Chaitanya and Mira

A month later. In Mira's temple she is seen again dancing. On her right Ajit is revealed seated with folded hands, the proud pedant transformed now into a humble devotee. On her right are seated Mira's Guru, Sri Sanatan and the temple-priest, Pundarik. After a time she breaks forth into song.

MIRA (sings as tears course down her cheeks)
They ask: "For whom do you sing your songs

For ever, endlessly ?
Whether one harks or no —you go on

Pouring your melody /"
For whom does the heart still brood and long,
Sweet koels warble the boughs among,
Blossom the buds in hues' display,
The rivers dance on — who can say ?

And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing

For ever endlessly ?
Whether one harks or no —you go on

Pouring your melody /"
For whom do bulbuls trill and trill
And plumaged peacocks sway, athrill,
The clouds, sleep-walkers, saunter on
And priest winds fare from dusk to dawn?

And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing

Forever, endlessly ?
Whether one harks or no —you go on

Pouring your melody !"
For whom stays rapt, in trance, the saint,
Comes the artist spring our earth to paint ?
For whom do the skies, aflush, awake
And trees in laughter of green outbreak?

And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing

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For ever, endlessly ?
Whether one harks or no — you go on

Pouring your melody /"
Why pines for the Lord His devotee,
Desolate — everlastingly ?

Why appeals the heart to the viewless star
And the ways of love are what they are?

And yet they'll ask: "For whom do you sing

For ever, endlessly ?
Whether one harks or no —you go on
Pouring your melody !"

AJIT (with a sigh)

O mother! how you do transport the soul
With your lilting melodies! How your divine
Similes and sweet rhymes and rhythms compete
With one another! ... When you sing you do
Cascade a resonant billowy flame of nectar
And it is a flame that sheds light but not heat!
And how the words are momently transformed
By the magic of your music, even as
Wan water-vapours are with the sungold's kiss
Into dream rainbows!

SANATAN

You have said it, my son!
For when she sings I hear a voice of light
Whisper to me that she is sent by Him
To boon our lustre-avid benighted souls
With a new faith we never could have conceived:

A faith that draws its life-breath from His Light.
Yes, Mira, when you sing in our midst, athrill,
I feel you have come commissioned by our Lord
To ransom our night-imprisoned anguished souls,
Transform our cynic intellect's atheist strands
And put to shame its infidelities,
Extolled by purblind men who revel in

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Their egos' abysmal nights of God-denial.
And so you had to quell these — not with arid
Theology or logic — but with vibrant
Music inspired by His Flute's haunting call
Which we in our folly, alas, dismiss as fancy!

AJIT

But Gurudev, why must we fail to prize
A gift divine we ought to acclaim?

SANATAN

Ask the one
Who not only has acclaimed but found it, too,
Singing her way to Him, the Lord of Knowledge,
And so has come to know, through love, what we
Strive in vain to grapple with our fool minds.

MIRA (smiling)

Nay, Gurudev! Mislead not one who has
Sought refuge at your feet. I only sing
What you inspire.

SANATAN (laughs)

I'll have to steal your thunder
To rebuke you: for 'tis you who have inspired
My inspiration through your songs and music;

Although, in the end, all inspiration is
Sent by the One who, curtained by clouds, breaks out
As lightning, though the clouds will vaunt 'tis they
Who strike the sparks to blaze swift trails of light.

(Turning to Pundarik)
Now, tell me, friend, have I not hit the target?

PUNDARIK (smiles)

O Gurudev! embarrass not poor waifs
By queries they cannot meet. We never plumbed
The depths achieved only by godly divers.

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We can but float on bubbles nor dare aspire
To profundities: we can at best pay dream
Homage to angel shores beyond our ken.

(To Mira)

So I, for one, can only go on praying
To you to go on blessing us with your songs,
Only, 0 mother, grant that I may have
The humility which asks not futile questions.
For only your holy self can know for whom
You sing and how He answers through your songs.

AJIT

You may not ask, being a holy priest
And as such know all about holiness;

But I am an Arcadian and so must question
To be enlightened...

(To Mira)

That is, if you will

Deign to give me an answer?

MIRA (indicating Sanatan)

Why not ask Him?

SANATAN
Nay, Mira, play up: tease not honest souls.

(To Ajit)

You are on the right trail, my discerning son!
If question you must, prod her who knows the answers.
Pundits can talk till doomsday even as parrots
Can go on twittering — but 'tis given only
To light — and not to heat — to repeal darkness.

AJIT (To Mira)
Now, mother mine! How would you evade the thirsty!

MIRA (Smiling)
So be it. I will pour — although, I warn you,

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It may be thunder and lightning more than rain.

AJIT

I am not dismayed. For rainbow-clouds dispense
Rapture and peace which refresh even more than downpours.

(Seriously)

You sing of those who pine for your Gopal,
Declaring that He is yours and you are His.
But woe is me! How shall my feet of clay
Achieve what is beyond the dare of wings?
You belong to skies, we to our craving cages.
How can we aspire, being what we are,
To win to the blue — beating against our bars?
How shall we, wingless elfs, consort with angels?
Oh, if He is our Lover and Beloved,
Why do such as we cry and cry in vain
For One we could claim as our very own?

MIRA

But your premiss is false: do we cry and cry for Him:

We only clamour for His Grace and Love,
Demand — they sustain us on our own terms.

AJIT
Forgive me, mother, I am still at sea.

MIRA

You would not be, my son, if you could only
Accept that it is not for such as we
To insist on His obeying to our will:

We are to be shaped by Him, not He by us.
If we are humble, we would know that we
Are sent here so we may fulfil ourselves
On earth by doing His will at every step.
For He knows, and not we, how to uplead
Our half-lit, groping minds to His sun-truth;

But our loud self-will, alas, does fret and fume

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Announcing, clamouring — it wants this and that,
Nor pausing, alas, to enquire once what He wants!
Folly, son, is not fain to view things save
With its own eyes — from its own perverse angle.
So, regarding things askew, unwittingly,
We grow blind to what He would have us want.
If once you achieved the humility of wisdom
You would realise that first you must fulfil
The conditions He has posed. And one of these
Is to keep your vigil sleeplessly — lest He,
Your heart's Beloved, may not find your doors
Bolted against Him when He deigns to call.
Let me tell you a mystic parable.

