Priestess Savitri
Devi (30 September 1905 – 22 October 1982) was Mrs Maximiani Portas, Greek-English
origin and citizen of India.
Excerpt
from the Book “The Lightning and the Sun”
MEN IN
TIME, ABOVE TIME AND AGAINST TIME
All men,
inasmuch as they are not liberated from the bondage of Time follow the downward
path of history, whether they know it or not, and whether they like it or not.
Few indeed
thoroughly like it, even at our epoch, — let alone in happier ages, when people
read less and thought more. Few follow it unhesitatingly, without throwing,
sometime or other, a sad glance towards the distant lost paradise into which
they know, in their deeper consciousness, that they are never to enter; the
paradise of Perfection in time — a thing so remote that the earliest people of
whom we know remembered it only as a dream. Yet, they follow the fatal way.
They obey their destiny.
That
resigned submission to the terrible law of decay — that acceptation of the
bondage of Time by creatures who dimly feel that they could be free from it,
but who find it too hard to try to free themselves; who know before hand that
they would never succeed, even if they did try, — is at the bottom of that
incurable unhappiness of man, deplored again and again in the Greek tragedies,
and long before these were written. Man is unhappy because he knows, because he
feels — in general — that the world in which he lives and of which he is a
part, is not what it should be, what it could be, what, in fact, it was at the
dawn of Time, before decay set in and before violence became unavoidable. He
cannot whole-heartedly accept that world as his — specially not accept the fact
that it is going from bad to worse, — and be glad. However much he may try to
be a “realist” and snatch from destiny whatever he can, when he can, still an
invincible yearning for the better remains at the bottom of his heart. He
cannot — in general — will the world as it is.
But few
people — as rare as the liberated ones, for whom Time does not exist, and
perhaps rarer, — can and do; and act up to that will. These are the most
thorough, the most mercilessly effective agents of the Death-forces on earth: —
supremely intelligent, and sometimes extraordinarily farsighted; always
unscrupulous to the utmost; working without hesitation and without remorse in
the sense of the downward process of history and, (whether they can see or not
as far as that) for its logical conclusion: the annihilation of man and of all
life.
Naturally,
they do not always see as far as that. But when they do, still they do not
care. Since the Law of: Time is what it is, and since the end must come, it is
just as well that they should draw all the profit they possibly can from the
process that is, anyhow, sooner or later, to bring about the end.
Since no
one can re-create the primeaval lost Paradise — no one but the wheel of Time
itself, after it has rolled its full course — then it is just as well that
they, who can completely forget the distant vision, or who never had a glimpse
of its dying glow; they, who can stifle in themselves the age-old yearning for
Perfection, or rather, who never experienced it; it is just as well that they,
I say, should squeeze out of the fleeing moment (whether minutes or years, it
matters little) all the intense, immediate enjoyment they can, until the hour
copses when they must die. It is just as well that they should leave their
stamp upon the world — force generations to remember them, — until the hour
comes for the world to die. So they feel. It makes little difference what
suffering they might cause to men or other living creatures, by acting as they
do. Both men and creatures are bound to suffer, anyhow. Just as well through
them as through others, if that can forward the aims of these people.
The aims of
these people — of the men within Time, par excellence, — are always selfish
aims, even when, owing to their material magnitude and historical importance,
they transcend immeasurably any one man’s life, as they actually do, sometimes.
For selfishness, — the claim of the “part” to more place and to more meaning
than is naturally allotted to it within the whole, — is the very root of
disintegration, and therefore a characteristic inseparable from Time. One can
practically say that, more a person is thoroughly, remorselessly selfish, more
he or she lives “in Time.”
But, as we
have said, that selfishness is manifested in many different ways. It can find
expression in that mere lust for personal enjoyment, which characterises the
shameless voluptuary; or in the miser’s insatiable greed for gold; or in the
individual ambition of the seeker of honours and position; or in the family
ambition of the man who is ready to sacrifice every interest in the world to
the welfare and happiness of his wife and children. But it can also be brought
out in the exaltation of a man’s tribe or country above all others, not because
of its inherent worth in the natural hierarchy of Life, but just because it
happens to be the tribe or country of that particular man. It can be, nay, and
often is, brought out in the undue exaltation of all human beings, however
debased, above all the rest of living creation, however healthy and beautiful —
the passion which underlies the age-old tyranny of “man” over Nature; the “love
of man” not in harmony with the Godordained duties and rights of each and every
species (as of every race and of every individual) according to its place, but
in a spirit of mere solidarity with one’s kith and kin, good or bad, worthy or
unworthy, solely because they are one’s own. Men “in Time” only know what is
“their own” and what is not, and they love themselves in whatever is theirs.
