Chaitanya and Mira

Act Two

In her temple at Brindavan, on the full-moon night of Ras, Mira is seen singing before her beloved Image of Gopal. The windows on one side of the temple open on the rippling Yamuna. A number of pilgrims and devotees listen on, in rapture. On her left Ajit, a Brahmin pedant, frowns on her as she starts dancing. On her right sits her Gurudev, Sri Sanatan, and the temple-priest, Pundarik.

MIRA (Sings in a half-trance of ecstasy)

Blessed art thou, 0 soul, to be born,

May not thy days glide by in vain.
Remember: priceless is this life:

Aspire His lotus-feet to attain.

The Vedas are mere words, if thou
Stay blind to His starry secrecies;

The deep of love divine is rife

With pearls of light — dive dive for these.

The austere disclaim the lure of pelf,
And miss the joy of harmony;

So sinks the ego-laden boat

The moment she puts out to sea.

The King broods on, unhappy, in

His royal palace and revelries;

The pundits extol learning, alas!

Nor find in books repose or peace!

Temples can lead none to His feet,

Nor floral offerings to His Grace;

Blessed are those alone who are called

And chosen to meet Him face to face.

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And they are the elect who sing His Name

In love's one-pointed ecstasy;

For only in loyal, love-lit hearts

He comes to dwell everlastingly.

(Pendant Ajit, a proud aristocrat,

Who loved to flaunt his wealth and erudition,

Looked on and frowned in deep distaste when, lo!

In a swift crescendo of emotion, Mira

Began to dance in a flaming ecstasy.

The simple, reverent rustics who had flocked

To the holy of holies gazed in a trance of joy:

The women sobbed; the children watched, overawed,

And many a pilgrim, who had come from afar

To have her blessing, bowed down to the ground.

Had they not all adored her in their hearts

And sung her songs in their own huts and shrines ?

Had not the name of Mevar's beautiful Queen,

The Queen who had left her palace and throne to roam,

Begging her way and singing His Name in tears,

Become a legend in her brief lifetime!

For a Queen to be a mendicant in His Name !

The song was over; the temple priest, overwhelmed,
Rose to his feet and then, threading his way
Through the hushed throng, dispensed the holy prasad
To the eager devotees of the Blessed Lord.
Lastly, sobbing aloud, he bowed before
The saintly singer and, crying out "Mother, mother !"
Lay prostrate with his brow on her lotus feet.
This was the last straw: the highbrow critic curled
His lips in scorn and cut in mordantly:)

AJIT

Shame, shame! Oh, for a Brahmin, a priest, to bow
Obsequiously to a woman, who — to judge
from her own songs — is a country innocent,

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Unversed in the Vedas and ] and philosophy,
Nor, by birth, even a Brahmin!"

PUNDARIK (aghast)

Hold, Sir, hold!

Beware of trespassing against the holy!
May I recall you to what Krishna said
To Arjun once — a saying we often quote:

'Ye me bhaktajanah Partha ! mama bhakta na te janah:

Madbhaktaanaancha ye bhakta mama bhakta hi te narah.'

Who loves me alone is not so close to me
As those who truly love my devotee.

Besides, she is — a noble Queen —

AJIT

Halt, fool!

A Queen, indeed, to reject her veil — and go
Begging in the street, hobnobbing with mendicants
And dancing from dawn to dusk in public temples!
And what dances! what songs! — as puerile
As deficient in decency!

(Turning on Mira in anger)

How dare you
Belittle the Vedas adored of all — decry
Our time-old rites and mod( modes of worship praised
By our sages from the dawn of time? You scoff"
At floral offerings. A peerless poet
Are you — turning out only only tinsel verse!
A singer — singing sentimental songs!
A great Queen — catering fang for the vulgar yokels!
A composer trading in cheap metaphors
And obvious rhymes and similes! You may
Deceive the rabble with your sentimental
Effusion — captivate their their simple hearts
Playing on their creduality, revealing

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Romantic short cuts to the One who stays
Beyond the ken of the mightiest saints and seers
Till after years and years of arduous
Austerities they win to the Eye of Light;

But how can you impose on the ones who know:

The illuminates ? You'll only raise a smile
Asserting that the One-without-a-second
Must come in haste and go on playing His flute
To entertain the ones who can but sing
Trite lachrymose love-lyrics or repeat
His man-made epithets ...