(After a pause)

Once upon a time there lived a King,
A noble monarch whose bounties rained like sun's
Unstinted largess of all-healing light.
He often went about incognito
To know first-hand of the urgent needs of those
Who looked to Him as their one God on earth.
One day his herald announced with beat of drums:

"The King desires to make it known to all
That he will visit a house in the deep of night.
And so in every house or cottage a lamp
Must brightly burn all night in this our great
Metropolis and the villages round about,
So His Majesty may wend his way and choose
The host with whom he will stay for one night.
Blessed is he who shall receive his Grace."
The citizens and rustics were all thrilled;

But as the days went by, tired of waiting,

They put out their lamps, arguing: "Why must we

Waste nightly so much oil? Surely the King

Will come in state in his resplendent car

With his noisy equipage. The rumble of wheels

And sound of the horses' hooves will doubtless make

The sky reverberate and waken us,

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When we shall promptly kindle all our lamps."
They made long lists of all their grievances;

The amenities they lacked, the boons they craved,

The favours they desired and, above all,

They vied with one another in emphasising

Their multifarious merits, gifts and virtues.

Now on the purlieu of the town a poor

And humble widow lived in a tiny hut

On a small pension sanctioned by the King.

Thrilled with the royal proclamation, she

Kept kindled in her hut her one and only

Oil-lamp which brightly burned night after night.

Her knowledgeable neighbours laughed in chorus

And mocked at her: "You are every kind of a fool,

You imbecile, to waste for nothing nightly

Your little store of precious oil! You know

Full well that you can ill afford to squander

The beggarly dole you receive from the King.

'Tis lunacy! say, how can you expect

The Ruler of our destinies to seek

A pauper's hospitality? Furthermore,

Suppose he called on you now — where would you

Receive him in your dismal hovel? And how

Do you propose to entertain him, fool?"

So they, her patronising, prosperous neighbours

Went on and on till she dissolved in tears

And faltered out: "I know I have no claim

To the Grace of our noble Lord ... This, too, I know

That the odds are a million to one against

His visiting my hut... Yet... who is there

That hopes not against hope? ... And who can tell

How Grace will act? ... Are not even tiny blades

Of grass blest by the light of the high sun-god

And starveling streams replenished by angel clouds?

And then," she pleaded, "I keep my lamp burning

Because such is the will of my great King,

My heart's one Donor, on whose bounty I live

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From day to day ... I know my place, good friends!

I know I am a cipher ... Only ... I

Know this, as well, that 'tis for him to ordain

As 'tis for me to accept and do his will.

You may laugh and mock ... but I will follow my lights

Such as they are ... You go your way, wise friends,

And I'll go mine alone. Only I swear:

I'd sooner starve than flout my master's wish."
Nettled, they jeered at her with one accord
And decided she was "crazy." But, unperturbed,
Night after lonely night she kept her vigil,
Companioned by her sole, loyal lamp,
While all her affluent, wise and thrifty neighbours
Slept on in peace, conserving their precious oil.
After a month, one day, to their utter amazement,
A royal chariot hove in sight and rattled
Past their imposing mansions to draw up
Before the lowly hut of the "crazy" woman
And took her to the palace where the Queen
Appointed her as her own personal maid
And, after a time (as she endeared herself
To her loving mistress serving her with sweet
Humility and swerveless loyalty)
She grew to be her dearest confidante.

(Appraising Ajit with a smile)
Have I now met your question?

AJIT (reflectively)

I understand now:

To do His will in glad and full surrender
Is the way to the last fulfilment. We are tested
At every step so we may shed our self-will.
'Tis only when we die to our old self
That we may claim our birthright — godly Freedom.
For only then can His will — working in us,
As a leaven — transform our flawed human nature
And, once this is achieved, through serving Him,
11

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We are exalted to His divinity.
When we play with Him in this His cosmic lila
As His trusted friends and darling confidants.
Have I divined your import?

MIRA (nodding, pleased)

You have, bless you!
Only add: 'tis our egos which, first and last,
Erect the walls between His will and ours.
Our self-will, stemming from our self-love, is
At the root of all our man-made misery.

AJIT (bowing)

The spirit's truths dawn on me, more and more,
Daily, O mother, since you came to me.
Only ... sometimes ... perhaps because I still
Choose to hug my old outlook ...
(he pauses)

MIRA

You mean

The spectacle of human suffering
Still makes you restive?

AJIT (surprised)

How did you divine?

SANATAN (smiles)

Her eye of light sees into the heart of things
Where our mortal eyes spot only surface bubbles.

MIRA (in mock anger)

Oh, lead them not astray, when sages choose
To put on an act, people are taken in.
Nor even in jest suggest — you are as blind
As the orphans who come to you to be guided home.
(To Ajit—laughing)

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Take him not at his word when he's in the mood
To fool the undiscerning innocents
Like you and me.
(After a pause)

But tell me — what is it
That vexes you, my son?

AJIT (hesitant)

I know not how
To put it in words ... but since you know our frailties,
You will forgive me if I cannot help
But feel, sometimes, a stir of swift revolt
Deep down in my heart when I see men suffer,
And I ask myself wherefore philosophers
And saints must still acclaim this cult of pain.

MIRA

The philosopher's outlook on life, my son,
Is alien to me; nor can I lay
Claim to high sainthood. So your pointed dart
Has missed the target. I can only say
What I have learnt in my life from the school
Of experience. If you mean one should never
Glorify pain, I am at one with you.
And I may assure you that not once have I
Idolised pain. But the fact remains that pain
Has met me at every bend till I met Him,
My Gopal, when I saw the last of pain,
Because to touch Him is to transcend sorrow.
But till the day He came to abide with me
I did go through deep pain again and again.
It caught me, unawares, first through the chink
Of my hyper-sensitiveness, insomuch
That I was frantic even when a pin
Pricked me. Even a shadow of hurtful things
Depressed me deeply.

In the second stage,

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It was no longer shadows but real things

Jolts, shocks and disenchantments, thorns and gusts

Entanglements, attachments, expectations,

Dreams shattered, trusts betrayed, men's cruelties —

In a word, everything that came to sully

The flawless image of beauty that presided

In my heart's temple, made me desolate,

Till I turned to my Gopal — to break away

From my moorings to be anchored only in

The Harbour of His Grace beyond all storm.

(Her eyes glisten)

But then, in the third stage, even my Gopal
Vanished and my soul groped, alas, in night!
For two long years I lived in the agony
Of exile — sundered from my All-in-all:

A pain which made the light before my eyes
Loom like an irony of ironies;

Life seemed to jeer at me for having hoped
At all for bliss in our world of suffering.
I drew my every breath in pain in the frozen
Gloom of despair: every touch and tremor
Reminded me of my Gopal I had lost.
To have savoured nectar and then to be invited
By the turbid waters of the stagnant pools!
My soul, in torment, could not see a thing
From the viewpoint of the sober worldly-wise.
They said I was a rudderless boat, a flotsam
That could at best toss for an interlude,
To sink thereafter in the darkling deep
Of utter shame and fathomless frustration.
My name was mud in my noble family
Whose high deeds are still sung by minstrel priests
And chronicled in Mevar's deathless sagas:

They called me names because I had eschewed
The tradition-worshipped veil of high-born women.
They were all scandalized to see a Queen
Consort with all and sundry: in a word,

Page 156

I played for the highest stake and lost my all:

The worldlings' support even as my Gopal's.

