[Edited by Elithe Nisewanger]

1953

The Theosophical Publishing House - Adyar, Chennai 600020, India

[Page v] DURING the summer of 1946, following his election as President of the Theosophical Society, Mr. C. Jinarajadasa spent two months at Bangalore, South India, in order to escape the excessive heat of Madras, and to gain a slight relaxation from the demanding duties of administration at the international Headquarters of the Society. However, it was not a vacation in the ordinary sense, for in common with other notable Theosophical leaders and lecturers, a change of work was usually regarded as the only kind of vacation or recreation that was wanted or required. Thus, he continued to carry on the Society's administration through correspondence, and also delivered numerous lectures, both to members of the Society and the public in Bangalore.

This series of six Discourses on the Bhagavad Gita comprised one group of talks delivered during that period. In addition to duties as secretary to the President, it was also my custom to take verbatim shorthand reports of all his talks and [Page vi] lectures; hence, these discourses were recorded and immediately transcribed. Many of his listeners urged the lecturer to publish them, and his secretary's voice was added to this number, both at Bangalore and later at Adyar. However, he always demurred, on the grounds that “they are not really worth publishing — anyone can give discourses on the Gita", and further, that he was too occupied with official matters to give time to editing the transcriptions.

It was the latter objection which really weighed in his refusal to consider publication. Mr. Jinarajadasa, on the whole, followed a much more informal style of lecture delivery than other well-known Theosophical lecturers. Consequently, he felt the need for rather extensive and careful editing and revision, to attain a more finished literary form before he released his talks and lectures for printing. And since he was most conscientious and thorough in any editing he undertook, it was indeed a time-consuming task for one who, as President of the Society, had all too little time to spare from official duties for literary inclinations. Nevertheless, his secretary-reporter continued to feel that there was a certain worth in publishing these particular Gita discourses, and set them aside for that purpose, [Page vii] even if that might only be after Mr. Jinarajadasa's death and in unrevised form. I am most grateful to Radha Sri Ram Burnier for her helpful collaboration in preparing the material for publication at this time.

Naturally no one could adequately edit any lecture or writing of another person, unless he were able to enter completely into the mind and thought of that other person. Hence, any editing of the discourses here presented makes no pretension toward achieving the scholarly or literary effect the lecturer-reviser himself might have produced. On the other hand, it seems not without value to leave them largely in their original phraseology and style, somewhat informal and unsatisfactory though that may appear from a purely literary standpoint. Mr. Jinarajadasa undoubtedly had his own particular mode of interpretation and presentation, and many are those who have appreciated it. In the course of more than fifty years of writing and speaking, he has also dealt with a vast range of subjects, but his interpretations of teachings as given in the Bhagavad Gita do not appear previously to have reached the printed page. ( A lecture on the Bhagavad Gita, from an entirely different approach, was printed in 1904, as Adyar Pamphlet No.59.) [Page viii]

This booklet is offered with no apologies, then, but in the hope that it will give pleasure to those who have long valued Mr. Jinarajadasa's presentation of the age-old truths and their implications for our own times, and who may find in these discourses yet another absorbing facet of his wide interests and distinctive exposition.  

Kotagiri, South India,   
E. N.
September 15, 1953

One of the most interesting facts with regard to the Gita is that it enables everyone who has studied it and has striven for the spiritual life to give a discourse on the Gita. Our daily life has often been said to be very much like a Kurukshetra, each one of us playing the role of an Arjuna, except that we do not quite have the privilege that was his of having the Lord equally by our side on life's battlefield. We have to work out the daily problems in a way somewhat similar to Arjuna's, but obviously without the direct inspiration which he gained. [Page 2]

I want here to deal with the Gita from an angle somewhat different, however. The book is intensely fascinating to the scholar, for instance, but I will not touch upon that aspect to any extent, beyond saying that it is quite generally agreed that the Gita in its present form is an expansion of the original work. The marvel of it is that its gospel has united all the sects and philosophies of Hinduism since the time the book was composed. It is, I think we may say, the one book which is reverenced by everyone in India, because it is a book that unites. And it is because of that supreme characteristic that the various schools of Hindu religious thought can all give discourses on the Gita.

I do not know when and where popular discourses on the Gita were first given, but it is a striking fact that almost anywhere in India, even today, one can find an audience for a Gita discourse. I heard recently from a member of the Jhansi Theosophical Lodge in the United Provinces that the secretary of that Lodge was giving in Hindustani a series of talks on the Gita, and that many women also came to hear them. He remarked that more people attended those discourses than the classes in Theosophy. That is but natural, for theosophical studies might be regarded as more for those who are [Page 3] seeking Truth, and not, shall I say, so much for those who are seeking faith, whereas often the characteristic of one who devotes himself to the Gita is largely the endeavour to make himself stronger in the quality of bhakti, or devotion.

But as a preliminary to any real study or understanding of the Bhagavad Gita, it is necessary to go back in imagination to the time when it was put together in its present form, that is, what we may call the second edition in several hundred verses, as we have it now. As we read the Gita we can see that even then Hinduism was very old. There was a marked quality in many followers of the religion, a quality which still exists today and can be described in a western phrase which expresses a kind of desire to escape from life. That idea of “escapism", as it is called, was very strong. Everyone was born into a certain dharma or duty, but to many there came an urge to leave the affairs of the world and to become the sannyasi, the ascetic.

As we know, the word sannyasa means 'renunciation', a renunciation of everything the world can give, in order that one may go on a search. This ancient search is well known, as shown in the oldest of the scriptures. There is a phrase in the Upanishads which describes the road one has to [Page 4] tread as being narrow and sharp as a razor's edge. For the whole attempt, the search, is to know for oneself what is the Ekam Advaityam, the One without a second. The individual lives in a world of manifold attributes, and the Hindu was involved in certain caste duties. On all sides there was the clamour of many philosophies, many saints expounded various ways to salvation, and yet it was made quite clear that behind all this diversity of manifestation there is only the One.

It is interesting that the old religious tradition has mapped out how man is to come to the beginning of the search for the One. Of Course it was taken for granted that the search could not begin till the character was ready. And it is explained that through a series of incarnations the seeker is being prepared: first, as the one who serves under the orders of another; then comes the second stage or division, where responsibility is thrust upon the individual to make a success in life; then comes the third stage, that of the warrior when something of the idea of selflessness begins; and finally, the fourth stage, of the one who gave of his knowledge.

