Let God work through you and there will be no more duty -let God shine forth. Let God show Himself. Live God, Eat God, Drink God, Breathe God. Realize the Truth, and the other things will take care of themselves. Live ye the Kingdom of Heaven, which is in you, which is you; all other things are added unto you.
LORD BYRON (I)
He let the spirit of freedom work through him. When he was a student at the University, the class to which he belonged in an Examination were asked to write Essays on the miraculous changing of water into wine by Christ at the wedding feast. Oh, how some of those candidates laboured! During the time allotted, some of them wrote long, long stories of how the guests were dressed, how the feast was spread, how Jesus looked, and went on and on to elaborate upon the subject. During all this time, Byron sat in his seat looking at the ceiling, watching the faces of the other students, and well nigh whistling. When the time was up, the Professor came around to collect their composition books and as he came to Byron he said in joke, “You must be tired, you have been writing so hard,” and expected to be handed a blank book, but Byron said, “Wait a minute,” and forthwith he scrawled out a line and handed the book to the master. Now after three weeks or so had passed, the result was announced, and some essays received honourable mention, but how surprised were all to know that Byron had won the first prize. To convince the students of the high merit of Byron’s essay the teacher read it in class, and this line made the whole essay; “The water saw its Lord and blushed” He forced nothing. This little line was spontaneous, and like all work done naturally was perfect, free, graceful, poetic -the work of the self.
“The eye -it cannot choose but see,
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel where’r they be
Against or with our will.
Think you, ‘mid all this mighty sum
Of things forever speaking
That nothing of itself will come
But we must still be seeking? “
Wordsworth
MASTER MUSICIAN (II)
There was a beautiful organ in a Church, in fact, the organ was so fine that the custodian would not allow an amateur to touch it. One day while they were having a service in the Church, a stranger dressed poorly came in and wanted to play upon the organ, but he was not allowed to near it. He was unknown to the minister and since this was such a choice thing, of course they would not let him play upon it. After the service was over and the musician had left the organ, this man stealthily crept up to the organ. The minute he laid his hands upon it, the organ recognised its master, and such music as it poured forth, though the congregation were on their feet and ready to go, still when these peals of grandeur came forth, they were spellbound, enraptured, and could not leave the Church. This wielder of wonderful harmony was the master musician, the inventor of the organ himself.
We do not give the Self, God, Love, a chance to do for us. we must care for this body, we must care for this mind, and it is plain to be seen that in that case only common place notes come forth of us. Let the Master play upon the organ, and the minute Love’s hands touch the chords, music will pour forth— music that you never dreamed of before,— wonderful light mid harmony will begin to flow, divine melodies will begin to burst out, celestial rhapsodies emanate.
“God of the granite and the rose,
Soul of the sparrow and the bee,
The mighty tide of being flows
Through all its channels, Love, from Thee.
“It springs to life in grass flowers,
Through every thread of being runs
Till from creation’s radiant towers
In glory flames, in stars and suns.
“God of the granite and the rose,
Soul of the sparrow and the bee,
The mighty tide of being flows
Through ail its channels back to Thee.
“Thus round and round the current runs
A mighty sea without a shore,
Till man with angels, stars, and suns
Unite in love forever more.”
Lizzie Doben,
DODGING DEATH (III)
Once there was a man so clever as to reproduce himself to such a perfection that you could not tell the reproduction from the original. He knew that the angel of death was coining for him, and as he did not know just what to do to avoid the angel, finally settled upon what might be termed an able device. He reproduced himself a dozen times. Now when the angel of death came, he could not know which was the real person and therefore did not take any. The angel returned to God and asked Him what to do, and after a consultation, returned to the earth to try again to take this man and remarked, “My! But you are wonderfully clever, why, that is just the way you have made these figures, but there is one thing wherein you have erred, there is just one fault.”The original man immediately jumped up and asked suddenly, “In what, in what have I erred? “And the angel said, “In just this,” singling out the clever man from the mute statues. The only wrong is to ask “Am I right? “Dear one, what else could you be? The little imp of doer-self is churned by death.
THIS IS MY CARROT (IV)
In famine days a poor woman died. The Judge of Death in his post mortem investigation into her case, while assorting her good and bad deeds, could discover no act of charity except that she had once given a carrot (or radish, I am not sure) to a starving beggar. By order of the Judge the carrot was reproduced. This carrot was to take her to heaven. She caught hold of the carrot and it began to rise lifting her with it.