(He halts, then waggling an admonitory forefinger at her)

A truce, I say,
A fool petitioning and spurious fervour!
At your peril play with fire! Beware! For falsehood
Must always, like a boomerang, recoil
On the head of the false prophet. Or, in the words
Of the Upanishad: the head of the blasphemer
Falls severed from his neck down into the pit.

(Drawing a deep breath)
Remember: sages and saints have, down the ages,
Proclaimed that none may gallop to the endless Om
Save on the inviolate steed of meditation,
Disclaiming flesh in favour of the Spirit.
Your delirious bhakti, wallowing in the dust,
Shedding rivers of tears shall not avail
Even if you sang on His Name for aeons.
Only knowledge, propped by the soul's deep strength,
Can serve as the diamond stairway to His Peak.
And then, avoid we must the countless pitfalls,
Straying never from virtue, doing good
To all who have sinned and fallen, helping in pity
Those who cry for our help and radiant guidance,
Compassionately fulfilling our souls with theirs
And lastly, soaring, we must transcend earth's
Downpull of dust on wisdom's aerial wings.
(A silence falls)

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MIRA (Turning towards the Image she stays silent for a

while, then faces her challenger with a ironical smile)

My learned and stalwart friend! How I do envy
Your splendid infallible knowledge! For I freely
Confess I can lay no claim to the gifts
That made you flower out into what you are
Today: robust, self-righteous and sonorous!
I am sad that such equipment as I have
(Which made me into what I am today,)
Enjoys not your approval. But woe is me:

They can only sigh for the blue who have no wings!
My sole strength and support is He, my Lord
Within, even as without, in the world. And so
I can only cry and cling to Him, my sweet
And unique Guide and Stay, as helplessly
As a child does to its mother and insists
On being nursed and sustained by her love.

(After a pause)

But who ever swam across life's surging main
And reached the other Shore, the Harbour of Bliss,
Relying but on his twin frail arms' strength
And the nickering light of his wistful, feeble eyes
That casts more shades than lustre? Nor have I
Your learning's dazzling Beacon to help me find
My way through the dark cross-currents of desire.
Only His Grace's star and mercy's boat,
Propelled by His love's breeze, can take me across.

(With a quizzical smile)
The Potter did not choose to shape me in
A heroic mould like yours; nor have I wings
To help me defy the earth's downpull of dust.
But then, I love to cleave to earth and adore
To kiss her dust with my lips of clay — the dust
Touched into hallowed jewels by His feet.
My soul's one prayer has been from birth to birth —
(Turning to the Image she breaks out into song)

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Take me to thy sky — I cry no more;

I ask for strength to tread the Way.
I ache not for security;

To be havened at thy feet I pray.

With thy Name's all-consuming Fire

My dross burn everlastingly;

May my love's longing wane no more,

Were even the air to cease to be.

I fear not pain nor joy desire,

Thrill not to life nor death now dread;

Virtue and sin are one to me,

Ennui and zest for me are dead.

I yearn not for thy starlands where

High gods of bliss and beauty reign;

I only ask: Oh, grant that I

Be born here time and time again

In Brindavan — acclaiming all

That comes my way to sing of Thee:

For the night of pain for Thy sake borne,

Lord, dawns into golden ecstasy.

(The song came to an end but the cadence lingered...

An overawing hush pulsated in

The temple-room. The women wept... and men

Gazed at her as she stood there swaying in trance

Rapt in her heart's one Lord who had come to life

To commune with her and inspire her songs of love.

The breeze stood charmed and time forgot to flow

As a tremulous, mystic beauty's aura shimmered

Around her luminous, ethereal form ...

And then the spell was broken: the pedant lashed out)

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AJIT

Your empty platitudes and cheap devotion
May take in nitwits; but I know, being wise,
That saintly poses, even as irised bubbles,
Only beguile the gullible credulous.
These, prone to be caught with chaff, take the husk for corn
And idolize all who can flood the earth
With gushing tears that riot like epidemics.
Alas, this bhakti's maya, make-believe,
Leads by the nose the fools, easily tickled
By a nervous joy they nurse as heavenly passion.

