A VISIT TO A GÑÁNI.
During my stay in Ceylon I was fortunate enough to make the
acquaintance of one of the esoteric teachers of the ancient religious
mysteries. These Gurus or Adepts are to be found scattered all over
the mainland of India; but they lead a secluded existence, avoiding
the currents of Western civilisation--which are obnoxious to them--and
rarely come into contact with the English or appear on the surface
of ordinary life. They are divided into two great schools, the
Himalayan and South Indian--formed probably, even centuries back,
by the gradual retirement of the adepts into the mountains and
forests of their respective districts before the spread of foreign
races and civilisations over the general continent. The Himalayan
school has carried on the more democratic and progressive Buddhistic
tradition, while the South Indian has kept more to caste, and to the
ancient Brahmanical and later Hindu lines. This separation has led to
divergencies in philosophy, and there are even (so strong is sectional
feeling in all ranges of human activity) slight jealousies between the
adherents of the two schools; but the differences are probably after
all very superficial; in essence their teaching and their work may I
think be said to be the same.
The teacher to whom I allude belongs to the South Indian school,
and was only sojourning for a time in Ceylon. When I first made his
acquaintance he was staying in the precincts of a Hindu temple. Passing
through the garden and the arcade-like porch of the temple with its
rude and grotesque frescoes of the gods--Siva astride the bull,
Sakti, his consort, seated behind him, etc.--we found ourselves in a
side-chamber, where seated on a simple couch, his bed and day-seat in
one, was an elderly man (some seventy years of age, though he did not
look nearly as much as that) dressed only in a white muslin wrapper
wound loosely round his lithe and even active dark brown form: his
head and face shaven a day or two past, very gentle and spiritual
in expression, like the best type of Roman Catholic priest--a very
beautiful full and finely formed mouth, straight nose and well-formed
chin, dark eyes, undoubtedly the eyes of a seer, dark-rimmed eyelids,
and a powerful, prophetic, and withal childlike manner. He soon lapsed
into exposition which he continued for an hour or two with but few
interjections from his auditors.
At a later time he moved into a little cottage where for several
weeks I saw him nearly every day. Every day the same--generally
sitting on his couch, with bare arms and feet, the latter often
coiled under him--only requiring a question to launch off into a long
discourse--fluent, and even rapt, with ready and vivid illustration
and long digressions, but always returning to the point. Though
unfortunately my knowledge of Tamil was so slight that I could not
follow his conversation and had to take advantage of the services of a
friend as interpreter, still it was easy to see what a remarkable vigor
and command of language the fellow had, what power of concentration
on the subject in hand, and what a wealth of reference--especially
citation from ancient authorities--wherewith to illustrate his
discourse.
Everything in the East is different from the West, and so are the
methods of teaching. Teaching in the East is entirely authoritative and
traditional. That is its strong point and also its defect. The pupil
is not expected to ask questions of a sceptical nature or expressive
of doubt; the teacher does not go about to “prove” his thesis to the
pupil, or support it with arguments drawn from the plane of the pupil’s
intelligence; he simply re-delivers to the pupil, in a certain order
and sequence, the doctrines which were delivered to him in his time,
which have been since verified by his own experience, and which he can
illustrate by phrases and metaphors and citations drawn from the sacred
books. He has of course his own way of presenting the whole, but the
body of knowledge which he thus hands down is purely traditional, and
may have come along for thousands of years with little or no change.
Originality plays no part in the teaching of the Indian Sages. The
knowledge which they have to impart is of a kind in which invention is
not required. It purports to be a knowledge of the original fact of
the universe itself--something behind which no man can go. The West
may originate, the West may present new views of the prime fact--the
East only seeks to give to a man that fact itself, the supreme
consciousness, undifferentiated, the key to all that exists.