In the first two divisions, as the manual worker, the Shudra, and as the merchant, the Vaishya, the dharma was to gain wealth. But it was understood [Page 5] that wealth was gained in order that it might be distributed for the good of others. The worker and the merchant would earn enough for the family, for those directly dependent upon them, but it was understood that when they became rich, they held the wealth as almoners of God. When we read of the old civilization, one of the beautiful things we note is the description not only of the temples built, but of the dharmasala, the planting of trees by the roadside for travellers, of all kinds of ways in which wealth was used by the rich men, indicating that there was constantly the feeling that while God gave them wealth, they were only God's almoners to help the world.

But when it came to the Kshatriya, the warrior, there was a new idea given – that one's life is not his own. There can be nothing more precious to us than life, but the moment one became the warrior he was the king's man. As is said in the Gita, there is no greater spiritual benefit than to be called upon to fight for a righteous cause, and in all such fighting there could not be any attempt to save one's own life, unless the Kshatriya dharma were broken. The individual lived for the king and, amplifying the thought, he lived to protect the people from oppression and entered into his career by devoting his life to [Page 6] and for the cause. Already, then, there entered into the Kshatriya stage the idea that the warrior himself was not on his own; he was a servant of the king, as the king himself was the servant of God.

The final stage was that of the Brahmana and in the old ideal days he had no wealth. He was given what he required by those who needed his spiritual services. Now and then a king might bestow a gift, but the Brahmana's distinct duty was to keep open the channel of communion between man and the devas. All his ceremonies were intended to keep these channels open, in the same kind of way as when an irrigation system is established it is the duty of the irrigation officer to see that the channels are kept free from obstructions. The Brahmana was supposed to be poor, but he gave of his knowledge for nothing. He was living the life, then, and trying to understand in what way he might be a part of the mechanism of the dynamo of God. All ceremonies in the early days were understood from that standpoint.

Now it might happen that there had been born into any of the castes, but particularly into the Brahmana caste, one who in his past lives had performed all that was necessary to bring him to the entrance to the Path. Therefore, the arrangement [Page 7] of the four ashramas was made. First, there was the stage of the student, the brahmachari, who went to the Guru's home and lived with him, perhaps from the age of twelve years onwards, learning whatever was necessary. All were taught the technique of their career, and those of the priestly caste were taught the necessary Vedic verses. During that first period, all lived the life of the student. All the Pandavas, Arjuna and his brothers in the Gita story, went to their Guru, Dhrona.

In the second of the four ashramas there came the period where the social organization was definitely entered, as the grihastha, the one who stands in the home. The individual became the householder, a part of the family organization, and took upon himself clearly marked responsibilities as a member of the family, performing all the various daily sacrifices, tending the sacred fire, and so on. There was ceremony after ceremony to be performed, all to a certain time schedule, and later on as more and more ceremonies were added, there was no opportunity for the performer to understand the meaning of everything recited.

Then came the period of the vanaprastha, when the householder was perhaps forty-five years old, when the son was grown and had finished his university career, and it was understood that the [Page 8] administration of all the householder's worldly affairs would be passed on to the son. The householder became the vanaprastha for a period of perhaps fifteen or twenty years, the one who lived in the wood: not necessarily a wood in the ordinary sense, but somewhere in the family homestead there would be built a small hut for dwelling. The sons and grandchildren provided the daily food, but the vanaprastha no longer took on any obligations of the family. He might be consulted on various matters, but was free to commune with the nature of the Divine. Whereas in the Brahmana caste many ceremonies had to be performed, the arrangement in the third stage was that the vanaprastha was not obliged to perform the ceremonies, but the intention was that they should be recited in the mind, and as they were so performed the aim was to try to penetrate into the mystery: Why do I repeat these verses, why do I perform this or the other ritual action, what is the meaning of it all ? Thus, the intention in the third stage was that the vanaprastha should live back his life and try to understand what was the nature of this work given to man of being a channel of the spiritual forces of God, so that they might be distributed to mankind.

The last stage was that of the sannyasi. As I have indicated, that word means one who renounces. [Page 9] Everything was to be renounced — the family, the individual's name (though he might take a spiritual name), any slight caste duty that had previously remained, and the long comradeship of the spouse. For the individual was then going out to seek the Ekam Advaityam, the One without a second, and on that search there could be none of those memories, no scripture, no Guru. The sannyasi had to come into direct communion with Life. The life in the jungles, the villages, the cities is all one; the life of the devas, of men, of beasts is all one life. And the sannyasi was to go out into the world, renouncing everything of the past, leaving no notification as to where he could henceforth be found, but going out with his staff and begging bowl. India is a land of intense charity and has reverence for holy men, so the daily food would not be wanting. As the sannyasi went from place to place he would travel on foot, sleeping, it might be, in some shrine or wherever he found himself at nightfall. He could not even defend himself, for his life was regarded as no longer his own. He was going out to commune with Life, to learn what was the mystery of death, what was the mystery of suffering, what was behind all that seems, from one angle, such horror in life, why there are all the earthquakes, famines, wars. [Page 10] If God is Love and is Omniscient, how is it that He tolerates all these things, what is the meaning of it all? The sannyasi might in the earlier stages have studied the Upanishads and sacrificed to the devas, but the time had come to renounce all that and try to get at the mystery directly for himself. For there is Ekam Advaityam. and there was very clearly the idea that the final mystery cannot be realized with the help of anyone outside, for the help must come from within oneself.

One interesting element in this search of the sannyasi as he went from place to place seeking to unravel the deep mystery of Life, is what I have mentioned – he must not protect himself. He might die of starvation; if so, that was the way God released him and brought him to the goal. He might die as the prey of some wild animal; but everything was left in the hands of God. There is a very striking story that illustrates this about an incident that took place in the time of the Indian Mutiny. The British soldiers went about putting down the enemy, and one came across a man seated cross-legged. Knowing nothing of Indian customs, the soldier did not realize that this was a holy man who had nothing to do with the turbulence, but took him to be one of the enemy, charged at him and [Page 11] bayonetted him. The story goes that the yogi was in rapt meditation, but as he heard the soldier coming to slay him, he whispered: “Even thou art He" — accepting the idea that it was God coming in the guise of a soldier to give him Moksha, or Liberation.

Now this conception, which might be mis-labelled escapism from life, also had linked with it a very curious conception, which will be found in the old books. It was the conception of a personal immortality, the idea that if one performed great sacrifices, incredible feats of tapas or asceticism, he might thereby force Indra, God of Heaven, to give him personal immortality, so that in that very physical body he might become immortal. From this queer idea there was developed this later exaggerated conception of tapas, quite different from the original grand idea which carried with it the sense of voluntary action through will or determination, and sacrifice. It was only the later idea of tapas which involved the performance of certain austerities, which were described in some of the sacred books. Later still this developed in the most exaggerated form in some of the Hatha Yoga practices.