(He addresses the crowd in a stentorian voice)
Nay, worship of emotion or effervescing
Ecstasies cannot deliver the goods.

(Glowering at Mira)

I warn you against misleading trustful rustics
With coloured myths and spurious romance.
For only Knowledge and real dauntless strength
Can pass beyond the clutch of Siren Maya.

MIRA (clapping her hands in childlike glee)

Now, now, my good Sir, you are caught at last
By your own ignorance of what they all .
Know — who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

AJIT (bridling)

Silence! how dare you call me ignorant
When I say that only knowledge and learning can
Deliver us from Circean Maya's thrall?
For the stark truth is that bhakti cannot withstand
The onslaught of Siren Maya. So —

MIRA (folding her hands)

You need
Hardly reiterate what was drummed so often
By the valiant souls who trod the thoroughfare
Of masculine Knowledge as against the blind

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Alley of feminine bhakti. They may all

Be the architects of human destiny,

Rare spirits who know all there is to know

And think that what they know not can be scotched

As suspect, invalid or fairy tale —

(With a mocking smile)
But what can they know who have never known
True bhakti's blessed pain and dream come true,
Nor learnt that they win all who renounce all?
You frown on Maya and claim that only the hoary
Wisdom of the last, inviolable Knowledge
Can be proof against her irresistible charm,
But though Knowledge may be older than the sky
And stronger than the pinnacle — still, I ask you:"
Can a man, however vigilant and learned,
Tell always a woman's mask from her face beneath?
Dare you deny that her allure can swiftly
Take in the wariest of men on earth?
Does not her subtle and insidious
Cajolery, pulling invisible strings, make even
The Titans dance and bow to her like puppets?

(After a pause)

But bhakti, being a woman herself, knows
What Maya, the deep Enchantress, is and how
She can deflect the strongest from their paths
By her heady wine of beauty and honeyed words
Which, wafting Heaven's ambrosia, drag her dupes
Down rose-strewn paths into the abyss of hell.
Friend, bhakti can lead home where knowledge stumbles.
Only a hen knows how hens hatch, and so
I beg to contend that when you dismiss bhakti
As an unreliable guide you only betray
Your pathetic ignorance of how true bhakti
Invokes the Grace of Light from Love's Brindavan.

(Ajit catches his breath and bows his head; the audience,
overawed by Mira's passionate sincerity, gaze in

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silence at her; then, suddenly, the women titter and men
whisper commenting on the discomfiture of the pedant,
which flusters him and he glowers at his scoffers contemptuously).

AJIT (to the devotees)

You imbeciles! ... who can only cringe and grovel...
And think ... that I... but you are beneath contempt.

(Turning on Mira)

You have, indeed, a glib tongue you can wag
To advantage ... and you do know how to play
To the gallery. But ...

(losing his thread completely in his high wrath)

pert tongues, as we all know,
Can only spew out spittle. Our world today
Needs men who can serve the poor, not merely mouth
Shibboleths and sing sentimental tosh.
We work and achieve — not prattle on to our doom!
We heal our ailing fellow-creatures, help
Redress their suffering! You are parasites
And so can only cater for your ilk,
Living on alms, creating nothing of value
To society. We are the salt of the earth,
Selfless master builders who live to serve
And teach men to hitch their waggons to the stars.

MIRA (holding his eyes and smiling)

I understand, friend, why you divagate.
But do pray listen: Once upon a time
I begged my way along the Ganga's bank
For days and days. I saw how she meandered
On a sinuous course as her sweet destiny
Led her ever purling on. And I saw, too,
That, as she danced along, she made some plains
Break out into a flame of green and gold,
While others laughed as orchards or blue groves
And, lastly, some lovely towns and villages

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Gleamed out as holy haunts where pilgrims flocked
To sing His Name and attain the last fulfilment.

(Turning to the Image and with a beatific smile)

When the Deep's flute calls: "Come, come!"

I run to Him — I know not why:

I only know — 'tis/or Him

I sing and dance and cry.

