Act Three — Illumination

A year has passed. Sri Chaitanya has just returned to Navadwip without apprising his mother and wife. He has toured far and wide preaching the message of Love. He now intends to call on his wife and mother though he has to stay elsewhere, in the precincts of a temple of Vishnu.

It is evening now and Vishnupriya, the beautiful bride of Sri Chaitanya, is seen in her private temple praying before the image of Lord Vishnu. She offers flowers, lights a few incense-sticks and then starts the 'arati' ceremony (moving a censer with lighted candles round and round the face of the image) singing in a moved
voice.

VISHNUPRIYA (sings)

O Thou, my father, mother and mate,
My friend unique! to Thee I call:

Who art my heart's one knowledge and wealth,
My God of Gods, my All-in-All!

(Then she kneels before the image and, with folded hands,
prays half-aloud)

They say: Thou art the Resident in our souls

And knowest all we do and feel and think,

Thy touch alone heals all the chronic ills

Afflicting human destiny and redeems

The anguish in our minds and lives and hearts.

So I appeal to Thee: Oh hark to one

Who feels herself a derelict in mid-ocean,

Mid hurtling colossal waves, like pitiless demons,

Which shatter her hopes of ever coming to port.

The asylum Thou, Lord, builtest once for me

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Now looks far-off even as a lovely dream

Which grim reality has dissipated.

Oh, why must all our roseate dreams thus founder

In a fortuitous storm — when these dreams flowered

In the heart's garden Thou thyself hadst fostered?

Why must Thou sow the seeds of tenderest blooms

In the virgin soil of our aspiration

If these will wither swiftly leaving a bare

Memory that but deepens the lone sigh

Born of the pining of what might have been?

I came here. Lord, Thou knowest, as a bride

Of twelve. For only seven years have I lived

In joys that pass all human understanding,

Inarmed by my one friend and guide and mate

Thou thyself gavest me in thy compassion.

The more I knew him, the more I found him elusive;

The more I loved him the more I found my love
Flawed by my inescapable self of clamour;

And the more he gave himself to me the deeper
Yawned the chasm that sundered him from me.
The more I won him the more I feared to lose him
Even as fears the arbour, when the breeze
Brings music to her heart, lest he, alas,
Retire anon when all will be again
A silence of the sepulchre ... and so
Her branches wave their arms to the skiey guest
To lure him back to her music-hungry bosom.
Yet I grew to love him day by day, a witness
To his growing Godly stature which overawed me,
And yet I hoped against hope, supplicating:

He might abide with me as my one stay.

But why hast Thou my guileless prayer shattered

By a cruel blow which filched from me my all ...

All I had hugged in rapture — treasuring

The very sound of his footfall in the vault i

Of my maiden soul to feed for ever on

Its echoes when he was not by my side?

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Was it because he made me pass Thee by?
But how could I help that? O Thou who, knowing
The deepest trends of the woman's doting heart,
Must know why when she loves she will forget
The whole world for the one who makes her world.
Man is a hunter butterfly chasing flowers:

Woman's a lotus affianced to one sun.
Madest Thou not this heart of hers Thyself?
Why then wouldst Thou now punish it for its native
Dharma? After making rivers flow
Why wouldst Thou scold their waves for billowing seaward?
The pilgrim Thou Thyself hast fashioned. Lord,
And the goal, as well, which calls so hauntingly:

Then why rebukest Thou the deep nostalgia
The goal induces in the aspirant's breast?
Why wouldst Thou take such infinite pains to mould
Thy handiworks agleam with loveliness
If their very loveliness becomes a cause
Of suffering for the ache it must engender?
0 Thou who art merciful! How can Thy mercy
Be harmonised with the anguish it ordains?
Why didst Thou give me one so beautiful
An incarnation of Thyself, if Thou
Wouldst wrench him from my pining heart for ever,
In whose one image I have day by day
Learned to conceive Thy Self of (lawlessness!
Why has he moved away from me, his loyal
Servant, who only dreamed to serve and tend him
With all I have and am?

(Tears course down her cheeks now)

'Tis not so hard
For those, 0 Lord, to journey through this life
Joyless who never once have known the taste
Of joy — as it is for those who have.
And I am one on whom Thy bounty squandered
Not only the quintessence of deep rapture
But in this Thou didst hourly make me dive

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As in a sea of bliss which, strangely, drowned
Me not to suffocate but make me swiftly
Eligible for Immortality,
As Thou must know, being the Knower of all.

