The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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L. Adams Beck >> The Ninth Vibration, et. al.
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"Did you know this?" I asked, trembling before mystery.
"I knew it, because I am awake. You forgot it in the dull sleep
which we call daily life. But we were here and THEY began the
story of the King who made this house. Tonight we shall hear it.
It he story of Beauty wandering through the world and the world
received her not. We hear it in this place because here he
agonized for what he knew too late."
"Was that our only meeting?"
"We meet every night, but you forget when the day brings the
sleep of the soul. - You do not sink deep enough into rest to
remember. You float on the surface where the little bubbles of
foolish dream are about you and I cannot reach you then."
"How can I compel myself to the deeps?"
"You cannot. It will come. But when you have passed up the bridle
way and beyond the Shipki, stop at Gyumur. There is the Monastery
of Tashigong, and there one will meet you-
"His name?"
"Stephen Clifden. He will tell you what you desire to know.
Continue on then with him to Yarkhand. There in the Ninth
Vibration we shall meet again. It is a long journey but you will
be content."
"Do you certainly know that we shall meet again?"
"When you have learnt, we can meet when we will. He will teach
you the Laya Yoga. You should not linger here in the woods any
longer. You should go on. In three days it will be possible."
"But how have you learnt - a girl and young?"
"Through a close union with Nature - that is one of the three
roads. But I know little as yet. Now take my hand and come.
"One last question. Is this house ruined and abject as I have
seen it in the daylight, or royal and the house of Gods as we see
it now? Which is truth?"
"In the day you saw it in the empty illusion of blind thought.
Tonight, eternally lovely as in the thought of the man who made
it. Nothing that is beautiful is lost, though in the sight of the
unwise it seems to die. Death is in the eyes we look through -
when they are cleansed we see Life only. Now take my hand and
come. Delay no more."
She caught my hand and we entered the dim magnificence of the
great hall. The moon entered with us.
Instantly I had the feeling of supernatural presence. Yet I only
write this in deference to common use, for it was absolutely
natural - more so than any I have met in the state called daily
life. It was a thing in which I had a part, and if this was
supernatural so also was I.
Again I saw the Dark One, the Beloved, the young Krishna, above
the women who loved him. He motioned with his hand as we passed,
as though he waved us smiling on our way. Again the dancers moved
in a rhythmic tread to the feet of the mountain Goddess - again
we followed to where she bent to hear. But now, solemn listening
faces crowded in the shadows about her, grave eyes fixed
immovably upon what lay at her feet - a man, submerged in the
pure light that fell from her presence, his dark face stark and
fine, lips locked, eyes shut, arms flung out cross-wise in utter
abandonment, like a figure of grief invisibly crucified upon his
shame. I stopped a few feet from him, arrested by a barrier I
could not pass. Was it sleep or death or some mysterious state
that partook of both? Not sleep, for there was no flutter of
breath. Not death - no rigid immobility struck chill into the
air. It was the state of subjection where the spirit set free
lies tranced in the mighty influences which surround us
invisibly until we have entered, though but for a moment, the
Ninth Vibration.
And now, with these Listeners about us, a clear voice began and
stirred the air with music. I have since been asked in what
tongue it spoke and could only answer that it reached my ears in
the words of my childhood, and that I know whatever that language
had been it would so have reached me.
"Great Lady, hear the story of this man's fall, for it is the
story of man. Be pitiful to the blind eyes and give them light."
There was long since in Ranipur a mighty King and at his birth
the wise men declared that unless he cast aside all passions that
debase the soul, relinquishing the lower desires for the higher
until a Princess laden with great gifts should come to be his
bride, he would experience great and terrible misfortunes. And
his royal parents did what they could to possess him with this
belief, but they died before he reached manhood. Behold him then,
a young King in his palace, surrounded with splendour. How should
he withstand the passionate crying of the flesh or believe that
through pleasure comes satiety and the loss of that in the spirit
whereby alone pleasure can be enjoyed? For his gift was that he
could win all hearts. They swarmed round him like hiving bees and
hovered about him like butterflies. Sometimes he brushed them
off. Often he caressed them, and when this happened, each thought
proudly "I am the Royal Favourite. There is none other than me."