They ask: "How can you yearn

For One you never have seen ?"
But I see naught but my Blue

Beloved without or within.

As I ripple on, green fields wave
Their myriad banners to me;

Buds break to blossom and leaves
Applaud in ecstasy:

"O maid of the viewless deep !

Thou follow thy destiny
And fulfil us, answering

His call everlastingly."

(Wiping her eyes)

And then, my good friend, suddenly I heard
A mountain-river vaunt: "The desert, too,
I'll irrigate." And so she was deflected
By her fool pride from the call her soul had heard
In her mystic snow-white trance: the imperious call
Of the blue song of the sea. She hurtled along
The parched and hungry sands and met her doom
In a dismal stagnant marsh — the desert stayed
Famished and burned on glaring at the sky
And the ocean's self-willed daughter sang no more
Her love's resistless, rapturous melody."

(With a smile of irony)

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Have I, friend, met your question? I exploited
This simile to stress that only when
We live for Him and learn to love Him — not
Among a million fool things we profess
To love from a sense of duty — but above
All other things — 'tis only then we may
Claim truly to live for all, fulfilling all.
And that is why I say: who garners loses,
And who loses all for Him gains all for ever.

(A hum of approval ripples through the pilgrims and
the women heave a sigh of deep relief. Which irks the
pedant; he answers stingingly)

AJIT

It's all very well to concoct similes.
But analogies or popular images
Cannot be surrogates for arguments.
You sing of the far blue song and the dread doom
That waits in ambush for the ocean's maid.
But confound it all! trash poetry is not life!
How can you vaunt: to sing your Gopal's Name
Is to live for Him? And why, in the name of good sense,
Must sober men stake all they have for Him?
You grandly aver that when one loses all
For your great Gopal, one wins back all for ever.
A truce to drivel! Tell me, why must I
Hark back to such delirious lunacy?
Why must I slip my moorings, called by a mad
Urge to a void non-entity — gamble away
The certain for the uncertain, at best a dream,
A fantasy? Only singing His Name how can one
Work the miracle, transcend Name and Form
And win the Primal Om no words can limn?
Last, disavow we must this suicidal
Gospel of penury and self-abasement.
The great Lord never sent us to this wondrous

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Multitudinous carnival of beauty
To vegetate in a barren isolation,
Outlawing life's romance and rich adventure,
In favour of a grim asceticism.
One must aspire for spontaneity,
Not inhibition; harmony, not din;

Realisation, not renunciation
Of this festal world of senses for Gopal,
Whether with four divine arms in Vaikuntha,
Two human ones in Gokul or none — in Puri.

MIRA (unperturbed)

My furious friend, forgive me if I plead
That you have misconstrued my message. I
Never once claimed that I had, of set purpose,
Wished to renounce your festal world of senses
For Gods with a million arms or angels with none.
I only spoke of loving my Gopal,
Living for Him and doing His will in joy,
As against my unillumined self-will. Also,
Why fight a shadow? When did I extol
he cult of all-renunciation? When
You truly love Gopal you only ask:

How you may best achieve your soul's surrender
At His twin lotus feet and realise
That He's your heart's one Lord to whom you offer
In sheer delight all, all you have and are,
Counting no cost and never calculating
How He will indemnify you for your loss.
Friend, this is no romance, nor poets' irised
Fancy which peters out with the ascent
Of the Sun that brooks no hues. Not once have I
Felt I was renouncing this or that for Him.
I only aver that when I move a step
Toward Him, my Gleaming Orient, my Gopal,
I do, inevitably, put behind me
This westering world of senses you adore

But I find a stagnant bog.

(She halts, then with a sigh)

Perhaps, friend, you,
With your vision of a worldling, cannot help
But look down on all pilgrimage of the soul
And so make out Love's long, lone path as strewn
With roses, roses, roses all the way.
But how can one who stays enamoured of
Life's surface ripples — ever plumb the abysmal
Despond that makes one cry out for a glimpse,
A fleeting touch of the elusive dream Beloved?