(She covers her face in her hands)
And yet why wouldst Thou never answer when
I ask why Thou ordainest thus ? Oh why
Had he, who radiated but light and bliss
On all, even as the sun, to set for ever
From their horizons — leaving a legacy
Of gloom to those who had been born as natives
Of shadowless light and thornless flowers in bloom?
They tell me: others need his love and so
He was called, to live and serve them, to disclaim us
Who had penned him in our prison circumscribed
By our demands. But what were these demands
Which stifled him, and why? And how did we
Cabin him, — we who only yearned to spread
Our hearts of love beneath his dawn-rose feet
That not a thorn might wound him even once?
Why in this cruel world must one for ever
Give pain to some that one may confer joy
On others? If Thy great world has been built
To manifest Thy heavenly attributes,
Why must then even a Godly act entail
Suffering here on those who have but longed
To serve God through their daily aspiration,
And minister to the happiness of all?
How have I erred except through my engrossing
Devotion and fidelity to one

Whom Thou Thyself didst in Thy pure compassion
Assign to me as my life's sun and moon?
Why comes he not back even once to us
On whom thy daylight falls as the pall of night?

(She closes her eyes and presently goes into a trance)

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(In her trance she sees a strange clairvoyant vision. She
sees an open space on the bank of the Ganges, about a
furlong away, where a group of devotees surrounding
Sri Chaitanya sing with him.)

Oh when shall. Lord, our tears out well

At the mention of Thy name.
And, living in Thy truth, shall we

The illusive world disclaim?
When shall our body's every atom,

Partaking of Thy Grace
Become Thy holy temple agleam

With Thy love's loveliness ?
When shall our questionings and doubts

Dissolve like shadow clouds
At the advent of the new Sunrise

Thy cosmic Maya shrouds ?

(Suddenly she sees Roma and Murari and Keshav who
take up the refrain.)

The day will come, 'tis not afar

Since He is born again:

The Avatar of love and light,

In our dark world of pain.

(Suddenly a hubbub breaks in upon the singing and the
singers stop. The onlookers grow restless when stifled
cries are heard just as Jagai and Madhai, two notorious
roughs and terrors of the neighbourhood, dash through
the crowd in a drunken fury.)

JAGAI {in a shout to Sri Chaitanya)

Ah, here, at long last, are we face to face
With you, my precious, who will draw good men
And spoil all...

(He turning to Madhai, his moving spirit)

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... what shall I say?

MADHAI

Not much to say.

Though we have a lot to do - to bring him back.
To his senses.

SRI CHAITANYA (amused)

But how will you two compass that,
Since what you call light is dark night to the wise?

JAGAI (showing him his fist)

We are come to teach you that — and you shall learn
Which is God's gleam and which the Gorgon's gloom,
So that — what else, Madhai? You are not helpful.

MADHAI
You are wrong, for look —

(he suddenly spits on Sri Chaitanya's face and gives an
exultant guffaw)

— my help begins like this.

ROMA (with a piercing scream)
O Lord, my Lord divine! How could the fiends ...

SRI CHAITANYA (reproachfully, as he wipes his face)
There are no fiends on earth, my little mother!

MURARI (impetuously)

I say there are — Oh hell-fiends! Now take this —
(But as he rushes forward to attack them Keshav res-
trains him by coming between)

KESHAV
But wait — remember what he enjoins on us:

Insult and praise we must equate to naught.

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SRI CHAITANYA (pleased)

You are right: but let me know first why they feel
Infuriated with me.

ROMA (stingingly)

Oh I know that:

Hell knows that Heaven wants to heal all pain.

MADHAI (with a growl)

Shut up — or you will know what's hell, my girl!

(he turns to Keshav)

You did your friend, the sycophant, a good turn.
For he would have learnt a lesson he badly needs.

(Meanwhile the hum behind grows louder and he turns

sharply round.)
Wag not your tongues, you jabberers! Stand aside!

(He brandishes his heavy-knobbed stick: the humming

crowd falls back timidly. Then he turns back fiercely upon

Sri Chaitanya.)

Now come, you knave! Give me, you must, your word
That you will pose no more as a saint — or I —

(He suddenly picks up from the ground a stray broken

piece of a pitcher with a sharp end, which he lifts up

menacingly.)
Will give you something — see?

JAGAI (clapping his hands)

That's it— the thing!

