On the way back, we had seen some dolphins near the pirogue, and I expressed the desire to dive with them, with the idiotic reflex of a Westerner who has been to too many theme parks. The Balinese had stopped me, getting me to understand as best they could that dolphins swimming on the surface might be followed down below by sharks hunting the same shoal of fish. Their case was strong enough to convince me, and I contented myself with admiring these beauties of nature, free in their movements, free to go where they will, free to live their lives.
I stopped by the road to eat a nasi goreng at a stall, a typical dish based on rice, like nearly all Balinese cooking. After four weeks, just seeing rice was almost enough to take away my appetite. I arrived at my bungalow at nightfall, an ideal moment to go and walk on the beach without meeting a soul. I took off my shoes and set off straightaway. As foreseen, the beach was deserted, and I walked for a long time along the water’s edge, my trousers rolled up.
Quickly, my wandering thoughts turned to my encounter with the healer, and I thought about all he had revealed to me. So we humans had developed beliefs about ourselves as a result of the influence of the people around us or conclusions drawn unconsciously from our experiences. I was willing to accept that, but how far did these beliefs go? We had seen that you could believe yourself to be good-looking or ugly, intelligent or stupid, interesting or boring. You could believe in your ability to influence things or, on the contrary, believe that you’re incapable of obtaining anything from others. In what other areas could you develop these beliefs? I understood that you could believe in a certain number of things and that these beliefs would then have an influence on your life. But how much? I wondered in what way my own beliefs had influenced the course of my life and in what way, as a result of chance encounters and experiences, I could have believed other things that would then have given a different direction to my life.
The only answer to my questionings was the murmuring of the water under my feet, splashing the silence of the deserted beach. The palm trees at its edge were perfectly still; no wind blew in their delicate branches. I had gotten into the habit of taking a swim every evening. I took off my trousers and T-shirt and slipped into the warm water. I swam for a long time without thinking about anything, under the benevolent gaze of the young moon.
6
I AWOKE AFTER a particularly deep sleep and discovered that the sun was already high in the sky. I ate some fruit for breakfast and went for a morning walk in the little wood that extends behind the beach. As I arrived near the bungalow of Hans and Claudia, the Dutch couple, I recognized their voices.
“Isn’t lunch ready yet?” asked Hans. He was sitting on a small rock, a book on his knees.
He had dark gray hair, an inexpressive face, and rather thin lips.
“Soon, darling, soon.”
Claudia, a nice, gentle woman, 40ish, her round face framed by pretty, blonde curls, was cooking skewers of fish on a barbecue.
“You’re using too much charcoal. There’s no point; they’re ruined.”
He said that without realizing it was a reproach. For him, it was a fact, that was all.
“But otherwise it cooks too slowly,” she explained.
The last time I saw them, Claudia was cleaning the bungalow while Hans was reading his wretched book. I wondered what could bring a woman to take on the role of the housewife in the 21st century. Hans wasn’t macho in the normal sense. For him, it was probably just “normal” for his wife to take care of that. The question had no doubt never even been debated.
“Hey, Julian. How nice to see you!” Claudia said when she noticed me.
“Good morning, Julian,” said Hans.
“Good morning.”
“Would you like to share our fish with us?” she offered.
Almost imperceptibly, Hans raised an eyebrow.
“No thanks. I’ve just had my breakfast.”
“You’ve only just got up?” asked Hans. “We’ve already done two visits this morning: the temple of Tanah Lot and the Subak Museum, in Tabanan.”
“That’s great—congratulations.”
He didn’t hear the irony in my reply. Hans was one of those people who listens to words, but decodes neither the tone of voice nor the facial expressions of the speaker.
“You don’t do much sightseeing, I get the impression. Doesn’t it interest you?”
“It does, but I especially like to feel atmospheres, walk in the villages, talk with people, try to put myself in their place. You know, understand their culture.”
“Julian likes to discover culture from inside; but you, darling, prefer to understand culture in books,” said Claudia.
“Yes, it’s faster. You save time,” said Hans, outdoing his wife.
I agreed. What was the point of arguing?
“Would you like to come with us this evening?” asked Claudia. “We’re going to a gamelan concert in Ubud, then, at nightfall, we’ll go and watch the turtles on Pemuteran beach. It’s the period when their eggs hatch. It lasts one or two nights, at the most. After that, it’ll be too late.”
The prospect of an evening with Hans didn’t thrill me, but I really wanted to see the baby turtles. And I could tell it would particularly please Claudia if I accepted.
“Okay, it’s nice of you to offer. I’ll already be in the Ubud area this afternoon, so I’ll meet you there. Give me the address.”
“It’s in the village hall, you know, next to the big market. At seven o’clock,” said Claudia.
“You’re visiting the galleries?” asked Hans.
Ubud was the artists’ village, and there was an abundance of art galleries.