Also the Princess delayed who would be the crest-jewel of the
crown, bringing with her all good and the blessing of the High
Gods, and in consequence of all these things the King took such
pleasures as he could, and they were many, not knowing they
darken the inner eye whereby what is royal is known through
disguises.
(Most pitiful to see, beneath the close-shut lids of the man at
the feet of the Dweller in the Heights, tears forced themselves,
as though a corpse dead to all else lived only to anguish. They
flowed like blood-drops upon his face as he lay enduring, and the
voice proceeded.) What was the charm of the King? Was it his
stately height and strength? Or his faithless gayety? Or his
voice, deep and soft as the sitar when it sings of love? His
women said - some one thing, some another, but none of these
ladies were of royal blood, and therefore they knew not.
Now one day, the all-privileged jester of the King, said,
laughing harshly:
"Maharaj, you divert yourself. But how if, while we feast and
play, the Far Away Princess glided past and was gone, unknown and
unwelcomed?"
And the King replied:
"Fool, content yourself. I shall know my Princess, but she delays
so long that I weary.
Now in a far away country was a Princess, daughter of the
Greatest, and her Father hesitated to give her in marriage to
such a King for all reported that he was faithless of heart, but
having seen his portrait she loved him and fled in disguise from
the palaces of her Father, and being captured she was brought
before the King in Ranipur.
He sat upon a cloth of gold and about him was the game he had
killed in hunting, in great masses of ruffled fur and plumage,
and he turned the beauty of his face carelessly upon her, and as
the Princess looked upon him, her heart yearned to him, and he
said in his voice that was like the male string of the sitar:
"Little slave, what is your desire?"
Then she saw that the long journey had scarred her feet and
dimmed her hair with dust, and that the King's eyes, worn with
days and nights of pleasure did not pierce her disguise. Now in
her land it is a custom that the blood royal must not proclaim
itself, so she folded her hands and said gently:
"A place in the household of the King." And he, hearing that the
Waiting slave of his chief favorite Jayashri was dead, gave her
that place. So the Princess attended on those ladies, courteous
and obedient to all authority as beseemed her royalty, and she
braided her bright hair so that it hid the little crowns which
the Princesses of her House must wear always in token of their
rank, and every day her patience strengthened.
Sometimes the King, carelessly desiring her laughing face and sad
eyes, would send for her to wile away an hour, and he would say;
"Dance, little slave, and tell me stories of the far countries.
You quite unlike my Women, doubtless because you are a slave."
And she thought - "No, but because I am a Princess," - but this
she did not say. She laughed and told him the most marvellous
stories in the world until he laid his head upon her warm bosom,
dreaming awake.
There were stories of the great Himalayan solitudes where in the
winter nights the white tiger stares at the witches' dance of the
Northern Lights dazzled by the hurtling of their myriad spears.
And she told how the King-eagle, hanging motionless over the
peaks of Gaurisankar, watches with golden eyes for his prey, and
falling like a plummet strikes its life out with his clawed heel
and, screaming with triumph, bears it to his fierce mate in her
cranny of the rocks.
"A gallant story!" the King would say. "More!" Then she told of
the tropical heats and the stealthy deadly creatures of forest
and jungle, and the blue lotus of Buddha swaying on the still
lagoon,- And she spoke of loves of men and women, their passion
and pain and joy. And when she told of their fidelity and valour
and honour that death cannot quench, her voice was like the song
of a minstrel, for she had read all the stories of the ages and
the heart of a Princess told her the rest. And the King listened
unwearying though he believed this was but a slave.
(The face of the man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights
twitched in a white agony. Pearls of sweat were distilled upon
his brows, but he moved neither hand nor foot, enduring as in a
flame of fire. And the voice continued.)
So one day, in the misty green of the Spring, while she rested at
his feet in the garden Pavilion, he said to her:
"Little slave, why do you love me?"
And she answered proudly:
"Because you have the heart of a King."
He replied slowly;
"Of the women who have loved me none gave this reason, though
they gave many."
She laid her cheek on his hand.
"That is the true reason."
But he drew it away and was vaguely troubled, for her words, he
knew not why, reminded him of the Far Away Princess and of things
he had long forgotten, and he said; "What does a slave know of
the hearts of Kings?" And that night he slept or waked alone.