SRI CHAITANYA (smiling indulgently)

But you are wrong, friend, for it's not the thing
That can correct me into the shape you want.
The only thing that beats one into shape
Is His rod of All-will, which, curiously,
Is a rod made not of something hard, but soft
Even as cream and that is why it made me
What I am — a tender minstrel of His name,

5

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Vowed to singing from door to door, proclaiming
That His All-will is love and only love
Which made us see the light of day on this
Our beautiful earth sustained by His compassion.

JAGAI

A truce to ranting — and posing as oracle.
Nor are we here to be improved by sermons.
Rather we came to improve you, my false prophet,
Till you know better than to confound and wreck
Good citizens of respectability.

(He brandishes his bamboo stick)
And this is what will put sense into you,
So either mend your ways, fool — or — beware!

SRI CHAITANYA (smiling)

Beware of what, my chastiser and mentor?
I am no more afraid of ought on earth,
For I told you a little while ago
That Krishna's love is soft like cream although
It can be, on occasion, tough and hard
As an armour of steel that laughs at such frail weapons
You are now flourishing in ignorance.

JAGAI (a trifle uncertain)

Why are you silent, Madhai? Shall we start?
Or will you exercise your eloquence?

MADHAI ,

Oh, that is not my line. For I mean business,
Nor can I talk the hind legs off a donkey
As this mytho-maniac can. But I say, fool!
I ask you for the last time: will you mend
Your ways or will you force us to bring home
To you some lessons your folly needs so badly?

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SRI CHAITANYA
I only need, my friend, one lesson on earth:

The lesson of love which I am learning daily

Through His great Grace which makes now everything

I experience reveal a mystic truth,

A truth that frees from fear. And so I know

That you, my brothers, are come as messengers

Of this one Truth which the more I know the more

I thrill to know — for you can never drink

Too much of my Beloved's nectarous love.

JAGAI

Hey, Madhai! What does this impostor mean?
We come to him as messengers of whose love?
Why are you silent now? You should say something.

SRI CHAITANYA

But what can he say to help you, since he knows
No more than you? Suffer me to explain —

MADHAI (interjecting)
But I have no patience — and I tell you this:

That you give up this high-faluting talk
And go back to your family.

SRI CHAITANYA (laughing)

But one can
Hardly go back to what one never left
Even for a moment — since Sri Krishna's Grace
Has made me see: that I live in my own
Family of brothers and sisters everywhere.

JAGAI

But what is all this nonsense? One is born
You live on the streets, you sleep out in the open
Under the trees, hobnobbing with filthy beggars

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And vagrants such as no man in his senses
Would choose to live with cheek by jowl and yet
You talk of brothers and sisters everywhere!

SRI CHAITANYA

I do because 'tis true, because I see
What He Himself has made me see, by opening
My eyes that once were closed and so, alas,
I failed to see the all-revealing Truth.

MADHAI

O hold your tongue — or — or you shall regret
For wagging it.

SRI CHAITANYA

There you are wrong again.
For 'tis not I who wag my tongue today
But He, the Lord of speech, who makes me -now
Speak what I speak and sing what I do sing:

And 'tis but on one theme I improvise
At His behest I cannot disregard —
No more, my brothers, than I can my heart's
To inhale His air so fragrant with His love.

JAGAI
Fragrant with His Love? What rigmarole!

SRI CHAITANYA

But you would sing a different song, my friend,
If only you would cast off from your eyes
Your ancient blinkers. You would then see His love
Dripping dripping dripping everywhere,
And 'tis not difficult I tell you, brother.
For all that is exists by His one love,
That's one with light. The suns and moons and stars
Are but pale beams of His self-luminous love.

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The seeds that sprout, the buds that blossom forth,
The rivers that flow, the birds that sing in springtide,
The dews that glisten in gladness, the worms that crawl,
The cows that graze and even the desert void
Of interstellar space are all sustained
By His invisible sap which is His love
And it stays invisible since your self-will chooses
To disown the Vision you could have for the asking.

JAGAI

I say, Madhai! Why not leave him alone?
For surely he is gone stark staring mad,
Too raving now to count?

MADHAI

I beg to differ,

My brother! For what he says is dangerous.
And madness too is infectious like the fever.
The other day my own dear nephew left
His home and school to roam the streets with him
Swelling his troupe of vagrants. There he is.

(He glowers at a boy who slinks away hurriedly)
Well — you wait. Your turn will come, boy, in due time.
But the trunk of the prison-tree must first be felled
Emitting such infectious, noxious fumes.