(Her eyes glisten)

But believe me, friend, 'tis a despond that kindles
A mystic flame of faith and aspiration
In the heart of despair. I know not how it happens,
Nor can I explain how His Grace steers our frail
Storm-tossed boats through perilous reefs and shoals
Into His harbour of blue harmony.
I only know how it sustains and saves —
But nay, you'll laugh — so I will say no more.

(To the amazement of the devotees the pedant folds his
hands' )

AJIT

Forgive me: I, too, cannot... at all... explain ...
But you ... your voice ... your tears and ... above all
Your unmistakable sincerity
Has touched a chord ... and so continue, I pray.
And believe me, I am not quite what I seem.
A time was ... when I, too, had faith and fervour.
But pride has been my downfall... so go on:

I have found my long-lost mother in you again!

MIRA (with a radiant smile)

You see, my son, how His invisible Grace,
Like the wizard's wand, can transform visible things.

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The brightest intellect stands stupefied
Before the deep epiphany of His Grace ...
It is a dateless mystery none can plumb ...
Only when one resigns can one begin
To glimpse ... but listen, I will tell you how
My Gopal came to me, the derelict.

(Warming up)

Once, after I had left my palace to beg
My way to Brindavan, a destitute,
Calamities swooped down on me, alas,
At every bend — I had no respite, till
The light before my sore eyes was eclipsed,
And an abscess on my left thigh crippled me.
Limping I trudged along in deep despair;

But how to wend my way to Brindavan
Which seemed now all but unattainable!
All hope had died ... At last, I found a chance
Shelter in a wayside cave when the sun had set.
I lay down utterly spent and closed my eyes.
I thought I would die of sheer fatigue and thirst,
But could not even rise to my feet. I wept
And asked Gopal (who stayed away since the day
I had become a mendicant in His Name):

Was this, indeed, my destiny — the Last Act
Of the passion-play of my love's rapturous quest:

To fail and be lulled to everlasting sleep?
I cried out: "Where are you, my one Beloved,
For whom I staked my all? Can you not see
My desperate plight? Say, to whom can I turn
If you, my sole Sustainer, now desert me
In my zero hour?" But only the echo mocked
My anguished cry when, on a sudden, a deep
Voice from my inmost heart admonished me:

"Has He not all your life with roses strewn
The paths you have trodden blithely, picking your way
By His own Love's light He had lit in your heart."
In a flash, my vision opened and I saw

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That when the sky is blue and the earth ashine
Like a green carpet under our feet, and life
Is a care-free joy-ride to the rainbow goal,
We all can sing His praises fervently
And thank Him for His endless boons of Grace
Which uplift earth to Heaven and make our days
Flawless like music falling from angels' harps;

Tis only when the skies hurl thunder and lightning
When storms are unleashed and hope's crystal streams
Hurtle and swirl, turbid with eddies of Fate;

When kindness, sympathy, happiness and laughter

Flicker like half-forgotten memories

Or twinkle like wan dream-stars half-veiled by clouds -

'Tis only then our faith and love are tested

And the authentic self-surrender is achieved ...

The vision dislimned, but its cadence lingered

And my black despond dissolved in grateful tears

Then upon my lips broke out an impassioned song,

Of unquestioning acceptance and I sang,

Offering all I had and was at His feet:

"Man bhave jiun rakh, Prabhuji,

Man bhave jiun rakh:

Oh, keep me as you will, my Lord,

Dispose of me as you will."

Then, as I sang on this refrain, in a moment,
My every cell and pore spilled ecstasy
And a new, invincible, death-defiant strength
Rushed into my blood to heal my agelong pain,
My sorrows, heart-ache, questionings — all ceased
When, lo, I saw Him — my Beloved, Gopal,
Wherever I looked! I picked up a grain of sand,
And there, too. He was mirrored! In every leaf
I saw Him nod, through every flower He smiled:

The trance of every clod was broken because
His love outwelled from every particle.

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In my joy I pressed my swollen thigh, when all

The festering poison oozed out, giving me

Instant relief. Only my thirst survived.

But as I lay down once again, resolved

To accept death, I saw a Shepherd Boy!

'You are thirsty, blessed maid?' He asked and, smiling,

Poured water gently down my mouth. I clapped

My hands like a child and said: 'Come in what guise

You will, Gopal, but even if you tiptoed

Over my grave, I'd know you by your footfall.

