In Search of the Miraculous

with it, was more important than anything that was happening or could

happen in a world of "obvious absurdities."1 I said to myself

1That refers to a little book I had as a child. The hook was called Obvious

Absurdities, it belonged to Stupin's "Little Library" and consisted of such pictures as, for instance, a man carrying a house on his back, a carriage with square wheels, and

similar things. This book impressed me very much at that time, because there were

many pictures in it about which I could not understand what was absurd in them. They

looked exactly like ordinary things in life. And later I began to think that the book

really gave pictures of real life, because when I continued to grow I became more and

more convinced that all life consisted of "obvious absurdities." Later experiences only strengthened this conviction.

then that the war must be looked upon as one of those generally catastrophic

conditions of life in the midst of which we have to live and work, and seek

answers to our questions and doubts. The war, the great European war, in the

possibility of which I had not wanted to believe and the reality of which I

did not for a long time wish to acknowledge, had become a fact. We were in

it and I saw that it must be taken as a great memento mori showing that hurry was necessary and that it was impossible to believe in "life" which led

nowhere.

The war could not touch me personally, at any rate not until the final

catastrophe which seemed to me inevitable for Russia, and perhaps for the

whole of Europe, but not yet imminent. Though then, of course, the

approaching catastrophe looked only temporary and no one had as yet

conceived all the disintegration and destruction, both inner and outer, in

which we should have to live in the future.

Summing up the total of my impressions of the East and particularly of

India, I had to admit that, on my return, my problem seemed even more

difficult and complicated than on my departure. India and the East had not

only not lost their glamour of the miraculous; on the contrary, this glamour

had acquired new shades that were absent from it before. I saw clearly that

something could be found there which had long since ceased to exist in

Europe and I considered that the direction I had taken was the right one. But,

at the same time, I was convinced that the secret was better and more deeply

hidden than I could previously have supposed.

When I went away I already knew I was going to look for a school or

schools. I had arrived at this long ago. I realized that personal, individual

efforts were insufficient and that it was necessary to come into touch with

the real and living thought which must be in existence somewhere but with

which we had lost contact.

This I understood; but the idea of schools itself changed very much during

my travels and in one way became simpler and more concrete and in another

way became more cold and distant. I want to say that schools lost much of

their fairy-tale character.

On my departure I still admitted much that was fantastic in relation to

schools. "Admitted" is perhaps too strong a word. I should say better that I

dreamed about the possibility of a non-physical contact with schools, a

contact, so to speak, "on another plane." I could not explain it clearly, but it seemed to me that even the beginning of contact with a school may have a

miraculous nature. 1 imagined, for example, the possibility of making

contact with schools of the distant past, with schools of Pythagoras, with

schools of Egypt, with the schools of those who built Notre-Dame, and so

on. It seemed to me that the barriers of time and space should disappear on

making such contact. The idea of schools in itself was fantastic and nothing

seemed to me too fantastic in relation to this idea. And I saw no

contradiction between these ideas and my attempts

to find schools in India. It seemed to me that it was precisely in India that it

would be possible to establish some kind of contact which would afterwards

become permanent and independent of any outside interferences.

On the return voyage, after a whole series of meetings and impressions, the

idea of schools became much more real and tangible and lost its fantastic

character. This probably took place chiefly because, as I then realized,

"school" required not only a search but "selection," or choice— I mean on our side.

That schools existed I did not doubt. But at the same time I became

convinced that the schools I heard about and with which I could have come

into contact were not for me. They were schools of either a frankly religious

nature or of a half-religious character, but definitely devotional in tone.

These schools did not attract me, chiefly because if I had been seeking a

religious way I could have found it in Russia. Other schools were of a

slightly sentimental moral-philosophical type with a shade of asceticism, like

the schools of the disciples or followers of Ramakrishna;