(He turns fiercely to Sri Chaitanya)
Look you, my sharper! We are not taken in
By this your abracadabra and so insist
We have come to teach you: not to learn from you.
And here's our ultimatum: we demand
You give up this your pose of saintliness;

This folly has gone much too far and must be
Or brought back here and now to sanity,
Or else stamped out of existence — once for all.
So will you promise to behave yourself
And leave off souring honest milk with curd?

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SRI CHAITANYA

But what is honesty and what is milk?
The only honest man is he who will
Own the one allegiance — to his heart's Lord,
Krishna, who is the milk of tenderness.
Who knows him not has never known true milk
Which He still offers, in His great compassion,
To all who thirst but still prefer, alas,
The stale curd and stay hungering all their lives.
But He, being Love in essence, will not force
His love on those who elect the lesser loves,
For love being of a piece with perfect freedom
Must be accepted voluntarily.

(He gives a sigh)
I only pity you, my friend, since you
Choose to be drunk not only with vicious wine
But what is far worse — with these fatal fumes
Of pride which blind you to Sri Krishna's love,
The love I have come here to pledge — announce.

MADHAI (enraged)

How dare call me drunk, you insolent fool?
Let me then teach you what is God's sobriety.

(He strikes Sri Chaitanya on his forehead with the sharp
end of the broken pitcher; blood spurts out; the group
of his adorers who so long stood as if bewitched now break
out in a loud outcry and pounce in fury on Jagai and
Madhai who, sobered now by the realisation of personal
danger, struggle helplessly in their grip till they are over-
powered and flung on the ground.)

SRI CHAITANYA (rushing into the fray)

Oh, for the love of me, let them alone!
Who deals them a blow has never accepted me.

(They set the two brothers free who totter up cowering,

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the bullies transformed in a moment into abject cowards.)

JAGAI AND MADHAI (simultaneously)
O help, help—murder.

ROMA

It's you, hell's own henchmen

Who have come, disguised as men, to murder Heaven.
Look, he is bleeding! Oh, what shall I do!

(She tears off a part of her sari to bandage him)

SRI CHAITANYA (waving her aside and smiling)

A little blood has spilt out since I had
Too much of it, as my Lord doubtless deemed.

(He turns to the two culprits who are now at bay, sur-
rounded by the mob)

Draw near, my brothers! You have nought to fear.
I stand security for you. I hope
You are not hurt?

(He addresses the group standing near them)

O run, give them some water.
Look, they are groaning!
(They are given water)

Now you come to me.
I will take you home. But wait, my brothers, first
Let me embrace you. Have no fear: none will
Lay hands on you now that you are armoured in
My love my Lord gave me to soothe and heal
All suffering souls who cry, for they are blind,
Alas, to His compassion. Come, you both
And claim from me but what belongs to you:

Sri Krishna's Love, the only refuge and harbour
In this our derelict, unhappy world.

(He embraces his stupefied assaulters together and then
turns on the equally stupefied onlookers to whom he
sings in ecstasy while the blood streams down his face
freely.)

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Your ways are strange, my Lord, You come

To play in ever new guises.
You fail us in our gala shows

And gleam in life's dark crises.
The light of day acts like a pall

On stars that shine on high,
The sun hides what the dark reveals,

Through storms Your barks You ply.
You lie in ambush when in pride's

Gay pomp in the world we move,
When life's rich lamps all flicker out,

You flash Your moon of love.

(Here the crowd take up once more with him the refrain)

The day will come, 'tis not afar,

Since He is born again
In His deputy of love and light,

In our dark world of pain.

(As the song goes on, the two rogues' eyes are seen drowned
in tears till they fall prostrate at Sri Chaitanya's feet
and cry out.)
Forgive us. Lord, our sins — we cry from Hell.

SRI CHAITANYA (singing ecstatically)
And what is hell and what is sin,

We ask and ask in vain
Until we, fools. Your love repel

And know the answer of pain.
And yet when we disown You, Lord,

Your Grace still sings on high:

"My heaven to hell I barter away

For but one price: a sigh."

(During the trance Vishnupriya felt very faint, espe-
cially when she saw Chaitanya attacked. Tears rolled

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down her cheeks as she saw him embrace his assai-
lants and heard him sing the last quatrain. Then the
vision fades out. She opens her eyes and gazes at the
image of Lord Vishnu in a heave of emotion.)

