Part 3 (1/2)

While the child of six was one day wandering along, as He would, a number of the Gopis were bathing nude in the river, having cast aside their cloths--as they should not have done, that being against the law and showing carelessness of womanly modesty. Leaving their garments on the bank they had plunged into the river. The child of six saw this with the eye of insight, and He gathered up their cloths and climbed up a tree near by, carrying them with Him, and threw them round His own shoulders and waited to see what would chance. The water was bitterly cold and the Gopis were s.h.i.+vering; but they did not like to come out of it before the clear steady eyes of the child. And He called them to come and get the garments they had thrown off; and as they hesitated, the baby lips told them that they had sinned against G.o.d by immodestly casting aside the garments that should have been worn, and must therefore expiate their sin by coming and taking from His hands that which they had cast aside. They came and wors.h.i.+pped, and He gave them back their robes. An immoral story, with a child of six as the central figure! It is spoken of as though he were a full grown man, insulting the modesty of women. The Gopis were ?is.h.i.+s, and the Lord, the Supreme, as a babe is teaching them a lesson. But there is more than that; there is a profound occult lesson below the story--a story repeated over and over again in different forms--and it is this: that when the soul is approaching the supreme Lord at one great stage of initiation, it has to pa.s.s through a great ordeal; stripped of everything on which it has. .h.i.therto relied, stripped of everything that is not of its inner Self, deprived of all external aid, of all external protection, of all external covering, the soul itself, in its own inherent life, must stand naked and alone with nothing to rely on, save the life of the Self within it. If it flinches before the ordeal, if it clings to anything to which hitherto it has looked for help, if in that supreme hour it cries out for friend or helper, nay even for the Guru himself, the soul fails in that ordeal. Naked and alone it must go forth, with absolutely none to aid it save the divinity within itself.

And it is that nakedness of the soul as it approaches the supreme goal, that is told of in that story of Shri K?i?h?a, the child, and the Gopis, the nakedness of life before the One who gave it. You find many another similar allegory. When the Lord comes in the Kalki, the tenth, Avatara, He fights on the battlefield and is overcome. He uses all His weapons; every weapon fails Him; and it is not till He casts every weapon aside and fights with His naked hands, that He conquers.

Exactly the same idea. Intellect, everything, fails the naked soul before G.o.d.[11]

[Footnote 11: So in the _Imitation of Christ_, the work of an occultist, it is written that we must ”naked follow the naked Jesus.”]

If I have taken up this story specially, out of hundreds of stories, to dwell upon, it is because it is one of the points of attack, and because you who are Hindus by birth ought to know enough of the inner truths of your own religion not to stand silent and ashamed when attacks are made, but should speak with knowledge and thus prevent such blasphemies.

Then we learn more details of His play with the Gopis as a child of seven: how He wandered into the forest and disappeared and all went after Him seeking Him; how they tried to imitate His own play, in order to fill up the void that was left by His absence. The child of seven, that He was at this time, disappeared for a while, but came back to those who loved Him, as G.o.d ever does with His bhaktas. And then takes place that wondrous dance, the Rasa[12] of Shri K?i?h?a, part of His Lila, when He multiplied Himself so that every pair of Gopis found Him standing between them; amid the ring of women the child was there between each pair of them, giving a hand to each; and so the mystic dance was danced. This is another of these points of attack which are made by ignorant minds. What but an unclean mind can see aught that is impure in the child dancing there as lover and beloved? It is as though He looked forward down the ages, and saw what later would be said, and it is as though He kept the child form in the Lila, in order that He might breathe harmlessly into men's blind unclean hearts the lesson that He would fain give. And what was the lesson? One other incident I remind you of, before I draw the lesson from the whole of this stage of His life. He sent for food, He who is the Feeder of the worlds, and some of His Brahma?as refused to give it, and sent away the boys who came to ask for food for Him; and when the men refused, He sent them back to the women, to see if they too would refuse the food their husbands had declined to give. And the women--who have ever loved the Lord--caught up the food from every part of their houses where they could find it and went out, crowds of them, bearing food for Him, leaving house, and husband, and household duties. And all tried to stop them, but they would not be stopped; and brothers and husbands and friends tried to hold them back, but no, they must go to Him, to their Lover, Shri K?i?h?a; He must not be hungry, the child of their love. And so they went and gave Him food and He ate. But they say: They left their husbands! they left their homes! how wrong to leave husbands and homes and follow after Shri K?i?h?a! The implication always is that their love was purely physical love, as though that were possible with a child of seven. I know that words of physical love are used, and I know it is said in a curious translation that ”they came under the spell of Cupid.” It matters not for the words, let us look at the facts. There is not a religion in the world that has not taught that when the Supreme calls, all else must be cast aside. I have seen Shri K?i?h?a contrasted with Jesus of Nazareth to the detriment of Shri K?i?h?a, and a contrast is drawn between the purity of the one and the impurity of the other; the proof given was that the husbands were left while the wives went to play with and wait on the Lord. But I have read words that came from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth; ”He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” ”And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (Matt. x.