You can no more conceal yourself from Mira

Than grim cloud-curtains can conceal the sun.'

He gave me a dazzling smile, blessed me and vanished.

But since that memorable day His play

At hide and seek with me came to an end;

For I saw nothing but Him wherever I looked:

From the infinitesimal dust to the boundless sky.

(Pausing for breath)
His Grace sustains me now at every step
And, as I walk on air, my heart goes on
Singing paeans to His fathomless Grace!
'Tis not a fairy tale nor hearsay: I
Have realised through my trials and tribulations
That His one touch can golden the blackest night
Of agony into a marvellous, deathless dawn.
He veils His Beauty's Face to deepen our yearning
For His loveliness, and suffers the powers that be
To cast us into Hades but to teach us
This supreme lesson that one who has passioned for Him
Can never go under nor need parley with
The little officials of the world — to win
Flowers that fade, laurels that swiftly pall
And mirage that lures but fails to appease thirst.

(She breaks out into an ecstatic song)

They say. Lord, this Thy world is
A carnival of bliss

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And hails us like the rainbow
Agleam with mysteries.

But they know not what transpires

When Thy Love's Flutelet calls:

How its garish footlights fade out

And the sweetest caress palls !

Then as the gay voices trail off

And joy-bells ring no more,
Mira puts out to sea. Lord,

Athirst for Thy viewless Shore.

The radiant faces she cherished

Now twinkle like fireflies
And she breaks away from her moorings

Led by Thy Love's star-eyes.

Then Thy answering footfall sounds in

Her soul, in a desolate gloom
And Thy Name as the Herald steps in

To take her to Thee, her Home.

"Halt, halt /" — her dear ones plead still,

But they have not heard Thy call:

They find the world's irised bubbles

A marvellous carnival.

Sings Thy Flute again: 'Come, Mira!

Thou chant His Name and be
His play-mate in Brindavan's

Unearthly felicity.'

They entreat: 'Thy palace is splendid

And without waits ambushed gloom'.
But wherever I look, I see. Lord,

Thy tender star-eyes bloom.

What once was my darling palace

Now looms as a prison of pain;

Can one who has winged Thy Love's sky

Wend back to the dungeon again ?

AJIT (With folded hands and in a husky voice:)
O mother, forgive a born fool's antics, I pray:

A fool who knew you not for what you were
Because he was vain and pride had made him blind.
But a sigh awakes: Can ever the deaf know how
Great music thrills or a cave-man's soul respond
To the ocean-rumble of the Vedic verse?

(Brushing away two tears' )
But His Grace, like the wind, bloweth where it listeth:

So she came tonight to touch me with her wand

And opened my eyes to your divinity.

You know what she made me see. Still I'll recount

The revelation as it came to me,

To offer it at your feet in grateful joy.

(Pausing and indicating the Image of Gopal:)
When you were singing of how His Love's Flute came
To wrench you off your cherished moorings, I
All on a sudden, saw your human face
Transfigured ... in an ecstasy ... when like
A rocket it flung out myriad flaming atoms
Which hung in the air suspended like star-dust
And then, while dancing, were condensed ... 0 bliss! ..
Into a face ... 'twas yours, O mother ... and yet
It was not made of flesh but protean sparks!

(After a brief pause, breathlessly)
Thereafter, close to you, I glimpsed a lovely
Cerulean aura which gyred and whirled and danced
Till the overarching heavens seemed to sway
And reel, intoxicate with rapture ... when ...
Oh, blessed am I to have seen what I have seen! ...
Two exquisite, resplendent feet emerged
Of a little boy whose form I could not see

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... But only His self-luminous contour ... Then
I saw you, swinging with Him as His own play-mate
Who is born from age to age to sport with Him
As His darling Gopi-maid He new-created
To see His own pure love and loveliness
Mirrored in her divine, adoring eyes!

MIRA (with a quizzical smile)

And then — what else? Did you not see and hear
Something still more ... ravishing — though incredible?

