Darkness and the Light, page 4
But the main resources of Tibet were the people themselves. A pacific, industrious, and sturdy folk, they had been encouraged to regard themselves not as a backward race doomed to succumb to foreign powers, but as the custodians of the ancient wisdom in a period of worldwide darkness. Some of their recent leaders had suggested also that the Tibetan people must now become the pioneers of a new and comprehensive wisdom in which ancient and modern should be combined more significantly than was possible, for instance, in the depraved communities of Russia and China.
The leaders of the first Tibetan revolution, though they saw vaguely the need to modify the native culture, were not in practice able to carry forward the great process of development which they had started. There had to be a second revolution, which was led by the forward- looking section of the Lama class, with the backing of the people. This new class of leaders had come into being through the first revolution. A measure of frugal prosperity had increased the people's leisure and thoughtfulness. Though they were eager for certain physical improvements to their country, they had escaped the dangerous spell of modern industrialism, for that simple faith had by now been discredited among thoughtful people throughout the world. Though these 'servants of the light', as they called themselves, welcomed the scientific education which the government offered them, they also welcomed its insistence on the ancient wisdom. Indeed the young began flocking into the monasteries, and particularly to the houses of the reformed, modernistic monastic orders. The leaders of this new Lama class were persons who, after being well grounded in the principles of Buddhism, had in their maturity been greatly influenced by modern ideas without being false to the essence of the native culture. Most of them had spent a year or two in China or India, many in Russia, some in America, where they had been impressed by the Friends. Foreign contacts had made them realize fully the superstition and hypocrisy of the worst type of Lamas and the shallow pretentiousness of much of the orthodox learning. But this disillusionment had merely brought out more clearly the truth which had been perverted. This, they affirmed, was a truth not of intellect but of intuition. It was a feeling or apprehension of something which put all things into their true perspective. The whole intellectual edifice of Buddhism, they said, was an attempt, sometimes sound sometimes false, to elucidate this inarticulate discovery. And the discovery itself was to be won not at a stroke but progressively, through a long discipline of actual life. In modernism also they found a truth of feeling. The real achievement of modern culture, apart from science, they summarized under three headings; first, its insistence on action, individual and social, as opposed to Eastern quietism; second, its demand for equality of opportunity for all human beings; and, finally, its understanding of the primitive unconscious sources of all human thought and feeling.
The new monastic orders were at first tolerated and even encouraged by the Lhasa oligarchy, but presently they were reprimanded for stirring up unrest. For though each had its headquarters in some craggy monastery, the inmates travelled periodically, exhorting the people. They were in fact something between monks, friars, and revolutionaries. They preached a sort of religious communism, and demanded the abdication of the ruling class, the wealthy monastic orders. The crisis came when the new Lamas renounced the celibacy which for centuries had been accepted by the monastic class. The motive of this change was a thoroughly modernistic motive. It was realized in the new monasteries that the two most precious innate social capacities were the disposition for genuine community and the capacity for intelligent action. It was realized also that, although the average level of intelligence had not sunk so far in Tibet as in more advanced' countries, there was a steady drain of the more intelligent into the celibate monastic orders. This, said the servants of the light, must stop. Recognizing the importance of self-denial for spiritual discipline, they recognized also the importance of propagating intelligence. They therefore boldly affirmed their intention of striving for complete spiritual discipline and insight though 'unsupported by the prop of celibacy'. Biological responsibility, they said, must not be shirked by the servants of the light, even though they must assume other weighty responsibilities. Not only so, but the experience of family life, with all its trials and all its mental enrichment, must not be shirked by those who undertook to lead and govern the people. They recognized that family life must not be allowed to absorb too much attention, but to avoid this they advocated that the state should assume the final responsibility for the upbringing of all children.
The renunciation of celibacy and the attack on the ruling class inevitably caused a serious conflict between the old and the new monastic orders. Inevitably the Grand Lama excommunicated the servants of the light, and finally outlawed them. Civil war followed. Since the Young Lamas, the servants of the light, were strongly supported by the people, their victory was decisive. It happened that at this critical moment of Tibetan history neither Russia nor China was in a position to interfere effectively, because a move by either would have precipitated an attack by the other; and since internal unrest in both empires was grave, war would have turned into civil war. So the second Tibetan revolution was successfully accomplished, and a new Tibet was founded, a society which to all earlier statesmen would have seemed a fantastic dream.
While modest economic development was continued, the main work of the new government was to educate the people in citizenship and in the new, purged version of the ancient culture. At the same time equality of opportunity for the rising generation, opportunity both economic and educational, was made absolute. In the new constitution ultimate power lay with the whole adult population. The constitution could be altered only by their elected assembly, which also could depose the government or withhold supplies. Current legislation, however, was carried out not by the general assembly but by a body elected by a section of the population known as the Active Citizens. These were men and women who had qualified by undertaking certain kinds of social service and by passing certain intelligence tests and academic examinations. The Active Citizens elected representatives from among themselves, but only those who had completed a rigorous political training, practical and theoretical, could stand for election. Parallel with this system there was a kind of Soviet system, based on occupation. All important legislation had to be sanctioned both by the representatives of the Active Citizens and by the body which formed the elected apex of this occupational system. This constitution could never have been put into action had there not already existed throughout the country a high standard of political education and a body of trusted leaders, proved in the revolution.