37, and xix. 29.) And again, yet more strongly: ”If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke xiv. 26.) That is exactly the same idea. When Jesus calls, husband and wife, father and mother, must be forsaken, and the reward will be eternal life. Why is that right when done for Jesus, which is wrong when done for Shri K?i?h?a?

[Footnote 12: Dance.]

It is not only that you find the same teaching in both religions; but in every other religion of the world the terms of physical love are used to describe the relation between the soul and G.o.d. Take the ”Song of Solomon.” If you take the Christian _Bible_ and read the margin you will see ”The Love of Christ for His Church”; and if from the margin you look down the column, you will find the most pa.s.sionate of love songs, a description of the exquisite female form in all the details of its attractive beauty; the cry of the lover to the beloved to come to him that they might take their fill of love. ”Christ and His Church” is supposed to make it all right, and I am content that it should be so. I have no word to say against the ”Song of Solomon,” nor any complaint against its gorgeous and luxuriant imagery; but I refuse to take from the Hebrew as pure, what I am to refuse from the Hindu as impure. I ask that all may be judged by the same standard, and that if one be condemned the same condemnation may be levelled against the other. So also in the songs of the Sufis, the mystics of the faith of Islam, woman's love is ever used as the best symbol of love between the soul and G.o.d. In all ages the love between husband and wife has been the symbol of union between the Supreme and His devotees; the closest of all earthly ties, the most intimate of all earthly unions, the merging of heart and body of twain into one--where will you find a better image of the merging of the soul in its G.o.d? Ever has the object of devotion been symbolised as the lover or husband, ever the devotee as wife or mistress. This symbology is universal, because it is fundamentally true.

The absolute surrender of the wife to the husband is the type upon earth of the absolute surrender of the soul to G.o.d. That is the justification of the Rasa of Shri K?i?h?a; that is the explanation of the story of His life in Vraja.

I have dwelt specially on this, my brothers, you all know why. Let us pa.s.s from it, remembering that till the nineteenth century this story provoked only devotion not ribaldry, and it is only with the coming in of the grosser type of western thought that you have these ideas put into the _Bhagavad-Pura?a_. I would to G.o.d that the ?is.h.i.+s had taken away the _Shrimad Bhagavata_ from a race that is unworthy to have it; that as They have already withdrawn the greater part of the Vedas, the greater part of the ancient books, they would take away also this story of the love of Shri K?i?h?a, until men are pure enough to read it without blasphemy and clean enough to read it without ideas of s.e.xuality.

Pa.s.s from this to the next great stage, that of the Destroyer of evil, shortly, very shortly. From the time when as a babe but a few weeks old He sucked to death the Rakshasi, Putana; from the time He entered the great cave made by the demon, and expanding Himself s.h.i.+vered the whole into fragments; from the time He trampled on the head of the serpent Kalia so that it might not poison the water needed for the drinking of the people; until He left Vraja to meet Kamsa, we find Him ever chasing away every form of evil that came within the limits of His abode. We are told that when He had left Vraja and stood in the tournament field of Kamsa with His brother, His brother and Himself were mere boys, in the tender delicate bodies of youths. After the whole of the Lila was over They were still children, when They went forth to fight. From that time onwards He met, one after another, the great incarnations of evil and crushed them with His resistless strength: we need not dwell on these stories, for they fill His life.