As there
are men “in Time,” so there are, also, philosophies and religions —
“ideologies” — “in Time”; false religions, all of them, for true religion can
only be above time. Such doctrines are more and more numerous, more and more
varied, and more and more popular as the world proceeds nearer to the end of
every historical Cycle. There was an epoch when they did not exist; an epoch in
which a man “in Time” was necessarily against all professed doctrines. To-day,
nearly all interpretations of age-old, true religions, and nearly all the
“isms” that have replaced religions, are of the type “in Time.” Their function
within the scheme of things, at this stage of world-history, is just to deceive
the well-meaning weaklings and fools — the hesitating people, who want an
excuse, a justification for living “in” Time without the unpleasant feeling of
a guilty conscience, and who cannot find one for themselves. These are only too
glad to catch hold of a philosophy loudly professing to be unselfish, which
allows them, nay, encourages them, to work under its cover for their selfish
ends.
The ones
who use a really unselfish doctrine, — an originally “timeless” philosophy, —
for that purpose, lie all the more shamelessly to themselves and to others.
And, by doing so, they help in reality to forward the great tendency of
history: to hasten the decay which leads to the great End and, beyond — to the
following new Beginning.
But the
actual, typical men “within Time” need no justifying ideology in order to act.
Their thoroughly selfish attitude is, in all its glaring shamelessness, far
more beautiful than that growing tendency of the tiny men to slip down the path
to perdition while hanging unto some “noble” ends such as “liberty, equality,
fraternity” or “the rights of international proletariate,” or unto some
misunderstood religion. Whatever they may tell the people whom they wish to
deceive, — whom they have to deceive, in order to succeed, — the real men “in
Time” never deceive themselves. They know what they truly want. And they know
the way to get it. And they do not care what it costs to others or to themselves.
And, specially, they do not, at the same time, want anything else, which is
incompatible with their aims.
And so, —
whether on an ordinary scale, like the consistent voluptuary or the single purposed
miser, or on a nation-wide or continentwide scale, like those who stir millions
and sacrifice millions of people, that they might impose their own will, — they
act, in a way, as gods would act.
And, both
in the grandeur of their achievements and in the beauty of the first-rate
qualities of character which they put to the service of their purpose, a few of
them really have something god-like — as, for instance, that greatest conqueror
of all times, whose extraordinary career forms the subject-matter of a part of
this book: Genghis-Khan. They possess the awful splendour of the great
devastating forces of Nature; of the roaring sea, rolling out of its bed over
the land; of a lava stream, burning its way through all obstacles; of the
lightning, that men used to worship, when they still understood what is divine.
Naturally,
this can be said only of those men whose action exceeds, by its very magnitude,
the limits of what is “personal.” It is difficult to imagine any mere seeker of
physical pleasure, or even of individual riches, attaining such a grim,
god-like greatness. The importance of the men “in Time,” as such, depends upon
the nature of their action itself and upon the breadth of the surroundings
which it influences, no less if not more than upon the way in which, and the
one-sided, cynically selfish purpose for which, they act.
And this is
understandable, for reasons other than the sheer aesthetic impression which the
true story of a mighty life can leave upon the reader or the bystander. It is
the consequence of the fact that, like the great forces of Nature which we
mentioned, real men “in Time” are blind powers, serving unknowingly the purpose
of the Cosmos. The same is true, of course, of the petty seekers after small
profits, in their limited sphere of activity. They too are blind powers of
destruction. But small ones, at our scale at least. We experience the awe of
the Divine in presence of the big ones only — as we do, for instance, before a
storm upon the Ocean, while the sight of a pool of water disturbed by the wind
leaves us indifferent.
When the
ends, — however petty and personal in themselves, — are masterfully served
through such action as stirs the whole world; when, in order to attain them, a
man “in Time” displays, upon the international stage, superhuman qualities
worthy of much higher ends, then, one feels one’s self in presence not of a man
“in Time” but of the divine Destroyer — Mahakala;
Time
Itself, — everlastingly rushing the Thing that seems to annihilation followed
by new birth and then again by further decay and annihilation.
