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# 2025-10-22 - Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley by Talbot Mundy
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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.
HTML From: https://metaphoremagazine.com/a-forgotten-brilliant-adventure-writer-talbot-mundy/
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
TEXT detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Talbot_Mundy
LOC: PZ3.M9235 Om PR6025.U6
DIR source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/6/9/5/8/69586/
tags: ebook,fiction
title: Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley
# Tags
DIR ebook
DIR fiction