The Sensual Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page A

to exist, the walls, the steam, the club, the city, the planet, the entire universe, went on completely unchanged. For an instant he saw the truth of what Robert had said. It made absolutely no difference to anything whether one was alive or dead. Everything went on as before.
    The sheer unacceptability of it, however, almost immediately drove the vision from his mind. The abrupt voice of rational cynicism reminded him, in a raucous whisper, that the essential difference between his condition now and the condition of his death was that in the latter he would be dead, an eternal state of nothingness. On the brink of that panic Martin pulled himself together and returned solidly to his sense of himself as a body. He weighed a hundred and sixty-three pounds, he was sweating, he was thirsty. This was real. Robert was an amiable nut who was filled with Oriental gothic tales, not to be taken seriously.
    The two men sat silently, side by side, one above the other, for some time. The space was without sound except for an occasional drop of water falling from the ceiling and the periodic whoosh of fresh steam erupting into the room. Each began to sweat copiously, the pores of the body opening and water running out, cleansing, purifying. Each entered a deep, meditative mood, aware of little else besides breathing and the automatic functions of the body. Heartbeat, muscle tone, thought, circulation, balance. They entered a mood of kinesthetic sobriety, much like two truckers who spend an evening hunched over their beers, yet without the truculence, the simmering secret search for a target.
    Finally, Martin surfaced. “Do you really believe that?” he asked, “I mean, about life and death being the same thing?”
    Robert uncoiled his rounded back and stretched his arms up. His spine cracked in four different places. Martin could almost see the sparks of energy from the spots where the cartilege was dislodged. He momentarily wondered whether the phenomenon was healthy and ran quickly through the memory log of his physiology studies, but couldn’t retrieve anything pertinent.
    “It’s not a belief,” Robert replied, his voice very low with relaxation. “It’s not like saying that black is white. Of course, from one level of perception, they are vastly different states. I guess what is meant is that a person should view both with equal indifference, not try to hold on to life as being more meaningful than death.”
    “You sound like you’re not sure.”
    “Well, I’m still a student. I’ve had glimpses into the truth of this teaching, but I’m very far from being a realized man.” He chuckled, to himself, as though at some esoteric joke. “Very far indeed.”
    “Come on!” Martin protested. “I’ve seen you practically crawl up your own asshole. You do things with your body that I’d never even dreamed of doing. You look like much more than student to me.”
    “On the level of hatha yoga, the development of physical harmony and strength, I am already an adept, that’s true. But as I said, that’s only the vehicle for something much more profound.”
    “The life and death thing?”
    Robert did not answer for a long time. Martin could almost hear him thinking. The yoga teacher stood up and his head disappeared into the mist so that when he spoke the voice seemed to come from a headless body.
    “Has something happened in your life recently?” he asked. “Forgive me for prying, but it’s just that I sense a significant change in you. I’ve been wanting to really talk to you for a long time, but you were somehow closed at a very deep level, even though you’ve always been friendly enough on a superficial level.”
    For a moment, Martin was taken aback, and then he shrugged. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it shows, especially to someone who’s spent a lot of time with me for almost three years.” He ran the middle fingers of both hands into the hallows of his eyes and wiped away the film of perspiration which