The Tao of Dark Sages - Part 3, Introduction

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

What? There’s more?! How many “epilogues” can one book have!? As many as it takes, I guess. But I promise you that with this episode I will bring this work to an end — however many new encounters with our dark sages might ensue.

It was more than 2 years after our hasty departure from Chitral that I met Nellie in Delhi and learned that a friend of hers had met Mark-tzu and Sue-tzu in a remote valley in western Nepal. I couldn’t resist spending time with them once more so I set off to find them. That proved to be no simple undertaking, but I will spare you the details if you will concede that I demonstrated sufficient earnestness in my pilgrimage. In the end, I found them.

But before I take you there, I’d like to introduce my friend, Gabrielle, whom I met in Katmandu and convinced to accompany me on the journey. Gabrielle, ‘Gabi’, is a lovely young French woman whose two greatest interests at the time were smoking hashish and making love. I found her to be a great traveling companion.

I did have another motivation in having a lady with me, however, and it was this: Since first I met Sue-tzu I had the hots for her and felt that having a companion might dull that hunger. Needless to say, I was much too intimidated to approach Sue-tzu in the past with my passion — she being a ‘guru’ and all and I just a disciple. (The selection of lovers being traditionally the prerogative of the guru.) And then, just when I felt I had earned my ‘-tzu’ (sort of), Mark-tzu came along. Such is life. Far more important to the purpose of this account than my love life, however, is the role Gabi played in the actual time spent with the sages. But I will leave that for you to determine.

One more thing: A word on method. The previous dialogues, though highly edited, were more or less verbatim transcripts of our discussions, I having a tape recorder at hand and sufficient fellows to allow concealment, not to mention the audacity to record them. All three were absent in this final (yes, final!) encounter.

This being so, I have had to extemporize and, though I tried my best to take careful notes after each conversation of substance, I cannot claim that all occurred as I record it here. In addition, these conversations having been considerably more informal, I have decided to artificially re-create the discussions in the form of dialogues, having edited away the superfluous. (You will find no ‘pass the sugar, please.’) Enough said, then. On with the journey!

If you're interested in reading more from this series by Scott Bradley, go here.