"In this scene that you saw, was the place where you said Ikuo and I were walking-a space, you called it-was it the sky? If so, what was the weather like?"
"It was sunny," Patron replied. "I saw newly formed clouds gleaming whitely between the two of you and me, who was waiting to receive you. The clouds were shaped like a baby whale without a tail. The whale's head was three-dimensional; you could sense its weight, and the force of this weight made it move diagonally downward."
Kizu turned to look at Ikuo, who, before a word could pass between them, handed Kizu the cardboard tube on his lap. Kizu stuck two fingers inside the open end of the tube and extracted the watercolor painting, along with the cotton paper that was wrapped around it.
Patron took the painting and held it up to the light on the bedside table.
Kizu knew he often listened to classical CDs in this room, everything from ancient to modern music. The feeling rose up in Kizu that he was in the pres- ence of a considerable connoisseur of art.
After a while Patron lifted his eyes from the painting and laughed aloud, a simple, innocent burst of laughter. He nodded at Kizu, then passed the painting, its edges curling up on its own, over to Ikuo, who had been leaning over hesitantly to catch a glimpse. Patron didn't say a word about the con- gruence between the dream or vision he'd had and the scene depicted in the painting; his hearty laughter expressed it all. He evidently saw no need for any verbose explanation for himself, or for Kizu, or for Ikuo, who was por- ing over the painting.
It was Kizu, rather, taken in by Patron's laughter and unable to sup- press a smile, who felt that the painting cried out for interpretation. Kizu gazed at the painting in Ikuo's hands, as did Patron, Ikuo angling the paint- ing so it was easier for them to see, and once more he found himself unable to suppress a smile.
"This light-blue sky is what I saw from my apartment window this morning, and I painted it as it was," Kizu said. "The same with the grove of trees. The clouds, though, are something else. I'm amazed how accurate your description of them is-like a baby whale without a tail. These were clouds I saw outside the window of my university office in the States. Especially after I just took the job and was a little anxious about it, the clouds comforted me, so I added them nostalgically to the painting."
"That cloud-filled sky is the world on the other side toward which your soul is heading," Patron said. "It makes sense to see it as a nostalgic place."
"I wonder if I was thinking those kinds of things while I was painting it. It's a little vague to put it this way, I suppose, but I think I was envisioning Ikuo and me walking off into the bright sky as the two of us entered the world on the other side, the one you see in your trances. Rather than it being us entering my own trance."
"In a sense, though, they're one and the same," Patron said. "When you're so absorbed in your work, you break through to the other world of my trances. That's the ideal working relationship between patron and guide.
Guide once said that's what he was aiming at.
"Another important thing is that you and Ikuo are holding hands.
Through trances, we experience the world on the other side. But as Guide al- ways told me, because this great flow itself is God, you can't let yourself get caught up in the flow of ecstasy on the other side. Getting carried away by that flow means becoming one with God, and the ecstasy is a premonition of this.
"Of course, you could argue that getting caught up in it is actually the most natural thing to do. However, inside us all we have particles of light or resonance that are bestowed upon us by the One-and-only, the Almighty, or, in more prosaic terms, by God. For an individual, coming to faith means we take these particles of light or resonance so they're not some vague concept but are resituated in a more favorable environment in our own body and spirit.
Those particles of light or resonance are inside us, but they don't belong to us.
Even less are they created by us. They're put in our care by the Almighty.
Finally-and by this I don't mean just the inevitable result of the passage of time but also through training-we have to return these particles of light or resonance to the Almighty, where they originated. This is why we must keep them alive, unsullied. Not for a single moment must we forget these particles of light or resonance, which we take care of in our own bodies and spirit, are the source oí life, which we must in the end return to the Almighty.
"If we get drunk on the ecstasy of the trance and are swallowed up by this deep drunkenness, we won't be able to return from that huge flow back to this side. But one of the conditions of being a living human being is that you do not stay forever over there. In other words, if you are mechanically returned to this side, you'll never again be able to discover the particles of light or resonance within your body and spirit.
"No matter the level of the trance you're in, you have to wake up within it. You have to gaze at that huge flow with your eyes wide open. You have to let your body and spirit be transparent and gaze at those particles of light or resonance reflected in the mirror of that massive flow. This has nothing to do with what we might look like from the outside while in a trance.
"You recall Guide said that when I'm in a trance I confront a huge glow- ing structure? That's how he understood what I described, what I see when I'm gazing at this huge flow with open eyes. What I see and what he describes are one and the same. From the start, what you experience in a deep trance is something that can't be categorized in words. Which means that if you do attempt to transform it into words, there'll be many different ways of express- ing it-all of them accurate.
"To get back to your painting, you can't let feelings of ecstasy draw you into that massive flow. So what do you do to prevent it? Mystics in Europe used lections, sacred phrases-the words of a prayer-as a kind of handrail to keep from falling into the abyss of ecstasy. They'd tie sacred phrases around their waists as a kind of lifeline.
"In this painting, Professor, you're walking off into the depths of the sky holding on to Ikuo's hand. Ikuo's hand linked with yours is your hand- rail, your lifeline. Led by me, you've made the decision to go into the world on the other side. But from the first you refuse to be inundated by it. You won't allow yourself to be swallowed up in that massive flow. You've decided to protect the particles of light or resonance inside your body and spirit.
"Ikuo is your handrail, or lifeline, but by the same token if I were to lead him into a deep trance you want to keep him from sinking into that flow. And you did this painting of you and Ikuo holding hands in order to make this clear to yourself. Looking at this painting, I think Ikuo, too, can mentally prepare himself."
Patron turned from Kizu to look at Ikuo-Kizu found he couldn't help but do the same with a forceful shift of weight-and Ikuo nodded so deci- sively that Kizu was overjoyed.
4
Kizu still wasn't sure exactly what a guide was supposed to be or do, though it was clear Patron viewed him as both a personal adviser and an ad- viser to his new movement. Like Ikuo, Kizu was determined to absorb all Patron had to tell him. When he'd given Patron talks on the Welsh poet, Patron had been far from just a student. A new dynamic was at work here, with Patron now endeavoring to educate Kizu. Patron was attempting to revive the doctrine that he and the sick Guide had created-despite having denied it all by doing their Somersault.
"When Guide and I were young," he told Kizu, "there was a time when our youthful unease and energy drove us to devour books in order to find out more about mysticism. There was a great inherent difference, though, between our reading abilities. Guide would read books I'd never pick up on my own and then underline or circle in red those parts he thought I'd be interested in.