From Note Book 3 of ‘In Woods of God-Realization’
The cheerful, elderly spinster brings her camp-stool on deck, and chats to a companion . . . laughing hysterically over her own fears, and how she pushed against the side of her berth in the night when it was rough . . . to steady the rolling ship!
This is how people want to understand (control and steady) Maya.
Application of the foregoing: – Being accustomed to steady other things on board the ship by pulling them to her, she took her berth to be of the same nature. So do people look upon Maya (which is like the ship) as analogous to the different objects of the world.
* * * *
Clear away the shadows of the lashes from those liquid deeps; turn, lift up thine eyes to me, beautiful one, turn, full-orbed, thy gaze against mine.
Who is it that I see sitting at her lattice window . . . far down those liquid deeps (deep glances)? Who is this that I see moving so mysteriously in those depths?
Leaving all, leaving house and home, leaving year-long plans and purposes, ease and comfort, leaving good name and reputation and the sound of familiar voices, untwining loved arms from about your neck, yet twining them closer than ever, let not the flame die out!
Morning breaks over the world, the light flows rippling in, and up in the window pane, and passes through and touches the eyelids of the sleeper. It says, “Come forth, I have something to show you.” And the sleeper arises and goes forth . . . and everything is commonplace and as usual. Then he says to the light, “you have deceived me, there is nothing new here” … so he goes back sullenly to his chamber.
And I conjure you, if you would understand me, to crush and destroy these thoughts which I have written in this book or anywhere; and my body (if it should be our destiny to meet in battle), I conjure you faithfully to destroy . . . nor be afraid … as I will endeavour to destroy yours: so shall you liberate me to dwell with you.
Spare not, respect not, believe not anything that I have written. Rest not till you have ground it to smallest meal between your teeth. And looking me in the face, accept not anything that I do or say . . . for it does not call for acceptation. Me alone, when you have separated und rejected all these, shall you see and not reject.
* * * *
Faces with noses ever on the trail, hunting blankly and always for gain; faces of stolid conceit, of puckered propriety, of slobbing vanity, of damned assurance; the swift sweep of self-satisfaction beneath the eyelids, set lips of obstinacy, wrinkled mouth of suspicion, swollen temples of anger …. and the shamed shovel face of self-indulgence; ever pursuing shadows, shadows, with tears, tears, and short-lived laughter, and the black toad sitting ever’ in the heart.
The great orator stands on the platform, careless of approval and careless of opposition, he speaks from himself alone. He is determined and will not abate one tittle of his determination. The arguments, the pros and cons, he treats lightly . . . after a time he dismisses them; traditions of Science and Literature he discusses for a while, and then . . . somehow . . . quietly puts them aside; flowers and figures of rhetoric he uses, but presently they fail and fall away. From the great rock bases of his own Self, of his own imperious instinct and determination, he appeals with up-lifted arm to the real man within… and from a, thousand eyes flash the lightnings of tears and joy, from that vast sea of faces breaks a roar of terrible and deep-throated accord. The arguments, the pros and cons, fly high in the air like leaves in the gale; the tradition of centuries loses its form and outline . . . like melting ice in water. From her deep implanted seat in the human breast, from behind all Reasoning and Science and arguments, Humanity speaks her will, and writes a page of History.
The long vain fight of man against Nature I see . . . not travelling hand in hand with, but setting himself in opposition to her . . . the necessary prologue and apprenticeship … as a wayward boy against his mother . . . yet vanquished, finally and surely vanquished.
Water does not lie level by a more inevitable law…. into this great ocean (of the soul) ail things at length return.
O young thief … I do not scorn, I do not blame you . . . you are the same to me as others are, and what you can take of me, that you are free to.
For a long time treading an immense and seemingly endless labyrinth (or treadmill), returning on our own tracks as in dreams and sleep-walking… with eyes open but seeing not… following some mirage, something ever receding and eluding… always about to clutch it… occupied in business, with affairs… thinking this important and that important, vexed to compass this or that end . . . caught by the leg in the trap which we ourselves have laid.
Planning houses and building as our own prisons… then presently also as in a dream it all clears up… the insoluble and varied problems which constitute ordinary life disappear entirely leaving no traces… and Life in every direction is navigable as space to the rays of the Sun. The gates are flung wide open all through the universe. T. go to and fro… through the heights and depths I go and return. I laugh as the ground rocks under my feet, I laugh as I walk through the forest, and the trees reel to and fro. Ah! The live Earth trembles beneath my footsteps.
What else (than this) are the dreams of all people and of eras and ages upon the Earth? What else are the glowing dreams of boyhood, and the toys of age, and the promises floating ever on before… dim mirages to wayworn travellers? (Faint not, O, faint not!) What the obstinate traditions of races and explorations by sea or land . . . the instincts of the chase . . . searches for .the earthly paradise, Utopias of social reformers, pilgrimages, myths, and the tireless quest of the Sangreal, the unquenchable belief in the Elixir of life, (other world) and the Philosopher’s stone…the feverish ardour of Modem Science like a dog with its nose on the trail? The dim-lit chambers of rock-temples and pyramids and cathedrals … the Ark, the host, the holy of holies, the bog-foundering after fatuous wisps, the tears, disappointments and obstinate renewals of hope?
Jump into the Ocean of the Ineffable, throw away everything into it, cast off each and all, spare nothing.
* * * *
Is your conscious personality the centre and seat of love? No, love as natural and impersonal a force as gravitation or magnetism! Therefore do not befool yourself about demanding love from others or considering their affections etc. If you are in God, the godly will come to you . . . their hearts will be with you wherever their bodies may be. If in devil, the diabolical will naturally be attracted. Do not count upon the feelings of others, do not speculate on or consider their affections. It is Divine Necessity alone that is working. Responsibility and Karma and Free agency is all fools’ talk. The sun and stars, trees and rivers, are working through divine necessity, so is man, but man by his reason, civilisation, illusion makes matters so unpleasant. Hurrying Civilization is an itching fever of nations.
The snug merchant posing as a benefactor of his land, the parasite parsons and scientists; the cant of sex, the impure hush clouding the deepest instincts of boy and girl, woman or man.
The Law of Indifference must henceforth be plainly recognised and acted upon.
Hang your curtains, continuous with the clouds and waterfalls.
Doubting no more of the reward than the hand doubts, or the foot, to which the blood flows according to the use to which it is put.
Science empties itself out of the books; all that the books have said only falls like the faintest gauze before the reality – hardly concealing a single blade of grass, or damaging the light of the tiniest star.