Why do I want to humiliate myself?, W. wonders. Why, over and again? – 'Your papers. Your books …' It's a mystery to him.
Is it masochism? Undoubtedly. But this masochism itself has a source. It's Hindu, W. says. It must be.
Didn't I tell him one fevered night about the centrality of sacrifice in Hinduism? Of the centrality of sacrifice and self-sacrifice? Hasn't he heard me make febrile connections between Durkheim, Mauss and the Vedas?
Light the sacrificial fire, in the Hindu religion, and it is you yourself you set aflame. You sacrifice yourself, but this reveals the continual sacrifice that is your Ultimate or Highest self, Atman.
The Atman itself is sacrifice: didn't I tell him that? Then sacrifice is not only a matter of destruction. Didn't Prajapati, the lord of the gods, create the world by dismembering himself in sacrifice? Didn't the world come into existence only as he reassembled himself in sacrifice?
Now he understands, W. says, or he thinks he understands: my life, the disaster of my life, is an attempt to belong to the sacrifice.
Lars Iyer's Blog 