The man “in Time” can have any aim, with the exception of a disinterested one (which would at once raise him “above Time”). He himself is always like a blind force of destructive Nature. (That is the reason why so many thoroughly “bad” characters in literature and in the theatre are so attractive, in their forceful evil.) He has no ideology. Or rather, his ideology is himself, separated from the divine Whole — i.e., it is the disintegration of the Whole (of the universe) for the benefit of himself, and, ultimately, the destruction of himself also, although he does not know it or does not care. And that is the case in every instance. But under certain conditions, when his action takes, in human history, the permanent importance that a great geological cataclysm has in the history of the earth, then, as I said, the man “in Time” disappears from our sight, and in his, place — but still bearing his features, — appears, in all His dramatic majesty, Mahakala, the eternal Destroyer. It is Him Whom we adore in the great lightning individuals such as Genghis Khan — Him; not them. They are only the clay images inhabited by Him for a few brief years. And just as the clay image hides and suggests the invisible God or Goddess — Power everlasting — so does their selfishness both hide and reveal the impersonal purposefulness of Life; the destructive phase of the divine Play, in which already lies the promise of the new dawn to come. And just as volcanic convulsions or invading sea-tides prepare, in the course of centuries, a new growth, in a re-shaped physical universe, so do the great men “in Time” bring us nearer the liberating end and thereby prepare the way for the next glorious Beginning. “Scourges of God,” in a way, they are also blessings in disguise. Far better their frank, brutal destructiveness for selfish ends than the silly patch-work of the ordinary well-meaning people who try to “do good” in this fallen world, without having the courage to strike and burn and tear; who have only “constructive” schemes — all useless! For destruction and creation are for ever linked. That is why we adore the Lightning as well as the Sun, and are overwhelmed by a feeling of sacred awe at the thought of the grand-scale exterminators without ideologies, human likenesses of great Mahakala.
But there
are also men “outside Time” or rather “above Time”; men who live, here and now,
in eternity; who (directly at least) have no part to play in the downward rush
of history towards disintegration and death, but who behold it from above — as
one beholds, from a strong and safe bridge, the irresistible rush of a
waterfall into the abyss — and who have repudiated the law of violence which is
the law of Time.
Of such
men, most live a very special life, away from the world; a life of which the
whole inner discipline, spiritual, moral and physical, is systematically
devised to keep them in constant union with the great Reality beyond Time: the
Thing that is, as opposed to the Thing that seems. They are the real ascetics
(in the etymological sense of the word: those who have “trained” themselves to
live in eternity). Others — far rarer — live in eternity without a particular
“training,” even while living, outwardly, the life of the world; while being
husbands and wives, parents and educators of children, manual or intellectual
labourers, citizens, soldiers, rulers, etc.
Of those
who live “outside” or “above” Time, some are saviours.
Others just
leave things and people go their way, feeling that they are not called to
intervene in anyone’s destiny and knowing that, in the course of centuries, all
souls that care to be saved will, anyhow, evolve towards the timeless life of
the saints. The distinction between these two types of “liberated” people
corresponds, in Buddhist terminology, to that between the Bodhisattvas and the
Arhats. Both these are free beings, outside the law of birth and rebirth — the
bondage of Time. But, while the Arhat remains completely aloof from the fallen
world, the Bodhisattva is born over and over again, of his own free will, in
order to help living creatures to work themselves out of the ocean of life
within Time.
But the
salvation which the men “above Time” offer the world is always that which
consists in breaking the time-bondage. It is never that which would find its
expression in collective life on earth in accordance with Golden Age ideals. It
is the salvation of the individual soul, never that of organised society. For
the men “above Time” know fully well that that cannot be saved before the
beginning of a new Time-cycle — specially not by peaceful preaching or even
edifying examples. And even when they do, to some extent, try to bring a
certain amount of organisation into being among a restricted number of
disciples, — in monastic communities, for instance, — they know that, however
saintly it be, the community as such is bound to degenerate sooner or later. The
Buddha foretold the corruption of his sangha “after five hundred years.”
It is true
that some — though extremely few — men, of those whom we have characterised as
“above Time,” have been (or have tried to be) reformers in the worldly sense,
by non-violent means. But none of them were “saviours” of society, really
speaking. The saviours in the worldly sense of the word — those who set out to
perfect not merely men’s souls but men’s collective life and government, and
international relations — are what we call men “against Time.” And they are necessarily
violent, although not always physically so. They may be, — in fact, they should
be, — personally free from the bondage of. Time, if they are to act with the
maximum of foresight and efficiency. But they have to take into consideration
the conditions of action “within Time” to live “in” Time, also, in a way. The others
— the men “above Time” who appear to have been reformers — have not really
tried to remould the world according to their understanding of eternal truth
(otherwise, they would not have remained non-violent). What they did was to
live in the world their own timeless philosophy. And to the extent that they
occupied a position of importance — like that most remarkable of them all,
Akhnaton, King of Egypt, who was in his days the most powerful man on earth —
their lives could not but have a repercussion upon those of their
contemporaries.