Today if one goes to some mela, spiritual pilgrimage, it is possible to see certain men practising [Page 12] various austerities, as sleeping on beds of nails, holding an arm up in the air hour after hour, or by some sheer physical suffering trying to gain immortality. All that idea was very prevalent, but it is a completely mistaken idea of what is real Yoga, which as we know means “union". It carries no thought whatsoever of such austerities, but means to be one with Ekam Advaityam.

At the time the Gita was written, many people were full of false ideas of yoga and sannyasa, going to the extent that they disdained all kinds of activity. There was the very old idea of karma, that action is inevitably followed by a result, and that so long as there is any result to be worked out, one must continue to reincarnate either to enjoy or to suffer the result. Therefore arose what seemed to be the logical conclusion — if one wanted to be free, the best way was to do nothing at all. Hence, then, the gospel of inaction. We have in India perhaps five million sadhus, all fed by the charity of 225 millions of Hindus. Again, at a mela, as at Allahabad, one can see hundreds of these men who have escaped from life by doing nothing, who have become a kind of parasite on the social system and should be put to work. There is nothing the least spiritual about them; indeed, many certainly have the appearance of [Page 13] cut-throats, and I should not like to trust my life to some of them. What are such so-called sadhus giving in return for the charity they receive from devout Hindus ? Some sadhus undoubtedly are great centres of spiritual force. They spend their lives in meditation and hold the loftiest of aspirations. Though they do not travel, though they do not give discourses, though they may not utter a single word, nevertheless they are like spiritual dynamos, creating a magnetism that affects the whole community. But there was very prevalent in India, then, this conception of inaction as a way to Liberation.

Now, the chief theme of the Bhagavad Gita is to show that there can be no such thing as inaction, that God himself is always acting. As is said, with one part of Himself He descends, He acts, but there is the other part of Himself which remains in the transcendental realm. This brings us to a Christian mystical doctrine which is very illuminating. Most Christians think of God as having created the world once and for all, and then sitting apart and watching to see what mankind is doing with the world. Along that line of reasoning many Christian thinkers have found great difficulties in understanding what is the true spiritual life. Some of them conceive of God as do we in Indian philosophy, that is, as the [Page 14] manifested and the unmanifested. They use the two terms, God as Transcendental and God as Immanent. Following the ancient ideas, we know that the One, BRAHMAN, is in the stone, in the outcaste, in the greatest saint, in each particle of dust. We cannot conceive of any place or point in time where Divinity is not existing, and, as we will see from the teaching of the Gita, where Divinity is not at work. That is the supreme teaching of the great Teacher , Shri Krishna, that He too, though He could live as the transcendence and not be obliged by any outside force to create a universe, yet He voluntarily does so. And not only does He do so, but He maintains that world in a certain order, and if He were not to maintain the world through His great tapas, the whole world would vanish, with all of us, like a dream in the night.

The problem is, then, not a question of inaction, but of what is the right action. We have to discover the distinction between action that binds and action that does not bind. Action that binds brings man back into incarnation. One may go on performing all kinds of good works, but so long as at the back of the mind there is any idea of phala, fruit, or punya, reward or merit, at once the link is made between the action as it is done, and the result [Page 15] of that action as it will be some day. I have said that the true sannyasi, who is rapt in contemplation of God, is a centre of spiritual force. He is acting, but he is acting in an impersonal way. And throughout the Gita it is proclaimed that man is to act either as the sannyasi or as the yogi.

THE Gita is a work on which it is easy to speak, but at the same time very hard. It has perfectly simple teachings which anyone of a devotional frame of mind can expound, yet at the same time it deals with such deep and metaphysical ideas that one would need to spend almost a lifetime trying to expound them. This is what two of the greatest philosophers of India, Shri Shankaracharya and Shri Ramanujacharya, did. The story of the Gita indicates that it was an independent work on philosophy which was later incorporated into the Mahabharata. We know that there were several such, as the story of Nala and Damayanti, which were incorporated when the Mahabharata was arranged in its present third edition. What is really artistic and calls out wonder in us is the way that the writer of the Gita, a poet, a bhakta, and a philosopher, brings in the story so dramatically.

Many know the general idea in the Gita story, that there was division between two branches of one [Page 21] great ruling family, and in order finally to overthrow the usurper the two sides had to fight it out. It is narrated how the grandfather of most of the warriors on both sides, Dhritarashtra, was blind, but he knew that a battle was going to take place. He had by his side Sanjaya, who in these days one would say was a clairvoyant, who saw what was happening at a distance. The story begins right in the middle of the battle action, with Dhritarashtra saying, “ What did my people on the holy plain, on the field of Kuru, gathered together, eager for battle, what did they, O Sanjaya, my people and the Pandavas ?" Then, Sanjaya describes the two armies arrayed, one opposite the other, with the warrior-prince Arjuna in one, having Shri Krishna as his charioteer. And Arjuna asks his charioteer: Will you drive me a little to the front of the armies so that I may see who is arrayed against us ? Shri Krishna does so, and Arjuna is appalled at the sight that he sees before him, because he realizes that if his side wins, the result will be the slaughter of those who are linked to him — teachers, fathers, sons, as well as grandfathers, mothers' brothers, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law and other relatives - and he says, “These I do not wish to kill". Then begins the great dialogue.[Page 22]

Now, it is obvious that, that dialogue is intended to be an allegory, in the sense that we cannot imagine that a great discourse which covers eighteen chapters would have been delivered actually on the battlefield. But that is the artistic mode of presenting it, and that is why the composer of the Gita is so wonderful. He dramatizes the whole scene. Of course very quickly one completely forgets all about the two armies. Later on, in Chapter XI, we have once again an allusion to the fighters, but very quickly the problem is lifted from that of two armies at warfare into one of the acutest of human problems. And the acute human problem is so universal because it happens to everyone of us — that the Gita has been translated into millions of copies, for peoples of every land and of every religion find themselves wrapped in the problem which faced Arjuna.

