"Роджер Желязны. Lord of Light (Лорд Света, engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

incomprehensible, being the ways of gods. This is not the answer.
"The answer, the justification, is the same for men as it is for gods.
Good or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara. Agree with
the sages, who have taught our people for as far as the memory of man may
reach. Agree, but consider also a thing of which the sages do not speak.
This thing is 'beauty,' which is a word-- but look behind the word and
consider the Way of the Nameless. And what is the way of the Nameless? It is
the Way of Dream. And why does the Nameless dream? This thing is not known
to any dweller within Samsara. So ask, rather, what does the Nameless dream?
"The Nameless, of which we are all a part, does dream form. And what is
the highest attribute any form may possess? It is beauty. The Nameless,
then, is an artist. The problem, therefore, is not one of good or evil, but
one of esthetics. To struggle against those who are mighty among dreamers
and are mighty for ill, or ugliness, is not to struggle for that which the
sages have taught us to be meaningless in terms of Samsara or Nirvana, but
rather it is to struggle for the symmetrical dreaming of a dream, in terms
of the rhythm and the point, the balance and the antithesis which will make
it a thing of beauty. Of this, the sages say nothing. This truth is so
simple that they have obviously overlooked it. For this reason, I am bound
by the esthetics of the situation to call it to your attention. To struggle
against the dreamers who dream ugliness, be they men or gods, cannot but be
the will of the Nameless. This struggle will also bear suffering, and so
one's karmic burden will be lightened thereby, just as it would be by
enduring the ugliness; but this suffering is productive of a higher end
in
the light of the eternal values of which the sages so often speak.
"Therefore, I say unto you, the esthetics of what you have witnessed
this evening were of a high order. You may ask me, then, 'How am I to know
that which is beautiful and that which is ugly, and be moved to act
thereby?' This question, I say, you must answer for yourself. To do this,
first forget what I have spoken, for I have said nothing. Dwell now upon the
Nameless." He raised his right hand and bowed his head.
Yama stood, Ratri stood, Tak appeared upon a table.
The four of them left together, knowing the machineries of Karma to
have been defeated for a time.

They walked through the jagged brilliance of the morning, beneath the
Bridge of the Gods. Tall fronds, still wet with the night's rain, glistened
at the sides of the trail. The tops of trees and the peaks of the distant
mountains rippled beyond the rising vapors. The day was cloudless. The faint
breezes of morning still bore a trace of the night's cold. The clicking and
buzzing and chirping of the jungle accompanied the monks as they walked. The
monastery from which they had departed was only partly visible above the
upper reaches of the treetops; high in the air above it, a twisting line of
smoke endorsed the heavens.
Ratri's servitors bore her litter in the midst of the moving party of
monks, servants and her small guard of warriors. Sam and Yama walked near
the head of the band. Silent overhead, Tak followed, passing among leaves
and branches, unseen.
"The pyre still blazes," said Yama.