The Indian teachers therefore say there are as a rule three conditions
of the attainment of Divine knowledge or _gñánam_:--(1) The study of
the sacred books, (2) the help of a Guru, and (3) the verification of
the tradition by one’s own experience. Without this last the others
are of course of no use; and the chief aid of the Guru is directed to
the instruction of the pupil in the methods by which he may attain to
personal experience. The sacred books give the philosophy and some of
the experiences of the _gñáni_ or illuminated person, but they do not,
except in scattered hints, give instruction as to how this illumination
is to be obtained. The truth is, it is a question of evolution; and
it would neither be right that such instruction should be given to
everybody, nor indeed possible, since even in the case of those
prepared for it the methods must differ, according to the idiosyncrasy
and character of the pupil.
There are apparently isolated cases in which individuals attain to
_Gñánam_ through their own spontaneous development, and without
instruction from a Guru, but these are rare. As a rule every man who
is received into the body of Adepts receives his initiation through
another Adept who himself received it from a fore-runner, and the
whole constitutes a kind of church or brotherhood with genealogical
branches so to speak--the line of adepts from which a man descends
being imparted to him on his admission into the fraternity. I need
not say that this resembles the methods of the ancient mysteries and
initiations of classic times; and indeed the Indian teachers claim that
the Greek and Egyptian and other Western schools of arcane lore were
merely branches, more or less degenerate, of their own.
The course of preparation for Gñánam is called _yogam_, and the person
who is going through this stage is called a _yogi_--from the root
_yog_, to join--one who is seeking junction with the universal spirit.
Yogis are common all over India, and exist among all classes and in
various forms. Some emaciate themselves and torture their bodies,
others seek only control over their minds, some retire into the jungles
and mountains, others frequent the cities and exhibit themselves in the
crowded fairs, others again carry on the avocations of daily life with
but little change of outward habit. Some are humbugs, led on by vanity
or greed of gain (for to give to a holy man is highly meritorious);
others are genuine students or philosophers; some are profoundly imbued
with the religious sense, others by mere distaste for the world. The
majority probably take to a wandering life of the body, some become
wandering in mind; a great many attain to phases of clairvoyance and
abnormal power of some kind or other, and a very few become adepts of a
high order.
Anyhow the matter cannot be understood unless it is realised that this
sort of religious retirement is thoroughly accepted and acknowledged
all over India, and excites no surprise or special remark. Only some
five or six years ago the son of the late Rajah of Tanjore--a man
of some forty or fifty years of age, and of course the chief native
personage in that part of India--made up his mind to become a devotee.
He one day told his friends he was going on a railway journey, sent
off his servants and carriages from the palace to the station, saying
he would follow, gave them the slip, and has never been heard of since!
His friends went to the man who was known to have been acting as his
Guru, who simply told them, “You will never find him.” Supposing the
G.O.M. or the Prince of Wales were to retire like this--how odd it
would seem!
To illustrate this subject I may tell the story of Tilleináthan Swámy,
who was the teacher of the Guru whose acquaintance I am referring to
in this chapter. Tilleináthan was a wealthy shipowner of high family.
In 1850 he devoted himself to religious exercises, till 1855, when he
became “emancipated.” After his attainment he felt sick of the world,
and so he wound up his affairs, divided all his goods and money among
relations and dependents, and went off stark naked into the woods. His
mother and sisters were grieved and repeatedly pursued him, offering
to surrender all to him if he would only return. At last he simply
refused to answer their importunities, and they desisted. He appeared
in Tanjore after that in ’57, ’59, ’64 and ’72, but has not been seen
since. He is supposed to be living somewhere in the Western Ghauts.
In ’58 or ’59, at the close of the Indian Mutiny, when search was being
made for Nana Sahib, it was reported that the Nana was hiding himself
under the garb (or no garb) of an “ascetic,” and orders were issued to
detain and examine all such people. Tilleináthan was taken and brought
before the sub-magistrate at Tanjore, who told him the Government
orders, and that he must dress himself properly. At the same time the
sub-magistrate, having a friendly feeling for T. and guessing that he
would refuse obedience, had brought a wealthy merchant with him, whom
he had persuaded to stand bail for Tilleináthan in such emergency. When
however the merchant saw Tilleináthan, he expressed his doubts about
standing bail for him--whereupon T. said, “Quite right, it is no good
your standing bail for me; the English Government itself could not
stand bail for one who creates and destroys Governments. I will be bail
for myself.” The sub-magistrate then let him go.