SANATAN (smiles)

True, only you were not sent forth by Him
To be sustained by the worldlings. Therefore He
Schooled you through pain so you may reveal to those
Who adored their little lusts and thrills, that one
Who is called by His great Love must bid farewell
To the lesser loves, laughing to scorn the props
And lures of the world of senses. Because you
Were His own darling child and maid, you had
To be disowned by the worldlings of the world,
So you might come to be owned by Him alone,
In His eternal city of bliss and beauty,
Where you belonged as you once sang when you
Came at last to journey's end: sing, sing that song
The lovely song you sang to disavow
Our dismal world to be pledged to His Brindavan
Where only His Love rules and His Light reigns.
Come, Pundarik, let's sing in chorus with her.
(They sang together, Mira leading the chorus)

Farewell, our dismal vale of sighs and tears!

We'll wend to His far shore of blessedness.
Farewell, our heart-lost land of fogs and fears !

To acclaim His Brindavan of Gleam and Grace.

Fare far, still far from our domain

To His garden where springtide never can wane,

Beyond the clutch of din and pain,

We'll leave our glooms for His haven of Gleam and Grace,

And wend to His Brindavan of blessedness.

Where only Love Divine holds sway,

Where none sustains defeat in play

And the Friend presides for whom all pray,

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There we'll knock at His door of Gleam and Grace;

Let's wend to His far shore of blessedness.

Where none says: "This is mine alone,"
Where woe or illusion is unknown
And children of Light the dark disown,

We'll live there in His home of Gleam and Grace,

His marvellous Brindavan of blessedness.

"Hark, calls the Beloved," Mira sings,

"Playing the Flute, the King of kings!

To Him, the Evergreen, on our wings!
Give all we have to the Lord of Gleam and Grace !
We will to His Paradise of Blessedness."

AJIT

How thrilling to be owned by Him, the Lord!
You, mother, came to our world of lesser lores
To wean us from their maya and sing to us
That not till we are vowed to disclaim this
Our phantom carnival of transient pleasures
Entailing disenchantments, can we win
To the everlasting joy of being reclaimed
By Him, Gopal, as His darling intimates.

SANATAN

And what intimacy, indeed! Could ever we, humans,
Imagine how He can, in love, play up
Once we accept to be under His wing?
Oh, how He assumes our ways, comports Himself
Like a mortal, seeks us out, in Grace, even deigns
To laugh and parley with us, so we may learn
To play at hide and seek with Him in rapture,
As one of us and — loving Him — open ourselves
To His victorious Light that quells the inherent
Darkness of our unregenerate nature!
Our God seeks birth as a human so we may

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Be the more swiftly divinised till our

Flawed natures, become one with His, merge all

Their taints and blurs in His Love's gold-incandescence!

AJIT (hesitantly)

Will you give an instance? Does the Divine, indeed,
Laugh and fence with us as a human?

SANATAN (to Mira)

Tell Him.
For now he is receptive to your pure
Love's own Light — he will not misunderstand.

MIRA (with a smile)

So be it, Gurudev. I will confide
In him now though he may still be at a loss
To grasp with the mind what is beyond its ken.

(To Ajit)

The question you have asked, I can, my son,
Answer from experience. Yes; the One
Who can hurl a myriad suns and stars all spinning
For countless aeons through interstellar space,
Does indeed come down to play and laugh with us,
So we may be transfigured the more swiftly
By His joy and laughter as well. Could any of us
Ever laugh if He declined to laugh with us?

(Laughing to herself)
How once, in a teasing mood. He said to me:

"Mira why do you link your name with mine,
Now that the world decides you're raving mad?"
"Because, my Lord," I answered back, "our world's
Great sages say: you only understand
The idiom of the ones who are raving mad,
And as these, touched by you, still madder grow,
You do feel more and more at home with them."
"Mira, you're not far out," He laughed, "for tell me:

What, in the name of good sense, can they say
When they find me, alas, chasing you who are

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The Queen of the lunatics?" He mused for a while,
Then with a cryptic smile: "Only I wonder
If these sane worldlings ever surmise how
Mad are the sane who prefer shells to pearls
And call mad those pearl-connoisseurs who
Discard the empty shells to cull the pearls!"
(All laugh)

PUNDARIK

Forgive me, mother, because even when
I could not help but laugh with you all now,
A question vexed my mind: how could our Lord,
Who is infinite and immortal, stoop to accept
The limitations of mortality?
How could the last Ruler of our destinies
Not only bear our impure human touch
But put on our mortal nature to court our love?

SANATAN

How can you entertain such strange misgivings?
Could there be aught on earth which did not draw
Its light from His sun, its breath from His life-breath?
Pundit, is it not written in the scriptures: .

"Yadeveha tadamutra yadamutra tadanviha:

Whatever is here is there — in the Beyond

And whatever's there, can here, in the world, be found?"

And not only in the scriptures, friend, but in

The Gita, too, has He not promulgated:

"Ye yatha warn prapadyante tarn stathaiva bhajamydham:

In whatever mode mortals approach and love me
I answer in the same tune and accept them?"
Once you accept that He, too, wants our love
Even as we want His — you can with reason

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Accept as well that He delights in playing
At hide and seek with us in love's sheer rapture.

AJIT

Pardon me, Gurudev! But may I ask
A question about His play?... I know not how
To express my meaning without sounding stilted,
But you who are the soul of tolerance
And understand our human limitations
Far better than the worldly-wise of our world,
Will surely forgive me if I ask how can
The infinite Godhead (who is self-fulfilled,
The Atmaram, basking in His own sun-bliss)
Could seek to be born as a mortal to make love
In the human rhythm to us, crass egoists,
Who dare deny the gods and insult angels,
Who murder innocence and do outstride
Even beasts in bestiality and blood-lust!
I can understand His meeting us half-way
To lead us swifter out of this dark maze
Of sorrow back to our inviolate Homeland
Which we, fools that we are, disclaimed to live
Like self-convicted exiles in a madhouse.
And though I may not fully comprehend
What maya is, still I may perhaps claim
To have a dim perception of the Lord's
Loving solicitude to deliver us all
From the yoke of His own self-projected maya,
This labyrinth of rapturous illusions.