We come to the third stage of Statesman, a marvellously interesting feature in His life--the tact, the delicacy, the foresight, the skill in always putting the man opposed to Him in the wrong, and so winning His way and carrying others with Him. As you know, this part of His life is played out especially in connection with the Pa??avas. He is the one who in every difficulty steps forward as amba.s.sador; it is He who goes with Arjuna and Bhima to slay the giant king Jarasandha, who was going to make a human sacrifice to Mahadeva, a sacrifice that was put a stop to as blasphemous; it was He who went with them in order that the conflict might take place without transgressing the strictest rules of Kshattriya morality. Follow Him as He and Arjuna and his brother enter into the city of the king. They will not come by the open gate, that is the pathway of the friend. They break down a portion of the wall as a sign that they come as foes. They will not go undecorated; and challenged why they wore flowers and sandal, the answer is that they come for the celebration of a triumph, the fulfilling of a vow. Offered food, the answer of the great amba.s.sador is that they will not take food then, that they will meet the king later and explain their purpose. When the time arrives He tells him in the most courteous but the clearest language that all these acts have been performed that he may know that they had come not as friends but as foes to challenge him to battle. So again when the question arises, after the thirteen years of exile, how shall the land be won back without struggle, without fight, you see Him standing in the a.s.sembly of Pa??avas and their friends with the wisest counsel how perchance war may be averted; you see Him offering to go as amba.s.sador that all the magic of His golden tongue may be used for the preservation of peace; you see Him going as amba.s.sador and avoiding all the pavilions raised by the order of Duryodhana, that He may not take from one who is a foe a courtesy that might bind him as a friend.

So when he pays the call on Duryodhana that courtesy demands, never failing in the perfect duty of the amba.s.sador, fulfilling every demand of politeness, He will not touch the food that would make a bond between Himself and the one against whom He had come to struggle. See how the only food that He will take is the food of the King's brother, for that alone, He says, ”is clean and worthy to be eaten by me.” See how in the a.s.sembly of hostile kings He tries to pacify and tries to please. See how He apologises with the gentlest humility; how to the great king, the blind king, He speaks in the name of the Pa??avas as suppliant, not as outraged and indignant foe. See how with soft words He tries to turn away words of wrath, and uses every device of oratory to win their hearts and convince their judgments. See how later again, when the battle of Kurukshetra is over, when all the sons of the blind king are slain, see how He goes once more as amba.s.sador to meet the childless father and, still bitterer, the childless mother, that the first anger may break itself on Him, and His words may charm away the wrath and soothe the grief of the bereft. See how later on He still guides and advises till all the work is done, till His task is accomplished and His end is drawing near. A statesman of marvellous ability; a politician of keenest tact and insight; as though to say to men of the world that when they are acting as men of the world they should be careful of righteousness, but also careful of discretion and of skill, that there is nothing alien to the truth of religion in the skill of the tongue and in the use of the keen intelligence of the brain.

Then pa.s.s on again from Him as Statesman to His character as Friend.

Would that I had time to dwell on it, and paint you some of the fair pictures of His relations with the family He loved so well, from the day when, standing in the midst of the self-choice of K?i?h?a, the fair future wife of the Pa??avas, He saw for the first time in that human incarnation Arjuna, His beloved of old. Think what it must have been, when the eyes of the two young men met, with memories in the one pair of the close friends.h.i.+p of the past, and the drawing of the other by the tie of those many births to the ancient friend whom he knew not. From that day when they first meet in this life onwards, how constant His friends.h.i.+p, how ceaseless His protection, how careful His thought to guard their honour and their lives; and yet how wise; at every point where His presence would have frustrated the object of His coming, He goes away. He is not present at the great game of dice, for that was necessary for the working out of the divine purpose; He was away. Had He been there, He must needs have interfered; had He been there, He could not have left His friends unaided. He remained away, until Draupadi cried in her agony for help when her modesty was threatened; then he came with Dharma and clothed her with garments as they were dragged from her; but then the game was over, the dice were cast, and destiny had gone on its appointed road.

How strange to watch that working! One object followed without change, without hesitation: but every means used that might give people an opportunity of escaping if only they would. He came to bring about that battle on Kurukshetra. He came, as we shall see in a moment, in order to carry out that one object in preparation for the centuries that stretched in front; but in the carrying of it out, He would give every chance to men who were entangled in that evil by their own past, so that if one of them would answer to His pleading he might come over to the side of light against the forces of darkness. He never wavered in His object; yet He never left unused one means that man could use to prevent that object taking place. A lesson full of significance! The will of the Supreme must be done, but the doing of that will is no excuse for any individual man who does not carry out the law to the fullest of his power. Although the will must be carried out, everything should be done that righteousness permits and that compa.s.sion suggests in order that men may choose light rather than darkness, and that only the resolutely obstinate may at last be, whelmed in the ruin that falls upon the land.