The Sanskrit a.n.u.s can be properly translated as "atom" in the latter"s literal Greek sense of "uncut" or indivisible. Other scientific expositions of VAISESIKA treatises of the B.C. era include (1) the movement of needles toward magnets, (2) the circulation of water in plants, (3) AKASH or ether, inert and structureless, as a basis for transmitting subtle forces, (4) the solar fire as the cause of all other forms of heat, (5) heat as the cause of molecular change, (6) the law of gravitation as caused by the quality that inheres in earth-atoms to give them their attractive power or downward pull, (7) the kinetic nature of all energy; causation as always rooted in an expenditure of energy or a redistribution of motion, (8) universal dissolution through the disintegration of atoms, (9) the radiation of heat and light rays, infinitely small particles, darting forth in all directions with inconceivable speed (the modern "cosmic rays" theory), (10) the relativity of time and s.p.a.ce.
"VAISESIKA a.s.signed the origin of the world to atoms, eternal in their nature, i.e., their ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were regarded as possessing an incessant vibratory motion... . The recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar system would be no news to the old VAISESIKA philosophers, who also reduced time to its furthest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit of time (KALA) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own unit of s.p.a.ce."
{FN8-6} Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore, by Manmohan Ghosh, in VISWA-BHARATI.
CHAPTER: 9
THE BLISSFUL DEVOTEE AND HIS COSMIC ROMANCE
"Little sir, please be seated. I am talking to my Divine Mother."
Silently I had entered the room in great awe. The angelic appearance of Master Mahasaya fairly dazzled me. With silky white beard and large l.u.s.trous eyes, he seemed an incarnation of purity.
His upraised chin and folded hands apprized me that my first visit had disturbed him in the midst of his devotions.
His simple words of greeting produced the most violent effect my nature had so far experienced. The bitter separation of my mother"s death I had thought the measure of all anguish. Now an agony at separation from my Divine Mother was an indescribable torture of the spirit. I fell moaning to the floor.
"Little sir, quiet yourself!" The saint was sympathetically distressed.
Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his feet as the sole raft of my rescue.
"Holy sir, thy intercession! Ask Divine Mother if I find any favor in Her sight!"
This promise is one not easily bestowed; the master was constrained to silence.
Beyond reach of doubt, I was convinced that Master Mahasaya was in intimate converse with the Universal Mother. It was deep humiliation to realize that my eyes were blind to Her who even at this moment was perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint. Shamelessly gripping his feet, deaf to his gentle remonstrances, I besought him again and again for his intervening grace.
"I will make your plea to the Beloved." The master"s capitulation came with a slow, compa.s.sionate smile.
What power in those few words, that my being should know release from its stormy exile?
"Sir, remember your pledge! I shall return soon for Her message!"
Joyful antic.i.p.ation rang in my voice that only a moment ago had been sobbing in sorrow.
Descending the long stairway, I was overwhelmed by memories. This house at 50 Amherst Street, now the residence of Master Mahasaya, had once been my family home, scene of my mother"s death. Here my human heart had broken for the vanished mother; and here today my spirit had been as though crucified by absence of the Divine Mother. Hallowed walls, silent witness of my grievous hurts and final healing!
My steps were eager as I returned to my Gurpar Road home. Seeking the seclusion of my small attic, I remained in meditation until ten o"clock. The darkness of the warm Indian night was suddenly lit with a wondrous vision.
Haloed in splendor, the Divine Mother stood before me. Her face, tenderly smiling, was beauty itself.
"Always have I loved thee! Ever shall I love thee!"
The celestial tones still ringing in the air, She disappeared.
The sun on the following morning had hardly risen to an angle of decorum when I paid my second visit to Master Mahasaya. Climbing the staircase in the house of poignant memories, I reached his fourth-floor room. The k.n.o.b of the closed door was wrapped around with a cloth; a hint, I felt, that the saint desired privacy. As I stood irresolutely on the landing, the door was opened by the master"s welcoming hand. I knelt at his holy feet. In a playful mood, I wore a solemn mask over my face, hiding the divine elation.
"Sir, I have come-very early, I confess!-for your message. Did the Beloved Mother say anything about me?"
"Mischievous little sir!"
Not another remark would he make. Apparently my a.s.sumed gravity was unimpressive.
"Why so mysterious, so evasive? Do saints never speak plainly?"
Perhaps I was a little provoked.