(Turning to Sanatan)
But what bewilders me still everytime
I want to puzzle it out with my mind's lights,
Is the why and wherefore of His predilection
For this our bedlam and His baffling urge
To put on our nature and play at being human
Accepting gladly the hospitality
Of our dismal dungeon — almost, as it were,

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Forgetting, for the nonce. His ways divine!
How could He bring Himself to ape our ways,
Crying and laughing, planning and organising
In the human mode with us, alas, whose antics
Make blush for shame so often the hounds of hell.

SANATAN (frowning).
Insult not the form our Lord Himself has chosen
To manifest His Love's epiphany:

Krishna, the Avatar of flawless beauty,

The Nonpareil, who gave His pledge in the Gita

To be born from age to age to sustain Dharma.

Learn to worship the dust His twin feet hallowed.

Be on your guard: 'tis perilously easy

To scoff and fulminate, judge and condemn

From the dais of the schoolman mind. Never forget:

Humility is the stair to knowledge and glad
Acceptance the essence of surrender. True,
Men do comport themselves abominably,
But has not our Lord stressed that 'tis because
They sully His inviolate light in the soul,
Of love and truth and purity, that He
Takes birth in the world as radiant Avatars
To uplead our way-lost souls to His starry truths?

(Dropping his voice)
But a truce to wordy arguments. Remember:

'Tis not for the such as we, blind egoists,
To indict and curse in righteous indignation,
Since we all do err and sin again and again.
Furthermore, cynic questionings can never
Invoke a deeper lustre — they only cloud
Our half-lit minds till even the little skylights
Of our prisoned souls, clogged by pessimist doubts,
Shut out the night-victorious boons of His sun.

(Putting a hand on his shoulder)
So once you have on bended knees accepted
Our Lord's eternal gospel of love and beauty

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And hailed His glorious lila of delight,
Once you have turned to the orient lead of faith,
You must put behind you your unregenerate nature
Your old and self-sure habit of measuring,
Dissecting, testing and judging from the mind.
Even if you truly thirst to understand
The rhythm of His deep lila, outgrow you must
Your mental way of assaying mystic truths,
The way your purblind ego would goad you on
To plumb the uncharted deeps of cosmic life.
Accept now once for all that as a boy
Has to outgrow his juvenile consciousness
Before he can understand the adult's ways,
Even so one must outgrow life's twilight glimmers,
The preconceptions of the intellect's dawn,
Before one can claim kinship with the glow
Achieved by souls in spirit's noonday knowledge.
In these inner golden worlds the saints and sages
Are the adults whereas you, a mental seeker,
Are but a child from the viewpoint of the wise.
And that's why, down the ages, seers and prophets
Have saluted faith in reverence as the prime
Pathfinder in soul's pilgrim quest for God.

AJIT
But Gurudev, is reason then redundant?

SANATAN

Nay, reason too can help but not until
It learns to be subservient to the soul.
The analytic intellect is helpful
As servant but incompetent as master.
Roundly, it helps you deal with the world of senses;

But once you have set out to win the passport
To the starland of the Spirit — adored of sages
And peopled by the gods — you must first learn
To unlearn what the arrogant atheist reason has taught.

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For reason walks on stilts whereas true faith

And fervour can serve you with angel wings,

And aspiration dower you with strength,

Not the frail physical might or mental force,

But the soul's invincible power which fortifies

Your flame-will to attain the Pinnacle

Of His sun-love, star-knowledge and moon-delight.

(Pointing to Mira)

Your soul has bowed to her because you saw
In her lustre what your fool mind failed to glimpse.
Accept her lead and you shall win to the Peak
Where He will come, in Grace, to play with you
Unfolding vistas of His bliss and beauty
Such as you dare not even dream of now.
Oh, the ecstasy to be His instrument!
To sense His rapturous touch in everything,
To see each act illumined by His ray,
To be hailed at every turn by His dear voice —
What we call naralila: His sporting with us
Revealing at every bend a panorama
Wherein each atom teems with His living Presence
And every spark throbs with His Fire's heart-beats,
When the Godhead born as man in flesh and blood
Redeems mortality with His Love Divine!

(He halts and sighs)

But a truce to the vain endeavour to describe how
The apocalyptic Vision beholds a speck
Glassing the Vast, a drop holding the deep!

AJIT (moved)

I stand rebuked, Gurudev, I bow to you:

I will be on my guard from now on. Only
May I implore you, sire, on bended knees:

For mercy's sake, confide in me — although
I know words cast more shadows, alas, than light,
Still we must make words do till we achieve
The golden Silence where they dissolve in bliss,

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The knots of the heart are loosened and all's explained.
So I beseech you — tell us a little more:

How He, our Blessed Lord, comes down to play
With us in human lilts to manifest
His hoary Divinity?

SANATAN

Ask her, through whom

He came to manifest it all to me.

MIRA (reproving)

Oh, confound not seekers with like cryptic phrases.
He came to you because you grew to love Him.
I served but as an accidental spark
To touch off the conflagration. You know full well:

I only brought you back the Image you had
Entrusted to my keeping in my childhood.
He answered afterwards as Balgopal
Because you had adored Him as a child.
It was all preordained, as your great Guru
Sri Chaitanya had assured you years ago,
And as He, my Gopal, too, bore him out
And told you why you had to wait for me —
Why 'twas predestined. So it was I had
To serve you as a stairway to His Haven:

You reaped through me what you yourself, as Guru,
Had sown in me when I was a romping child.
And so your own love's boon came back to you
Through me, your own creation, even as comes
Back to our earth from clouds what they received
From earth as her offering. So, Master mine,
Tell him you must now in detail how He
Came to you as the Everliving Cherub
To answer your great love in the way you wished.

SANATAN (shaking his head)
Nay, you recount the story — you. His own

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Daughter of Bliss and maid of Brindavan.

MIRA (pouting)

But it is your own life-story, Gurudev.
So don't insist like this!

AJIT

Perhaps he's shy.

MIRA

But why must he be shy once he has opened
The mystic lock and entered the adytum?

SANATAN

But who gave me the key? None knows, my child,
Better than you — how long I had to wait.
So catechize me no more — now that He
At long last has revealed to me why you
Were sent to me. Shall I divulge —

MIRA (with folded hands)

Oh please!
Say not such things again — even in jest.
What the Lord confides in you is not for the public.

SANATAN (smiles to Ajit)

I call you to bear witness now how she
Goads others on to come out into the open,
While she, herself, would lie hid under the veil.

(To Mira)

But tell me, is it fair when your heart knows
The Image you worshipped came to life for me
In answer to your urgent supplication?
So it's for you to speak —

(in mock solemnity)

and may I remind you
Once you have come and pledged yourself to me

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When I command, you have no choice and must —

MIRA (finishing—with a resigned smile)

Obey ... So be it since you leave me no
Alternative, my merciful commander!

