Part 3 (2/2)

As Teacher--need I speak of Him as teacher who gave the _Bhagavad-Gita_ between the contending armies on Kurukshetra? Teacher not of Arjuna alone, not of India alone, but of every human heart which can listen to spiritual instruction, and understand a little of the profound wisdom there clothed in the words of man. Remember a later saying: ”I, O Arjuna, am the Teacher and the mind is my pupil;” the mind of every man who is willing to be taught; the mind of every one who is ready to be instructed. Never does the spiritual teacher withhold knowledge because he grudges the giving. He is hampered in the giving by the want of receptivity in those to whom his message is addressed. Ill do men judge the divine heart of the great Teachers, or the faint reflection of that love in the mouth of Their messengers, when they think that knowledge is withheld because it is a precious possession to be grudgingly dealt out, that has to be given in as small a share as possible. It is not the withholding of the teacher but the closing of the heart of the hearer; not the hesitation of the teacher but the want of the ear that hears; not the dearth of teachers but the dearth of pupils who are willing and ready to be taught. I hear men say: ”Why not an Avatara now, or if not an Avatara, why do not the great ?is.h.i.+s come forward to speak Their golden wisdom in the ears of men? Why do They desert us? Why do They leave us? Why should this world in this age not have the wisdom as They gave it of old?” The answer is that They are waiting, waiting, waiting, with tireless patience, in order to find some one willing to be taught, and when one human heart opens itself out and says: ”O Lord, teach me,”

then the teaching comes down in a stream of divine energy and floods the heart. And if you have not the teaching, it is because your hearts are locked with the key of gold, with the key of fame, with the key of power, and with the key of desire for the enjoyments of this world.

While those keys lock your hearts, the teachers of wisdom cannot enter in; but unlock the heart and throw away the key, and you will find yourselves flooded with a wisdom which is ever waiting to come in.

As Searcher of hearts--Ah! here again He is so difficult to understand, this Lord of Maya, this Master of illusion. He tests the hearts of His beloved, not so much the world at large. To them is the teaching that shall guide them aright. For Arjuna, for Bhima, for Yudhi?h?hira, for them the keener touch, the sharper trial, in order to see if within the heart one grain of evil still remains, that will prevent their union with Himself. For what does he seek? That they shall be His very own, that they shall enter into His being. But they cannot enter therein while one seed of evil remains in their hearts. They cannot enter therein while one sin is left in their nature. And so in tenderness and not in anger, in wisest love and not with a desire to mislead, the Lord of Love tries the hearts of His beloved, so that any evil that is in them may be wrung out by the grip that He places on them. Two or three occasions of it I remember. I may mention perhaps a couple of them to show you the method of the trial. The battle of Kurukshetra had been raging many a day; thousands and tens of thousands of the dead lay scattered on that terrible field, and every day when the sun rose Bhishma came forth, generalissimo of the army of the Kurus, carrying before him everything, save where Arjuna barred his way; but Arjuna could not be everywhere; he was called away, with the horses guided by the Charioteer Shri K?i?h?a sweeping across the field like a whirlwind, carrying victory in their course; and where the Charioteer and Arjuna were not there Bhishma had his way. The hearts of the Pa??avas sank low within them, and at last one night under their tents, resting ere the next day's struggle, the bitter despondency of King Yudhi?h?hira broke out in words, and he declared that until Bhishma was slain nothing could be done. Then came the test from the lips of the searcher of hearts. ”Behold, I will go forth and slay him on the morrow.” Would Yudhi?h?hira consent? A promise stood in his way. You may remember that when Duryodhana and Arjuna went to Shri K?i?h?a who lay sleeping, the question arose as to what each should take. Alone, unarmed, Shri K?i?h?a would go with one, He would not fight; a mighty battalion of troops He would give to the other. Arjuna chose the unarmed K?i?h?a; Duryodhana, the mighty army ready to fight; so the word of the Avatara was pledged that He would not fight. Unarmed He went into the battle, clad in his yellow silken robe, and only with the whip of the charioteer in His hand; twice, in order to stimulate Arjuna into combat, He had sprung down from the chariot and gone forth with His whip in His hand as though He would attack Bhishma and slay him where he fought. Each time Arjuna stopped Him, reminding Him of His words. Now came the trial for the blameless King, as he is often called; should Shri K?i?h?a break His word to give him victory? He stood firm. ”Thy promise is given,” was his answer; ”that promise may not be broken.” He pa.s.sed the trial; he stood the test. But still one weakness was left in that n.o.ble heart; one underlying weakness that threatened to keep him away from his Lord. The lack of power to stand absolutely alone in the moment of trial, the ever clinging to some one stronger than himself, in order that his own decision might be upheld. That last weakness had to be burnt out as by fire. In a critical moment of the battle the word came that the success of Dro?a was carrying everything before him; that Dro?a was resistless and that the only way to slay him was to spread the report that his son was dead, and then he would no longer fight.