There appeared the old beggar on the scene. He clutched at the hem of her tattered garment, began to be elevated along with her, a third candidate for mercy began similarly to be uplifted being suspended from the foot of the beggar, nay, a long series of persons one below the other began to be drawn up by that single Carrot-Elevator. And strange to say the woman felt no weight of all these souls hanging from her! (Do not such things often happen even in dreams?)
These saved persons rose up higher and still higher till they reached the Gate of Heaven. Here the woman looked below, and don’t know what moved her, she said to the train of souls behind her,— “Off, you fellows! This is my carrot!”
And unconsciously waved her hand to keep them away. The carrot was lost and down fell the poor woman with the entire train.
The facts are plainly stated, you may moralize yourself.
EQUALITY (V)
The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter “Little Brig.”
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big,
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year And a sphere,”
“And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I’m not as large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry,
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all’s well and wisely put.” “If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut.”
Question -”You say, Swamiji, that our self is all knowledge; so pray tell me some method of Vedantic clairvoyance by which I may win the highest prize in the ensuing Law examination without reading the books.”
Answer -A prince in his childhood was playing hide-and-seek with the children of noblemen. He had much ado to search out the boys. A bystander remarked, “What is the use of making so much fuss to discover the play-fellows who can be collected immediately if you exercise princely authority to call them out? “The prince replied, “In that case the play would lose its relish, there would remain no interest in the game.”Just so, in reality, you are the supreme ruler and all-knowing Omniscient Divinity, but as you have in fun opened the quest of your own subjects (all sorts of study and other pursuits) in the great hide-and-seek labyrinth of the world, it would not be fair play to exercise that authority which checkmates the whole game. On the plane where the past, present, and future and all the thousands of suns and stars become your own self, nay, all objects are mere ripples and eddies in the ocean of your knowledge, how could you are for the Law examinations and worldly success? If you want to possess Divine clairvoyance, you have to give up or rise above the very plane of senses from which and for which you seek clairvoyance.
A net was spread to catch fish. The fish on falling in the net carried it off by their stupendous weight.
Vedantic new clairvoyance is that “queer fish” which carries away the net of desires entirely. Again the ordinary method of acquiring knowledge is itself a Vedantic process of clairvoyance inasmuch as it entails an unconscious escape during study from the sense of ego and duality.
It is said of Imam Ghizali, a Mahomedan saint, that in his student life, one night, after his usual strenuous work, he fell asleep in the study. In a vision appeared to him Khwajsi Khizar, the God of Learning, offering to convey all the knowledge of the world to him by the simple act of breathing into his ears and mouth. Imam Ghizali’s sound sense of self-respect refused, and he asked instead the boon of being provided with oil for his midnight reading. He preferred the longer road to the short cut, not caring to steal into the backdoor of heaven.
Do not counsel God how to behave; do not dictate your will to Him, just resign yourself unto Him, abandon the little self, renounce spurious desires and thus will you make your body and mind full of light. All true knowledge and education worth the name comes from within, and not from books or extraneous minds. Men of genius, the original workers in the field of investigation, made their discoveries and investigations only when they were merged in Thought absolute, far far above yearning or hurrying of any sort, making their mentality and personality free of any tendency to selfishness. They made themselves transparent, the light of knowledge shone through them, they shed light on books, illumined libraries. This is work. By work Rama never means plodding drudgery. Work in Vedanta always means harmonious vibrations with the Real Self and attunement with the universe. This unselfish union with the one Reality, which is the only real work, is oftentimes labelled and branded as no work or idleness. Even a most laborious undertaking, pursued in the spirit of Vedanta, is found to be all pleasure and play and no drudgery or burden. “Having nothing to do, be always doing “sums up Vedantic teaching. O happy worker, success must seek you, when you cease to seek success.
To VAYU (BREEZE)
“Naught stirrest around, Yet hark to that sound, “Swoo-oo”and Ai-yu!” Oh, bodiless Vayu! Pause and come hither And whisper us whither Thou speedest along? Invisible wending, The heather tops bending, Before us thou sweepest, Behind us thou creepest, By our ears rushing,
O’er our cheeks brushing, Gliding by gholefully, Murmuring dolefully, Dirges of song, With Swoo-oo and Ai-yu!
Oh! bodiless Vtiyu! Pause and come hither And whisper us whither Thou speedest along? “