Winter was at hand with its blue and cloudless days, and she was
commanded to meet the King where the lake lay still and shining
like an ecstasy of bliss, and she waited with her chin dropped
into the cup of her hands, looking over the water with eyes that
did not see, for her whole soul said; "How long 0 my Sovereign
Lord, how long before you know the truth and we enter together
into our Kingdom?"
As she sat she heard the King's step, and the colour stole up
into her face in a flush like the earliest sunrise. "He is
coming," she said; and again; "He loves me."
So he came beside the water, walking slowly. But the King was not
alone. His arm embraced the latest-come beauty from Samarkhand,
and, with his head bent, he whispered in her willing ear.
Then clasping her hands, the Princess drew a long sobbing breath,
and he turned and his eyes grew hard as blue steel.
"Go, slave," he cried. "What place have you in Kings' gardens?
Go. Let me see you no more."
(The man lying at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights, raised
a heavy arm and flung it above his head, despairing, and it fell
again on the cross of his torment. And the voice went on.)
And as he said this, her heart broke; and she went and her feet
were weary. So she took the wise book she loved and unrolled it
until she came to a certain passage, and this she read twice;
"If the heart of a slave be broken it may be mended with jewels
and soft words, but the heart of a Princess can be healed only by
the King who broke it, or in Yamapura, the City under the Sunset
where they make all things new. Now, Yama, the Lord of this City,
is the Lord of Death." And having thus read the Princess rolled
the book and put it from her.
And next day, the King said to his women; "Send for her," for his
heart smote him and he desired to atone royally for the shame of
his speech. And they sought and came back saying;
"Maharaj, she is gone. We cannot find her."
Fear grew in the heart of the King - a nameless dread, and he
said, "Search." And again they sought and returned and the King
was striding up and down the great hall and none dared cross his
path. But, trembling, they told him, and he replied; "Search
again. I will not lose her, and, slave though be, she shall be my
Queen."
So they ran, dispersing to the Four Quarters, and King strode up
and down the hall, and Loneliness kept step with him and clasped
his hand and looked his eyes.
Then the youngest of the women entered with a tale to tell.
Majesty, we have found her. She lies beside the lake. When the
birds fled this morning she fled with them, but upon a longer
journey. Even to Yamapura, the City under the Sunset."
And the King said; "Let none follow." And he strode forth
swiftly, white with thoughts he dared not think.
The Princess lay among the gold of the fallen leaves. All was
gold, for her bright hair was out-spread in shining waves and in
it shone the glory of the hidden crown. On her face was no smile
- only at last was revealed the patience she had covered with
laughter so long that even the voice of the King could not now
break it into joy. The hands that had clung, the swift feet that
had run beside his, the tender body, mighty to serve and to love,
lay within touch but farther away than the uttermost star was the
Far Away Princess, known and loved too late.
And he said; "My Princess - 0 my Princess!" and laid his head on
her cold bosom.
"Too late!" a harsh Voice croaked beside him, and it was the
voice of the Jester who mocks at all things. "Too late! 0
madness, to despise the blood royal because it humbled itself to
service and so was doubly royal. The Far Away Princess came laden
with great gifts, and to her the King's gift was the wage of a
slave and a broken heart. Cast your crown and sceptre in the
dust, 0 King - 0 King of Fools."
(The man at the feet of the Dweller in the Heights moved. Some
dim word shaped upon his locked lips. She listened in a divine
calm. It seemed that the very Gods drew nearer. Again the man
essayed speech, the body dead, life only in the words that none
could hear. The voice went on.)
But the Princess flying wearily because of the sore wound in her
heart, came at last to the City under the Sunset, where the Lord
of Death rules in the House of Quiet, and was there received with
royal honours for in that land are no disguises. And she knelt
before the Secret One and in a voice broken with agony entreated
him to heal her. And with veiled and pitying eyes he looked upon
her, for many and grievous as are the wounds he has healed this
was more grievous still. And he said;
"Princess, I cannot, But this I can do - I can give a new heart
in a new birth - happy and careless as the heart of a child. Take
this escape from the anguish you endure and be at peace."
But the Princess, white with pain, asked only;
"In this new heart and birth, is there room for the King?"
And the Lord of Peace replied;
"None. He too will be forgotten."
Then she rose to her feet.
"I will endure and when he comes I will serve him once more. If
he will he shall heal me, and if not I will endure for ever."