(to Ajit)

So listen, my son! It is a thrilling story
Perhaps too thrilling to be acceptable
To the intellect of those who, judging from mind,
Dismiss all high, divine phenomena
That befool our realist reason's man-made logic.
They forget alas, that the ultimate tribunal
Of Truth is not the bench of this our puny
And self-sure intellect whose preconceptions
Are, far too often, belied even by life.

(Shaking her head)

Nay, the last touchstone of the Truth that rules the world
And life is the experience of the soul,
Blest by His Grace no reason can explain.
So listen: only doubt no more, my son,
When those who have received His Grace attest
That He does come still to play as man with men
Who in simple faith accept and worship Him
And thrill to His celestial-human play.

(After a pause)

His Gurudev, the radiant Sri Chaitanya,
Rebuked my Master when, once, he had said:

"As my heart's Lord stays hid behind the veil
I have failed to rend, I want now but to die."
His Guru admonished: "Sanatan, my son,
If one could attain to Him so easily,
I'd die a million deaths. Nay 'tis not by
Dying for Him one opens oneself to His Grace:

Only by living for Him and Him alone,
Surrendering all you have and are to Him,
Can you win Him as your Playmate and Beloved
And achieve the blessedness envied of Gods.

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And then, since you have given yourself to me,
How dare you dispose of what you own no more?
(After a pause)

So my Gurudev was silenced by Sri Chaitanya
Who sent him to this hallowed Eternal City.
I had met him first when I was a little child,
And cherished his sweet memory because
He had booned me with the Image of my Lord.
But I knew not then that he was my appointed
Guru to whom I had to wend and bow
As my soul's one friend and pilot in this life,
Till my Gopal enjoined on me to leave
My world of maya and give myself to him;

For not till then — He said — could I attain
The ultimate fulfilment.

PUNDARIK

Forgive me, mother,
But once Lord Krishna came to you in person
How could you still ever need to accept a Guru?

MIRA

That was a part of what my Master calls.
The great Lord's naralila: the Divine
Puts on the nature of dismal man on earth
So earthlings may, through loving Him, transcend
Their earthly limitations the more swiftly.
For once you love Him you do open to His
Alchemist compassion whose touch alone
Can divinise your egoist impulses.
These are not my words — 'twas He told me this
Many a time — and with what tenderness!
The deepest tenderness on earth is a pale
Reflex of His divine solicitude.
As I'd not leave Him, how He coaxed and argued
With me to explain the recondite mystic truth
That does sustain the Gum's miracle power

Page 168

To ransom the seeker disciple. He confided:

'T was not enough to see the deep as deep

Or the drop in the deep: one must, withal,

See the deep in a drop — Gopal in the Guru—before

One could have an inkling of the starry secret

Of human-divine love, the Infinite held

In the finite, the Timeless in a fleeting moment.

But to resume my story.

(She masters her emotion with effort)

At the time
My Gurudev was living in strict seclusion.,
When I went to him he looked away and told me
To seek another Guru as he had taken
A stern vow not to look on a woman's face
Till the attainment of his heart's Beloved.
I answered him with a song I improvised:

(She starts singing)

Come to my aid, my Lord and King, in thine own land of bliss,
Where every heart is a Gopi-soul, aheave thy feet to kiss.
Brindavan's one Beloved! helpless Mira appeals to thee:

Can one who calls himself a man thy darling minstrel be ?

AJIT

I have often heard this claimed in Brindavan.
But is this also a part of what you call
The Divine's mystic immemorial play
As a human lover — the Everliving Bridegroom
Who comes to the Tryst to savour His own love
In every Gopi-bride-soul here below?

MIRA (Hesitating)
Nay, you'll misunderstand...

AJIT

O mother mine

Evade me not, I pray ...

12

Page 169

MIRA

I am not evading.
I wish I could explain more lucidly,
But how portray with words what is this bliss
That He invites His Gopi-brides to share
With Him in His deathless carnival of love
We call His Raasalila.? Nor can the secret
Of His inviolate Love be ever unveiled,
Still less described, with words. It is revealed
Only to His elect — His blessed brides,
The Gopi-souls, who live from age to age
In utter self-oblivion, immersed
In His love's rapturous deep both in a trance
Of rippleless silence and whirls of delight.
But this last savour of His tenderness
Can never accrue to those who have not been
Initiated in His nectarous Love
Which momently renews itself in time
And thrills, withal, to the heart-beats of the Timeless.
So importune me no more to elucidate
The supreme mystery of His highest Love
He comes to reveal to Gopi-souls alone,
In His Eternal City from age to age.

AJIT

I understand. I promise never again
To ask such futile questions. Pray continue.

MIRA (resumes the thread with a smile of irony)

When I had sung this song, my great ascetic
Gurudev smiled...

SANATAN (amending, with a laugh)

Nay, cried in a tearful voice:

"I. capitulate to you in deep disgrace."

(To Ajit, breezily)
Which was only the beginning of the end

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For lo and behold, in the first Act she enters
As an ideal disciple, bowing in deep
Humility — only to culminate,
In the last Act, as she herself sang once:

(humming)
"Charanki kinkini bani vo sirka taj ho gayi:

"She came to Him to tinkle as His anklets
Only to end by gleaming as His crown!"

MIRA (feigning anger)
If you say such things again —

SANATAN (in mock repentance)

I fold my hands
Apologise. I'll say no more. Go on!

MIRA (waggling an admonitory finger)

Remember I shall hold you to your pledge.
I will not go on if you laugh at me.

SANATAN

How dare you say I dare laugh at the great
Mira who has made history? And say, can we
Ever laugh at one we feel browbeaten by?

PUNDARIK (with folded hands)

'Tis my turn now to fold my hands, Gurudev.
I beseech you not to tax her patience thus.
For, God forbid, were she to lock her lips,
'Tis we who would lose — not Your Holiness.
Nay, mother, heed him not: go on, we pray!
Tell us the great breath-taking story — how
The Lord of the universe, in Grace, put on
The nature and form of man to play with you,
His blessed devotee. When, in these days,
Saints tell us thrilling tales of His compassion,
We, in our ignorance, call them myths, alas!

Page 171

MIRA (flushing)

A myth? My Gopal? One in whose Light glow
Trillion suns and moons and stars in space!
Whose fluting sounds in pain and joy and laughter!
Whose beauty breaks out in festivals of flowers!
In a riot of colours on trees and hills and clouds!
Whose delight in life erupts in high adventure!
Whose magic love touches to incandescence
All things inert and frozen and lustreless!
Who's born from age to age to bless the holy,
Rescue the derelict, redeem the sinners!
Who, like a heavenly Magnet, draws us all
To magnetise our souls with His touch divine!
How dare men dub Him myth, my own Gopal,
For whom I slipped my moorings, to be havened
At His beloved feet, whose intimate touch
Sustains me momently, transforming this
My dismal, torpid life into love's gorgeous
Glittering carnival of Godly rapture!