The new government at once passed a mass of progressive legislation. Ownership of all means of production was vested in the state, but delegated, with suitable checks, to the occupations themselves. In particular, the peasants were assured of ownership of their land. For some purposes their control was individualistic, and for other purposes co-operative. The government also issued 'an appeal to all persons of goodwill throughout the world' to work with new courage to found a new and unified world order, 'to establish freedom and the rule of the spirit'. The Tibetans, it declared, dedicated themselves absolutely to this end.
It is to this point of the history of man that I shall return when I begin to tell of the triumph of the will for light. Meanwhile I must from this point pursue the story of increasing darkness; for at this very moment, when seemingly the will for the light had gained unprecedented power, the will for darkness gathered its strength for final triumph.
The actual bifurcation of history may have begun long before this date. It may have begun in China, in Russia, in America, in Britain, or in all these countries at different dates. But equally it may well be that Tibet was the crucial point. Whatever the truth about the actual bifurcation, the relations of the new Tibet with its two mighty neighbours constituted the occasion on which the great duplication became unmistakable and irrevocable. Henceforth my experience was dual. On the one hand I witnessed the failure of the Tibetan renaissance, and the destruction of the Tibetan people. This was followed by the final Russo-Chinese war which unified the human race but also undermined its capacity. On the other hand I saw the Tibetans create, seemingly in the very jaws of destruction, a community such as man had never before achieved. And this community, I saw, so fortified the forces of the light in the rival empires that the war developed into a revolutionary war which spread over the whole planet, and did not end until the will for the light had gained victory everywhere.
Part II - DARKNESS
4 - THE QUENCHING OF THE LIGHT
i.REPERCUSSIONS IN BRITAIN
ii. A SYNTHETIC FAITH
iii. THE TIBETANS DEFEND THEMSELVES
iv. THE DESTRUCTION OF TIBET
i. REPERCUSSIONS IN BRITAIN
THE AWAKENING of the Tibetans caused a stir throughout the world. For a while it seemed that at last the light would win. Bold young Tibetans, 'itinerant servants of the light', left their frugal and crag-bound 'incipient Utopia' to spread the gospel across the high passes of the Karakorum Range into Sinkiang and far into the Russian plain. Others, still more daring, penetrated eastward to the upper reaches of the Hwang Ho. Evading the efficient Chinese police, they carried the word even to Shanghai, and thence to Japan. Yet others, crossing the more difficult and neglected of the Himalayan passes, percolated like an invisible ferment into the peoples of India; while others again crept along the gorges of Kashmir, seeking Europe. Thousands were caught, and tortured with all the cunning of medical and psychological science. In China these tortures were often carried out in public to entertain the people and warn those who had any leanings towards the light. But few of the missionaries were extirpated before they had infected with their message many who were ripe to receive it. Meanwhile in Lhasa and the other great centres of the new-old truth swarms of young men and women were being trained to carryon the great task.
In every land the servants of the light were heartened. The servants of darkness were bewildered and anxious. Here and there throughout the two great empires brave attempts were made to copy the Tibetan experiment. Here and there, notably in Britain, the party of the light organized an armed rebellion.
The three peoples of Britain, the English, the Scotch, and the Welsh, had long ago ceased to count politically in the world. Enslaved first by Germany and then by Russia, they had adapted themselves to their servile condition. Nevertheless they retained a precious memory not only of their ancient national splendour but also of that humane and liberal spirit for which, in spite of heinous faults, they had once been famous. Whenever in any part of the world a stand was made for freedom and individual integrity the three British peoples, and often the Irish too, were ready to cause trouble for their masters. Rumour soon told them that the new Tibetan state was not the Gilbert and Sullivan fantasy which Russian propaganda reported. Presently the secret emissaries of Tibet were at work in London and the North-west. The gospel spread. But the British, imperfectly schooled in the life of the spirit, never clearly grasped it. Only the political aspect of it was fully intelligible to them. Politically they were still gifted with a certain tact, forbearance, and inventiveness; and they were not incapable of making a bold stand against tyranny. But this was not enough. To break the mechanized power of the foreign dictatorship they needed to have, as a whole people, that outstanding fortitude and integrity which are possible only to those who have endured a long and intelligent discipline under the light. The British rebellion failed because the spirit behind it was confused and uncertain, and therefore incapable of that fantastic and universal heroism which alone can triumph over odds that are obviously impossible. The young Russian air-police quickly obliterated the few towns which the rebels were able to seize.
