Page:The Autobiography of Maharshi Devendranath Tagore.djvu/38

 misery and worldly griefs seem to combine to oppress the victim ; who is really, though he knows it not, a victim of love. As, in the physical order, the adolescent is an easy prey to trials and miseries which both the child and the adult each firmly established in his own universe are able to resist ; so for the spiritual adolescent who is passing through this period of transition, the vexations of practical life often assume an unbearable aspect, for he is no longer perfectly adjusted to them, and yet has not won his foothold on a higher plane.

Thus we find that about 1856 his family debts and worries were felt by the Maharshi no longer as a stimulus to effort, but as an intolerable burden ; and that the friends whom he had found sympathetic, were sympathetic no more. The inevitable period of psychic fatigue and disequilibrium had set in ; that state of depression, impotence, and stress in which Madame Guyon felt that "crosses of every kind abounded," and which drew from Suso the pathetic complaint, "O Lord ! Thy tournaments last a very long time." Devendranath found himself completely out of harmony with his world, for his spirit was moving towards a fresh stage of growth. A burning desire for a life of solitude, austerity, and total concentration upon God, impossible amidst the bustle of practical life, now obsessed him ; and at last, in the month of Ashwin 1857 the year of the Indian Mutiny he set out alone upon his travels,