It might
seem strange that the Founder of a State-religion — for the cult of the
“Heat-and-Light-within-the-Disk” was that, undoubtedly — should not be counted
among the “saviours” of the world, but rather among those extremely rare men
“above Time” who have lived the life of this earth while stubbornly remaining
foreign to this earth’s grim realities. But appearances are deceptful. And we
shall see, further on, in examining the nature of the much misunderstood Cult of
the Disk and the life of King Akhnaton, its Promoter, that this view is the
right one.
The most
distinctive trait of the men “outside” or “above” Time, as opposed to those who
live “in” Time or “against” Time, is perhaps their consistent refusal to use
violence even in order to forward the most righteous cause. Not that they are
at all squeamish about violence, like the weaklings, neither good nor bad, who compose ninety per cent of
mankind at our epoch. They could not possibly disapprove of the warrior-like
ideal of detached, selfless violence preached by Lord Krishna — the divine
Preserver of the Universe, Himself — in the Bhagavad-Gita; for that ideal is in
harmony with everlasting truth, which any man who has transcended Time is bound
to acknowledge. Only they are not Kshattriyas by nature, whatever be their
race, their social position, their inherited responsibilities; they are not men
of action, by nature, let alone fighters. Their action, like that of the Sun,
lies essentially in their personal radiation of power, beauty and goodness.
What they do is, of course, the integral reflexion of what they are, nothing
more; nothing different; nothing which is foreign to them, for they are fully
conscious of their being. And if they have any substantial influence at all, it
is, like that of the Sun, an influence from above and from afar, characterised
by its absolute impartiality, its indiscriminate and impersonal goodness.
They do
nothing to compell others — nothing, at least, beyond certain limits, even if
they live in the world. They know they cannot force the evolution of things,
nor suppress the part played by Time in the lives of those who are still
submitted to its iron law. Again, like the Sun, they shine. If the seed is alive,
it will ripen sooner or later, never mind when, Violence would only help to
produce an artificial growth. And if the seed be dead? Let it be!
There are
new seeds; new creations, for ever and ever. The people who live in eternity
can wait.
We have
said: those who remain “above Time” do not resort to violence. This does not
mean that all men who abstain from violence are necessarily liberated souls,
living “above Time.” First, an immense number of cowards are non-violent for
fear of taking risks. And they are- anything but free from the bondage of Time.
Then, that which one often takes for non-violence, — that which actually goes
under that name, — is, in reality, but a subtler form of violence: pressure
upon other people’s feelings, more oppressive and — when one knows, in each
case, what feelings to appeal to, many a time more effective than pressure upon
their bodies. Late Mahatma Gandhi’s much admired “non-violence” was of that
type: moral violence; not: “Do this, or else I kill you!”, but: “Do this, or
else I kill myself!” Knowing that you hold my life as indispensable. It may
look “nobler.” In fact, it is just the same — apart from the difference in the
technique of pressure. It is, rather, less “noble” because, precisely on
account of that subtler technique, it leads people to, believe that it is not
violence, and therefore contains an element of deceit, an inherent falsehood,
from which ordinary violence is free.
Late
Mahatma Gandhi was by no means what we have tried to define as a man “above
time.” He was what we shall call a man “against Time,” aiming now — far too
late or... a little too soon, — at the establishment of a tangible order of
justice (Ram raj) on this earth. But, inasmuch as it lacks the frankness of
brutal force, his so-called “non-violence” — moral violence — is characteristic
of our epoch of dishonesty (however honest and sincere he might have been
himself.) It is, perhaps, the first instance in history of a disguised form of
violence applied, on a broad scale, in a struggle for a good purpose. Its
popularity in India can partly be credited to the fact that it was, or seemed
to be, the only practical weapon in the hands of totally disarmed and, to a
great extent, naturally apathetic people. But it enjoyed abroad, also, a
tremendous publicity, quite out of proportion with its real value (and late Mahatma
Gandhi’s tremendous reputation of “holiness” is no less out of proportion with
his real place among the great men of India). The foreigners who have done the
most to popularise it are people typical of our degenerate age: people who
recoil at the mere thought of any healthy and frank display of force, but who cannot
even detect moral violence; men and women (especially women) of the Western
Democracies, the most hypocritical half of the world. It appealed to them
precisely to the extent that it was violence in disguise. Even English people
(some of whom had lived in India; some of whom had, nay, occupied a high
position within the ranks of British colonial officialdom) could not help
admiring it. It was not that hated brutal force which other great men “against
Time” had used in, the course of history (or were using at our epoch) to bring
about an age of justice. Oh, no!