That problem, very briefly, is what Arjuna asks; What am I to do ? Here are people before me. It is my duty as a Kshatriya, for I am born into the Kshatriya caste, to slay those who oppose me. Yet is it right to kill ? These that I am going to slay are linked to me. And particularly Arjuna asks “ What of the terrible effects on the life of my community when those who are the upholders of [Page 23] our caste duties are slain ? There will be all kinds of complications that surely cannot be good for civilization. Arjuna is confused but, mind you, he knows perfectly clearly what is dharma, he knows what he ought to do; there is no question of groping in the dark as to what he should do, for he knows it. Nevertheless there is a vacillation in his mind because there is a contradiction between the duty imposed upon him, shall I say, by popular opinion or by his own karma, and what he feels intimately, as something different from this hard life to which he is called. It is not that Arjuna was not willing to be killed, for it is the duty of the Kshatriya to be ready at any moment to be slain in doing his duty. But the problem was; What am I to do when I see all the consequences of this terrible catastrophe ? Is all civilization to be thrown in the balance on the result of a mere fratricidal struggle as between two groups of cousins ?

This position of mental confusion as between say, a religious tradition and one's own interpretation has come up again and again in the West. In Christianity the doctrine is perfectly clear that a man must not slay, and Christ is called the Lord of Love. Nevertheless, a large part of Christian history is full of the struggles between Christian [Page 24] nations. A few centuries ago there arose in England a group of Christians who called themselves the Society of Friends. They are well-known today under the designation “Quakers". They took the stand that they must literally obey the Gospel. For instance, in one place Christ says, Tell the truth, but do not swear by any Divinity. There was a law in England that when anyone had to make a statement in giving evidence in some court, he had to preface it by saying, 'I swear by God', but the Quakers would not do so. They protested: I will tell the truth, but I will not swear. They were persecuted, therefore, sent to jail because they took the stand that the human conscience had an inalienable right of interpreting the ancient teachings each for himself, and not according to the religious doctrines of a church. But little by little the Quakers came to be tolerated and highly respected, because it was found that once they had given their word they would never swerve from it. They are recognized in the business world as people of the highest ethics.

When the first great World War began and there was conscription of young men above a certain age, the Quakers said: We will not fight. But they nevertheless did something to relieve the suffering of [Page 25] war, for they joined the Red Cross, which, as is well known, has nothing whatever to do with active fighting. The man who wears the red cross or the red crescent on his arm has the task, for instance, of giving succour to everyone who is wounded, whether of his or the opposing army. The Quakers, then, went in to perform this high duty of healing. Some of them, knowing the intense tragedy of everybody in England because of the want of food, joined and helped in the Land Service, thus having nothing to do with fighting, but helping to lessen the suffering of humanity. All of you may have read how the Quakers were to the fore in relief following the recent great Bengal famine. Even during the last War they have sent expeditions to give help to distressed peoples, as a branch of the Red Cross, but having nothing to do with warfare. So, the Quakers have solved the problem of helping mankind, following the law of Christ, but having nothing whatever to do with active warfare.

Different from the Quakers were those who are called pacifists, who object to war on principle. There have been several groups of them, some of whom have said: I will have nothing whatever to do with war. They were conscripted and told to do certain things, though not necessarily on the [Page 26] battlefield. But they refused, and they would not even take part in Red Cross work, for they said: If I have helped this or that soldier, how do I know he will not be back in the ranks, fighting again ? They have stood firmly and have suffered for it.

Then there was another group of pacifists who would have nothing to do with war, and did not in the least mind being sent to jail for a number of years for their refusal to fight. Yet some of these have done one of the most heroic actions possible. In the United States a group offered themselves to doctors for making certain experiments with vaccines and so on, undergoing fevers and other reactions from tests, in order to gain information to help lessen human misery.

We see, therefore, that this problem, “What am I to do ?", crops up in the life of each one of us. Recently I had a letter from a lady who has come into touch with theosophical ideas and knows something about karma and reincarnation, but she is under very serious conditions of family life. The husband is out of work, though he has tried to get something and has failed. She has three children, and is trying to start a small magazine in order to bring in some money. She describes how she has to go to town to get advertisements, but often has no money for [Page 27] bus-fare to get back home. At the end she puts in this plea, so intensely pathetic because it is an example of what is happening in many places every year, but pathetic, too, because there is so little one can do to help: 

Please give me your best advice, as things are worse than ever. I feel sure that I cannot live like this much longer. Please look into my life and direct me for the best results. I have no desire or wish to evade Karma (I know that even if I wished it, it could not be done) But I wish I did not have to pay so heavily at one time. It is really more than I can bear now.

I shall have to write to that lady suggesting a way whereby she will discover more strength. I shall have to work out the psychological problem, suggest in what way, with her temperament and her difficulties, she may find that there is more strength to go through with her battle.

It is perfectly true that each of us has our religion, but when there come these times of having to pay so heavily, we do not know what is the way, and we need more strength to bear our karmas. We know what is the answer given by religion, whether eastern or western. Where a religion proclaims the existence of God, it will exhort, Pray to God. Here in India where we believe in many gods, we say: Let. us have a puja, let us go to some place of pilgrimage [Page 28] and vow to do this or the other. Much money is spent in this way. I have not taken statistics of pujas to know how much response there is from the gods. But the gods themselves are working under the law of Karma. They may give one strength, and if in the least part of one's karma there is some advantage to come, it may be hastened. But it does not at all follow that if one spends money on pujas, the desired result will come about.

Generally speaking, then, the advice of religion is: Pray to God, pray, pray. That advice is helpful, provided there is an aptitude for prayer. A person can sing bhajanas to Shri Krishna, can wrap himself in an intensely devotional mood and thereby gain a certain amount of strength to go through his karma. Not that the karma is lessened, but there is more strength to face it, which, after all, is one of the important factors in a difficult situation.

I want here to mention one very striking and wonderful teaching, about which much ought to be known here in India, but very little is known. We have about ninety million Muslims, and yet very little is known of the fundamental teachings of Muhammad. But one striking fact in Islam is this, that no prayers are offered to God. When all of life crushes one, when, to use our theosophical [Page 29] terms, karma has nearly annihilated one, there is no God to whom a prayer can be addressed. Allah exists, but Allah's Will is so perfect that one can never imagine Allah as doing a cruel or unjust thing. Therefore, what seems the uttermost cruelty must enshrine in it somewhere the Will of Allah. So in Islam the whole tradition of the teaching is to train the character, to bow the head and say, “Islam" — Thy Will be done. (Incidentally, in the word “Islam" there are the same consonants that we find in “Salaam" — Peace.) Islam, then, is resignation; and not the slightest prayer or asking, but the attempt— which is the very wonderful part of Islam — of making the little human will reflect the Divine Will, so that when karma crushes a person, he should feel somehow that it is his own will. Here is, then, another approach, completely different from that of the religion which says: Pray, pray.