But on the matter being reported at head-quarters the sub. was
reprimanded, and a force, consisting of an inspector and ten men
(natives of course), was sent to take Tilleináthan. He at first refused
and threatened them, but on the inspector pleading that he would
be dismissed if he returned with empty hands T. consented to come
“in order to save the inspector.” They came into full court--as it
happened--before the collector (Morris), who immediately reprimanded T.
for his mad costume! “It is you that are mad,” said the latter, “not
to know that this is my right costume,”--and he proceeded to explain
the four degrees of Hindu probation and emancipation. (These are, of
course, the four stages of student, householder, yogi and gñáni. Every
one who becomes a gñáni must pass through the other three stages. Each
stage has its appropriate costume and rules; the yogi wears a yellow
garment; the gñáni is emancipated from clothing, as well as from all
other troubles.)
Finally T. again told the collector that he was a fool, and that he
T. would punish him. “What will you do?” said the collector. “If you
don’t do justice I will burn you,” was the reply! At this the mass of
the people in court trembled, believing no doubt implicitly in T.’s
power to fulfil his threat. The collector however told the inspector to
read the Lunacy Act to Tilleináthan, but the inspector’s hand shook so
that he could hardly see the words--till T. said, “Do not be afraid--I
will explain it to you.” He then gave a somewhat detailed account of
the Act, pointed out to the collector that it did not apply to his
own case, and ended by telling him once more that he was a fool. The
collector then let him go!
Afterwards Morris--having been blamed for letting the man go--and
Beauchamp (judge), who had been rather impressed already by T.’s
personality, went together and with an escort to the house in Tanjore
in which Tilleináthan was then staying--with an undefined intention,
apparently, of arresting him. T. then asked them if they thought he was
under their Government--to which the Englishmen replied that they were
not there to argue philosophy but to enforce the law. T. asked how they
would enforce it. “We have cannons and men behind us,” said Morris.
“And I,” said T., “can also bring cannons and forces greater than
yours.” They then left him again, and he was no more troubled.
This story is a little disappointing in that no miracles come off, but
I tell it as it was told to me by the Guru, and my friend A. having
heard it substantially the same from other and independent witnesses
at Tanjore it may be taken as giving a fairly correct idea of the
kind of thing that occasionally happens. No doubt the collector would
look upon Tilleináthan as a “luny”--and from other stories I have
heard of him (his utter obliviousness of ordinary conventionalities
and proprieties, that he would lie down to sleep in the middle of the
street to the great inconvenience of traffic, that he would sometimes
keep on repeating a single vacant phrase over and over again for half a
day, etc.), such an opinion might, I should say, fairly be justified.
Yet at the same time there is no doubt he was a very remarkable man,
and the deep reverence with which our friend the Guru spoke of him was
obviously not accorded merely to the abnormal powers which he seems
at times to have manifested, but to the profundity and breadth of his
teaching and the personal grandeur which prevailed through all his
eccentricities.
It was a common and apparently instinctive practice with him to speak
of the great operations of Nature, the thunder, the wind, the shining
of the sun, etc., in the first person, “I”--the identification with, or
non-differentiation from the universe (which is the most important of
esoteric doctrines) being in his case complete. So also the democratic
character of his teaching surpassed even our Western records. He would
take a pariah dog--the most scorned of creatures--and place it round
his neck (compare the pictures of Christ with a lamb in the same
attitude), or even let it eat out of one plate with himself! One day,
in Tanjore, when importuned for instruction by five or six disciples,
he rose up and saying, “Follow me,” went through the streets to the
edge of a brook which divided the pariah village from the town--a line
which no Hindu of caste will ever cross--and stepping over the brook
bade them enter the defiled ground. This ordeal however his followers
could not endure, and--except one--they all left him.
Tilleináthan’s pupil, the teacher of whom I am presently speaking, is
married and has a wife and children. Most of these “ascetics” think
nothing of abandoning their families when the call comes to them, and
of going to the woods perhaps never to be seen again. He however has
not done this, but lives on quietly at home at Tanjore. Thirty or forty
years ago he was a kind of confidential friend and adviser to the then
reigning prince of Tanjore, and was well up in traditional state-craft
and politics; and even only two or three years ago took quite an active
interest in the National Indian Congress. His own name was Ramaswámy,
but he acquired the name Elúkhanam, “the Grammarian,” on account of his
proficiency in Tamil grammar and philosophy, on which subject he was
quite an authority, even before his initiation.
