यतो धर्म: ततो जय:
I have a great hope that if Olea goes off to one place or another, it will prove to be my lot to stay on at Ridgely till I have finished my retreat and done more writing. I am finding out this morning - though I thought I had no preference-that I am exceedingly averse to going till then. I hope the idea is true and right.
Mrs. Bull has a cleaver way of making all her guests intimate with each other, but the result is that Swami does not seem to have the whole stage as he has at Ridgely. And he shrinks from strangers in this way. Yesterday, Mrs. Leggett, Mrs. Bull and I were together and he came with such relief, "Ah - how lovely- there's no one here! Let's have a chat!"
Rama was called "the blue - lotus - eyed." And he trusted to Mother to help him to carry off Sita. But Rabon had prayed to Mother too, and Rama came and found him in Her arms, so he knew that he must do somthing tremendous, and he vowed 1001 blue lotuses to Her Image if She would help him. Lakshmana went off and got the lotuses from I, [lake] Manas Sarobar [Manasarovar] and Rama began the great "Call upon the Mother" - (And it was autumn - and the time of Her Puja was the spring - so it is in memory of that untimely worship of Rama that the great Mother worship has ever since then been held in September.) Now he covered Her feet with blue lotuses till 1000 were offered ("and Mother had stolen one!")and lo, the last was missing. But Rama was determined. He was not to be beaten. And calling for a knife, he was about to cut out the his own eye that the tale of blue lotuses might be complete. And that won the Mother and She blessed the great hero-so that his arms prevailed. Though not indeed his arms, altogether, for in the end Rabon was betrayed by his own brother, and so the stuggle was broght to an end.
"But it was great about the traitor-brother in one place," said the King. For he was taken away to reside at the Court of Rama, and thither came the widow of Rabon to look upon the face of the warrior who had robbed her of her husband and sons. Rama and hsi Court stood prepared to receive the cortage, but to his amazement, he could see no great queen adorned in splendour. Only a simple-looking woman attired in the simple garb of a hindu widow. "Who is this lady?" he asked the brother in bewilderment, and he replied - "Behold, O King, the lioness whom thou hast robbed of her lion and her whelps! She comes to gaze upon thy face!"
Oh Yum, what ideals of womanhood Swami holds! Surely no one, not even Shakespeare or Aeschylus when he wrote of Antigone or Sophocles when he created Alcestis had such a tremendous conception. As I read over the things he has said to me of them, and as I realise that it is all, every word of it, a trust for the women of the whole world's future-but first and chiefly for them of his own land-it seems a trifling thing whether oneself should ever be worthy or not-and EVERY thing that a heart so great as his should have willed to create. Oh to be the chisel in his hand-is great great great but I would not even be that, if without a tool, HIS power to fashion the statue were the more apparent to the world.
Mrs. Bull has a cleaver way of making all her guests intimate with each other, but the result is that Swami does not seem to have the whole stage as he has at Ridgely. And he shrinks from strangers in this way. Yesterday, Mrs. Leggett, Mrs. Bull and I were together and he came with such relief, "Ah - how lovely- there's no one here! Let's have a chat!"
Rama was called "the blue - lotus - eyed." And he trusted to Mother to help him to carry off Sita. But Rabon had prayed to Mother too, and Rama came and found him in Her arms, so he knew that he must do somthing tremendous, and he vowed 1001 blue lotuses to Her Image if She would help him. Lakshmana went off and got the lotuses from I, [lake] Manas Sarobar [Manasarovar] and Rama began the great "Call upon the Mother" - (And it was autumn - and the time of Her Puja was the spring - so it is in memory of that untimely worship of Rama that the great Mother worship has ever since then been held in September.) Now he covered Her feet with blue lotuses till 1000 were offered ("and Mother had stolen one!")and lo, the last was missing. But Rama was determined. He was not to be beaten. And calling for a knife, he was about to cut out the his own eye that the tale of blue lotuses might be complete. And that won the Mother and She blessed the great hero-so that his arms prevailed. Though not indeed his arms, altogether, for in the end Rabon was betrayed by his own brother, and so the stuggle was broght to an end.
"But it was great about the traitor-brother in one place," said the King. For he was taken away to reside at the Court of Rama, and thither came the widow of Rabon to look upon the face of the warrior who had robbed her of her husband and sons. Rama and hsi Court stood prepared to receive the cortage, but to his amazement, he could see no great queen adorned in splendour. Only a simple-looking woman attired in the simple garb of a hindu widow. "Who is this lady?" he asked the brother in bewilderment, and he replied - "Behold, O King, the lioness whom thou hast robbed of her lion and her whelps! She comes to gaze upon thy face!"
Oh Yum, what ideals of womanhood Swami holds! Surely no one, not even Shakespeare or Aeschylus when he wrote of Antigone or Sophocles when he created Alcestis had such a tremendous conception. As I read over the things he has said to me of them, and as I realise that it is all, every word of it, a trust for the women of the whole world's future-but first and chiefly for them of his own land-it seems a trifling thing whether oneself should ever be worthy or not-and EVERY thing that a heart so great as his should have willed to create. Oh to be the chisel in his hand-is great great great but I would not even be that, if without a tool, HIS power to fashion the statue were the more apparent to the world.
To be continued ....
