Page:Life and Teachings of Sri Ramanujacharya.djvu/28

CHAP. I] right in front of Sathakopa. His experiment was successful. The Master suddenly opened his eyes; may be, the noise roused him; may be, he thought that the time was come for him to initiate the pupil whom he had thus drawn to him from afar. Mathura Kavi was taken aback at his own temerity; but he reassured himself and resolved to see the matter through. “When in doubt, play the trump,” and Mathura Kavi naturally acted upon the time-honoured advice. So he ventured a question—rather the expression of a doubt—“The small one born of the dead, what does it live upon? Where does it rest?” Trulv a question more in the line of the Egyptian Sphynx. What he really meant was only this. The dead is Achit—matter that is dead or devoid of consciousness. The small one is the Ego, atomic in its shape and smaller than the smallest; its being born of the Dead, indicates the encasement of the Ego in its material vehicles. What go to make up the materials of its experience during its incarnations? Where does it rest ? Through what instruments does it gain this experience in the various spheres of material existence? The daring questioner was not kept long waiting. Forthwith flashed the answer, short and sweet—“It feeds upon It and lies in It”—a reply nowise less mystical than the question. Anyhow the doubts of the questioner were cleared; he understood Sathakdpa to mean—“It grows by assimilating the experiences of pleasure and pain gathered through the material vehicles and remains attached to the same through the links of Karma.”

Mathura Kavi’s eyes were unsealed ; the flood-gates of his memory were thrown open ; he saw into the far past