Now let me come back to the Gita, to that intensely dramatic situation where Arjuna has the anxiety of seeing before him his own relations, whom it is his duty to slay. It is a quarrel or a disaster in which he is not really involved, except that he has his duty to his kingly chieftain. Arjuna sees all this and feels it is a ghastly problem. How does the great Teacher , Shri Krishna, meet the situation ? [Page 30] First of all by pointing out what is obvious to any Hindu who believes in reincarnation, that the man who is slain is reincarnated again. We have it in the very simple words: 

As a man, casting off worn-out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, casting off worn-out bodies, entereth into others that are new.

The English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, has made a beautiful translation from the Sanskrit of the Bhagavad Gita, which he has called The Song Celestial. In a remarkable way he has entered into the depth and mystery of the teachings in the Gita, and he has phrased his translation in the most exquisite poetic form. What I have just read to you in a rhythmical and clear prose translation is put by Arnold thus;  

Nay , but as when one layeth
His worn-out robes away,
And, taking new ones, sayeth,
“These will I wear today!".
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit
A residence afresh.

So the first element of the situation is that those who are going to be slain will be reborn again. Death is not the end. But beyond that Shri Krishna comes at once to this tremendous teaching [Page 31] of the unity of life. Here we have a very, very old teaching going, one hardly knows how far back, a teaching that seems to have existed in South India long before the Aryans came. There is one word to describe the Supreme Mystery, and it was the simple neuter pronoun, Tat — THAT. Now THAT is not a male divinity, is not a female divinity; Tat goes beyond all these possibilities that one can think of as revelations or Avataras of Divinity, to the absolute, the Unity. Then says Shri Krishna, this Tat— let us call it the spirit, with the highest possible conception attributable to it — the Spirit always exists, it cannot be slain. All of us are but embodiments, in the same way that each drop of water is only the embodiment of a cloud. It may be absorbed into the earth, then rise again as moisture and go back to the clouds again. But each drop is not different from the substance of the cloud. So, says Shri Krishna, there is the imperishable One, and that is Tat :

Know THAT to be indestructible by whom all this is pervaded.
Nor can any work the destruction of that imperishable One.

These bodies of the embodied One, who is eternal,
indestructible and immeasurable. are known as finite.

We are finite beings in time and space, but we are only like the drops that have fallen from the clouds. [Page 32]

Now with regard to these embodied ones:

 He who regardeth this as a slayer. and he who thinketh he is slain, both of them are ignorant.

In other words: If you, Arjuna, think you are the killer, if you think your relative who may be killed is the killed, you are both wrong, for both of you are that Supreme Existence, and there is therefore neither killing nor being killed.

Then comes a verse which is evidently older than the Gita, for it appears in the Kathopanishad. I want you to note here one important point, and that is that in the Gita there are two streams of teaching running parallel side by side, sometimes intermingling for awhile and then separating once again. One is an old, old teaching with regard to this Tat, which is impersonal, which is Brahman. All the time there is the proclamation of the One Supreme Existence, of Parabrahman. But side by side there is a parallel teaching of the Avatara, Shri Krishna, and Shri Krishna at times speaks as the Avatara, the Saviour who will lift the individual into salvation, provided he gives all of himself to Him, just as Jesus Christ said in Palestine, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I wilt give you rest," just as similarly in every religion where there is an Avatara the same words are [Page 33] spoken, “Come to Me", so says Shri Krishna: Come to me, give yourself to me and all your problems will be solved, provided you become one with Me through Yoga.

But side by side there is that other teaching wherein there is no indication whatsoever of giving the faith to an Avatara, of appealing to any kind of an incarnation of Divinity for strength, but a determination is made: There is one Spirit that cannot be slain, that is not the slayer. I am that Spirit, everything that exists is that Spirit and there is nothing outside. This is the vision that comes in the Gita:

He is not born, nor doth he die; nor having been, ceaseth he any more to be; unborn, perpetual, eternal and ancient, he is not slain when the body is slaughtered.

Whenever I have to refer to this particular teaching, I always quote Edwin Arnold's lines, for with the intensity of his poetic conception he brings out the real spirit of the Gita in a way that no merely literal unpoetic translation can do:

....That which is can never cease to be:
that which is not Will not exist.
To see this truth of both
Is theirs who part essence from accident,
Substance from shadow. Indestructible,
Learn thou! the Life is, spreading life through all;
It cannot anywhere, by any means, [Page 34]
Be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed.
But for these fleeting frames which it informs
With spirit deathless, endless, infinite,
They perish, Let them perish, Prince! and fight !
He who shall say,. ."Lo! I have slain a man!
He who shall think. .."Lo ! I am slain! , those both
Know naught ! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain !
Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems !

We have to be indifferent alike to pleasure and pain. But how can we, we who are human beings ? Nevertheless, there is the ancient teaching that there is a way to solve all the problems that come up in life, that we can know what we are to do, provided we follow the line of the Sankhya, that there is no division between ourselves and THAT. It requires, of course, very deep thinking. The whole commentary of Shri Shankaracharya on the Gita is along that line, that if a person thinks he has a separate individuality, he is mistaken; there is [Page 36] only BRAHMAN. Then there came the other teacher, Shri Ramanujacharya who brought forward the doctrine of bhakti, or as it is put in the Gita, the doctrine of Yoga. I will continue next time with this teaching. [Page 37]

Let me here again mention that two types of philosophy are presented in the Gita, and that they seem to go at cross-currents to one another. One is the philosophy of what is called the Sankhya, according to which the highest object of contemplation must be the Absolute Nature of Divinity, call it Tat —THAT, Parabrahman or what you will,. and the supremest duty in life is to find out one’s relation to that highest Principle in existence. But at the same time we find, seemingly quite contradicting this philosophy of an impersonal dedication to Brahman, a teaching wherein the Divine Himself appears and says, “I am the Way. Offer yourself to me and I will save you".

It is as if we were to have two axes, one the vertical (call it the Sankhya), and at right [Page 44] angles to it another axis, the horizontal ( which is Bhakti). The striking thing in the Gita is that these two viewpoints are inter-blended. We read a certain number of verses which are from the vertical standpoint, and then suddenly we come across other verses which are from the horizontal standpoint, where there appears a personal God who will save by His act of grace. I will not go further into this problem than to mention that there are these two axes, yet if the angle is changed by forty-five degrees, what was the horizontal becomes the vertical, and vice-versa. Thus there are in the Gita these two viewpoints, which it is intensely fascinating to try to blend, if one can do so.