Bhima slew an elephant of the same name as Dro?a's son, and he said in the hearing of Dro?a: ”Ashvatthama is dead.” But Dro?a would not believe unless King Yudhi?h?hira said so. Then the test came.

Will he tell a practical lie but a nominal truth, in order to win the battle? He refused; not for his brother's pleadings would he do it.

Would he stand firm by truth quite alone when all he revered seemed to be on the other side? The great One said: ”Say that Ashvatthama is slain.” Ought he to have done it because He, Shri K?i?h?a, bade him? Ought he to have told the lie because the revered One counselled it? Ah no! neither for the voice of G.o.d nor man, may the human soul do a thing which he knows to be against G.o.d and His law; and alone he must stand in the universe, rather than sin against right. And when the lie was told under cover of that excuse, Yudhi?h?hira doing what he wished in his heart under cover of the command from one he revered, then he fell, his chariot descended to the ground, and suffering and misery followed him from that day till the day of his ending, until in the face of the King of the celestials he stood alone, holding the duty of protection even to a dog higher than divine command and joy of heaven.

And then he showed that the lesson had worked out in his purification, and that the heart was clean from the slightest taint of weakness. Oh, but men say, Shri K?i?h?a counselled the telling of a lie! My brothers, can you not see beneath the illusion? What is there in this world that the Supreme does not do? There is no life but His, no Self but His, nothing save His life through all His universe; and every act is His act, when you go back to the ultimates. He had warned them of that truth. ”I” He said, ”am the gambling of the cheat,” as well as the chants of the Veda. Strange lesson, and hard to learn, and yet true. For at every stage of evolution there is a lesson to be learnt. He teaches all the lessons; at each point of growth the next step is to be taken, and very often that step is the experiencing of evil, in order that suffering may burn the desire for evil out of the very heart. And just as the knife of the surgeon is different from the knife of the murderer, although both may pierce the human flesh, the one cutting to cure, the other to slay; so is the sharp knife of the Supreme, when by experience of evil and consequent pain He purifies the man, different, because the motive is other than the doing of evil to gratify pa.s.sion, the stepping aside from righteousness in order to please the lower nature.

Last of all He shows himself as the Supreme; there is the Vai?h?ava form, the universal form, the form that contains the universe. But still more is the Supreme seen in the profound wisdom of the teaching, in the steadfastness of His walk through life. Does it sound strange to say that G.o.d is seen more in the latter than the former, that the outer form that contains the universe is less divine than the perfect steadfast nature, swerving neither to the right hand nor the left? Read that life again with this thought in your mind, of one purpose followed to its end no matter what forces might play on the other side, and its greatness may appear.

What did He come to do? He came to give the last lesson to the Kshattriya caste of India, and to open India to the world. Many lessons had been given to that great caste. We know that twenty-one times they had been cut off, and yet re-established. We know that Shri Rama had shown the perfect life of Kshattriya, as an example that they might follow. They would not learn the lesson, either by destruction or by love. They would not follow the example either from fear or from admiration. Then their hour struck on the bell of Heaven, the knell of the Kshattriya caste. He came to sweep away that caste and to leave only scattered remnants of it, dotted over the Indian soil. It had been the sword of India, the iron wall that ringed her round. He came to s.h.i.+ver that wall into pieces, and to break the sword that it might not strike again. It had been used to oppress instead of to protect. It had been used for tyranny instead of for justice. Therefore he who gave it brake it, till men should learn by suffering what they would not learn by precept. And on the field of Kuru, the Kshattriya caste fought its last great battle; none were left of all that mighty host save a handful, when the fighting was over. Never has the caste recovered from Kurukshetra. It has not utterly disappeared. In some districts we find families belonging to it; but you know well enough that as a caste in most parts of modern India, you are hard put to find it. Why in the great counsels of the world's welfare was this done? Not only to teach a lesson for all time to kings and rulers, that if they would not govern aright they should not govern at all; but also to lay India open to the world.

