That meant that in the fields of applied metaphysics and psychology they’d been educated far more thoroughly and far more realistically than any group of future teachers in your part of the world. Dr. Andrew was a scientifically trained, antidogmatic humanist, who had discovered the value of pure and applied Mahayana. His friend, the Raja, was a Tantrik Buddhist, who had discovered the value of pure and applied science. Both, consequently, saw very clearly that, to be capable of teaching children to become fully human in a society fit for fully human beings to live in, a teacher would first have to be taught how to make the best of both worlds.”
“And how did those early teachers feel about it? Didn’t they resist the process?”
Mrs. Narayan shook her head. “They didn’t resist, for the good reason that nothing precious had been attacked. Their Buddhism was respected. All they were asked to give up was the old-wives’ science and the fairy tales. And in exchange for those they got all kinds of much more interesting facts and much more useful theories. And these exciting things from your Western world of knowledge and power and progress were now to be combined with, and in a sense subordinated to, the theories of Buddhism and the psychological facts of applied metaphysics. There was really nothing in that best-of-both-worlds program to offend the susceptibilities of even the touchiest and most ardent of religious patriots.”
“I’m wondering about our future teachers,” said Will after a silence. “At this late stage, would they be teachable? Could they possibly learn to make the best of both worlds?”
“Why not? They wouldn’t have to give up any of the things that are really important to them. The non-Christian could go on thinking about man and the Christian could go on worshiping God. No change, except that God would have to be thought of as immanent and man would have to be thought of as potentially self-transcendent.”
“And you think they’d make those changes without any fuss?” Will laughed. “You’re an optimist.”
“An optimist,” said Mrs. Narayan, “for the simple reason that, if one tackles a problem intelligently and realistically, the results are apt to be fairly good. This island justifies a certain optimism. And now let’s go and have a look at the dancing class.”
They crossed a tree-shaded courtyard and, pushing through a swing door, passed out of silence into the rhythmic beat of a drum and the screech of fifes repeating over and over again a short pentatonic tune that to Will’s ears sounded vaguely Scotch.
“Live music or canned?” he asked.
“Japanese tape,” Mrs. Narayan answered laconically. She opened a second door that gave access to a large gymnasium where two bearded young men and an amazingly agile little old lady in black satin slacks were teaching some twenty or thirty little boys and girls the steps of a lively dance.
“What’s this?” Will asked. “Fun or education?”
“Both,” said the Principal. “And it’s also applied ethics. Like those breathing exercises we were talking about just now—only more effective because so much more violent.”
“So stamp it out,” the children were chanting in unison. And they stamped their small sandaled feet with all their might. “So stamp it out!” A final furious stamp and they were off again, jigging and turning, into another movement of the dance.
“This is called the Rakshasi Hornpipe,” said Mrs. Narayan.
“Rakshasi?” Will questioned. “What’s that?”
“A Rakshasi is a species of demon. Very large, and exceedingly unpleasant. All the ugliest passions personified. The Rakshasi Hornpipe is a device for letting off those dangerous heads of steam raised by anger and frustration.”
“So stamp it out!” The music had come round again to the choral refrain. “So stamp it out!”
“Stamp again,” cried the little old lady setting a furious example. “Harder! Harder!”
“Which did more,” Will speculated, “for morality and rational behavior—the Bacchic orgies or the Republic? the Nicomachean Ethics or corybantic dancing?”
“The Greeks,” said Mrs. Narayan, “were much too sensible to think in terms of either-or. For them, it was always not-only-but-also. Not only Plato and Aristotle, but also the maenads. Without those tension-reducing hornpipes, the moral philosophy would have been impotent, and without the moral philosophy the hornpipers wouldn’t have known where to go next. All we’ve done is to take a leaf out of the old Greek book.”
“Very good!” said Will approvingly. Then remembering (as sooner or later, however keen his pleasure and however genuine his enthusiasm, he always did remember) that he was the man who wouldn’t take yes for an answer, he suddenly broke into laughter. “Not that it makes any difference in the long run,” he said. “Corybantism couldn’t stop the Greeks from cutting one another’s throats. And when Colonel Dipa decides to move, what will your Rakshasi Hornpipes do for you? Help you to reconcile yourselves to your fate, perhaps—that’s all.”