In this problem, “What is my duty?", the first point made clear is that it is necessary to realize what is not one's duty. Just as in a journey through a jungle there are innumerable vines and twigs which must be cut away in order to find a clear way through without any injury, so the first thing in determining where lies one's duty is to find out what is not one's duty. And thus we have these words very clearly put in the Gita:  

Dwell in Yoga, that is, union with the Divine. And it is from that standpoint that Shri Krishna says to Arjuna, “therefore stand up, O son of Kunti"; resolute to fight".

Then there is that other teaching wherein Shri Krishna points out that everything is He. The moment a man has commited himself to the Lord, there is no karma in his actions, for it becomes His great karma. He is not bound by any law which impels Him to manifest, yet as an act of supreme Yoga He has so manifested, and in that manifestation He has enabled you and me to appear as individualized fragments of the Supreme Atman. [Page 55] From that moment, provided one's duty is realized, the sacrifice is to Him. Then all that is done is no longer a part of individual karma, but it is His karma. Thus, when Arjuna is capable of so offering himself to the Lord, it will not be Arjuna who slays, but the Lord, in the working out of His purpose.

Therefore, we will see that from the standpoint of the one who offers everything to Shri Krishna, who has eliminated completely any thought of seeking a reward, as he lives and acts, while he performs his dharma, there is no karmic reaction, for all that reaping goes into the stock of reaping by the Lord. When there is established that great unity, the individual, while remaining the individual, has become just like a tiny facet in a great Light. Just as when the sun shines one can take a burning-glass and make from the rays thus concentrated a miniature sun which will set, say, fuel ablaze, so the individual who is the pure bhakta has ceased to be the individual as such, to become a concentration, a channel for the object of his devotion, his sacrifice. He lives on till he is released from that physical incarnation, but there is no more re-incarnation for him, since all his actions which would normally bring him into incarnation again have ceased to have any effect; they have become one with the Divine Action. [Page 56]

Dost Mahommed. an Indian living at Deal, Kent told
the Deal Magistrate on July 4th that he met two escaped
German war prisoners late at night and took them to his
home. where his wife fed them. says a London report.
Dost Mahommed. who was sentenced to three months'
imprisonment on each of two charges accusing him of
harbouring and unlawfully giving assistance and thereby
hindering the apprehension of prisoners, said: ..“I am a
Muslim and my religion says that I must help people who
are hungry".

There we observe a clash of duty. I do not think we have the full story, because if he had been wise he might have fed the prisoners, and while the wife was serving them he could have gone to the police station to report, so that he could have combined both duties. He probably gave them hospitality for the night. Again and again in civic life there comes up a conflict between what religion ordains is our [Page 57] duty and what the law ordains shall be our duty. I do not know how anyone of us would have acted in the position of Dost Mahommed. Those are the kind of instances where we cannot prophesy how we would act in similar circumstances. Over and over situations suddenly come up, and all depends on what has been the past training, what has been the way of thinking, as to what will be the action in any given emergency. This is merely by the way, but something similar to what was reported in England is all the time happening in our lives, that is to say, situations where we must ask, “ What is my duty?"

To come back to the line of thought I have been expounding, one of the first ideas that is presented to people who read the Gita is that the Divine is acting all the time, that there is never any moment when God is not at work with and in His universe. I will read here what Shri Krishna himself says quite early in the Third Chapter, when He is trying to make Arjuna realize that it is impossible in life to stand midway between action and inaction, that in a crisis time cannot be spent in looking up all the ethical principles about what should be done. There are times when one must act, and in trying to illustrate this, Shri Krishna, as the Divine, and [Page 58] following the old Indian ideas, shows that God is not quiescent but that God is ever active. So He says: 

With men of a certain temperament to whom the idea of God is vague, – though they may go to church and subscribe to certain formalities of religion – the real motive of the highest action possible to them is not a dedication to a Divine Purpose but a complete self-forgetfulness in dedication to an ideal of today. We have had hundreds and thousands of cases in the men and in the women in the last World War. I have had to read constantly the obituary notices in the LondonTimes. One senses the grief there, but also feels that those who have lost are proud, for again and again are the words [Page 62] in proud and loving memory, proud memory that their beloved did a great deed. Similarly, too, now and then letters from these men who have died have been published, and you find in them a very high idea of devotion, not to God, but to an ideal of today. There are some in whom the sense of attachment to their country is so strong that they go forward almost rejoicing to give their lives, if the war so necessitates it “for hearth and home". It is the sense of a perfect duty that is before them, and they do not flinch in the least. But there is nothing, shall I say, of a religious emotionalism about it. Those are the men who are realizing by dharma the unity of their action with the Divine Action. They have placed before them a certain ideal. Such men never talk about these things. They are so imbued with the sense of the job, as they sometimes call it, that there is no sentiment about it, but they go out constantly to do it. That instant action on their part towards the realization of an ideal deep within them is one mode of the highest spiritual life. As I see it, knowing that those who die come back again, reincarnating, whoever has so died with that spirit of sacrifice has attained to a high level of spiritual possibility. When such men come back they will have another environment, and then perhaps because [Page 63] their spiritual sense has been awakened through action along that vertical axis, they may then respond to a line of action of devotion as well. But mostly we are deep down, either of the dharma temperament or of the bhakti temperament.

However men approach Me, even so do I welcome them,
for the path men take from every side is Mine. O Partha. [Page 69]

Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be:
Lead me by Thine own hand,
Choose out the path for me. [Page 71]

Smooth let it be or rough,
It will be still the best:
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to Thy rest .

I dare not choose my lot:
I would not, if I might:
Choose Thou for me, my God:
So shall I walk aright.

The kingdom that I seek
Is Thine: so let the way
That leads to it be Thine,
Else I must surely stray.Take

Thou my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to Thee may seem:
Choose Thou my good and ill .

Choose Thou for me my friends,
My sickness or my health:
Choose Thou my cares for me,
My poverty or wealth.

Not mine, not mine the choice
In things or great or small:
Be Thou my guide, my strength,
My wisdom, and my all.

Gather us in, Thou Love that fillest all,
Gather our rival faiths within Thy fold;
Rend each man' s temple's veil, and bid it fall,
That we may know that Thou hast been of old.

Gather us in; we worship only Thee;
In varied names we stretch a common hand,
In diverse forms a common soul we see;
In many ships we seek one spirit-Iand.

Thine is the mystic life great India craves,
Thine is the Parsi's purifying beam;
Thine is the Buddhist's rest from tossing waves,
Thine is the empire of vast China's dream.