AJIT (smiling)

You are pleased to play at hide and seek with me,
Are you not — since you do know what I saw? ...
Still, I'll obey ... Then, as you whirled with Him
My blood, too, whirled inebriate ... as I saw
Blue flowers of light outpetal everywhere
From the hallowed dust that kissed your feet and His!
And lastly, lo! I saw a Flute's outline
Swaying in the air ... but no face, lips or fingers ...
And I heard it calling ... to me ... from afar!

(His voice falters as tears course down his cheeks')
Forgive, O mother, the ... pitiful ignorance
Of one whose ... eyes of flesh can only see
This world as made of dust and din and gloom
And not as His holy playground where His Love
Through Beauty manifesting leads to Bliss.
But we ... poor elfs and dwarfs ... hugging our blindness,
Can only hymn the romance of earthly nights.
We scout as myth His miracle Light (the sole
Lustre that can repeal our global gloom)
And in the same breath flaunt — 0 irony! —
Our Reason's flickering candle-flame which casts
More questioning shadows than certitude's sunbeams,
As the ultimate tribunal of all truth.
I say this, mother, because now I have seen,
Through your Grace, how and where I went astray:

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'Twas pride and self-complacence, first and last.
So I conned the Vedas, read the saints' lives, scanned
Old chronicles of mystic ecstasies,
But interpreting them everytime, alas,
With my self-sure arrogance and so opined
That this our world of senses and our minds
Are all we have to depend on and employ.
So I aligned with fools who, like me, held
That our intellect alone can be our pilot

In this riddling world, all other guides are suspect.
(With a rueful smile)

Fools must be fools. No wonder, mother, I failed
To realise that the Truth that upholds our world
Is beyond the comprehension of the mind
Which never can see life for what it is:

A Brindavan of bliss when He comes to play,
Day after festal day with us and we
In joy surrender all we have at His feet
And so fulfil our destiny through love.
Only, mother, I wonder if I may — "

MIRA (Touching his head in token of blessing)

Ask what you will, without a qualm, my son!
For who knows — perhaps the One who danced with me
To help you see, has chosen to make you want
To be trained to hear — as He so often does,
In ways that baffle our reason. Who can tell
When He will play His Flute and whose dark doubts
Shall transmute to radiant certitudes as night's pain
Thrills into golden ecstasy at dawn!"

AJIT (kissing her feet)

I have now, at long last, not only seen
His redeeming feet, but heard the voice as well
Of the Guru He appointed for me. So
You must, 0 mother, believe me when I claim
That I ask now not to question, but to learn.

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(Folding his hands')
Mother, I humbly ask you: how can one
Attain to illumination through a mere
Singing of His Name or a simple Mantra?
Man vaunts in joy: he lives in a prison-house
He has laboured long to build, hemmed in by the ego's
Sentinel walls, all but impregnable.
He winces even if you prick them with
So much as a tiny pin of disapproval.
He loves his den more than God's light and air
And quails at the bare thought of floating in
His sky of Freedom, liberated from
His shadow-cabined self-love. So I ask you:

How could we ever hope to sing our way
To salvation? How could we, by dint of chanting
A Name or a Mantra, be delivered from
This Maya's pen of darkness masquerading
As God's own home of light and bliss and beauty?

(With a sigh)

So many sing His name or some trite phrases
Day after tedious day and yet, alas,
Do they not stagnate where they were? In this
Our strange world's daedal maze how few do win
A clue to the exit! And still fewer, we find,
Dare follow the clue to debouch into the vast
Of Godly freedom — Mukti. Only a handful,
The elect, dare sally — out from their ivory towers —
To give us the lead of light they have achieved
Of love and wisdom, strength and purity.
So will you please explain how a mere Name,
When sung, delivers the singer, in the end,
From the dark crypt of his ego and attachments?

(His eyes glisten)

O mother, I have transgressed against the holy,
I know: yet have I not been redeemed by
His compassion which tonight came down to flay
My overweening arrogance because

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You, His Compassion's deputy, forgave me?

(His voice grows thick)
I know this ... still reassure me that you have,,
Indeed, absolved my sins, do smile on me
When I sing in rapturous tears at your feet:

As the flower, though stung, forgives and opens

Her petals to the bee again,
So her rebel child's affronts the mother

Forgives even when she weeps in pain .....