“Yes, that’s all,” said Mrs. Narayan. “But being reconciled to one’s fate—that’s already a great achievement.”
“You seem to take it all very calmly.”
“What would be the point of taking it hysterically? It wouldn’t make our political situation any better; it would merely make our personal situation a good deal worse.”
“So stamp it out,” the children shouted again in unison, and the boards trembled under their pounding feet. “So stamp it out.”
“Don’t imagine,” Mrs. Narayan resumed, “that this is the only kind of dancing we teach. Redirecting the power generated by bad feelings is important. But equally important is directing good feelings and right knowledge into expression. Expressive movements, in this case, expressive gesture. If you had come yesterday, when our visiting master was here, I could have shown you how we teach that kind of dancing. Not today unfortunately. He won’t be here again before Tuesday.”
“What sort of dancing does he teach?”
Mrs. Narayan tried to describe it. No leaps, no high kicks, no running. The feet always firmly on the ground. Just bendings and sideways motions of the knees and hips. All expression confined to the arms, wrists and hands, to the neck and head, the face and, above all, the eyes. Movement from the shoulders upwards and outwards—movement intrinsically beautiful and at the same time charged with symbolic meaning. Thought taking shape in ritual and stylized gesture. The whole body transformed into a hieroglyph, a succession of hieroglyphs, or attitudes modulating from significance to significance like a poem or a piece of music. Movements of the muscles representing movements of Consciousness, the passage of Suchness into the many, of the many into the immanent and ever-present One.
“It’s meditation in action,” she concluded. “It’s the metaphysics of the Mahayana expressed, not in words, but through symbolic movements and gestures.”
They left the gymnasium by a different door from that through which they had entered and turned left along a short corridor.
“What’s the next item?” Will asked.
“The Lower Fourth,” Mrs. Narayan answered, “and they’re working on Elementary Practical Psychology.”
She opened a green door.
“Well, now you know,” Will heard a familiar voice saying. “Nobody has to feel pain. You told yourselves that the pin wouldn’t hurt—and it didn’t hurt.”
They stepped into the room and there, very tall in the midst of a score of plump or skinny little brown bodies, was Susila MacPhail. She smiled at them, pointed to a couple of chairs in a corner of the room, and turned back to the children. “Nobody has to feel pain,” she repeated. “But never forget: pain always means that something is wrong. You’ve learned to shut pain off, but don’t do it thoughtlessly, don’t do it without asking yourselves the question: What’s the reason for this pain? And if it’s bad, or if there’s no obvious reason for it, tell your mother about it, or your teacher, or any grown-up in your Mutual Adoption Club. Then shut off the pain. Shut it off knowing that, if anything needs to be done, it will be done. Do you understand?…And now,” she went on, after all the questions had been asked and answered. “Now let’s play some pretending games. Shut your eyes and pretend you’re looking at that poor old mynah bird with one leg that comes to school every day to be fed. Can you see him?”
Of course they could see him. The one-legged mynah was evidently an old friend.
“See him just as clearly as you saw him today at lunchtime. And don’t stare at him, don’t make any effort. Just see what comes to you, and let your eyes shift—from his beak to his tail, from his bright little round eye to his one orange leg.”
“I can hear him too,” a little girl volunteered. “He’s saying ‘Karuna, karuna!’”
“That’s not true,” another child said indignantly. “He’s saying ‘Attention!’”
“He’s saying both those things,” Susila assured them. “And probably a lot of other words besides. But now we’re going to do some real pretending. Pretend that there are two one-legged mynah birds. Three one-legged mynah birds. Four one-legged mynah birds. Can you see all four of them?”
They could.
“Four one-legged mynah birds at the four corners of a square, and a fifth one in the middle. And now let’s make them change their color. They’re white now. Five white mynah birds with yellow heads and one orange leg. And now the heads are blue. Bright blue—and the rest of the bird is pink. Five pink birds with blue heads. And they keep changing. They’re purple now. Five purple birds with white heads
