It was at Benares that we met him. He led us through the maze of the
bazaars, his purple robe guiding us like a star, and brought us out by
the mosque of Aurungzebe. Thence a long flight of stairs plunged sheer
to the Ganges, shining below in the afternoon sun. We descended; but,
turning aside before we reached the shore, came to a tiny house perched
on a terrace above the ghat. We took off our shoes in the anteroom and
passed through a second chamber, with its riverside open to the air, and
reached a tiny apartment, where he motioned us to a divan. We squatted
and looked round. Some empty bottles were the only furniture. But on the
wall hung the picture we had come to see. It was a symbolic tree, and
perhaps as much like a tree as what it symbolised was like the universe.
Embedded in its trunk and branches were coloured circles and signs, and
from them grew leaves and flowers of various hues. Below was a garden
lit by a rising sun, and a black river where birds and beasts pursued
and devoured one another. At our request he took a pointer and began to
explain. I am not sure that I well understood or well remember, but
something of this kind was the gist of it. In the beginning was
Parabrahma, existing in himself, a white circle at the root of the tree.
Whence sprang, following the line of the trunk, the egg of the universe,
pregnant with all potentialities. Thence came the energy of Brahma; and
of this there were three aspects, the Good, the Evil, and the Neuter,
symbolised by three triangles in a circle. Thence the trunk continued,
but also thence emerged a branch to the right and one to the left. The
branch to the right was Illusion and ended in God; the branch to the
left was Ignorance and ended in the Soul. Thus the Soul contemplates
Illusion under the form of her gods. Up the line of the trunk came next
the Energy of Nature; then Pride; then Egotism and Individuality; whence
branched to one side Mind, to the other the senses and the passions.
Then followed the elements, fire, air, water, and earth; then the
vegetable creation; then corn; and then, at the summit of the tree, the
primitive Man and Woman, type of Humanity. The garden below was Eden,
until the sun rose; but with light came discord and conflict, symbolised
by the river and the beasts. Evil and conflict belong to the nature of
the created world; and the purpose of religion is by contemplation to
enable the Soul to break its bodies, and the whole creati