ii. A SYNTHETIC FAITH
This little episode on the fringe of the Russian Empire was of no general significance. The focus of interest was always Tibet itself. The two imperial powers had, of course tried to frustrate the Tibetan revolution, but at first each had regarded the strange commotion on 'the Roof of the World' as a comic side-show. Each had been concerned to gain a diplomatic victory over its rival in the Tibetan no-man's- land rather than to preserve the old Tibetan régime. But when the revolution was actually accomplished, the Russian and Chinese oligarchs began to be alarmed. And when it became evident that the insignificant Tibetan state was fomenting the subversive forces beyond its frontiers and planning a world-wide revolution, both the imperial governments began to take serious action. The campaign of terrorism which each undertook within its own frontiers was not as successful as had been hoped. The progressive minority, disciplined by Tibetan leaders, showed fanatical courage. Moreover each imperial government at first made the mistake of fostering the subversive movement in its rival's territory. Not till matters had become very grave was this policy abandoned by a tacit agreement between the two great powers to postpone all action against one another till the epidemic of sedition had been crushed. Even so, neither could trust the other not to use the crushing of the Tibetan experiment as a pretext for annexing the country. Whenever one of the two powers threatened invasion if Tibetan propaganda did not cease, the government at Lhasa was able to count on diplomatic or even military intervention by the other.
There came a time, however, when fear of Tibetan ideas overcame imperial rivalry. Both oligarchies were finding it impossible to cope with the rising tide of religious fanaticism within their own frontiers. Though every city had now its own congested concentration camp, though time after time these camps were emptied to provide a public holocaust in which, before the eyes of a howling and ecstatic mob, thousands were roasted alive or vivisected by machinery devised to produce maximal pain, the movement continued to spread. It even infected the troops. In these circumstances the two oligarchies were forced to put aside their rivalry. Their leaders met in conference in the newest and wealthiest suburb of Irkutsk, on the forest-clad shores of Lake Baikal. There they worked out a common policy. The conference was dominated by a young Chinese official psychologist who claimed to have an infallible cure for the world's madness.
To appreciate his contentions it is necessary to understand the mentality of the oligarchs. They were in the main sincere believers in their respective empires, and in imperialism itself. Their conscious minds were those of devoted, meticulously accurate civil servants who felt that their society was in danger of disintegration through an enthusiasm beyond their comprehension. On the whole they disliked the orgy of torture with which it was hoped to break the movement, but they believed it necessary; Moreover most of them unwittingly derived satisfaction from it, for most were frustrated spirits, teased by an unrecognized itch of resentment against those who had maintained spiritual liberty and integrity by rebelling against the established barbarism. Moreover in the Russian and the Chinese cultures there were elements which favoured cruelty. The Russians were a kindly not a cruel people, but in the pseudo-mysticism of degenerate Russia there was in some respects a return to pre-revolutionary ideas. Suffering was conceived of as the supreme purifier and the supreme source of illumination. Consequently the infliction of suffering on others might sometimes be laudable. The Chinese, on the other hand, though so fastidious and so friendly, had always been liable both to cold cruelty and to passionate vindictiveness. The Chinaman who had 'run amok' did but manifest an impulse which was latent in all his race, and indeed in all mankind, though with less dramatic expression.
The argument of the young psychologist was briefly this. Tibet had become obsessed with an idea, and was infecting every people. To resist such an emotional and dynamic idea it was necessary to have another idea, contrary and even more potent. It was necessary to give the people something to live for, die for, and kill for. The Tibetan idea was the incredible ideal of a world in which men would fulfil their powers in joyful service of the common weal. To counter this insidious doctrine it was necessary to preach sacrifice, self- immolation, enlightenment in suffering, obedience to the divine and ruthless Will, embodied, of course, in the fiat of the state. Two ideas, the psychologist insisted, must be reiterated on all possible occasions and given some kind of concrete symbolization. In the first place it must be constantly pointed out that though the Tibetans themselves insisted on submission to the divine will, their conception of that will was effeminate. Moreover the Tibetan emphasis on submission was incompatible with the contrary exhortation to strive for revolutionary change. Submission must be absolute, fervent, ecstatic. Only at the command of the state must it give place to struggle, and then struggle itself must spring from utter submission to the divine state. Of course if the state was palpably not divine, if it was, for instance, the utterly perverted Tibetan state, struggle must be constant and resolute until the true state was founded. But under the divine state the supreme virtue was obedience. For the state in its wisdom would decide what was the right function of everyone. As for the right to education, there was no such thing. In its place must be set the right and duty of ignorance. Let each man know merely whatever was needed for the fulfilling of his function. To know more was wicked, and to the truly spiritual mind repugnant. Obedience involved also the pious acceptance of suffering, one's own and one's neighbour's. But indeed suffering was not only to be reluctantly accepted; it must be welcomed. For the second great idea which the psychologist stressed was the excellence both of suffering and of cruelty. In praising kindliness and mutual respect the Tibetans had overlooked another important value. No doubt there was a place for kindliness. Between members of one family, and between loyal members of the divine state, kindliness was necessary so long as it did not infringe against loyalty, But from the spiritual point of view there was a virtue more important and more illuminating than kindliness, namely cruelty. For cruelty, he said, was complementary to suffering. In torture, both victim and agent should experience an ineffable illumination. Like the union of love, and in a far more vivid manner, the union of victim and torturer was a creative synthesis in which a new and splendid reality was brought into being. The proof of this was in the experience itself. The torturer knew well that ecstasy. The victim, if he was spiritually disciplined beforehand, should experience an even more exquisite, excruciating joy.