But it surely was not, either, the
non-violence of the men “above Time” who, if they cared at all to take an
occasional stand against the unavoidable fall of mankind, would either use no
real pressure at all to enforce their good laws — and fail, from a worldly
point of view, as King Akhnaton did, — or else, exert “against Time” any amount
of violence that might be necessary, in the spirit of the God Who speaks, in
the Bhagavad-Gita, to the Fighter for a just cause (provided the latter happens
to be, like Arjuna, a Kshattriya, i.e., a warrior by race and by nature).
The men who
remain “above Time” seem to be those who have the least influence of all upon
the course of events in this world. And that too is to be expected in a world
which is sinking deeper and deeper every day into the abyss. In the Age of
Truth, and even in later ages pictured in the sacred books of India, the men
“above Time” — the true Brahmins, in union with eternal Reality — were the
natural and actual counsellors of kings; genuine spiritual authority then
backed legitimate temporal power. But as the temporal order on earth became
more and more unlike the ideal heavenly Order, kings were less and less
inclined to act according to the commands of an increasingly rare timeless
wisdom. And what is true of kings is, also, here, true of commoners. As a
result, men “outside Time” or “above Time” enjoy less and less authority as the
world proceeds towards the end of every Time-cycle. Even when, — like King Akhnaton
— they themselves happen to be rulers endowed with absolute power, their lives
do not — cannot — in what the Hindus call the “Kali Yuga,” leave upon the sands
of time the trace which they normally should.
Moreover,
sometimes, — and that, even if they be ascetics, apparently separated from the
world, — men “above Time” can, like the Sun, with which we have constantly
compared them, be destructive, indirectly. Their light, indiscriminately shed
upon the righteous and the unrighteous, can have the most varied and unexpected
effects amidst a humanity evolving from bad to worse. One can think of the
destructiveness of King Akhnaton’s “Golden Age” attitude to international
affairs, viewed from the Egyptian side. One can think also of the true
religions, conceived by such men “above Time” as were not in possession of
temporal power, and then distorted by clever people who lived, most of them,
entirely “within Time,” and used by them in the service of the most selfish,
the most destructive of all worldly ends. It is, naturally, “not the fault” of
the men “above Time” — any more than it would be “the fault” of the Sun, if, in
some land where the heat of the sun-rays is unbearable, a man were to tie his
enemy to a pillar in a shadeless place and leave him to die there. Truly
speaking, it is not “the fault” of the men “within Time” either. It is a
consequence of the law of general decay, inseparable from life in time: as the
world becomes less and less capable of penetrating their eternal meaning, even
the best things are misunderstood, and, either hated and rejected or else put
to some criminal use.
Exiles of
the Golden Age in our Age of Gloom, the men “above Time” either live entirely
within their own inner world, or else live and act in this one also, but as
though it were still in its Golden Age. They either renounce this world or
ignore it — or, better, forget it, as a man forgets the scars of sin and
sickness upon a once beautiful face, which he still loves, in spite of all.
They see the everlasting and unchangeable behind the downward rush of the
stream of time; the Thing that is, behind the thing that seems.
Even when
they live in the world of forms, colours and sounds as earnestly and intensely
as King Akhnaton — that supreme artist — did, still those impressions take on,
for them, a meaning entirely different from that which they retain in the
consciousness of people submitted to the bondage of Time. Men “above Time”
enjoy with detachment, as people who know they will never die. They also suffer
with detachment, being constantly aware of their blissful real Self, which is
beyond pleasure and pain.
And the
fallen world can never understand them, i.e. know them, any more than they can
understand the fall of man, in which they have no part, as others, who share
it, can, and do. And yet, untiringly, — like the Sun, far away and omnipresent
— they shed their light; that light which is, in our growing gloom, like a
glimpse of all the past and future dawns.
