But once more there was a flowing and a change.

This time Yama hesitated, breaking his strength.

Her bronze hair fell upon his hands. Her pale eyes pleaded with him. Caught about her throat was a necklace of ivory skulls, but slightly paler than her flesh. Her sari was the color of blood. Her hands rested upon his own, almost caressing. . .

"Goddess!" he hissed.

"You would not slay Kali . . . ? Durga . . . ?" she choked.

"Wrong again, Mara," he whispered. "Did you not know that each man kills the thing he loved?" and with this his hands twisted, and there was a sound of breaking bones.

"Tenfold be your damnation," he said, his eyes tightly closed. "There shall be no rebirth."

His hands came open then. A tall, nobly proportioned man lay upon the floor at his feet, his head resting upon his right shoulder.

His eye had finally closed.

Yama turned the corpse with the toe of his boot. "Build a pyre and burn this body," he said to the monks, not turning toward them. "Spare none of the rites. One of the highest has died this day."

Then he removed his eyes from this work of his hands, turned upon his heel and left the room.

That evening the lightnings fled across the skies and the rain came down like bullets from Heaven.

The four of them sat in the chamber in the high tower that rose from the northeast corner of the monastery.

Yama paced the room, stopping at the window each time he came to it.

The others sat watching him, listening.

"They suspect," he told them, "but they do not know. They would not ravage the monastery of a fellow god, displaying before men the division of their ranks—not unless they were certain. They were not certain, so they investigated. This means that time is still with us."

They nodded.

"A Brahmin who renounced the world to find his soul passed this way, suffered an accident, died here the real death. His body was burnt and his ashes cast into the river that leads to the sea. This is what occurred. . . . The wandering monks of the Enlightened One were visiting at the time. They moved on shortly after this occurrence. Who knows where they went?"

Tak stood as nearly erect as he could.

"Lord Yama," he stated, "while it may hold for a week, a month — possibly even longer—this story will come apart in the hands of the Master to judge the first of any of those here present in this monastery who pass within the Halls of Karma. Under the circumstances, I believe some of them may achieve early judgment for just this reason. What then?"

Yama rolled a cigarette with care and precision. "It must be arranged that what I said is what actually occurred."

"How can that be? When a man's brain is subject to karmic play-back, all the events he has witnessed in his most recent cycle of life are laid out before his judge and the machine, like a scroll."

"That is correct," said Yama. "And have you. Tak of the Archives, never heard of a palimpsest—a scroll which has been used previously, cleaned, and then used again?"

"Of course, but the mind is not a scroll."

"No?" Yama smiled. "Well, it was your simile to begin with, not mine. What's truth, anyway? Truth is what you make it."

He lit his cigarette. "These monks have witnessed a strange and terrible thing," he continued. "They saw me take on my Aspect and wield an Attribute. They saw Mara do the same—here, in this monastery where we have revived the principle of ahimsa. They are aware that a god may do such things without karmic burden, but the shock was great and the impression vivid. And the final burning is still to come. By the time of that burning, the tale I have told you must be true in their minds."

"How?" asked Ratri.

"This very night, this very hour," he said, "while the image of the act flames within their consciousness and their thoughts are troubled, the new truth will be forged and nailed into place. . . . Sam, you have rested long enough. This thing is now yours to do. You must preach them a sermon. You must call forth within them those nobler sentiments and higher qualities of spirit which make men subject to divine meddling. Ratri and I will then combine our powers and a new truth will be born."

Sam shifted and dropped his eyes. "I don't know if I can do it. It's been so long. . ."

"Once a Buddha, always a Buddha, Sam. Dust off some of your old parables. You have about fifteen minutes."

Sam held out his hand. "Give me some tobacco and a paper."

He accepted the package, rolled himself a cigarette. "Light? . . . Thanks."

He drew in deeply, exhaled, coughed. "I'm tired of lying to them," he finally said. "I guess that's what it really is."

"Lying?" asked Yama. "Who asked you to lie about anything? Quote them the Sermon on the Mount, if you want. Or something from the Popul Voh, or the Iliad. I don't care what you say. Just stir them a bit, soothe them a little. That's all I ask."

"Then what?"

"Then? Then I shall proceed to save them—and us!"

Sam nodded slowly. "When you put it that way . . . but I'm a little out of shape when it comes to this sort of thing. Sure, I'll find me a couple truths and throw in a few pieties—but make it twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes, then. And afterward we pack. Tomorrow we leave for Khaipur."

"So soon?" asked Tak.

Yama shook his head. "So late," he said.

The monks were seated upon the floor of the refectory. The tables had been moved back against the walls. The insects had vanished. Outside, the rain continued to fall.

Great-Souled Sam, the Enlightened One, entered and seated himself before them.

Ratri came in dressed as a Buddhist nun, and veiled.

Yama and Ratri moved to the back of the room and settled to the floor. Somewhere, Tak too, was listening.

Sam sat with his eyes closed for several minutes, then said softly:

"I have many names, and none of them matter." He opened his eyes slightly then, but he did not move his head. He looked upon nothing in particular.

"Names are not important," he said. "To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like, this thing you have seen?' So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, 'It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.' Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it 'fire.'

"If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, 'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. The thing that has never happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning blossom squats, flowing, upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and this is reality—the Nameless.


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