Page:The Spirit Of Oriental Poetry.pdf/9

 PREFACE

This little book is a slender account of my journeys in search of His Footprints. For hours have I stood spell-bound, gazing at the humble dust upon which He once trod, yet I have passed the magnificence of jewelled diadems with indifference, for they had no fragrance in their charmed lustre, there was nothing of Him in them

This is a basketful of muskーdust, gathered from the sacrificial fires that burn in places made sacred by the holy tread of His Footsteps.

Ever since  I  have  seen  Him,  the  remembrance  of  the  scent  of  His  presence  has  been  my  religion; whatsoever recalls it to my mind is precious; it surpasses all that I have ever valued. I am good only  when  my  eyes  half—close  in  rapture  at  the  contemplation  of  His  God—personality;  to  me  nothing  else  is  of  virtue. For I  know  that  when  I  go  from  Him  into  the  world,  full  as  it  is  of  learned men with fine clothes and wrinkled faces, I feel no more whole—I am torn asunder, sullied, weighed down and spent; the formless vapours of my intellect dim the mirror of my heart, and I see no  more  what  my  eyes  have  so  recently  beheld. I come  back  disappointed  and  disillusioned,  a  sadder man. Not in the outer world, only in the heart of God do I find that iridescent lustre, that absolute rapture which makes me immortal in one flash. Every meeting with Him is an advance of centuries over my own self.

Even as I stand at a distance, contemplating the deadly weariness of the world, I feel sick at heart. The groans of the conquered mingle in my ears with the savage shouts of their victors. These beings called men are still so foolish that they know not how to make their ant-hill of an earth into a peaceful home  for  their  own  kind. What is  the  use  of  intellectual  expansion? The mere  touch  of  these  world-problems  turns  good  men  into  bloodthirsty  soldiers  brandishing  swords;  humane  and  religious  ideals  become  rotten  when  applied  to  the  petty  politics  of  the  children