Chapter 15 - The Living Language of Colours

The transformation of consciousness which I observed here (and each time I returned to Tibet) was in a certain way similar to that which I experienced during my first stay at Yi-Gah Chö-Ling though on a bigger scale, because here the connections with the world I had been familiar with were completely severed, and the physical effects of high altitude, climate, and living conditions greatly contributed to this psychological change. The spiritual importance of this change is not lessened by explaining it on the basis of physical reactions. Yoga itself is based on the interaction of physical, spiritual, and psychic phenomena, in so far as the effects of breath-control Prāṇāyāma and bodily postures (āsana) are combined with mental concentration, creative imagination, spiritual awareness, and emotional equanimity.

The rarefied air of high altitudes has similar effects as certain exercises of Prāṇāyāma, because it compels us to regulate our breathing in a particular way, especially when climbing or walking long distances. One has to inhale twice or thrice the quantity of air which one would need at sea-level, and consequently the heart has to perform a much heavier task. On the other hand the weight of one's body is substantially reduced, so that one's muscles seem to lift one almost without effort. But precisely this is a source of danger, because one is not immediately conscious that lungs and heart are at a great disadvantage, and only the fact that one is very soon out of breath, and that the heart begins to race in a frightening manner, reminds one that it is necessary to control one's movements carefully. Tibetans themselves walk very slowly, but at a steady pace, bringing their breath in perfect harmony with their movement. Walking, therefore, becomes almost a kind of conscious haṭha-yoga or breaching exercise, especially when accompanied by rhythmic recitations of sacred formulas (mantras), as is the habit with many Tibetans. This has a very tranquillising and energising effect, as I found from my own experience.

At the same time I realised the tremendous influence of colour upon the human mind. Quite apart from the aesthetic pleasure and beauty it conveyed --- which I tried to capture in paintings and sketches --- there was something deeper and subtler that contributed to the transformation of consciousness more perhaps than any other single factor. It is for this reason that Tibetan and in fact all tāntric, meditation gives such great importance to colours.

Colours are the living language of light, the hallmark of conscious reality. The metaphysical significance of colours as exponents and symbols of reality is emphasised in the Bardo Tödol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead, as it is commonly known), where transcendental reality is indicated by the experience of various forms of light, represented by brilliant, pure colours, and it is interesting that a serious modern thinker like Aldous Huxley has come to the conclusion that colour is the very `touchstone of reality'.

According to him, our conceptual abstractions, our intellectually fabricated symbols and images, are colourless, while the given data of reality, either in the form of senseimpressions from the outer world or in the form of archetypal symbols of direct inner experience, are coloured. In fact, the latter are far more intensely coloured than the external data. This may be explained, at least in part, by the fact that our perceptions of the external world are habitually clouded by the verbal notions in terms of which we do our thinking. We are for ever attempting to convert things into signs for the most intelligible abstractions of our own invention. But in doing so we rob these things of a great deal of their native thinghood. At the antipodes of the mind we are more or less completely free of language, outside the system of conceptual thought. Consequently our perception of visionary objects possesses all the freshness, all the naked intensity, of experiences which have never been verbalised, never assimilated to lifeless abstraction. Their colour (the hallmark of given-ness) shines forth with a brilliance which seems to us preternatural, because it is in fact entirely natural in the sense of being entirely unsophisticated by language or the scientific, philosophical, and utilitarian notions, by means of which we ordinarily re-create the given world in our own dreary human image.

The Tibetan landscape has `all the naked intensity' of colour and form which one associates with a preternatural vision or prophetic dream, which distinguishes itself from ordinary dreams by its super-real clarity and vividness of colours. It was precisely in a dream of this kind that for the first time I saw colours of such luminosity and transparence in the form of mountainous islands that rose from a deep blue sea.

I was filled with incredible happiness and thought to myself: these must be the paradisical islands of the southern sea, of which I have heard so much. But when later I actually saw some of these lovely palm-fringed islands of the south, I found none of those colours, I had seen in my dream.