MIRA (Blessing him tenderly once more as he s falls, weeping,
at her feet)

When once you have glimpsed His feet and I heard His Flute,
Need you still ask if I have forgiven you?
Nay, tell me who are we to forgive the sinners s
When He Himself comes to kiss away their tears,
Absolving time and again their sins and lapses s?
Could you move a single step toward His feet :

Did He not run a hundred to make you welcome
As his own child with whom He loves to play?

We seem, indeed, so feckless and pathetic
Creatures of circumstance who revel in doom

Yet think we are wise — like moths that fondle the flame.

But, in reality, are we not all

Diminutive sparks of His Primal Fire,

Whence we all stemmed and whither we'll all Hi merge back?

So vex no more your mind with such misgivingigs,

But panoplied with his blessing's strength march on,

With His Name upon your lips and love in your heart.

I only pray: may you momently remember

His Grace which came to open your eyes tonight;

And may you cherish ardently through life,
This priceless, beneficent spark of vision.
For 'tis a spark that cannot grow to a flame
Unless you fan it with your sleepless love,
Singing His Name with every heart-beat till

The great day dawns when out from your every pore;

His Name cascades His sun-victorious music
To repeal life's dismal, atheist anarchy.

(She closes her eyes for a while, then looks at him and

blesses- him once again)
I'll answer- your query now — about the Name:

How it cam help us rend the chrysalis

And give ms wings to soar on — to His blue

Like kin acclaiming kin. Let me, for this,

Exploit the simile — of the prison-house

You mentioned with such warmth and mystic fervour.

(After a pause for breath tranquilly)
A prisoner?, in a cell, procures a chisel
And hammier; then begins to bore a hole
In the wall in a corner underneath his bed.
Day after strenuous day he goes on boring.
He knows 'twill take him long; but he persists
Because from his dark dungeon he must escape
Which he can achieve only by hewing away
The stones in a hidden niche. So, tirelessly,
He plods con in the dark for hours at night.
After seven long years, one morning, lo,
The breach has just grown large enough: Oh joy!
Even an hour before, till the last stone-slab
Was whittled away, he had no hope; but now
His freedom beckons to him: incredible!
In the space of an hour all is changed! Gone, gone
The accursed life of gloom and hopelessness!
Fate's tyranny is ended! He emerges
Into the light and air of unwalled freedom!
His pulses race: it seems too good to be true,
And yet the miracle has happened! But
Remember: till the last obstructing slab
Was broken to bits, he had been moping in
His sty of living death. Even so, my son,
His Name does act as a Mace of Heaven to achieve
A deep breach in our egos' immuring walls

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That doom our lives to abysmal night — although,
Enamoured of gloom, we laugh at His Gleam as myth
And acclaim our ego's cellars as citadels.
And 'tis because we elect to home in hell
That we legalise the wages of sin with Reason's
Soul-killing sophistry — outlawing His
Love's Brindavan of deathless bliss and beauty.
(Dropping her voice)

But one thing is certain, my son: by dint of logic,
However unassailable and God-proof,
None may annul, outwit or shut out One
Who, subtle and all-pervasive like the air,
Can, even through your imperceptible pores,
Insinuate Himself into your heart athirst
'' For a whiff from His heights, and then, in its empty vases
Stemless miracle buds of worship blossom,

Like laughter of green outbreaking through chinks mid rocks!
Or He may choose like the light-waves to invade
Your world of dream and, hid there, play His Flute
To flood your wakeful wastes with His blue rapture;

Or, sometimes, when your Warder Reason dozes,
He steals in on His own Name's wings, to redeem
Your jailed soul with a lightning-glimpse of His Grace.
And 'tis the saints and seers who tell us this
And the Guru, His Vicegerent, is sent by Him
To initiate us into the human-divine

And marvellous passion-play He comes to stage

From birth to birth to reveal to us the eternal

Rapturous Way of liberation from

The atheist dungeon-walls that stifle our souls.

And because in our Maya-fostered ignorance

We take our prison-house for His crystal Home,

He arms us with His Name's own victor sword

So, wielding it we may all hew away

Brick by brick, our egos' sky-hostile walls.

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