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Those Happy Hindoos
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (July 8, 1911) : 21
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      We Westerners have long regarded the Eastern accomplishment of sending one’s soul out of one’s body and returning to it at will as a miracle. The length of time we are taking to change our definition of this act is just part of the maddeningly slow process of social evolution. A thing is first a miracle, then a luxury, after that a necessity, and finally a matter of course. To rid oneself from time to time of one’s mind and body is so glaringly necessary that the only miracle is that it is not done by at least a favored minority, so that it may reach the stage of being called a luxury. It is amazing that we put up so patiently with ourselves from the beginning to the end without hoping or even consciously craving a respite. To be oneself for seventy years seems at moments almost too much to ask of any one. Even sleep is not the rest it was intended to be, for our dreams caricature and underline our absurdities until the waking day appears more restful than the night. To be oneself for seventy years seems at moments almost too much to ask of any one. Even sleep is not the rest it was intended to be, for our dreams caricature and underline our absurdities until the waking day appears more restful than the night. If we are then more continually self-conscious we are not at least so dementedly so. Never to be rid of the mind that whirls in its silly circle, grinding us as it goes — that is martyrdom. We have reasoned with it so often, proving that every spoke which makes strong its whirling wheel is composed of pettiness, exaggeration, and short-sightedness, but on it goes, precisely as though it were justified, and never are we given the rest we so much want. What could be more deliciously peaceful than to clear one’s mind of befogging cobwebs, put it in a beautiful state of order and elimination, then close it up, and, existing for a short time without it, return rested to a mental apparatus freshened by its lapse from ill-governed activity. But even when we are not using our minds we have to stay in them, cluttering them up, threshing over and over the same grist until it becomes mere dust to breathe, congesting our heads for all the world like influenza until irritation brings sneezing, sneezing brings tears to our eyes, and we find ourselves crying for no reason under the sun but because of the surrounding waste matter resulting from an over-use we never wished or intended.
      But even when we are not using our minds we have to stay in them, cluttering them up, threshing over and over the same grist until it becomes mere dust to breatheOur minds harass our bodies and our bodies distract our minds, and we long ardently to separate the two or else leave them both to recuperate by relieving them of our bothersome selves. If ever a civilization made such a boon desirable it is ours, yet we are wholly at a loss how to procure it. Picture going about, a small, gray, shivering cloud, floating rather high from relief at being free of encumbrances, knowing that one’s mind and body were doing nothing either should not. The unattainableness of it is enough to make one weep. A small, gray cloud is all we are up to being some days; so unfevered, so reasonable — reason being removed — and so unfatigued; incapable alike of remorse and resolve, the things which bring both in their train not being with us and, happily, unable to act without us.
      Nothing else is so much with us as ourselves. We see our husbands, friends, favorite cities, and operas at differing intervals. All things we rest from, give an opportunity to rest from us, and manipulate with the idea constantly in mind that the staleness of over-use had better be avoided. Even great books we put from us for a while and bring out others. We weary of masterpieces and dispose of things that are in good condition, our fatigue at the sight of them overbalancing our sense of thrift. In all other matters the need for freshness is felt and catered to, but in our relation to ourselves it is disregarded. We are so familiar with our ways that occasional contempt cannot help but follow. We know so well our artifices and lacks. We have braced ourselves so often with the thought of our virtues that they cease to dazzle us and have seconds of looking very tawdry indeed. We have whipped ourselves with the same flights of philosophy and frightened ourselves with the identical stinging scorn until we will be hurried from neither aspiration nor shame, but continue at the jog-trot which is the most madding of all. We know in advance our particular, obsessed orientations and watch ourselves as we follow them out with sickening inevitableness. We want, we need, from no warmer source than mere human decency, we deserve a rest — quite a short one, just an hour’s excursion by ourselves with no impedimenta. We would not mind the exposure it would be to send our spirits off robbed of the trappings they commonly drag about with them. We are willing to look small and unsubstantial, unformed and unimposing, even a little bare and pathetic, for the comfort we would find in the state. To be a cool, clarified, unthinking, and unfeeling wisp is our idea of ecstasy. To be a cool, clarified, unthinking, and unfeeling wisp is our idea of ecstasy. It is better than being an uncontrollable bulk, composed of deficiencies and harping crabbedness. The Hindoo leaves his body impassive and his mind quiet, while his spirit soars to a minaret and, perching on it, blinks at mankind. We would, if we could, have our bodies impassive and our minds quiet; and as for our spirits, we would find a cool little corner for them to rest in, an unattainable little corner that no one else could reach, and we would not even blink at mankind. Blinking requires effort; we would just tuck in the straying ends of our cloudiness and have an hour’s blissful rest from ourselves.
 

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