2025-10-22 - Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley by Talbot Mundy =========================================================== Cover Image This book title caught my eye because i am enthusiastic about yoga. I would classify this as an adventure book. Early into my reading it reminded me of Indiana Jones. A little searching showed that the Indiana Jones script writers were heavily inspired by Talbot Mundy's books. This book also reminded me of Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg, in that the protagonist spends time with a travelling troop of performers exploring the world but discovering himself. > One reason Mundy has remained on the fringes of literary fame may > be the forward-thinking nature of his work. In an era when many > adventure writers were unabashedly jingoistic, Mundy's tales > questioned the moral righteousness of imperialism. His portrayals > of Indigenous characters were nuanced, often depicting them as > equals--or even morally superior--to their Western counterparts. From: I enjoyed the action-packed adventure and beautifully poetic writing. It is peppered with short sermons from a fictional "heretical" Tibetan lama which are good food for thought. I seem to be drawn to genre bending writing. What follows are interesting quotes from the book. Diana turned at last down suffocating passages that led one into another between blind walls, where death might overtake a man without causing a stir a dozen yards away. But if you think of death in India, you die. To live, you must think of living, and be interested. * * * "I could show you your secret hearts," he said, in a kind voice that was much more withering than scorn, "and ye would die in horror at the sight. It is not good to slay, not even with the rays of truth. So I show you instead what ye _may_ become." Mildly, patiently, a little wearily, as if he had done the same thing very often, he included all his own mysterious family in a gesture that conveyed diffidence and hesitation. "Life after life ye shall struggle with yourselves before ye shall come as these. And these are nothing--nothing to what ye _may_ become. The road is long, and there are difficulties; but ye _must_ face it. Take advantage of the moment, for it is easier to imitate than to find the way alone. Ye can not undo the past, nor can all the gods, nor He who rules the gods, undo it. But now, this moment, and the next one, and the next, for ever, ye yourselves by thought and act create the very hair's-breadths of your destiny." * * * [You] who would reform the world must first reform [your]self; and that, if [you] do it honestly, will keep [you] so employed that [you] will have no time to criticize [your] neighbor. Nevertheless, [your] neighbor will be benefited--even as a [person] without a candle, who at last discerns another's light. * * * And the god said, "Ye can change the name by which ye call it [your government], and ye can slay those in authority, putting worse fools in their place, but change its nature ye can not, ye being [people], who are only midway between one life and another. But as the hills are changed, some giving birth to forests, some being worn down by the wind and rain, the weather becomes modified accordingly. And it is even so with you. As ye, each seeking in [their] own heart for more understanding, purge and modify yourselves, your government will change as surely as the sun shall rise to-morrow morning--for the better, if ye deserve it--for the worse if ye give way to passion and abuse of one another. For a government," said the god, "is nothing but a mirror of your minds--tyrannical for tyrants--hypocritical for hypocrites--corrupt for those who are indifferent--extravagant and wasteful for the selfish--strong and honorable only toward honest [people]." * * * At a glance it was obvious that nobody had told them they were heathen in their blindness; somebody had shown them how to revel in the sunshine and to wonder at the wine-light of gloaming. It was conceivable that they had studied nature's mirth instead of watching frogs dissected with a scalpel, and had learned to be amused with each existing minute rather than to meditate on metaphysical conundrums. * * * "It wasn't hypnotism. It was just the contrary. It was as if he had _de_hypnotized me. I saw all the risks and scores of difficulties. And I saw absolutely clearly the necessity of doing just one thing." * * * When that caressing light forgets the hills That change their hue in its evolving grace; When, harmony of swaying reeds and rills, The breeze forgets her music and the face Of Nature smiles no longer in the pond, Divinity revealed! When morning peeps Above earth's rim, and no bird notes respond; When half a world in mellow moonlight sleeps And no peace pours along the silver'd air; When dew brings no wet wonder of delight On jeweled spider-web and scented lair Of drone and hue and honey; when the night No longer shadows the retreating day, Nor purple dawn pursues the graying dark; And no child laughs; and no wind bears away The bursting glory of the meadow-lark; Then--then it may be--never until then May death be dreadful or assurance wane That we shall die a while, to waken when New morning summons us to earth again. * * * ...he felt a pagan reverence possess him, as if that dew-wet, emerald and brown immensity, with the thundering river below and the blue sky for a roof, were a temple of Mother Nature, in which it were impertinence to speak, imposture to assert a personality. Diana was watching fish in a pool above the waterfall; the aborigine from Ahbor was using his _kukri_ to fashion a wooden implement with which to comb the ponies' manes and tails; the birds were hopping on tree and rock about their ordinary business, and an eagle circled overhead as if he had been doing the same thing for centuries. But there began to be a sensation of having stepped into another world. Things assumed strange and strangely beautiful proportions. The whole of the past became a vaguely remembered dream... The present moment was eternity, and wholly satisfying. Every motion of a glistening leaf, each bird-note, every gesture of the nodding grass, each drop of spray was, of and in itself, in every detail perfect. Something breathed--he did not know what, or want to inquire--he was part of what breathed; and a universe, of which he was also a part, responded with infinite rhythm of color, form, sound, movement, ebb and flow, life and death, cause and effect, all one, yet infinitely individual, enwrapped in peace and wrought of magic, of which Beauty was the living, all-conceiving light. The enchantment ceased as gradually as it had begun. He felt his mind struggling to hold it--knew that he had seen Truth naked--knew that nothing would ever satisfy him until he should regain that vision... * * * There were seven stones, exactly similar in shape and size, arranged so as to suggest the constellation of the Pleiades; the seventh, which might be Merope, was surrounded by a circle of masonry, perhaps to suggest that that one is invisible to the naked eye. About and among the big stones there were hundreds of smaller ones, all of the same shape but of different sizes, arranged in no evident pattern, but nevertheless sunk into place in hollows cut deliberately in the rock floor. It looked as if whoever set them there knew a great deal more about the stars than any naked eye reveals. The ancient Greek legend of the Pleiades is that they were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and that the seventh, Merope, concealed herself out of shame for having loved a mortal. But the legend is doubtless vastly older than the Greeks and has an esoteric, or hidden meaning. A telescope reveals hundreds of stars in the constellation. * * * "My son, there is no such thing as sacrifice, except in the imagination. There is opportunity to serve, and [the person] who overlooks it robs [them]self. Would you call the sun's light sacrifice?" "... right living is Art, my son, not artifice, and not an accumulation of possessions, or of power, but a giving forth of inner qualities." "Life, my son, is drama. Why teach how to drug the mind, when the purpose of life is to render it alert and active? Shakespeare was right. You remember? 'All the world's a stage.' No learning is of any value unless we can translate it into action. Bad thoughts produce hideous action; right thinking produces grace and symmetry; and the audience is almost as important as the play. Let the child act the part of a villain, and it learns to strive to be a hero; let the hero's part be a reward for genuine effort, and lo! sincerity becomes the goal." author: Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 detail: source: tags: ebook,fiction title: Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley Tags ==== ebook fiction