The readers of my books fell usually into two distinct classes-- those who are disgusted by the strong element of sexuality and those who rejoice in discovering that this element forms such a large ingredient. Many of those who comprise the former group find my critical writing, the essays and studies, not only highly satisfactory but superbly to their liking and are at a loss to explain to themselves how one and the same man could write such vastly dissimilar things. In the latter group are some who have no patience at all with what they choose to call my "classic" side, rejecting it either as unworthy of my talent or as sheer piffle and mysticism. Only a few discerning souls seem able to reconcile the so-called contradictory aspects of my being as revealed through my writing. On the other hand I have observed that, no matter what the reaction to my work, when the reader has a chance to meet me in the flesh he usually accepts me whole-heartedly. In the living man, so I suppose it to be, all questions are silenced. This fact has impressed me so forcibly as to become finally the criterion of my own powers of realization. It gives me to believe that when my writing becomes absolutely truthful there will be no discrepancy between the man and the writer, be tween what I am and what I do or say. This, I say it without hesitation, is the highest goal a man can set himself: it is the goal of all religious teachers. It goes then without saying that I am essentially a religious person, and always have been. The question might arise, in the minds of some, as to whether there is a conflict between the sexual and the religious. In my opinion there is none. Conflict there is,

2.

but only because life is essentially that. Every aspect or ele-
ment of life is necessary and inevitable, and capable of conver-
sion to different levels. But it is not easy possible to elimi-
mate, which is the hobby of the moralists. One may succeed in
repressing, but the results, as we know, are disastrous. To live
out one's desires, and in doing so to subtly alter the quality of
desire, is, it seems to me, the great purpose of living. But
desire is paramount and ineradicable, even when, according to
Buddhist thought, it passes over into its opposite. Because, in
order to free oneself from all desire, one has to desire to do
so.

This subject of desire is one which has interested me pro-
foundly, first when I was coming out of adolescence, and again
recently, after I had found myself and was confronted with the
great problem of freedom and choice. As a youth I was whipped
into a tumultuous life by great urges entirely beyond my control.
prolonged
In the last few years, after a period of intense creativity,
I found myself mystified by all the metaphysical problems cen-
tering about this notion of desire. In the midst of my struggles
the book Seraphita by Balzac was thrust into my hands by a
friend who was an occultist. Seraphita remains the high peak of
my experience in the world of books. From it I quickly passed to
a deep study of that other memorable work of Balzac's, Louis
Lambert, and then to an examination of Balzac's life. With the
result that in an essay called "Balzac and his Double", which
is to be published shortly in an American review, I gave full
expression to the problem and resolved the conflict which had
been raging in me.

18.

That's the beginning of sorrow, joyous sorrow, the bitterest
and the sweetest that men can know. That's the initiation, the
beginning of hunger and loneliness. The lovely red apple holds
a worm hidden away in the core and that worm will slowly, re-
lentlessly eat away the apple until there is nothing left but
the worm. But there is a core to the apple, that much is def-
inite, and even that is enough to make up for all the uncer-
tainties, all the petty doubts and misgivings. What does it
matter about the world, about the deaths and sufferings of un-
told millions, what does it matter if everything goes to pot
so long as she remains? Even if he can never see her again she
will be alive and he can think of her, think of her as long and
as much as he likes. Nobody on earth can stop him from doing
that.

This sorrow grows and grows, like the body itself. It
becomes the world sorrow, the riddle which takes the place of
the world, so that people no longer think of the world but only
why the world is the way it is. Sometimes it becomes so poig-
nant that you want to kill yourself, but to kill yourself because
of a riddle finally strikes you as ridiculous and so you go on
living but you commit moral suicide instead. In the effort to
adjust yourself to life, to what is called the world, to what is,
in short, you kill off your finer feelings, you become a man.
Later you realize that being a man is something entirely differ-
ent. You realize that there are very few men, and the more deeply
you realize it the fewer the men there are. If you go on realiz-
ing yourself you end up in a void on the top of a Himalayan peak
-- and there you find that what is called man hasn't even been
born yet.

Xk 73.

cessive, even for those who can afford to pay the tariff.

When I'm alone and walking the streets of a city is when I can feel things best--past, present, future, birth, rebirth, revolution, dissolution, sex the mythological animal, sex the red bird, sex the song, sex the dawn. Every city and every country has a different sexual climate and atmosphere. In some cities it floats in the air, like a thin, vaporous sperm; in other cities it seems congealed, frozen into the sides of the buildings, into the asphalt pavement, into the plate glass show windows. Sometimes it's like new shoots of grass lying just an inch or so above the surface, making a soft carpet and a faint fragrance which is intoxicating. Sometimes it's like soft fluffy cotton which sticks to your clothes and gets in your hair and eyes. Sometimes it's so rare that when you come on it by accident it seems phenomenal, like passing through a dark street and suddenly coming on a show window in which there are little white chicks huddled together in a wire cage under a powerful electric bulb. Sometimes it's a kind of whispering which accompanies you everywhere. Or a thin, shrill whistling which you hear as you round a corner. Or again it can be like a quick hot-house bloom, a mysterious warm growth which happens right under your eyes and overpowers you. The way people talk, the way they walk, the way they eat and where, the way they dress, the way they look at each other, every gesture and detail about them reveals either the presence or the absence of sex. Sometimes you can feel it being murdered, as if each and every citizen were armed with a squirt gun containing a powerful andyseptic against the spread of sex.