How strange that sounds! To lay her open to invasion? He who loved her to lay her open to conquest? He who had consecrated her, He who had hallowed her plains and forests by His treading, and whose voice had rung through her land? Aye, for He judges not as man judges, and He sees the end from the beginning. India as she was of old, kept isolated from all the world, was so kept that she might have the treasure of spiritual knowledge poured into her and make a vessel for the containing. But when you fill the vessel, you do not then put that vessel high away on a shelf, and leave men thirsting for the liquid that it contains. The mighty One filled His Indian vessel with the water of spiritual knowledge, and at last the time came when that water should be poured out for the quenching of the thirst of the world, and should not be left only for the quenching of the thirst of a single nation, for the use of a single people. Therefore the Lover of men came, in order that the water of life might be poured out; He broke down the wall, so that the foreigner might overstep her borders. The Greeks swept in, the Mussulmans swept in, invasion after invasion, invasion after invasion, until the conquerors who now rule India were the latest in time. Do you see in that only decay, only misery, only that India is under a curse?

Ah no, my brothers! That which seems a curse for the time is for the world's healing and the world's blessing; and India may well suffer for a time in order that the world may be redeemed.

What does it mean? I am not speaking politically, but from the standpoint of a spiritual student, who is trying to understand how the evolution of the race goes on. The people who last conquered India, who now rule her as governors, are the people whose language is the most widely spread of all the languages of the world, and it is likely to become the world's language. It belongs not only to that little island of Britain, it belongs also to the great continent of America, to the great continent of Australia. It has spread from land to land, until that one tongue is the tongue most widely understood amongst all the peoples of the world. Other nations are beginning to learn it, because business and trade and even diplomacy are beginning to be carried on in that English speech. What wonder then that the Supreme should send to India this nation whose language is becoming the world-language, and lay her open to be held as part of that world-wide empire, in order that her Scriptures, translated into the most widely spoken language, may help the whole human family and purify and spiritualise the hearts of all His sons.

There is the deepest object of His coming, to prepare the spiritualisation of the world. It is not enough that one nation shall be spiritual; it is not enough that one country shall have wisdom; it is not enough that one land, however mighty and however beloved--and do not I love India as few of you love her?--it is not enough that she should have the gold of spiritual truth, and the rest of the world be paupers begging for a coin. No; far better that for a time she should sink in the scale of nations, in order that what she cannot do for herself may be done by divine agencies that are ever guiding the evolution of the world. Thus what from outside looks as conquest and subjection, to the eye of the spirit looks as the opening of the spiritual temple, so that all the nations may come in and learn.

Only that leaves to you a duty, a responsibility. I hear so much, I have spoken so often, of the descendants of ?is.h.i.+s and of the blood of the ?is.h.i.+s in your veins. True, but not enough. If you are again to be what Shri K?i?h?a means you to be in His eternal counsels, the Brahma?a of nations, the teacher of divine truth, the mouth through which the G.o.ds speak in the ears of men, then the Indian nation must purify itself, then the Indian nation must spiritualise itself. Shall your Scriptures spiritualise the whole world while you remain unspiritual? Shall the wisdom of the ?is.h.i.+s go out to Mlechchas in every part of the world, and they learn and profit by it, while you, the physical descendants of the ?is.h.i.+s, know not your own literature and love it even less than you know? That is the great lesson with which I would fain close. So true is this, that, in order to gain teachers of the Brahmavidya which belongs to this land by right of birth, the great ?is.h.i.+s have had to send some of their children to other lands in order that they may come back to teach your own religion amidst your people. Shall it not be that this shame shall come to an end? Shall it not be that there are some among you that shall lead again the old spiritual life, and follow and love the Lord? Shall it not be, not only here and there, but at last that the whole nation shall show the power of Shri K?i?h?a in His life incarnated amongst you, which would really be greater than any special Avatara? May we not hope and pray that His Avatara shall be the nation that incarnates His knowledge, His love, His universal brotherliness to every man that treads the soil of earth? Away with the walls of separation, with the disdain and contempt and hatred that divide Indian from Indian, and India from the rest of the world. Let our motto from this time forward be the motto of Shri K?i?h?a, that as He meets men on any road, so we will walk beside them on any road as well, for all roads are His. There is no road which He does not tread, and if we follow the Beloved who leads us, we must walk as He walks.

PEACE TO ALL BEINGS.

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