And He who is veiled replied;
"In this sacred City no pain may disturb the air, therefore you
must wait outside in the chill and the dark. Think better,
Princess! Also, he must pass through many rebirths, because he
beheld the face of Beauty unveiled and knew her not. And when he
comes he will be weary and weak as a new-born child, and no more
a great King." And the Princess smiled;
"Then he will need me the more," she said; "I will wait and kiss
the feet of my King."
And the Lord of Death was silent. So she went outside into the
darkness of the spaces, and the souls free passed her like homing
doves, and she sat with her hands clasped over the sore wound in
her heart, watching the earthward way. And the Princess is
keeping still the day of her long patience."
The voice ceased. And there was a great silence, and the
listening faces drew nearer.
Then the Dweller in the Heights spoke in a voice soft as the
falling of snow in the quiet of frost and moon. I could have wept
myself blind with joy to hear that music. More I dare not say.
"He is in the Lower State of Perception. He sorrows for his loss.
Let him have one instant's light that still he may hope."
She bowed above the man, gazing upon him as a mother might upon
her sleeping child. The dead eyelids stirred, lifted, a faint
gleam showed beneath them, an unspeakable weariness. I thought
they would fall unsatisfied. Suddenly he saw What looked upon
him, and a terror of joy no tongue can tell flashed over the dark
mirror of his face. He stretched a faint hand to touch her feet,
a sobbing sigh died upon his lips, and once more the swooning
sleep took him. He lay as a dead man before the Assembly.
"The night is far spent," a voice said, from I know not where.
And I knew it was said not only for the sleeper but for all, for
though the flying feet of Beauty seem for a moment to outspeed us
she will one day wait our coming and gather us to her bosom.
As before, the vision spread outward like rings in a broken
reflection in water. I saw the girl beside me, but her hand grew
light in mine. I felt it no longer. I heard the roaring wind in
the trees, or was it a great voice thundering in my ears? Sleep
took me. I waked in my little room.
Strange and sad - I saw her next day and did not remember her
whom of all things I desired to know. I remembered the vision and
knew that whether in dream or waking I had heard an eternal
truth. I longed with a great longing to meet my beautiful
companion, and she stood at my side and I was blind.
Now that I have climbed a little higher on the Mount of Vision it
seems even to myself that this could not be. Yet it was, and it
is true of not this only but of how much else!
She knew me. I learnt that later, but she made no sign. Her
simplicities had carried her far beyond and above me, to places
where only the winged things attain- "as a bird among the
bird-droves of God."
I have since known that this power of direct simplicity in her
was why among the great mountains we beheld the Divine as the
emanation of the terrible beauty about us. We cannot see it as it
is - only in some shadowing forth, gathering sufficient strength
for manifestation from the spiritual atoms that haunt the region
where that form has been for ages the accepted vehicle of
adoration. But I was now to set forth to find another knowledge -
to seek the Beauty that blinds us to all other. Next day the man
who was directing my preparations for travel sent me word from
Simla that all was ready and I could start two days later. I told
my friends the time of parting was near.
"But it was no surprise to me," I added, "for I had heard already
that in a very few days I should be on my way.
Mrs. Ingmar was more than kind. She laid a frail hand on mine.
"We shall miss you indeed. If it is possible to send us word of
your adventures in those wild solitudes I hope you will do it. Of
course aviation will soon lay bare their secrets and leave them
no mysteries, so you don't go too soon. One may worship science
and yet feel it injures the beauty of the world. But what is
beauty compared with knowledge?"
"Do you never regret it?" I asked.
"Never, dear Mr. Ormond. I am a worshipper of hard facts and
however hideous they may be I prefer them to the prismatic
colours of romance."
Brynhild, smiling, quoted;
"Their science roamed from star to star
And than itself found nothing greater.
What wonder? In a Leyden jar
They bottled the Creator?"
"There is nothing greater than science," said Mrs. Ingmar with
soft reverence. "The mind of man is the foot-rule of the
universe."
She meditated for a moment and then added that my kind interests
in their plans decided her to tell me that she would be returning
to Europe and then to Canada in a few months with a favourite
niece as her companion while Brynhild would remain in India with
friends in Mooltan for a time. I looked eagerly at her but she
was lost in her own thoughts and it was evidently not the time to
say more.
