The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales
- Автор: Де Камп Лайон Спрэг
- Год: 1970
- Язык: английский
- Год: Pyramid Books
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Reluctant Shaman and Other Fantastic Tales». Краткое содержание книги:
And plunge headlong into the always wild, constantly weird, and frequently whimsical realm of fantasy as invoked by that master magician L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP!
* A social protestor who just happens to be a ghost...
* A mail-order magic business that conjures up a universe of trouble...
* A fledgling wizard who doesn't know the strength of his own power...
And these are only a sprinkling of the outrageous and amazing creatures and things you'll encounter as you whir through a world where everything is probable--
THE RELUCTANT SHAMAN
THE HARDWOOD PILE
NOTHING IN THE RULES
THE GHOST OF MELVIN PYE
THE WISDOM OF THE EAST
MR. ARSON
KA THE APPALLING
"The postures of Hatha-Yoga, known as asana, are the means of raising the transcendental elements in your personalities to their rightful position of control over the material elements. By ascending the triad of dharana, dhyana and samadhi, you not only gain command of your own bodies—including the so-called 'involuntary' functions—but over the forces of nature, and eventually achieve unity with the universal spirit—"
At this point Bennett began to lose the thread of the argument. He could not decide whether he was stupid not to understand all these metaphysical terms, or whether Bhulojna was putting something over on him.
He wished most avidly for a smoke. He interrupted the flow of metaphysics to ask: "Excuse me, but how long do I have to give up these things—smoking and drinking and such?"
Shri Motilal looked at him pityingly. "These things are merely the first items on the list of things you will give up."
"Huh? You mean there's more?"
"That is so. Of course, since neither of you is married, it is unnecessary for me even to mention one of the subjects."
Pauline Edge here gave a gurgle of suppressed laughter, whereat the Yogi looked very stern indeed. "I see nothing humorous in such a matter, Miss Edge. You do not appear to realize the sacrifice I am making by offering myself as your guru. To live in this den of materialism; to degrade myself by accepting money— But then, how could you? You cannot know how you handicap me in my mastery of the highest grade of Yoga—the Yoga of Patanjali, the Yoga of inaction—for you have never experienced it. The fault is mine. I should have told you that as you advans in your studies, you will miss these material pleasures less and less. If you attain samadhi, your attitude toward material things will be one of indifference or even disgust."
Bennett asked: "What's the purpose of that?"
"Ah, that is the whole point. It is hard to explain the unexplainable, but I will try. Buddhism, which is in a sense a heretical offshoot of Yoga, expresses it thus: the five aggregates of grasping are pain. The cause of pain is the craving that leads to rebirth. The cessation of pain depends on the cessation of craving, which is attained by the disintegration of the aggregates that compose the personality. Our doctrine is slightly different from that, but it gives you an idea—" And Shri Motilal was off again, his fingers making delicate patterns in the air and his eyes fixed on something far away.
"Now," he said, "let us try the lotus posture. It would be unwise for you to assume it more than fifteen minutes of material time on the first trial. Remove your shoes."
Pauline had no great difficulty in getting into the position. Bennett accomplished it only after much painful grunting and cracking of joints. Bhulojna said: "No, do not place your right hand on your knee. That is the heretical Buddhist variant." And he floated off.
After a few minutes of silence, a grunt came from Alan Bennett. Then an indescribable sound that, if he had not been trying to maintain a meditative silence, would have been, "For God's sake get me out of this!"
He made a few movements to try to escape from the posture, but they did no good. He was stuck. He felt like a rat in a trap, and the fact that the trap was composed of his own members only made the sensation the more gruesome. He tugged and pushed at his feet, but that only aggravated the pain.
Pauline looked at him, then cried in alarm: "Help! Mr. Bhulojna!"
The Yogi drifted through the solid wall of the room. While Bennett forgot his agony and Pauline gawped, Shri Motilal touched a couple of Bennett's muscles. Bennett's legs came out of their contortion.
Bennett said: "How ... how did you do that?"
"How did I— Ah, you mean my entrance. I told you that we attain to control over the forces of nature."
"Is that how you came through the door last night?"
"Yes. I fear I grow careless. You have cost me a severe setback, for the essence of these powers is that one shall be too indifferent to the material world to use them. Can you rise?"
Bennett tried. The other two finally got him to his feet, but he could not stand anywhere near straight.
Pauline supported Alan Bennett down the stairs and out. She asked him anxiously: "How are you feeling, Alan?"
"I think my back's busted," replied Bennett. "Oh, you poor boy! You need someone to take care of you!"
"Thanks," said Bennett, "but right now I need a drink more."
"Swell idea. But—how about Mr. Bhulojna's rules of abstinence?"
"To hell with Mr. Bhulojna."
"Still, Alan, I think he's really got something there, with his oozing through walls."
"Maybe he has. But he can keep it as far as I'm concerned. I'm an artist, not a committee for psychical research. Now how about that drink?"
By the following evening, Bennett found himself able to walk almost normally. Pauline telephoned him: "Alan, are you still interested in the wisdom of the East?"
"No! Well, maybe I am a little, but not to the extent of tying myself in hard knots for it. Why, Polly?"
"I think I've found one who won't tie you in knots."
"Found one what? Another Yogi?"
"Not exactly. This one calls himself a Vedantist philosopher. Name's Shri Ramanuja Bhamkh. He guarantees to give you all the Eastern wisdom you want without contortions or breathing exercises. Want to try him out?"
Bennett did.
Shri Ramanuja Bhamkh hung out on East Fifty-Ninth Street only a couple of blocks from Shri Motilal Bhulojna's place. Shri Ramanuja Bhamkh himself was a more colorful person than the Yogi—tall and powerfully built, with a long, gray beard and bushy eyebrows. His audience was much the same sort of crowd that Bennett had found at Bhulojna's the first time, only bigger.
Bennett had been late, in accordance with his usual habits. He arrived when Bhamkh was saying: "—wherefore the self is not the unity of the evergrowing and changing mental experiences. The self in dreamless sleep cannot satisfy our need, since it is empty of all content and is a bare abstraction. The true self is the universal consciousness existing both in and for itself. The three states of the soul—waking, dreaming, and sleeping—are included in a fourth—turiya—which is intuitional consciousness, where there is no knowledge of objects internal or external. It is the unchanged and persistent identity which continues in the midst of all change—"
Bennett did not understand this, but his artist's sense could appreciate the fine picture that Shri Ramanuja made with his turban and beard and sweeping arms.
"—which brings us the doctrine of Maya, the world illusion. Every object tends to pass away from itself to something else. The categories of time, space, and cause, which bind experience, are self-contradictory. Our knowledge of the world is inconsistent—"
"Wonder if I could get him to pose for me," thought Bennett. "They wanted a rajah for that blended-rye ad—"
After it was all over, Bennett said to his friend: "I didn't quite get it all, I'm afraid."
"Neither did I," replied Pauline. "But isn't he picturesque? I think I'll go to the rest of the lectures in this course; they're cheap enough."
She went, and Bennett, whose own girl friends had all married or moved away a couple of years previously, went, too. By the third lecture he was getting restless.
When the audience was breaking up after Bennett's third lecture, and the usual knot was plying Shri Ramanuja with questions of honest puzzlement or spurious erudition, Bennett said to Pauline in a low voice: "Polly, all I get is words, words, and more words. Don't you think we could get more wisdom of the East for our money out of somebody else?"