But, as we
have said, there are also people with a Golden Age outlook, — fully aware of
what a splendid place this world could be, materially and otherwise, — who can,
however, neither renounce life “as it is” nor ignore it; people who, in addition
to that, are endowed with what the Hindus would call a “Kshattriya” nature:
born fighters, for whom difficulties exist only to be overcome, and for whom
the impossible has a strange fascination. These are the men “against Time,” —
absolutely sincere, selfless idealists, believers in those eternal values that
the fallen world has rejected, and ready, in order to reassert them on the
material plane, to resort to any mea within their reach. As a consequence of
the law of Time, those means are necessarily all the more drastic and all the
more brutal as every historical Cycle draws nearer to its end. The last Man
“against Time” is, in fact, no other than He Whose name, in Sanskrit Tradition,
is Kalki, — the last Incarnation of the divine Sustainer of the universe and,
at the same time, the Destroyer of the whole world; the Saviour Who will put an
end to this present “yuga” in a formidable display of unparalleled violence, in
order that a new creation may flourish in the innocence and splendour of a new
“Age of Truth.”
Men
“outside Time” or “above Time,” at the most saviours of souls, have, more often
than not, disciples who are definitely men “against Time.” (Sometimes even men
“in Time”; but we do not speak of these, for they are mere exploiters of
religions or ideologies for selfish ends, not sincere disciples of saints.) The
true disciples — and, in some rare instances, the Masters themselves — who are
“against Time,” thorough organisers, unscrupulous propagandists and ruthless
fighters, are the actual founders of most of, if not all, the great Churches of
the world, even when the religions preached by those Churches are doctrines originally
“above Time,” as they generally are. And this is unavoidable inasmuch as a
Church is always or nearly always, not only itself a material organisation, but
an organization which aims at regulating the lives of thousands, when not
millions, of people in this world — in Time. Apparently, the one exception to
that law is Buddhism, the only important international religion which has
conquered over half a mighty continent without the help of men “against Time”
and without the use of violence; the one in the name of which persecution of other
faiths was never carried on but twice in the whole course of history, — and
that, by men “in Time,” and for reasons decidedly political, not religious.
But then,
we must remember that this creed is, more than any other, dominated by the
yearning to escape the bondage of Time, and that it is, in fact, not intended
at all for life in Time. A person who accepts its postulates cannot possibly
think of a better world, except if it be “outside” or “above Time.” But, as a
result of this, there is perhaps a more shocking disparity between the high
ideals of the religion and the life of the faithful in Buddhist countries than
anywhere else. The religions that have spread and maintained themselves partly through
violence, have had, in spite of many shortcomings, and of less high moral
standards, a greater practical influence upon the lives of their followers as a
whole, strange as this may appear.
One does
not always realise this clearly enough, when one criticizes the great active
disciples for being inconsistent with “the spirit” of their contemplative
masters. One does not realise that, without the ruthless passion of those men,
the organisations that have, one must admit, kept to some extent “the spirit”
alive, would just not exist, in, many places where they still flourish, and
that many “spiritual treasures,” that one values so much, would be lost to the
world. If one really values those “treasures,” one should not find fault with
the men “against Time” or, more often than not, “in Time,” who recoiled from
nothing so that they might be put, and kept, within man’s reach. Without the
brutal methods of Charlemagne, the Saxonslayer, so obviously anything but “Christ-like,”
the Germans would perhaps, to this day, have remained attached to their old
gods; so would have the Norwegians, without the drastic sort of evangelisation
imposed upon them by King Olaf Tryggvason. Without the equally sincere, equally
fanatical, and even more brutal activities of many men “against” or “in” Time,
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, half Goa, and the whole of Mexico
and Peru would probably not be, to-day, professing the Christian faith.
Christianity
owes a lot to men “against Time” — and perhaps still more to men “in Time.” We,
who are not Christians, may — and do, — deplore it. We are aware of the fact
that many spiritual treasures other than those contained in the Gospels — the
truths contained in the old European Paganisms, or long preserved in the solar
cults of Central and Southern America; treasures of which, to-day, one knows
much too little, — were lost to the world precisely through the impersonal zeal
of religious-minded men, by nature “against Time” (or through the wanton
destructiveness of men “in Time”) such as those we have mentioned. But we
believe that, wherever such losses were suffered, there was something wrong not
with the forgotten truth (which is eternal) but with the people who should have
managed to stand for it against the new and hostile doctrine; we believe, in fact,
that there were not enough men “against Time” among those people — not enough
persons in whose Eyes the now lost teachings were, then, sufficiently alive to
be made a basis for the organisation of human society against the growing
current of decay; not enough who, in order to defend them on those grounds,
were prepared to be as ruthless and as perseverant as the Christians were in
order to destroy them.