“No, I’m going to see—how shall I put it?—a sort of spiritual master.”
“Oh, really, what for?”
I knew his question was sincere. Hans was the sort to ask you why you were going to the cinema, to church, or to the cemetery, or why you no longer wore a pair of trousers that were terribly out of fashion but still had some wear in them. Anything that didn’t stem from a rational process (rational for him) was a freak of nature.
“He’s helping me become aware of certain things. And, in a way, he’s also helping me to find myself again.”
“Find yourself again?”
The tone of his voice was both amused and taken aback.
“Yes, sort of.”
“But, if you’re lost, what proof is there you’ll find yourself again in Ubud rather than in New York or Amsterdam?”
Very funny. There really are people who are completely impervious to the spiritual dimension of life.
“I’m not lost. If you open a dictionary—by the way, you ought to enjoy reading it, the emotional level is just right for you—you will see that there are several meanings for the verb find. As it happens, ‘to find oneself again’ means to know oneself better in order to have a life more in harmony with what one is.”
“Don’t get angry, Julian.”
“I’m not angry,” I lied.
“Darling, leave Julian alone,” said Claudia. “By the way, do you still go diving?”
“Yes, nearly every day.”
“We went diving the first day,” said Hans. “We were lucky: the weather was fine and the water clear. In one hour, we saw the essentials of what there was to see.”
“I return often; I get great pleasure from diving among the fish, getting close to them. They are so tame that you can almost touch them.”
I was expecting him to ask me what for.
“Man is descended from fish. Julian is reconnecting with his rediscovered origins.”
“And you’re about to eat one of your ancestors’ descendants grilled on the barbecue. There’s a fine thing. Anyhow, I’ll leave you to your lunch—bon appétit! See you this evening.”
“Happy hunting. And don’t lose hope: there’s still the lost property office in Jakarta!”
“See you this evening,” said Claudia.
I resumed my walk, thinking about Hans. I wondered wha
t his “problem” might be. He was a bit weird. All the same, I felt he wasn’t nasty; he didn’t want to hurt me. He was just impervious to certain things.
I returned to my bungalow, quickly got ready, then leapt into my car. The route seemed simpler this time, and I arrived outside Master Samtyang’s house in the middle of the afternoon.
7
THE SAME YOUNG woman greeted me pleasantly and led me directly to the campan I had been in the day before. This time I was able to observe the place more calmly. It was both spare and beautiful. It radiated great serenity, peace, and harmony, and I was beginning to really like it. Such a spot allowed you to let go of a number of things. Here, you left many of your worries at the entrance. Time was suspended. I had the impression I could have spent years here without getting a single wrinkle.
I didn’t see him come. I turned around, and he was behind me. We greeted each other, and he informed me that at this time of day he would not be able to give me much time. Pity.
“So, you went to the video club in Kuta?” he asked me.
“Er … no,” I admitted slightly pathetically.
He said, without the slightest trace of reproach or authority, “If you really want me to accompany you on the path that will take you forward in your life, it is necessary that you do what I ask. If you make do with relying on me and listening to me, not much will happen. Are you ready for an undertaking of that sort?”
“Yes.”
Did I really have a choice, since I wanted to continue our relationship?
“Tell me: why didn’t you go to Kuta?”
“Er … actually, I was a bit tired last night, and I needed to rest.”
In a kindly voice, he said, “Even if you lie to others, at least don’t lie to yourself.”
“Excuse me?” I was taken aback.
“What were you afraid of?”
His voice radiated gentleness, and his eyes looked deep into mine. To my innermost self. And yet, I felt no intrusion. It was just that I felt seen. This man was reading me like an open book.
“What could you have lost by going there?”
How did he know how to ask the question, to delicately place his finger exactly where it was needed?
After a certain silence, I heard myself reply, “I think I wanted to keep intact my admiration for my favorite actress.”
“You were afraid to lose your illusions.”
It was strange, but it was true. All the stranger that, the day before, I had known that he was right about her. So why refuse the truth?
“Perhaps,” I said.
“It’s natural. Human beings are very attached to all the things they believe. They don’t go looking for the truth. They just want a certain form of equilibrium, and they manage to build a more or less coherent world for themselves on the basis of their beliefs. It reassures them, and unconsciously they cling to it.”
“But why don’t we realize that what we believe is not reality?”
“Remember that what we believe becomes reality.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you entirely, you know. Perhaps it’s a bit too philosophical for me. Despite being a dreamer, I am still rational. For me, reality is reality.”
“It’s very straightforward, in fact. If I asked you to close your eyes, to cover your ears, and to describe in detail all that is around you, you would not be able to describe everything. It’s natural; the scene comprises billions of pieces of information, and you haven’t picked them all up. You have only perceived part of reality.”
“In other words?”