"Must you test me?" His calm eyes were full of understanding. "Could I add a single word this morning to the a.s.surance you received last night at ten o"clock from the Beautiful Mother Herself?"
Master Mahasaya possessed control over the flood-gates of my soul: again I plunged prostrate at his feet. But this time my tears welled from a bliss, and not a pain, past bearing.
"Think you that your devotion did not touch the Infinite Mercy?
The Motherhood of G.o.d, that you have worshiped in forms both human and divine, could never fail to answer your forsaken cry."
Who was this simple saint, whose least request to the Universal Spirit met with sweet acquiescence? His role in the world was humble, as befitted the greatest man of humility I ever knew. In this Amherst Street house, Master Mahasaya {FN9-1} conducted a small high school for boys. No words of chastis.e.m.e.nt pa.s.sed his lips; no rule and ferule maintained his discipline. Higher mathematics indeed were taught in these modest cla.s.srooms, and a chemistry of love absent from the textbooks. He spread his wisdom by spiritual contagion rather than impermeable precept. Consumed by an unsophisticated pa.s.sion for the Divine Mother, the saint no more demanded the outward forms of respect than a child.
"I am not your guru; he shall come a little later," he told me.
"Through his guidance, your experiences of the Divine in terms of love and devotion shall be translated into his terms of fathomless wisdom."
Every late afternoon, I betook myself to Amherst Street. I sought Master Mahasaya"s divine cup, so full that its drops daily overflowed on my being. Never before had I bowed in utter reverence; now I felt it an immeasurable privilege even to tread the same ground which Master Mahasaya sanctified.
"Sir, please wear this champak garland I have fashioned especially for you." I arrived one evening, holding my chain of flowers. But shyly he drew away, repeatedly refusing the honor. Perceiving my hurt, he finally smiled consent.
"Since we are both devotees of the Mother, you may put the garland on this bodily temple, as offering to Her who dwells within." His vast nature lacked s.p.a.ce in which any egotistical consideration could gain foothold.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Two Brothers of Therese Neumann, I stand with them in Konnersreuth, Bavaria.--see nbrothers.jpg]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Master Mahasaya, Ever engrossed in his blissful cosmic romance.--see mmahasaya.jpg]
"Let us go tomorrow to the Dakshineswar Temple, forever hallowed by my guru." Master Mahasaya was a disciple of a Christlike master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa.
The four-mile journey on the following morning was taken by boat on the Ganges. We entered the nine-domed Temple of Kali, where the figures of the Divine Mother and Shiva rest on a burnished silver lotus, its thousand petals meticulously chiseled. Master Mahasaya beamed in enchantment. He was engaged in his inexhaustible romance with the Beloved. As he chanted Her name, my enraptured heart seemed shattered into a thousand pieces.
We strolled later through the sacred precincts, halting in a tamarisk grove. The manna characteristically exuded by this tree was symbolic of the heavenly food Master Mahasaya was bestowing.
His divine invocations continued. I sat rigidly motionless on the gra.s.s amid the pink feathery tamarisk flowers. Temporarily absent from the body, I soared in a supernal visit.
This was the first of many pilgrimages to Dakshineswar with the holy teacher. From him I learned the sweetness of G.o.d in the aspect of Mother, or Divine Mercy. The childlike saint found little appeal in the Father aspect, or Divine Justice. Stern, exacting, mathematical judgment was alien to his gentle nature.
"He can serve as an earthly prototype for the very angels of heaven!" I thought fondly, watching him one day at his prayers.
Without a breath of censure or criticism, he surveyed the world with eyes long familiar with the Primal Purity. His body, mind, speech, and actions were effortlessly harmonized with his soul"s simplicity.
"My Master told me so." Shrinking from personal a.s.sertion, the saint ended any sage counsel with this invariable tribute. So deep was his ident.i.ty with Sri Ramakrishna that Master Mahasaya no longer considered his thoughts as his own.
Hand in hand, the saint and I walked one evening on the block of his school. My joy was dimmed by the arrival of a conceited acquaintance who burdened us with a lengthy discourse.
"I see this man doesn"t please you." The saint"s whisper to me was unheard by the egotist, spellbound by his own monologue. "I have spoken to Divine Mother about it; She realizes our sad predicament.
As soon as we get to yonder red house, She has promised to remind him of more urgent business."
My eyes were glued to the site of salvation. Reaching its red gate, the man unaccountably turned and departed, neither finishing his sentence nor saying good-by. The a.s.saulted air was comforted with peace.