The
relation between the Master, permanently “above Time,” and the ardent realist
“against Time” — builder and defender of all militant Churches — who happens to
be his disciple, has never been so perfectly pictured as in the words addressed
to the Christ by the grand Inquisitor, in Dostoyevsky’s famous episode of “The
Karamazov brothers.” “Thou hast resisted the three temptations of the Devil” —
refused the means to rule, offered to Thee by the! One who knows men and time,
better than any other. “Thou hast refused to turn stones into bread” — to give
the multitudes material goods; “Thou hast refused to throw Thyself from the
height of the Temple” — to give the people astonishment and awe; “Thou hast
refused to bow down to Me — the Master of lies; the Master of Time — to live
“in Time,” to some extent at least. “As a result, the people have drifted away
from Thy teaching and from Thyself, and Thou canst not save them. It is we” —
we the unscrupulous, we, the violent, the men who stop at nothing to make the
truth they love a reality in this world — “it is we, I say, who save them, in
Thy stead, by doing all that which Thou hast refused to do and therefore by
damning ourselves in Thine eyes. And we
accept that damnation for the love of Thee — for Thy name to be praised.”
This is the
substance of the Inquisitor’s discourse, if not its textual wording. And the
militant champion of the organised creed tells the Christ: “Do not come back! —
do not destroy the work that we are doing in this fallen world, for Thy glory!”
For no
organisation can live “outside Time” — “above Time” — and hope to bring men
back, one day, to the knowledge of the eternal, values.
That, all
men “above Time” have realised. In order to establish, or even to try to
establish, here and now, a better order, in accordance with Truth everlasting,
one has to live, outwardly at least, like those who are still “in Time”; likes
them, one has to be violent, merciless, destructive — but for different ends.
Therein lies the tragedy of bringing into reality any dream of perfection. And
the more perfect the dream — the further away from the conditions of success in
this fallen world, — the more ruthless must necessarily be the methods of those
who sincerely wish to impose it upon men, too late or... too early.
Knowing
this, the real men “above Time” are the first ones to understand and to
appreciate the whole hearted efforts of their disciples “against Time,” however
“awful” these ‘night appear to ordinary people neither good nor bad. The
Christ, in Dostoyevsky’s famous page, says nothing. What could he say? There is
nothing to be said which the leader of the militant Church could understand. To
the Inquisitor, the Christ will always remain a mystery. But the Christ
understands the Inquisitor and values his love. Before leaving the prison-cell
— and the world of Time — he kisses him.
As we have
pointed out above, no man “outside Time” can enjoy any real influence upon
human society unless he has such disciples, or unless he is himself prepared to
become, also, a man “against Time.” For it is a fact that one can be both “above
Time,” in one’s personal outlook, and “against Time” in one’s activity in the
world. All the really great creative men “against Time” possess these two
aspects: they are men of vision aware of timeless truths; but they are, also,
men who have been stirred to the depth by the glaring contrast between the
ideal world, built according to those truths, and the actual world in which
they live; men who, after what they have seen and experienced, can neither
remain any longer cut off from time, in their own inner paradise, nor act in
life as though all were well, but who must devote their whole life and energy
to the reshaping of tangible reality on the model of their vision of Truth. One
such Man is the warrior-like Adolf Hitler —
whose unparalleled greatness is yet unrecognised, because his follow lost a war
instead of winning it — is the tragic and beautiful figure that dominates the
history of the West in our own times.
I have
compared men “in Time” to the Lightning, and men “outside Time” or “above Time”
to the Sun. Using the same metaphorical language, one can say that men “against
Time” partake both of the Sun and of the Lightning, inasmuch as they are truly
inspired by Golden Age ideals, rooted in timeless Truth, and as, — precisely in
order to be able to stand for such ideals on the material plane, in the Age of
Gloom, against the current of Time — they are compelled to display all the
practical qualities of the men “in Time”; inasmuch as the only difference between
them and the latter lies not in their methods (which are the same, and cannot
but be so) but in their selfless, impersonal ends.
They serve
those ends with merciless realism but, to the extent they are “above Time”
also, with the detachment preached to the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita. In
fact, the Teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita is nothing else but the philosophy of
the perfect Man “against Time,” yogi in spirit, warrior in action; a Man like
King Akhnaton, the Only-One of the Sun, free from the bondage of Time, and
whose strength is cosmic Energy Itself, but... who uses that strength, on the
material plane, in the service of his ideals, with all the remorseless logic of
a Genghis Khan.
Alone Kalki
— the last Man “against Time,” at the end of every historical Cycle; the last
Saviour, Who is also the greatest Destroyer — impersonates that double ideal
perfectly, and succeeds completely.
It is He Who restores to the world its
primeaval health, beauty and innocence, thus opening a new Time-cycle.