Thine is the Roman's strength without his pride,
Thine is the Greek's glad world without its slaves;
Thine is Judea's law, with love beside,
Truth that enlightens, charity that saves.

Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow light,
Each looks upon one tint and calls it heaven;
Thou art the fullness of our partial sight,
We are not perfect till we find the seven.

Some seek a Father in the heavens above,
Some ask a human image to adore;
Some crave a spirit vast as life and love,
Within Thy mansions we have all and more. [Page 74]

One verse, the last, was added by a Theosophist who knew one particular phrase in the Gita, which is brought in thus: 

However men approach Me. even so do I welcome them,
for the path men take from every side is Mine.

That is the powerful form of devotion offered directly to God. It is a form of bhakti in which there is no Saviour, no Avatara, there is no need for any image or any kind of representation of God, but the soul pours itself out directly to God.

But there is, too, the bhakti along the horizontal line, where definitely an Avatara is conceived as the approach, the gate to God. That gate, in the Gita, is the last of the Avataras, Shri Krishna. We know too that a previous Avatara is Shri Rama, but Avataras previous to Him have disappeared from human consciousness and no offering is now made to Them. But Shri Krishna is the powerful motive [Page 81] for bhakti for millions in this land of India. Similarly, in Christian lands it is Jesus Christ. So, then, we have the bhakti in which devotion is poured out to an Avatara or an incarnation.

Now I want to examine briefly how emotionalism is necessary, is absolutely inseparable from this type of bhakti. There are many types of emotionalism. There can be a profound emotionalism, as that of some of the great saints, who did not go into wild rapture, as do some of the bhaktas in both Christianity and Hinduism. That profound feeling of the saints is something very powerful and quiet, but so charged with power that it can never be revealed in any adequate way here below. But some types of bhakti need songs and hymns, and in the form which arose a few centuries ago in Bengal, in the movement initiated by Shri Chaitanya, there was also dancing, with the devotees going through the streets singing and dancing. Something not at all dissimilar once characterized the work of the Salvation Army. They were dealing with what we might call – though I do not like the phrase – the “lower classes" of the English, and the high emotionalism of the Church of England did not appeal to those. On the other hand, the message that there was salvation for all, as proclaimed by the Salvation [Page 82] Army at street corners with their band, their drums and singing, displayed all that sensational emotionalism that is so distasteful to thousands of people in western lands. Perhaps now they have rather lessened that excessive emotionalism with which they began. But these emotional expressions are considered absolutely necessary in certain kinds of bhakti.

This morning I read something that rather amused me. A swami of North India in talking about yoga and meditation prescribed this peculiar mode for meditation:  

Others sacrifice only by pouring sacrifice into the fire of Brahman;
Some pour as sacrifice hearing and the other senses into the fires of concentration;

Alas, how long is this life and how painful this exile, this prison and these chains with which the soul is bound. Merely this hope for my freedom gives me such excessive pain that I die because I do not die.

O, how bitter is life when one does not feel the joy of the Lord; and if love of Him is sweet, bitter is the long waiting for Him. My God, release from this load heavier than a load of iron, for I die because I do not die. [Page 88]

I see that our Lord at your entreaty has given me a longer time of affliction in this life, which I am glad of for the love I bear you. [Page 90]

In the deepest nature of ourselves is the source, of bhakti. Those people not capable of the highest bhakti may need some image, some picture, songs, or bhajanas, but within the soul of man is the Godhead.

There is this same truth coming from Persia, along the line of the Sufi teachers:

There is, as I have said, the testimony of all the saints and mystics that they invariably have these ups and downs in their religious life. Why ? Why cannot one be all the time pouring out bhakti to God? For a reason that every true bhakta understands. I have used a phrase in one of my lectures, “The true bhakti appears when the bhakta disappears; true love appears when the lover disappears." When one is so full of the conception of bhakti that the thought of “I" has gone, then that is the true the creative bhakti. Every form of Divine energy creates, transforms. It is said that God is Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer, and every manifestation of the Divine Life is always creating, preserving and destroying. [Page 91] But the particular point I want to emphasize is that true bhakti is always creative, that when the true bhakti is contacted, the role as the bhakta is not to sit and sing bhajans to God, but to call out bhakti in others. That is the life story of all the saints.

Here it is that he needs to have a larger conception of the purposes of God than the mystic usually possesses. The mystic is apt to be very much concentrated, not to look outside the particular path he has selected. Not infrequently men of religion who accept the orthodox creeds given to them are very much like the horses who wear blinkers on each side of the eyes. The driver will say that if the horse did not wear them, he would become frightened by many things he sees. And so the religious man is given these religious “blinkers" — if I may be pardoned for using this word — and he will only look at the things of his religion from that limited outlook, The priests will say: Do not look outside, for that will only confuse you. [Page 95]

Here we touch upon that mystery of the manifested universe and the unmanifested Divine Nature from which it has issued, a mystery which is on the whole foreign to Christian ways of thinking, though it does occasionally appear, because Christian thinkers have found they cannot fully explain all the mystery of life if they separate God from the world that He has created. The idea of a cosmic God leads to various difficulties in philosophical thinking, and hence the conception in Christianity of the transcendental Godhead living in Heaven — God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost— far away from earthly concerns, and at the same time that of the Immanent Godhead, the expression of the Divine Nature, in some manner not to be fully understood, within the Christ. This conception of the nature of God in all things is well known, so that everything is conceived as God; it is called pantheism. [Page 96]

Suppose religion no longer inspires, though it did once, suppose all those gorgeous ceremonies and [Page 97] music no longer call out the sense of admiration and wonder. Then go about among the hills, and if there is the right sensitiveness, something mysterious will be felt. Wordsworth mentions how at daybreak he would go into the fields when everything is perfectly still, and there is dew on the blades of grass, for all Nature to him then was like a mirror onto which was reflected something of God. And so throughout, wherever there is Nature in the various manifestations in the physical world — grass, lakes, pools, waterfalls, mountains, sunsets, — all are revelations of God, and if one becomes sensitive to them, then during the periods of spiritual dryness one begins to commune with God in a new way.

Similarly, we have to train ourselves to know that God is in every man — the rich, the poor, the high, the low. We are capable of realizing it through our Indian tradition of realizing God as the Guru; we say the Guru is Brahma, Vishnu, is Mahadev, is Parabrahman himself, that is, that our spiritual teacher is a mirror of the Divine in its purest, but we have also to realize that every man here below can play that role. Here we have another aspect of this same truth concerning man, but coming from Christianity.

