Adventure stories; Boys -- Fiction; India -- Fiction; Irish -- India -- Fiction; Lamas -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction; Spy stories
“Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that
there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws to water,
so my Soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At
that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in
the sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Such-zen; I saw every
camp and village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I saw them
at one time and in one place; for they were within the Soul. By this I
knew the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of
Things. By this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying in thy cot,
and I saw thee falling downhill under the idolater—at one time, in one
place, in my Soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I
saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the _hakim_ from
Dacca kneeled beside, shouting in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone,
and I saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul.
And I meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of
the Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried: ‘What shall come to the
boy if thou art dead?’ and I was shaken back and forth in myself with
pity for thee; and I said: ‘I will return to my _chela_, lest he miss
the Way.’ Upon this my Soul, which is the Soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew
itself from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings
and agonies not to be told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from
the water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick
air, so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the Soul of
Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: ‘The River! Take
heed to the River!’ and I looked down upon all the world, which was as
I had seen it before—one in time, one in place—and I saw plainly the
River of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was hampered by
some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon
my arms and coiled round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth
as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the River. I pushed
aside world upon world for thy sake. I saw the River below me—the River
of the Arrow—and, descending, the waters of it closed over me; and
behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but free from sin, and
the _hakim_ from Decca bore up my head in the waters of the River. It
is here! It is behind the mango-tope here—even here!”
“Allah kerim! Oh, well that the Babu was by! Wast thou very wet?”
“Why should I regard? I remember the _hakim_ was concerned for the body
of Teshoo Lama. He haled it out of the holy water in his hands, and
there came afterwards thy horse-seller from the North with a cot and
men, and they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahiba’s
house.”
“What said the Sahiba?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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