If I had hoped for a vision before I left the neighbourhood of
that strange House of Beauty where a spirit imprisoned appeared
to await the day of enlightenment I was disappointed. These
things do not happen as one expects or would choose. The wind
bloweth where it listeth until the laws which govern the inner
life are understood, and then we would not choose if we could for
we know that all is better than well. In this world, either in
the blinded sight of daily life or in the clarity of the true
sight I have not since seen it, but that has mattered little, for
having heard an authentic word within its walls I have passed on
my way elsewhere.
Next day a letter from Olesen reached me.
"Dear Ormond, I hope you have had a good time at the House in the
Woods. I saw Rup Singh a few days ago and he wrote the odd
message I enclose. You know what these natives are, even the most
sensible of them, and you will humour the old fellow for he ages
very fast and I think is breaking up. But this was not what I
wanted to say. I had a letter from a man I had not seen for years
- a fellow called Stephen Clifden, who lives in Kashmir. As a
matter of fact I had forgotten his existence but evidently he has
not repaid the compliment for he writes as follows - No, I had
better send you the note and you can do as you please. I am
rushed off my legs with work and the heat is hell with the lid
off. And-"
But the rest was of no interest except to a friend of years'
standing. I read Rup Singh's message first. It was written in his
own tongue.
"To the Honoured One who has attained to the favour of the
Favourable.
"You have with open eyes seen what this humble one has dreamed
but has not known. If the thing be possible, write me this word
that I may depart in peace. 'With that one who in a former birth
you loved all is well. Fear nothing for him. The way is long but
at the end the lamps of love are lit and the Unstruck music is
sounded. He lies at the feet of Mercy and there awaits his hour.'
And if it be not possible to write these words, write nothing, 0
Honoured, for though it be in the hells my soul shall find my
King, and again I shall serve him as once I served."
I understood, and wrote those words as he had written them.
Strange mystery of life - that I who had not known should see,
and that this man whose fidelity had not deserted his broken King
in his utter downfall should have sought with passion for one
sight of the beloved face across the waters of death and sought
in vain. I thought of those Buddhist words of Seneca - "The soul
may be and is in the mass of men drugged and silenced by the
seductions of sense and the deceptions of the world. But if, in
some moment of detachment and elation, when its captors and
jailors relax their guard, it can escape their clutches, it will
seek at once the region of its birth and its true home."
Well - the shell must break before the bird can fly, and the time
drew near for the faithful servant to seek his lord. My message
reached him in time and gladdened him.
I turned then to Clifden's letter.
"Dear Olesen, you will have forgotten me, and feeling sure of
this I should scarcely have intruded a letter into your busy life
were it not that I remember your good-nature as a thing
unforgettable though so many years have gone by. I hear of you
sometimes when Sleigh comes up the Sind valley, for I often camp
at Sonamarg and above the Zoji La and farther. I want you to give
a message to a man you know who should be expecting to hear from
me. Tell him I shall be at the Tashigong Monastery when he
reaches Gyumur beyond the Shipki. Tell him I have the
information he wants and I will willingly go on with him to
Yarkhand and his destination. He need not arrange for men beyond
Gyumur. All is fixed. So sorry to bother you, old man, but I
don't know Ormond's address, except that he was with you and has
gone up Simla way. And of course he will be keen to hear the
thing is settled."
Amazing. I remembered the message I had heard and this man's
words rang true and kindly, but what could it mean? I really did
not question farther than this for now I could not doubt that I
was guided. Stronger hands than mine had me in charge, and it
only remained for me to set forth in confidence and joy to an end
that as yet I could not discern. I turned my face gladly to the
wonder of the mountains.
Gladly - but with a reservation. I was leaving a friend and one
whom I dimly felt might one day be more than a friend - Brynhild
Ingmar. That problem must be met before I could take my way. I
thought much of what might be said at parting. True, she had the
deepest attraction for me, but true also that I now beheld a
quest stretching out into the unknown which I must accept in the
spirit of the knight errant. Dare I then bind my heart to any
allegiance which would pledge me to a future inconsistent with
what lay before me? How could I tell what she might think of the
things which to me were now real and external - the revelation of
the only reality that underlies all the seeming. Life can never
be the same for the man who has penetrated to this, and though it
may seem a hard saying there can be but a maimed understanding
between him and those who still walk amid the phantoms of death
and decay.
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