(She breaks out into ecstatic singing and dancing)

He comes, O friend, He comes to me:

When none are there — in steals my Lord
to keep His Mira company.

When I'm alone — I'm not alone.

For at evetide, when the blue day dies,
He does come, my dream-jewel unique,

To flash upon my ravished eyes,
And then in my heart's desolate shrine

Relumes His star-lamps silently:

He comes, my Lord does come to me.

When clouds of black despond envelop

My way-lost pilgrim soul with Night
He comes. Compassion's Moon, and floods

My darkness with His Beauty's Light.

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And then on my forlorn heart-strings
Plays His elysian melody:

He comes, my Lord does come to me.

He comes to me, friend, at all hours.,

My comrade and mate in life and death
And I'll sing on, from age to age.

Of His deep Grace with my last breath:

How He, the Lover, calls as Love

And thrills my soul everlastingly:

How He, my Lord, still comes to me.

(A silence falls)

PUNDARIK (wiping his eyes)

We need to be thus assured, 0 mother divine!
For if you, saints, stay dumb, how shall we know
What states of blessedness can redeem such
As we, pale wraiths, who wrangle and fight and kill
For ephemeral baubles calling ourselves, alas,
Apostles of worldly wisdom — we, fool braggarts!
'Tis for you who have won to the Eye of Light
To testify to the Sun-resplendent Being
Curtained off by our suicidal pride!

AJIT

Mother, he has said it. How could such as we
Hope to outsoar our vale of tears to His
Joy-jewelled Heaven, His Brindavan of Love,
Where we can meet Him as our Friend and Guide,
Our Father and Mother, Guardian and Beloved?
So, do continue your story, we implore you.
Tell us how the peerless Minstrel-Lover "played
On your heart-strings His heavenly melody."

MIRA (after a brief reflective pause)
So be it... In those days my Gurudev

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Was vowed to a hard ascetic cloistered life

To achieve a consummate mastery over all

His human impulses. He plodded on

With a flaming aspiration sleeplessly.

Everytime my Gopal came to me

And I told him His message, my Gurudev

Grew even more one-pointed in his yoga.

It was a noble saga, a daily, hourly

Victory of invincible aspiration

Against what odds no historian ever shall know:

How the dark hosts went on tempting him and how
He fought them, only propped by his God-love
Which held him in its strong relentless grip
And led him as on a forced march to the Goal
Urging him to surrender his self-will
To the All-will of his All-in-all — till He,
My Gopal, came to him to put a term
To all his doubts and sighs, his pain and struggles.

AJIT

But mother, do tell us a little more
About these struggles. Indeed, I have felt:

We hear too often of high miracles

Of the Lord's compassion dowering seekers with

Blue angel wings we acclaim as vibhutis,

High superhuman powers that stupefy,

But though these thrill us, I yearn more to know

How His effulgent Grace in our darkest crises

Descends like dawn to cleave the soul's blind night.

MIRA (to Sanatan)
You tell him then, since it will surely help.

SANATAN (smiling)

Nay, you can narrate stories — explain, too,
Far better than my humdrum self. So go on.

Page 174

MIRA (to Ajit)

You see now? When he talks about poor Mira,
He glows in a flaming mystic eloquence
Proclaiming — one should share Gopal with all.
But prod him once and lo, he, like a snail,
Withdraws precipitately into his shell!

PUNDARIK (smiling)

Then why not, in revenge, now force him out
Of his purdah, pray — if only to cry quits?

MIRA (laughing)

You are right. So I'll relate how Gopal came
To him out of His own Image, there on the altar.

(After a brief pause)

You know, my son, that we all have to cross
On our way to Him deep hurdles. And He comes
To weigh us daily and He'll try the hardest
The ones who are born great. So my great Guru —

SANATAN
Sh-h-this is not the way —

MIRA (brushing aside)

The workman knows

Which tools will serve him best. Now you have set
To my humble self this task, you must allow me
To tell it in my own way, the more so as
You have conceded that I am as great
A story-teller as you are a sage,
(They all laugh in chorus)

MIRA (continuing)

So my great Guru — I insist on his greatness —
Had to negotiate day after day
Hurdles that would have dismayed even the heroes.
He underwent untold austerities,

Page 175

Never once letting his burning aspiration
For His Love's Peak to cool nor would he ever
Relax his vigilance even for a moment
On his pilgrimage to his one Beloved: Krishna.

(After a pause)

What men call history is a chronicle
Of things our eyes can see or reason collate.
But the lone adventure of the dauntless souls
Can only be divined by kindred spirits.
So I will leave his great deeds to be sung
By those who, following his trail, may discover
The noble heights which shall his footprints cherish.
Here let me only speak of how, at last,
My Gopal came to claim him for His own.

(After a pause)
A few years after my initiation
He told me one day, in despair, that he
Had lost heart and so must resign. It is
A story far too long to be told fully;

So I shall leave it at that — unless he
Volunteers to relate it all himself.

(After a hesitant pause, with a sigh)
When he had talked thus of resigning, I
Shed tears and implored Gopal to help
Him see his way by His compassion's light.
But He only gave me a cryptic smile and vanished ...
It was a dismal dusk ... the sun had set...
Incessant spears of rain streaked down our windows
And a wind moaned through the trees ... I felt depressed
As neverbefore. But still I could not ask
Gopal for any boon. I only prayed
That He ordain for His loyal devotee
What He deemed best for him ...

Just then I heard
The slow thud of his dear familiar footsteps.
He told me he had decided, at long last,
To ask Gopal to put a term to his life.

Page 176

I wept in silence ...Blessing me, he went
To pray to His Lord. But strange is Gopal's lila:

The prayer that he voiced was not the one
He had resolved to offer at His feet!
For it was not despair or grief that welled
Out from his heart: it was a moving song
He sang whose theme was utter self-surrender.
And this was what he sang before the Image
In an ecstasy, as tears coursed down his cheeks:

(Mira, broke out into a song on a sudden impulse — the

song which had been improvised and sung by Sanatan on

that memorable night of his final Realisation,—swaying

in a mystic ecstacy)

How do I know the Truth that still
Overarches our bewildering life,
Save through my prophet heart's profound
Whisperings in the din of strife ?

I know, Gopal, and you know too :

I groped and stumbled oft in my quest
And hailed as Truth what is my fool
Ego's blind urge, by self obsessed.

Nor is it easy to winnow out
From the kernel Truth the chaff of Lie ;

I know what lands me in the Abyss;

My ignorance of your Light on high.

