Page:The Spirit Of Oriental Poetry.pdf/10

 of the  soil. Notwithstanding centuries  of  civilization  and  development,  man  is  still  in  the  animal  stage,  armed  with claws; the keener his intellectual penetration the sharper the claws. The wisdom of this world leads to weariness, disease and death; brethren rob and murder brethren and fill the day with blood.

At one  brave  flight  to  climb  a  high  corner  of  the  sky,  casting  aside  the  rubbish  of  dualistic  worldly wisdom that we hold so precious and clasping to our breasts nothing but love and song and faith; to laugh with the Sun over this flimsy world and clap our hands in unison with the thunder of the heavens; this would give life:  for this divine madness that forgets all wounds and blesses those that curse and smite and kill, seems to be for each of us the only way out of slavery, out of the dirt and dust of the world’s suffering and sorrow.

Self-forgetfulness in the joy of His beauty—in other words Self—realization—is the way to happiness, so  have  the  Sages  proclaimed. It is  only  the  meaningless  throng  of  statesmen  and  philosophers— political  thinkers,  world—rescuers,  self-appointed  administrators  of  the  Law  and  Justice of God and Man—it is only they who run to and fro like sleep-walkers, seeking the cooling snows  of  the  Himalayas  amid  the  burning  deserts  of  the  Sahara. So long  as  selfishness  sways  the  individual, so long will the whole world be sick.

Safety lies in the shelter of the Great Man of God; we seek it vainly in our brilliant sands of mere intellectuality. Safety is within me, with God in Self! Only by the touch of the beauty of God- personality can  selfishness  be  turned  into  the  holiness  of  self—sacrifice. All knowledge  is  a  curse,  save only the knowledge of this Love that inspires Life.

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to Messrs. Macmillan & Co. Ltd., for permission to quote a lengthy passage from The Book of the Cave, by Ananda Acharya, and to Mr. John Murray for permission to reprint the extracts from The Spirit of Japanese Poetry by Yone Noguchi (Wisdom of the East series), and Messrs. Dent and Sons for poems from Nargas by Bhai Vir Singh Sahib.

PURAN SINGH