Tamil is a very remarkable, and indeed complex language--rivaling the
Sanskrit in the latter respect. It belongs to the Dravidian group, and
has few Aryan roots in it except what have been borrowed from Sanskrit.
It contains however an extraordinary number of philosophical terms, of
which some are Sanskrit in their origin, but many are entirely its own;
and like the people it forms a strange blend of practical qualities
with the most inveterate occultism. “Tamil,” says the author of an
article in the _Theosophist_ for November, ’90, “is one of the oldest
languages of India, if not of the world. Its birth and infancy are
enveloped in mythology. As in the case of Sanskrit, we cannot say when
Tamil became a literary language. The oldest Tamil works extant belong
to a time, about 2,000 years ago, of high and cultured refinement in
Tamil poetic literature. All the religious and philosophical poetry
of Sanskrit has become fused into Tamil, which language contains a
larger number of popular treatises in Occultism, Alchemy, etc., than
even Sanskrit; and it is now the only spoken language of India that
abounds in occult treatises on various subjects.” Going on to speak
of the Tamil Adepts, the author of this article says: “The popular
belief is that there were eighteen brotherhoods of Adepts scattered
here and there, in the mountains and forests of the Tamil country, and
presided over by eighteen Sadhoos; and that there was a grand secret
brotherhood composed of the eighteen Sadhoos, holding its meetings in
the hills of the Agasthya Kútam in the Tinnevelly district. Since the
advent of the English and their mountaineering and deforestation, these
occultists have retired far into the interior of the thick jungles on
the mountains; and a large number have, it is believed, altogether left
these parts for more congenial places in the Himalayan ranges. It is
owing to their influence that the Tamil language has been inundated,
as it were, with a vast number of works on esoteric philosophy. The
works of Agasthya Muni alone[3] would fill a whole library. The chief
and only object of these brotherhoods has been to popularise esoteric
truths and bring them home to the masses. So great and so extensive is
their influence that the Tamil literature is permeated with esoteric
truths in all its ramifications.” In fact the object of this article is
to point out the vast number of proverbs and popular songs, circulating
among the Tamils to-day, which conceal under frivolous guise the most
profound mystic truths. The grammar too--as I suppose was the case in
Sanskrit--is linked to the occult philosophy of the people.
[3] Or those ascribed to him.
To return to the Teacher, besides state-craft and grammar he is well
versed in matters of law, and not unfrequently tackles a question of
this kind for the help of his friends; and has some practical knowledge
of medicine, as well as of cookery, which he considers important in
its relation to health (the divine health, _Sukham_). It will thus
be seen that he is a man of good practical ability and acquaintance
with the world, and not a mere dreamer, as is too often assumed by
Western critics to be the case with all those who seek the hidden
knowledge of the East. In fact it is one of the remarkable points of
the Hindu philosophy that practical knowledge of life is expressly
inculcated as a preliminary stage to initiation. A man must be a
householder before he becomes a yogi; and familiarity with sexual
experience instead of being reprobated, is rather encouraged, in order
that having experienced one may in time pass beyond it. Indeed it is
not unfrequently maintained that the early marriage of the Hindus is
advantageous in this respect, since a couple married at the age of
fifteen or sixteen have by the time they are forty a grown-up family
launched in life, and having circled worldly experience are then free
to dedicate themselves to the work of “emancipation.”
During his _yoga_ period, which lasted about three years, his wife
was very good to him and assisted him all she could. He was enjoined
by his own teacher to refrain from speech and did so for about a year
and a half, passing most of his time in fixed attitudes of meditation,
and only clapping his hands when he wanted food, etc. Hardly anything
shows more strongly the hold which these religious ideas have upon the
people than the common willingness of the women to help their husbands
in works of this kind, which beside the sore inconvenience of them,
often deprive the family of its very means of subsistence and leave
it dependent on the help of relations and others. But so it is. It is
difficult for a Westerner even to begin to realise the conditions and
inspirations of life in the East.
