Sunday 1 April 2018

Letter to Miss J. Macleod - 3

यतो धर्म: ततो जय:

On Tuesday night, when I came down, he came by degrees to that wonderful mood of devotion, and told us of Hrishikesh, and the little hut that each sannyasin would make for himself, and the blazing fire in the evening, and all the sannyasins sitting round it on their own little mats - talking in hushed tones of the Upanishads - "for a man is supposed to have got the truth before he becomes a sannyasin. He is at peace intellectually. All that remains is to realise it. So all need for discussion has passed away and at Hrishikesh, in the darkness of the mountains, by the blazing fire, they may only talk of the Upnishads. Then, by degrees, the voices die in silence. Each man sits bolt upright on his mat and one by one they steal quietly off to their own huts."

On Wednesday he said much at one time and another. He broke out once into the greatest things I have ever heard him say-"The great defect of Hinduisum has been that it offered Salvation only on the basis of Renunciation. The householder was bound by his consciousness of an inferior lot. His part was Karma. Renunciation was nothing to him. But I have solved the question differently. Renunciation is the whole law. It is all illusion that anyone is trying to do anything else. What does that mean but that we are hurrying towards Death? - as fast as we can. All of us. The burly Englishmen who thinks the he wants to possess the earth is really struggling harder than most of us to die. Self-preservation is only a special mode then of Renunciation. Evil a special instance of good-the desire for life one method of the love of Death."

"Now-put that into your pipe and smoke it!" My sweetest most smiling manifestation of Kali's motherhood, my thoughts are much with you in this great joy of havig discovered a brother-and still more with him in the joy of having discovered you. Whatever happens, you are a lovely vision for a man to carry out with him on the long jounery, and a wonderful earnest of good things beyond.

On Wednesday night, the King began to talk of Purity-as it must be practised and given, and I was foolish enough to do somthing to break him off-just when it was going to be deep deep deep and I was to be alone with him. Yet I don't let myself grieve over a thing like that, for I am sure it will yet be taken up again, at that point, and if not I, someone will get it, all the greater for the waiting. "Brahmacharya should burn like the fire of GOD within the veins" were the last words he spoke on the subject.

Last night, Thursday, he sat and talked some time of the Sikhs, and their 10 Gurus, and he told me a story of Guru Nanak-from the Grantha Sahib. He had gone to Mecca-and lay with his feet towards the Caaba temple. Then came angry Mohammedans to waken and if need be kill him for turning his feet towards the place where God wa. He woke up quietly and said simply, "Show me where God is not then-that I may turn my feet that way"-and the gentle answer was enough. Many were converted.

And now sweet one, goodbye-

Yours own loving,
Margot

Now, one curious thing I found and treasured in my heart to tell you. Someone criticised me to Olea for looking at Swami when he was talking, and I heard of it in due course. Of Course I could not helping thinking of it next time he talked, and trying to look elsewhere. And then I found the secret of my avoiding Mrs. Johnson's eyes. In every face except his, you come up against a barrier, and have to keep outside, and look at the front of the house. But look at him, and you seem to be gazing though open portals straight into the Infinite. Is this because he is so little conscious of himslef?





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