But this I know and you know, too,
That if I chase the call of Gleam
That wakened first my sleeping soul
Twill lead me to the Goal I dream :

So now that shadows loom — accept,
Lord, all I am and have on earth;

May this one yearning me sustain

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Even in the Pit —from birth to birth.

I lay my derelict heart at your feet,
For only you can my soul fulfil:

Make me your own once and for all,
Disposing of me as you will.

(A silence falls. All bow to the ground. Then Sanatan
goes off into a half-trance — bhav samadhi — and Mira
gazes at him for a few minutes. Then she shivers and
looks at Ajit who bows again.)

AJIT (brushing away his tears)
And then?

MIRA

What then?

PUNDARIK

The Blessed Lord...

MIRA (in a faltering accent, her eyes swimming in tears)

Ah, yes.
Oh yes ... we both saw ... He came ... my Gopal...
He came to the fore through His own Image ... Ah, yes ...
When Gurudev ... after the song ... in tears,
Prayed silently — his forehead resting on
My Gopal's feet...

( With a sudden smile)

His marble feet, I mean ...
Then suddenly His toes moved. Gurudev,
Now startled, looked up ... and there, smiling, stood
Gopal, his one Beloved, whom he had sought
In vain for twenty-four long, lonely years!

(To Ajit, anticipating)
Yes, yes. He does still come to reveal Himself
And play in love with all who'd lay their hearts

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At His feet in unconditional surrrender.
And after His advent life flowers in bliss
And beauty and radiance and harmony,
Even as before that apocalyptic hour
All all was dim and dark and woe-begone.
And this epiphany is not a slow
Transition, but a lightning-flash of Grace
No wisdom, however old, could ever predict.
It is a sudden descent like a child's
From its mother's womb — when it's delivered
Out of its stifling prison. Now, even a moment
Before its birth out of its shadow-cabin,
Could it imagine the free, jubilant life
That waited outside? How the unseen friends
Would hail its advent blowing conches in joy
And, above all, how a pair of love-lit eyes
Would rain on it an angel heart's song-welcome?
Could ever the embryo, in the womb, conceive
Of the unbelievable reality
Of one who'd come to change its destiny
From a dungeoned exile into a life on wings
Of light and laughter, bliss and adoration?
Yet did it not live within the unmet mother
Who hailed the infant even before its birth
And nursed it with her every fibre's sap
And heart-throb where with she would hence sustain
Its life of hunger with her love's sweet milk
And soul of aspiration with her deep blessing?
(A silence falls)

MIRA (Gazing at the image in ecstasy)

O my heart's darling, Gopal! How can I
Describe to others who have never known
Your Grace that kisses my twin eyes like light
From day to day — and voice that sings to sleep
My restless heart in the cradle of your arms?

Page 179

(She pauses and shivers intermittently. Sanatan looks
tenderly at her ... Ajit and Pundarik kiss her feet ...
She gives a start and comes to ... After a while with an
effort she masters her tears and resumes)

When He came to Gurudev as Balgopal,
A Wonder-Child of Immortality,
Resplendent like the sun and sweet like moon,
A miracle of glory and harmony,
Incredible and, withal, more real and vivid
Than fires that burn and zephyrs that entrance,
Skies that beckon and stars that foster dream ...

(Her voice grows husky as she rushes on)
The Supernal Child of love and loveliness
Whose touch transforms life into a festival
Where even clods break out into a hymn
Of adoration — making thorns transmute
To flowers whose petals sing with angel lips!

(She pauses and heaves a sigh)
And yet, think: such a miracle Being whose contact
Made space a silent, boundless Vastitude
And time a termless flux of purling life,
Did come to us, a little Gopal, who played
And romped from day to day like a mortal child,
With all His human ways we both thrilled in,
The exquisite pranks manifesting at every turn
His flawless harmony in our world of strife!

AJIT (importunately)
Oh, give us a few examples — we too are thrilled.

MIRA (with a tender smile)

Bless you, son! Listen — how the incredible
Comes to pass in His marvel lila of love!

(She laughs, abstracted, to herself)
In those days. He — our little Gopal — would come
Daily to my Gurudev as though He were

Page 180

Our one and only child; we'd play and play
With Him at hide and seek. And He'd say: "Coo!" —
When we could plainly see Him strive in vain
To hide behind a shrub; for how, alas,
Could the sun hide behind clouds, or fire behind
The chaff? We found out Gopal every time
As, at His touch, the shrubs glowed golden! Or, else,
He'd plunge into the Yamuna — when we both,
Aghast, would cry out "Halt!" — But He would giggle
The more and shout back "Catch me" — when Gurudev,
Frantic with fear, would dive to rescue Him,
Yelling: "Oh halt! — The current is too strong there,
In midstream — have you taken leave of your senses?" —
And so on — but who listened? Not He, the Elusive
Lightning who came to dazzle us for a moment
Only to vanish — leaving a legacy
Of starless gloom in which light-thirsty soul
Groped vainly for the blessed epiphany.
So while we stayed in an agonised suspense,,
He, spilling His nectarous laughter, swam ever on.
But what a blissful anguish 'twas of love
We came to feel — and what a prayer cascaded
Out from my heart of pain which was, withal,
A heave of mystic joy that beggars description!
To feel He had come to stay with us as our Guest,
The Lord who was the Host of the universe,
Who revealed to us how pain was one with bliss!
And what a lovely maya to marvel at — this
Our incredible solicitude for One
Whom not all the oceans of His myriad worlds
Could ever drown — One who with just a laugh
Could still the demon storms and titan waves!
Then, sometimes, in the twinkling of an eye,
Our little Truant, like a squirrel, climbed
Up onto the topmost branch of a giant tree
And there, poised like an acrobat, sent forth peals
And peals of triumphant laughter, while Gurudev

Page 181

Would thunder at Him from below: "Come down,
You naughty boy — you'll fall and break your neck!"
"Not I — I never can fall," He rang out, chuckling,
Then, tantalising: "Look! I can sing too!"
And He would sing and sing to ravish the air,
And dance — when even my heart missed a beat! —
Such is the maya of His human play
That, knowing who He was, my head reeled when
With a sommersault He leapt bang down and, to —
Before my Gurudev, aghast, had time
To cry out and run to Him — He rose and flew,
An unearthly arrow made of a golden gleam!