The other
men “against Time” — before the very end of each humanity — succeed, and are
recognised and exalted by millions, permanently, inasmuch as they, or their
followers, abandon their spirit and work decidedly “in” Time, compromising with
the forces of death; in other words, inasmuch as they have in them, — like the
Prophet Mohamed, — more “lightning” than “sun.” Otherwise, they are defeated by
the agents of the dark forces, broken in their might by the down-ward rush of
history, which they are unable to stem. And such a fate awaits, always, until
the very end of any Time-cycle, those who are too magnanimous, too trusting,
too good; those who put too much confidence both in foreigners and in their
sown people; those who do not “purge” their following often enough and
thoroughly enough; who love their people too much to suspect ingratitude or
actual treachery where it lies; who are not merciless enough, and sometimes
spare their, fleeing enemies; in one word, those who, like Adolf Hitler, have,
in their psychological make-up, too much “sun” and not enough “lightning.”
Be He,
himself, but the last one in date of these, come back with superhuman might
after apparent annihilation, or a new one altogether, “Kalki” will avenge them
and the people who struggled at their side, for no visible result whatsoever,
in their days. And then, He will make their apparently impossible dreams the
living reality of the next great Beginning!
In every great Beginning, the men “above
Time,” lonely ascetics, saviours of souls, or planners of an ideal order, too
good for the fallen earth — Arhats, Boddhisatwas, or Rajrishis, to use the
Sanskrit terminology, — meet the great Ones “against Time” on the material
plane as on every other.
Then, in a
world in which violence is no longer necessary, nay, no longer thinkable; in
which freedom and order go hand in hand, things are, according to the very law of
manifestation in Time, what both the men “above Time” who cared to give a thought
to collective life, and the greatest men “against Time” wanted them to be. The
City-of-the-Horizon-of-the-Disk as King Akhnaton dreamed it; the “Seat of
Truth” which, even in his far-gone days, he failed to establish upon earth, and
the world New Order which Adolf Hitler fought in vain to install in the midst
of our present-day, worthless humanity, are, then one and the same living,
tangible reality in time, — as long, at least, as unavoidable decay does not
once more set in.
And thus,
through the perfect, impersonal — mathematical — justice of the Cosmos, each
different agent of universal Destiny has the success which is due to him as a
man.
Those who work for the immediate result of their action, in a selfish spirit, obtain that result (and what a tremendous one, sometimes!) and play their part in the evolution of a world that must pass through degradation and death before it can experience the glory of a new birth and of a new youth. They bring that world nearer to its end.
On the other hand, those who have renounced the bondage of Time and, purposely, either do not act, or else act in the selfless spirit of the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita, get the glorious result of their life’s thought and work at the beginning of the following Time-cycle.
And it may well be that the efforts of the men “against Time,” apparently wasted upon an ununderstanding and ungrateful world, actually do add to the beauty of every new Beginning, and that they even hasten its advent. For nothing is ever lost.
Those who work for the immediate result of their action, in a selfish spirit, obtain that result (and what a tremendous one, sometimes!) and play their part in the evolution of a world that must pass through degradation and death before it can experience the glory of a new birth and of a new youth. They bring that world nearer to its end.
On the other hand, those who have renounced the bondage of Time and, purposely, either do not act, or else act in the selfless spirit of the warrior in the Bhagavad-Gita, get the glorious result of their life’s thought and work at the beginning of the following Time-cycle.
And it may well be that the efforts of the men “against Time,” apparently wasted upon an ununderstanding and ungrateful world, actually do add to the beauty of every new Beginning, and that they even hasten its advent. For nothing is ever lost.
And as we
have said, Destruction and Creation are inseparable. Even the most destructive
men “in Time” are creative in their way. Men “above Time” are also destructive
in their way — indirectly, as the former are creative.
Men “against Time” are actively, consciously, willingly both creative and destructive — like Lord Shiva Himself: the divine Principle behind all change; the Destroyer, Who again and again creates; and like Vishnu, the Preserver, Who, once at least in every Time-cycle, comes as Kalki, to destroy completely.
Men “against Time” are actively, consciously, willingly both creative and destructive — like Lord Shiva Himself: the divine Principle behind all change; the Destroyer, Who again and again creates; and like Vishnu, the Preserver, Who, once at least in every Time-cycle, comes as Kalki, to destroy completely.
In them,
the Cosmos is for ever seeking its Principle, against the irresistible Law of
Time, which steadily draws it away from It, from the beginning to the end of
every successive material manifestation in time.
