Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/134

 like the rhinoceros, instead of in a herd and led by an experienced leader as is the way of the wise elephant?'

"At the word 'herd,' he glanced benevolently towards the young people standing round about; at the word 'leader' he appeared to smile with much inward satisfaction.

For,' he went on, 'this is indeed too high and too deep for one's own thought, and without a teacher it must remain a closed book! On the other hand, the Veda, in the teaching of Çvetaketu, says "just as, O beloved, a man who has been led blindfolded hither from the land of the Gandharer, and then let loose in the desert, will strike too far eastward, or it may be too far to the north, or the south, because he has been led hither with his eyes bound, and with bound eyes let loose; but will, after one has unbound his eyes and said to him, 'There, in that direction live the Gandharer, go thither,' ask his way from village to village, and reach his home, richer in knowledge and wisdom; so also is the man who has found a teacher here below, and has in himself the consciousness which he expresses thus:—'I shall have part and lot in this world's turmoil but till my salvation comes, and then I shall go to my place.

"I saw, of course, at once, that the Brahman was planning to secure me as a pupil. But this very desire of his destroyed any confidence which might have been awakening within me. On the other hand, I was well pleased with the saying from the Veda, and, as I went on my way, repeated it over and over again to myself, in order to fix it in my memory. In doing so, a sentence occurred to me which I had once heard used regarding a master—

The master does not crave disciples, but the disciples, the master.' What a very different man he must be, I thought to myself, from this forest Brahman! And I