time a number on the wall
changed. Darnu realized at once that this was a new attempt of Necessity
to destroy his inner liberty.
“I will not eat,” he said, “because I am free.”
Again there came a laugh from the depths of the temple and he heard the
murmuring of the brook:
“Poor Darnu!”
The sage became more angry. He remained motionless without looking at the
fruit which from time to time fell from the boughs, without hearkening
to the seductive murmur of the waters, and he kept repeating one phrase
to himself: “I am free, free, free!” And that no fruit might thwart his
freedom by falling directly into his mouth, he closed it tightly and
clenched his teeth.
Thus he sat for a long time, freeing himself from hunger and thirst and
trying to spread abroad to all the corners of the earth confidence in
his inner liberty. He grew thin, dried up, became wooden, lost track of
time and space. He could no longer distinguish day and night, but he kept
repeating and asserting to himself that he was free. After a certain
space of time, the birds became accustomed to his immobility, flew up and
perched upon him, and still later a pair of wild doves built their nest
on the head of the free sage and heedlessly brought forth their young in
the folds of his turban.
“O foolish birds!” thought wise Darnu, when first the calling of the
parents and the peeping of the young penetrated his consciousness. “They
do all this because they are not free and obey the laws of Necessity.”
And even when his shoulders were covered with the droppings of the
birds,—he again said to himself:
“Fools! They do _this_ too, because they are not free.”
He counted himself perfectly free and close to the gods.
Below, out of the soil, the thin tendrils of climbing vines began to rise
and to wind themselves around his immovable limbs....