“For example, on the visual level, there are numerous pieces of information—the layout of the walls and the pillars of the different campans that can be seen; the trees, bushes, and plants with thousands of leaves that move about in a certain way in the breeze. To this are added furniture, objects, drawings. Each of these objects is made of different materials. These materials are not all the same; the colors are not the same. There is also a mass of information concerning the light, the shadows, the sky, the clouds, the sun. Just my body, on its own, is sending you thousands of pieces of information relative to my posture, my movements, my eyes, the expressions on my face, which are changing from one second to the next. And all that is just the visual information!
“To this you must add auditory information: the different noises, close or far, the multiple modulations of my voice, its volume, its tonality, the rhythm of my words, the sound of our clothes when we move, the insects buzzing, the birds calling in the distance, the rustle of the leaves in the wind, and so on.
“But that is not all, either. You are also flooded with information about smells and sensations: the temperature of the air, its humidity, the scents of the different plants that surround us, scents that change according to the movement of the air, the feeling of the many points of contact between your body and the ground, the—”
“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me,” I interrupted. “I admit I wouldn’t have been capable of transmitting all those pieces of information with my eyes closed and my ears covered. It’s true.”
“And that is for a very good reason: you are not conscious of all these pieces of information. There are too many, and your mind unconsciously sorts them. Some you pick up, others not.”
“Yes, no doubt.”
“What is really interesting is that this sorting process is not the same for you and for me. If we asked several people to do this exercise and list what they observed of their environment, we wouldn’t get two lists that were the same. Each person would do his or her own particular sorting.”
“Right.”
“And the sorting isn’t done randomly.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sorting process is specific to each person, and it depends especially on beliefs—on what that person believes about the world in general, in short, on his or her vision of life.”
“Yes?”
“Our beliefs will result in us filtering reality, that is to say, filtering what we see, hear, and feel.”
“That is still a little abstract for me.”
“I am going to give you an example, a slightly oversimplified example.”
“Okay.”
“Imagine that you are unconsciously convinced that the world is dangerous, that you must be wary of it, that you must protect yourself. That is your belief, all right?”
“Yes.”
“If this belief is inscribed in you, then, in your opinion, what is your attention going to fix itself on in the present moment? What information are you going to pick up if you believe, deep down, that the world is dangerous?”
“Well. Let’s see … I don’t know. I imagine I would start by being a little wary of you, since, after all, I don’t know you! I think I would observe your face, especially, in order to try and read your thoughts, to understand what lies behind your kind words. And I would try to spot any inconsistencies in what you say, to know if you are reliable or not. And then I’d keep an eye on the garden gate to make sure it stayed open and I could leave easily if there were a problem. What else? Let’s see … perhaps I’d pay attention to that beam, which seems to stay in place only by a miracle and which might fall on me. And I’d keep an eye on the gecko that I can hear walking between the beams, because I’d be afraid he’d come down and bite me. I would notice too that the mat is worn out and I might pick up splinters if I didn’t watch out. There you are.”
“That’s it. Your attention will be caught by the potential risks which exist in every situation, and if you were asked to describe the situation, eyes closed, those are the factors that would come to your mind.”
“Probably.”
“Now imagine that you had the opposite belief, that the world is friendly, that people are nice, honest, and trustworthy, and that life offers numerous pleasures that are yours for the taking. Behave as if that conviction were deep inside you. What would your attention be turned to, at this moment, and what could you describe with your eyes shut a
nd your ears blocked?”
“I think I would talk about the plants, which are really very beautiful, about this pleasant breeze, which is making the heat bearable. I think I would talk about the gecko, too, because I would have said to myself, There’s a gecko in the roof. That’s cool—there won’t be any insects crawling around! And then I would describe the serene face of this friendly man who is revealing all sorts of interesting things to me without even charging!”
“Exactly! What we believe about reality, about the world around us, acts like a filter, like a selective pair of glasses, which leads us to see the details that go along with what we believe—to such an extent that it reinforces our beliefs. We’ve come full circle.
“If you think that the world is dangerous, you will pay attention to all the real or potential dangers, and you will increasingly have the impression of living in a dangerous world.”
“It’s logical, after all.”
“But it doesn’t stop there. Our beliefs will also allow us to interpret reality.”
“Interpret?”
“A moment ago, you mentioned the expression on my face. That expression, just like my gestures, can be interpreted in different ways. Your beliefs will help you find an interpretation: a smile will be perceived as a sign of friendship, kindness, and seduction, or irony, mockery, and condescension. An insistent gaze might be a sign of strong interest or, on the contrary, a threat, a desire to destabilize. And each person will be convinced of his interpretation. What you believe about the world leads you to give a meaning to all that is ambiguous or uncertain, and that reinforces your beliefs. Once again.”
The Man Who Wanted to Be Happy Page 3
