ALCHEMY AND MUTATION
Dialogue 2P: I was considering whether it would be worthwhile to discuss the ancient
Indian attitude to alchemy and mutation, and to see whether the findings of
alchemy have any relevance to what you are saying. It is significant that
Nāgārjuna, one of the great propounders of Buddhist thought, was himself a
master alchemist. In India, the alchemist’s search was not directed so much to
turning base metal into gold as to investigating certain psychophysical and
chemical processes in which, through mutation, the body and mind could be
made free of the ravages of time and the processes of decay. The field of
investigation included the mastery of breath, the partaking of an elixir brewed in
the laboratory, a substance wherein mercury played a vital part, and a triggering
of an explosion in consciousness. The action of the three led to a mutation of the
body and mind. The symbolism used by the alchemist was sexual; mercury was
the seed of Śiva, mica the seed of the goddess; the union of the two, not only
physically and in the crucibles of the laboratory but in consciousness itself,
brought into being a mutation, a state that was free of time and the processes of
ageing, a state that was unrelated to the two constituents that in total union had
triggered the mutation. Has this any relevance to what you are saying?
K: You are asking about the state of consciousness which is out of time.
P: In every individual one can see the male and female elements in operation.
The alchemist saw the need for union, for balance. Is there any validity in this?
K: I think one can observe this in oneself. I have often observed that in each one
of us there are male and female elements. Either they are in perfect balance or in
a state of imbalance. When there is the complete balance between the male and
the female, then the physical organism never really falls ill; there may be
superficial illnesses, but deep within there is no disease which destroys the
organism. This is probably what the ancients must have sought, identifying the
male and the female with mercury and mica. Through meditation, through study,
and, perhaps, through some form of medicine, they tried to bring about this
perfect harmony.
One can see very clearly in oneself the operation of the male and female.
When one or the other gets exaggerated, the imbalance creates disease—not
superficial ailments but disease at the depths. I have noticed personally within
myself, under different situations and climates, with different people who are
aggressive and violent, that the female element takes over and becomes more
prominent. This prominence of the female, the other uses to assert himself. But
when there is too much of femininity around one, the male does not become
aggressive but withdraws without any resistance.
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