(After a pause)

And then, day after marvellous day, things happened
Which gave us glimpses of... I know not how
To define what flashed before our entranced eyes ...
We call it Divine Grace, but can we, alas,
Through symbols convey what is symbolised?
Can a painted flame, however fine, caress
Cold limbs with a real fire's exquisite warmth,
Or kiss its way through the passage of the eyes
To golden the heart's despond in the thrall of gloom?
To give but an instance: 'Tis so moving! Listen.
There lived, at a stone's throw from our humble hut,
A devotee who, in love's simple faith,
Wove garlands for the Image installed in his shrine,
And for twelve years had only worshipped Him
With this sole ritual he knew on earth.
One day, as we were bathing little Gopal
In the Yamuna, we saw the priest afar,
Leaving his temple weeping in deep sorrow.
My Gurudev ran fast and halted him.
He said he had lost heart and so decided
To drown himself in the Yamuna because
The Blessed Lord had not come to him even once
When He, our Gopal — who was visible
Only to us and who was at the time

Page 182

Dancing in midstream — in a moment, lo,
Stood before His derelict devotee
And asked, in tears: "Friend Srinivas! who will
From now on weave my garland if you leave me?"

PUNDARIK (starts and falters out)

He came to ... our old neighbour ... Srinivas?
Why,, I never dreamed ... Can it, indeed, be true?

SANATAN (smiles)

You are sceptical because your mind is prone
To judge a clear, deep pool by its dark moss.
But the surface is deceptive, the more so when
Those we assess we see from day to day.
Such neighbours look too common — do they not?
But the Lord is the soul's assessor and appraises
A devotee not by his mental gifts
Or glitters that catch the eye — but only by
His psyche's aspiration to answer His call.
You looked down on your neighbour because he was
To you "old Srinivas" whose weaving garlands
From day to day you did perhaps at home
Laugh at complacently, and said to yourself
"No fool like an old fool." But Lord Krishna saw
In the "old fool" what our eyes cannot see:

His deep love, yearning and, above all, his patience
Which made him go on weaving garlands in love
Day after weary day, year after year.
And it is such devout and faithful souls
He comes to befriend in the way they wish.
That is why He is known as Premadas,
The servant of love. Those who are lionized
By royalty, sought out by fortune-hunters,
Fawned on by sycophants and hymned by knights,
Philosophers, ministers and master-builders
As world-celebrities are not His darlings,
He only courts the destitutes who turn

Page 183

To Him and worship Him as their one Friend,
Offering their hearts' humble and loyal love.

MIRA (nodding)

And still the savants of the world will doubt
Whether He is compassionate and will come
To answer our prayers.

(To Pundarik)

But I tell you, my son,
He does still come to all who appeal to Him.
Only, alas, we seldom ask for the Eye
Of Light without which none can glimpse His Presence.
But He will stay away as long as we
Can well dispense with Him and rest content
With the little pleasures of our lesser loves
We love far more than His Image in our hearts.
But to resume my story.

(After a pause)

My Gurudev,
Since he came to Brindavan has lived on alms
From day to day. When Gopal stayed with us,
He brought me what he received which I cooked
For all, and Gopal, daily, shared with us
What I served Him,

AJIT (incredulous)

Mother, do I understand:

He had his meals with you from day to day?

SANATAN(smiles)

Why not? — Did He not come to play with us
As a human-divine Child?

MIRA

And shall I add
He slept as well beside my Gurudev?

Page 184

You see. He had made His home with us and so

We had to provide for Him as with a ward,

For that was the game, and when He comes to play

As a child. He does abide by the rules which He

Made for His play to make us all forget

That He is playing a role in a masque or mime.

And He did look his part, my unique Actor

Whom Gurudev fed with his own hands and I

Told Him at night heroic or fairy tales

Or crooned Him to sleep as He snuggled against my breast.

(After a pause, in a moved voice)
It was, indeed, a great experience
To have to protect One who protects the world!
And so rapturous was His every gesture and touch,
That we only lived for Him and would have none
To pay us a visit nor would we call on others.
The dream had come true and life had, withal,
Become a dream from which we dreaded daily
To wake and find Him there no more.

(Her voice quavers but she controls herself)

But a truce!
The blessedness of His evergreen compassion
(Every soul's birthright and yet oh, how
The soul still quails to claim it when He comes!)
Does seem too real to be credible!
So to end with one more episode.

(After a pause, sedately)

One day,
My Gurudev served little Gopal with rice
And lentil soup — 'twas all he had received
As alms that morning ... Gopal, tasting the soup,
Made a wry face and whimpered: "It has no salt!"
I felt a pang in my heart. But Gurudev
Rejoined: "You are impossible, Gopal!
You know I serve you day by day with what
I get by begging. And I told you also

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We have no salt today. Still you'll insist,
You spoilt child, on our serving you with things
We lack! You know full well — we are no lords
Or zemindars. We're beggars who live on alms.
Yet you will daily demand no end of things!
One day you'll cry for milk or buttered rice;

On the morrow — sweets and candies; and then — what?
Pilau and pie and perhaps princely curries ?
Nay 'twill not do, my child, to wrinkle your nose:

You must make do with what we can procure.
Be not self-willed nor cry again for the moon."

(She laughs brushing away two tears)
And He, the King of the universe, thus rebuked,
Smiled through His tears and gladly toed the line.

(Now sudden tears leap to her eyes again and then trickle

down her cheeks)

'Tis so He comes, our Lord, from age to age,
To His darling deovtees as a Being of light
And bliss and love and beauty to play with them:

Some He will install on a royal throne,

To blaze a trail of glory along their paths,

While others He will visit, with equal Grace,

To wean from all they cherish. On these He'll lay

His yoke of blessed penury and make

Them mendicants in His Name to grant, in Grace,

The Boon of boons — His utter Self of light,

Beatitude and golden harmony,

Unleashing through His every human gesture

A deluge of inviolable Love

That passes understanding and opens to earth

Marvellous vistas of how we, frail mortals,

Can live to manifest His deathless lila

Of human-divine lilt, as His own playmates,

A status envied of the Gods in Heaven,

(She turns, in tears, to the Image and breaks out once

more into an ecstatic song and dance)

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Oh, marvellous were the things I've seen:

Deeps merged in drops and knocked at paupers'

doors my Lord, the Evergreen !
Aye, marvellous were the things I've seen!

Oh, marvellous were the things I've seen:

The moon dissolved in silver love and bathed

the world in tenderness

Dawn-maiden blushed to golden wistful

night's wan brow with her shy kiss;

Glimmered the morning's lovely smile

the lone star-clusters in between

Aye, marvellous were the things I've seen!

Oh, marvellous were the things I've seen:

The rifled buds were drained, alas,

of honey by the ruthless bee,
But as she crooned again, their hearts

they opened to her in ecstasy!
The earth outsprayed her dust in the sky

who blessed her with blue rain serene!
Aye, marvellous were the things I've seen!

Oh, marvellous were the things I've seen:

The Supreme Himself to Brindavan

came down to sport as a sylvan swain;

The Immortal, born as mortal, played

His Flute to charm away our pain;

The King of kings, in the Guru's guise,

Blessed Mira, His slave and made her queen!
Aye, marvellous were the things I've seen!

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