But when I came to Tibet I recognised those colours, and the same happiness came over me as in that unforgettable dream. But why should I have seen those mountains rising out of the deep blue sea? This puzzled me for a long time, until one day we were travelling through a hot, narrow gorge, hemmed in by light yellow rocks which not only intensified the glare of the midday sun but captured its heat to such an extent that one could have imagined travelling somewhere in the tropics or through a gorge in the Sahara, instead of at an altitude of more than 14,000 feet. It was so warm that during a halt by the side of a placidly flowing stream I could not resist the temptation to take off my clothes and enjoy the luxury of a bath and a swim --- much to the astonishment of my Ladakhi companions! I felt greatly refreshed, but the effect did not last long, as the gorge became hotter and hotter the farther we proceeded, and even the water of the stream became steadily less until it disappeared in a shallow lemonyellow lake. After that the gorge became narrower and completely dry and with it our spirits. We just trudged wearily along, and I was wondering how long we would have to continue in this fashion when suddenly a strange phenomenon stopped me in my tracks. At the far end of the gorge the rock-walls receded, and a radiantly blue object flashed into sight. It was as luminous and as sharply set off from the background as the surface of a cut jewel from its gold setting, and it emanated an intensely blue light, as if it were illuminated from within. It was so utterly unexpected and different from anything I had seen that I simply gasped, unable to find any reasonable explanation or connection with what I saw. I felt so baffled and excited that I called out to my companions, fearing to be the victim of a hallucination: `Look there! What is that? Look!'

`Tso! Tso! Pangong-Tso!' they shouted, and threw their caps into the air triumphantly, as if they had conquered a mighty pass: and indeed there was a lha-tse, a pyramid of scones, left by previous travellers to mark this auspicious spot, from which the first glimpse of the great Pangong Lake could be had. We too added our stones, grateful to be released from the oppressiveness of the gorge. But I still could not believe my eyes. `Impossible, I thought. This cannot be water. It looks like some unearthly, selfluminous substance!'.

But soon we were out of the gorge and its deadening heat, and before us stretched a lake like a sheet of molten lapis lazuli, merging into intense ultramarine in the distance and into radiant cobalt blue and opalescent Veronese green towards the nearer shore, fringed with gleaming white beaches, while the mountains that framed this incredible colour display were of golden ochre, Indian red and burnt sienna, with purple shadows. Yes, this was the luminous landscape of my dream, rising out of the blue waters in brilliant sunshine under a deep, cloudless sky!

The mountains to the left had sharp-cut, almost stereometrical forms; those on the opposite side formed a range of softly modelled giants, crowned by eternal snows and mighty glaciers, known as the Pangong Range, running parallel to the fjord-like Pangong and Nyak-Tso Lakes, which form an almost consecutive sheet of water of more than 100 miles length. The two lakes are actually a submerged valley, divided merely by what probably was an ancient rock-fall.

When reaching our next camping-ground at the fool of the snow-range, a little above the lake, I felt so inspired by the colours of the lake and the mountains and the immense rhythm that pervaded this landscape that I forgot hunger and tiredness and immediately returned to the place from where I had the first overwhelming impression of the lake and the glaciers above it. So I walked back a few miles with my drawing-board, papers, and a box of pastels, munching some dry kulchas^[1] on the way, until I found the spot that I had marked in my mind while passing it, but where I had not dared to delay, as I did not know how far the next camping-place might be. I worked fast and with such enthusiasm that I finished two or three sketches in a short time, keeping in mind that I should be back in camp before sunset. But my excursion almost ended in disaster. Retracing my steps towards the camp, I suddenly found myself confronted by a raging stream that had not been there before! In my eagerness to get to my sketching place I had not noticed that I had crossed several shallow beds of dried-out water-courses. Now the melted waters from the glaciers came rushing down and threatened to cut off my retreat. Knowing that every minute was precious, I splashed through the icy waters, and after thus crossing two or three water-courses in succession I finally reached the camp somewhat out of breath, but happy to have succeeded in capturing something of the unforgettable beauty and freshness of my first impressions of this memorable lake.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Kulchas are a kind of hard, sweetened buns, made of unleavened flour, milk, and sugar, baked in an oven. They can be kept almost indefinitely, being perfectly dry, and therefore useful as an emergency ration. I got a sackful of them prepared in Leh and found them most useful.