Refraint from speech is not a necessary condition of initiation, but
it is enjoined in some cases. (There might be a good many cases among
the Westerners where it would be very desirable--with or without
initiation!) “Many practising,” said the Guru one day, “have not
spoken for twelve years--so that when freed they had lost the power
of speech--babbled like babies--and took some time to recover it.
But for two or three years you experience no disability.” “During my
initiation,” he added, “I often wandered about the woods all night, and
many times saw wild beasts, but they never harmed me--as indeed they
cannot harm the initiated.”
At the present time he lives (when at home) a secluded life, mostly
absorbed in trance conditions--his chief external interest no doubt
being the teaching of such people as are led to him, or he is led
to instruct. When however he takes up any practical work he throws
himself into it with that power and concentration which is peculiar
to a “Master,” and which is the natural corollary of the power, of
abstraction when healthily used.
Among their own people these Gurus often have small circles of
disciples, who receive the instruction of their master and in return
are ever ready to attend upon his wants. Sometimes such little parties
sit up all night alternately reading the sacred books and absorbing
themselves in meditation. It appears that Elukhanam’s mother became his
pupil and practised according to instructions, making good progress.
One day however she told her son that she should die that night.
“What, are you ill?” he said. “No,” she replied, “but I feel that I
shall die.” Then he asked her what she desired to be done with her
body. “Oh, tie a rope to it and throw it out into the street,” was
her reply--meaning that it did not matter--a very strong expression,
considering caste regulations on the subject. Nothing more was said,
but that night at 3 a.m. as they and some friends were sitting up
(cross-legged on the floor as usual) reading one of the sacred books,
one of those present said, “But your mother does not move,”--and she
was dead.
When in Ceylon our friend was only staying temporarily in a
cottage, with a servant to look after him, and though exceedingly
animated and vigorous as I have described, when once embarked in
exposition--capable of maintaining his discourse for hours with
unflagging concentration--yet the moment such external call upon his
faculties was at an end, the interest that it had excited seemed to be
entirely wiped from his mind; and the latter returned to that state of
interior meditation and absorption in the contemplation of the world
disclosed to the inner sense, which had apparently become his normal
condition.
I was in fact struck, and perhaps a little shocked, by the want of
interest in things and persons around him displayed by the great
man--not that, as I have said, he was not very helpful and considerate
in special cases--but evidently that part of his nature which held
him to the actual world was thinning out; and the personalities of
attendants and of those he might have casual dealings with, or even the
scenes and changes of external nature, excited in him only the faintest
response.
As I have said he seemed to spend the greater part of the twenty-four
hours wrapt in contemplation, and this not in the woods, but in
the interior of his own apartment. As a rule he only took a brief
half-hour’s walk mornings and evenings, just along the road and back
again, and this was the only time he passed out of doors. Certainly
this utter independence of external conditions--the very small amount
of food and exercise and even of sleep that he took, combined with
the great vigor that he was capable of putting forth on occasion
both bodily and mentally, and the perfect control he had over his
faculties--all seemed to suggest the idea of his having access to some
interior source of strength and nourishment. And indeed the general
doctrine that the gñáni can thus attain to independence and maintain
his body from interior sources alone (eat of the “hidden manna”) is
one much cherished by the Hindus, and which our friend was never tired
of insisting on.
Finally, his face, while showing the attributes of the seer,
the externally penetrating quick eye, and the expression of
_illumination_--the deep mystic light within--showed also the
prevailing sentiment of happiness behind it. _Sandósiam, Sandósiam
eppótham_--“Joy, always joy”--was his own expression, oft repeated.
Perhaps I have now said enough to show--what of course was sufficiently
evident to me--that, however it may be disguised under trivial or even
in some cases repellent coverings, there _is_ some reality beneath all
these--some body of real experience, of no little value and importance,
which has been attained in India by a portion at any rate of those who
have claimed it, and which has been handed down now through a vast
number of centuries among the Hindu peoples as their most cherished and
precious possession.