"You really know how to tear yourself down, Little Father," said Remo.
An eye appeared in the glass hole, and the door opened.
"Quickly, inside," said a young girl with a grace of freckles under her pink scarf. The scarf blended into a light, clear robe. A silver line was painted on her forehead. Chiun noted the silver line carefully, but said nothing.
"Quickly, the cyclists are out again."
"The guys in the jackets?" said Remo.
"Yes."
"You don't have to worry about them." Remo pointed to the last cyclist stacking his comrades against the curb.
"All praised be the Blissful Master. He has shown us the way. Come everyone, look at our deliverance." Faces crowded around the young girl, some with silver lines, some without. Chiun looked at every silver line.
"The Blissful Master will always show the way," the girl said. "Let the doubting hearts be stilled."
"The Blissful Master didn't do it. I did it," said Remo.
"You worked through his will. You were only the instrument. Praised be the Blissful Master. His truth is manifest. Oh, there were doubters when we bought this house. There were doubters who said this neighborhood was unsafe. But the Blissful Master said we should get an abode that fit our purse, mindless of where it was. And he was right. He was always right. He has always been right and will always be right."
"Can we come in?" asked Remo.
"Enter. You have been sent by the Blissful Master."
"I was thinking of joining you," said Remo. "I came to find what you're about. You have an arch-priest for this place, don't you?"
"I am the arch-priest of the San Diego Mission," came a voice from up a stairwell. "You are the men who made the street safe, correct?"
"Correct," said Remo.
"I will see you and make the way ready for you if you will but rise above your doubts."
"We will be starting an introductory lesson soon," said the girl.
"They will have a private introduction. They have earned it," said the voice.
"As you will it," said the girl, and she bowed.
Remo and Chiun climbed the stairs. A man whose face was a remnant of a losing fight against long-ago acne greeted them with a short bow. He too wore a pink robe. Remo could see his hair had been shaved from the front of his head. He wore sandals and smelled as if he had been dipped in incense.
"I am a priest. I have been to Patna, there to gaze with my own eyes upon perfection. There is perfection on earth, but the Western mind rebels against it. Your very act of coming here shows you recognize the rebellion within you. I ask a question: What happens in rebellion?"
Chiun did not answer; he was staring at the silver streak down the priest's forehead. Remo shrugged. "You got me," he said.
They followed the priest into a room that had a dome of pink plaster material. In the center of the dome hung a golden chain, and at the end of the chain was a four-sided picture of a fat-faced young Indian boy working on his first mustache.
Pillows were stacked against the corner. A deep-piled rug of intricate red and yellow designs covered the floor. The priest continued:
"What happens in rebellion is two parts, at least two parts set in opposition. They harm each other. Every person who does not believe he can be unified within himself, who fights against his passions, is in rebellion. Why do you think you have passions?"
"Because he is white like you," said Chiun. "Everyone knows whites can't control their passions and are invincibly cruel at heart, especially to their benefactors."
"All people have the same passions," said the pock-faced priest, sitting down beneath the picture of the fat-faced kid. "All men, but for one, are alike."
"River garbage," said Chiun. "White Western river garbage."
"Why do you come here, then?" asked the priest.
"I am here because I am here. That is the true unity before you now," said Chiun.
"Ah," said the priest. "You understand then."
"I understand the tides are favorable in the harbor of San Diego, but that it is very difficult to launch a submarine here on the second floor of this building."
"Talk to me," said Remo. "I'm the one who came to join."
"We are all made perfect," said the priest, "but we have been taught imperfection."
"If that were the case," said Chiun, "babies would be the wisest among us. Yet they are the most helpless among us."
"They are taught wrong things," said the priest.
"They are taught to survive. Some are taught better than others. They are not taught ignorance as you contend. And these passions you talk of as so holy are merely the basic thrusts of survival. A man taking a woman is survival of the group. A person eating is survival of the body. A person afraid is survival of the person. Passions are the first level of survival. The mind is the higher level. Discipline, properly pursued, brings together all rebellion into perfection. It is long, it is hard, and when doing it properly, learning it properly, man feels small and inadequate. That is how we grow. There has never been a shortcut to anything worthwhile." Thus spoke the Master of Sinanju, in truth, even as he looked at the silver marking.
Remo looked at Chiun and blinked. He had heard this before and had been taught it during many years. He knew it as well as he knew his being. What surprised him was that Chiun would bother explaining these things to a stranger.
"I see surprise upon your face," Chiun said to Remo. "I say these things for your benefit. Just so you do not forget."
"You must think I'm pretty dippy, Little Father."
"I know passage to Sinanju waits for us in the harbor, and we are sitting here with this." A graceful hand opened toward the priest, who sighed.
"Your way is the pain and inches and small costly victories over your own body," said the priest. "Mine is the immediate true enlightenment that even your own bodies will verify. We have three proofs first. One, the Blissful Master exists, therefore he is. He is reality. We do not ask you to accept anything that is not reality. Two, he, through his ancestors, has existed for many years. Therefore it is not just one of myriad passing realities. And, third, and finally, he grows. Like the infinite universe, we expand each day and each year. These then are the three proofs."
"They'd work just as well for air pollution," said Remo. Chiun was silent. There was no more need to banter words with the robed one.
"There is a pool of eternal and original force that your mind has been clouded from. This is because of your improper teachings. We simply, through the perfection of the Blissful Master, return you to that pool, show you the way to realize the truth about yourself. First. Close your eyes. Close them. Tightly. Good. You see little white lights. Those are the infinite lights in fragments. You have robbed yourself of the pure stream of life. I will give you the pure stream of life."
Remo felt fingertips press against his closed eyelids. He could feel the priest's heavy breathing above him. Smell the meat on his breath. Smell the sweat of his struggling body. The small globules of light that all people see when they close their eyes quickly and then look behind their eyelids, became a pure and relaxing line of light, unbroken and restful. It would have been very impressive, had not Chiun shown him something similar and more restful many years before, a simple exercise that was taught to children in Sinanju who were unable to nap properly.
"Wonderful," said Remo.
"Now that we have given you some power of release, we give you more. Say to yourself, 'my mind is at peace, my body is at rest.' Say it with me. My mind is at peace, my body is at rest. Feel yourself become one with the light. You are the light. You are pure. Everything that comes to you and from you is pure. You are good. You are good. Everything about you is good."
Remo heard very light footsteps enter the room. A soft linen quietly touched the carpeted floor. Another set of feet. More linen. Normal hearing would not have picked it up. The priest was setting them up for a surprise.