In the Gospels, Christ describes that last day when He will come to Judge the righteous from the [Page 98] unrighteous. Then He tells the righteous that they shall stand on His right hand. Some of the righteous ask, “But, Lord, why? " And Christ says, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me, drink: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. But the righteous ask, “Lord when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee, or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? " And this is the answer: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me". This is a wonderful teaching, that when one performs an act of charity as a true Christian, something can be realized of the nature of the Lord manifest in the poor man that is fed, the sick who are visited, the prisoner to whom some comfort is given. All mankind round us are linked, as each one of us who is an aspirant is linked to God. Therefore, if we can worship God and come near to Him through bhakti, it is possible to see something of his revelation in the men and women round us.

One of the very striking things that is happening today is that there is a recognition of anew revelation of God for people to see, and that is, God as the child. To those who have a special kind of sensitiveness there are new chapters of the Holy Scriptures being written in the lives of children. [Page 99]

Similarly it is that during those periods of spiritual dryness we can, if we have so trained ourselves, commune with God through various forms of Art, for Art fundamentally is a revelation of the Divine Nature, it reveals what Plato called the Idea or the Archetype. The ancient Greeks were particularly sensitive to this aspect of Art. If they looked at a statue of Apollo, the sun-god, it was not merely to them a statue of some handsome youth, but there radiated from the statue a mysterious influence, so that they came to feel the influence of God. Similarly with the goddess Minerva; they felt, when there was an adequately beautiful image in a temple, that somehow as they offered their adoration to it, the image was like a wonderful window through which they looked into the Divine Nature.

Here too it is that everyone who is sensitive to the Divine Nature, as it descends along that line of Art, knows that the highest type of music reveals His nature almost better than any other form of Art.

So throughout in all true artistic manifestation, in the creations of great artists, we are dealing with a revelation of another aspect of the Divine Nature different from that of mountain ranges and seas, different from what we find in humanity, the men and women and children round us. [Page 100]

The message of God all throughout is that man, should live a life of action, but with a new spirit, and that spirit is one of pure offering. I lay emphasis on the word “pure", because “purified" means asking for no reward whatsoever, not even recognition by God that you are His devotee, and so He will send you in return His Grace. You, [Page 101] must be so firm in your bhakti that even if you feel there is no return whatsoever, you have pledged your life to your Lord and you go on pouring out your devotion all the time.

Yet if thou hast not strength firmly to place thy mind in Me. then by constant practice in Yoga seek to reach Me, O Dhananjaya.

If also thou art not equal to constant practice, perform actions for My sake; performing actions with Me for object, thou shalt attain perfection [Page 102]

If to do this even thou hast not strength, take refuge in union with Me; thus renouncing all fruit of action, act thou with the self controlled .

Better indeed is wisdom than constant practice; than wisdom, meditation is better; than meditation, renunciation of the fruit of action; on renunciation, close follows peace.

In that vision Arjuna sees the Lord as the Universe, but he also sees the Lord as Time: [Page 108] who brings everything to naught. The Lord appears as some monstrous creature into whose jaws all mankind is being dragged to destruction and death, yet even before that awesome spectacle Arjuna craves that he might know the inner Being, the meaning of it all. Then the Lord explains that He is Time the Destroyer, exhorts Arjuna to fight and conquer his foes, for all the warriors are slain by the Lord in reality, and not by Arjuna, who is only the outward cause of the slaying.

What does it all mean ? This: that all which happens is in the Mind of God, that nothing can happen without His Will. This same idea is beautifully expressed in the Christian scripture: “Not a sparrow falls without the knowledge of your Father". Everything is within Him.

How are we to understand that all the horrible wars and cruelties are a part of the Divine Plan ? How could Arjuna understand that it was part of the Divine Plan that those relations of his should be killed ? When the vision was given to him, then it was he knew that in slaying he was not the slayer. You will remember also that other part of the teaching, that none is the slayer and there is none who is slain. One only – God – is the Slayer. So we have that most difficult part of the Divine Vision, [Page 109] the revelation that even all that which is regarded as evil is in reality of the nature of God. It will require long, long study to unravel even a little of that mystery.

I come now to another part of this problem, and that is: In what way are we to commune with God when, as not infrequently happens, this, communion seems rather dry and abstract ? To many a man today, and I think I might say to the vast majority of youth in the world, religion no longer appeals. Not that they have any distrust of religion, but they do have distrust of the priests and ceremonies, with the result that there is a certain hunger in their hearts, yet they do not know in what way to satisfy it. It is a fact that will be attested to by thousands in any religion — that there is no, message in the temples. Where, then, are they to find the message? I recall here the verse which comes from Omar Khayyam, the poet of Persia:

That is not to say we must go to the tavern, but it is true that sometimes in unexpected ways one will find the light outside the temple

Especially we will find that light in the faces of men. There are two verses I quote again and again [Page 110] in my lectures dealing on this theme, that if you cannot find God in the temple, as you go about the streets, as you ride in the bus or train, see if you cannot find something of Him in your brother-man who is by your side. Here are two beautiful verses by the Scottish poet, George MacDonald:

O all wide places, far from feverous towns!
Great shining seas! pine forests! mountains wild!
Rock-bosomed shores! rough heaths! and sheep-cropt downs!
Vast pallid clouds! blue spaces undefiled!
Room! give me room! give loneliness and air!
Free things and plenteous in your regions fair.

O God of mountains, stars and boundless places!
O God of freedom and joyous hearts!
When Thy face looketh forth from all men's faces,
There will be room enough in crowded marts;
Brood Thou around me, and the noise is o'Er,
Thy universe my closet with shut door.

We have this life of communion described very beautifully by a Christian poet Keble:

There are in this loud stunning tide
Of human care and crime
With whom the melodies abide
Of the everlasting chime
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.

Thus, in your own secret soul there is singing and you have created the holy strain yourself.

To conclude I want to read two poems which give two aspects of the same problem. One is the problem that continually, as we are the true bhakta [Page 112] and till actually we come to the gate of Liberation there will be struggle after struggle. It is as if before we could be used as an instrument we have to be shaped in the heat of the fire and sharpened. But when we are the right instrument, then we become something used by the hand of God, and we rejoice that the message written is not our message, but His. Everyone who has had any kind of message to give has gone through this experience, which is inevitable. An American woman has written quite a short poem, not very deep or beautiful in phrasing, but very significant of how each one of us must be fashioned. The poem is called “The Flail", the flail being the instrument used to separate the chaff from the wheat:

Travail is a bitter thing,
Let my heart be wrung –
There are words that must be written.
Songs that must be sung. [Page 113]

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