VISHNUPRIYA (with unshed tears glistening in her eyes)
O Lord, my Lord! Forgive a doting woman
Who worshipped the very ground her idol trod:

Since it was this excess of adoration
That made her blind and sad. But could one ever
Reconcile oneself to a loss so great
And sudden which did sound to my scared heart,
Rendered desolate in my fool blindness,
As the trump of doom. And so I failed to see
That the one thou gavest me I could not claim
As my sole possession for all time on earth.
I see now by Thy Grace which opens my eyes
That he was vouchsafed to me but for a spell,
A magic interlude, which I shall cherish,
Across the sad, bleak years that lie before me,
As the greatest boon conferred on me by life.
I see now I received far more than I
Could ever hope to claim — far less retain
For my own puny world which does not count.
The lonely oyster nurses the pearl of pearls
In the blind void of her heart; even so,
The pearl of his love was ensconced in mine.
But how could he let it be housed for ever
Where it had never belonged? The beggar receives
The light of the sun and moon but still remembers
That their light's gift is meant for all and not
For a single hut to which they bring their blessing.
I see now. Lord, as never before, that he
Is even more than a sun and moon to worldlings:

Sun of thy joy and moon of thy compassion.
For what is joy but the bliss of freedom born
Of the last emancipation from our craving

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For a little living? And what is thy compassion

If not the all-forgiving sympathy

Which, at its peak, accepts to hug the blackest

Sinners whose sins its very touch absolves ?

And this forgiveness I need most today,

For surely my indictment of Thy Grace

Is graver far than all the insane acts

Of violence of those pitiful criminals

Who shed the blood of the holiest of Thy saints

Because they knew no better, and having never

Harked in their lost hearts to Thy saints' heart-beat,

Their hearts have stayed the playground of the demons

Whose puppets they become unwittingly.

But how can I, Lord, plead for mercy when,

After having savoured Thy immaculate Grace

Through the love of one Thou madest with the stuff

Of Thy pure love's quintessence, after having

Lived and moved in Thine own being of beauty,

Whom to see is but to know — experience

The incredible: that the drop could hold the deep,

That a human heart could beat in unison

With Thy heart's primal throb and ultimate breath:

Yes, after having kissed the dust he trod
And felt myself redeemed — I still have failed
To appreciate Thy great Compassion's boon
Which made me, a wick, glow with Thy mystic fire
And yet be not reduced to pitiful ash.

(A noise is heard outside. She hears a familiar voice,
starts and, putting her hands on her heaving breast,
rises up trembling with an uncontrollable emotion. Sri
Chaitanya enters. She looks at him for a moment,
then falls down at his feet in a swoon. He draws near
and places his hand on her head and remains still for
a little while, his eyes closed, only his lips moving, re-
peating the name of his heart's Lord: "Krishna,
Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Krishna...." She comes

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back to consciousness after a few minutes, then rises
and bows down and kisses his feet. He looks at her
tenderly and places his hand again on her head and,
when she rises, gazes into her eyes steadfastly.)

SRI CHAITANYA (tenderly)
Do you now see?

VISHNUPRIYA (in a low voice with bowed head)
Yes...

SRI CHAITANYA

Then why are you sad?

VISHNUPRIYA
You know my prayer... Why then do you ask?

SRI CHAITANYA

One prays not to enlighten Him, but because
Through prayer one offers oneself more to Him.

VISHNUPRIYA
But can one offer more than what one has?

SRI CHAITANYA

Yes: what one is, and that is always harder
And this is why He smiles on prayer — because
It delves down into the heart's invisible core
Where the hidden sap of strength still waits untapped
Without which none can ever fare to the Lone.

VISHNUPRIYA

That I have learnt, my Lord, to my bitter cost.

SRI CHAITANYA

But bitterness, my love, is not approved
Of Him. We ask for bliss which is our birthright,

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But in ignorance we knock at the wrong door

Of desire. And those of us He would call sooner

To the right door He would sooner disenchant,

Denying us nothing but the alms of pain

Which would have been our lasting heritage

If the wrong door had opened to our knocking.

And so has Krishna said explicitly

In the Bhagawat that those He would in Grace

Accept for His own He will untether first

From their last moorings of home and wealth and glory.

One must accept and not presume to judge,

At least till one knows more.

VISHNUPRIYA

I stand rebuked,
And yet what answer shall I make today
Especially when one knows one has been weighed
And found wanting?... Because, in my ignorance,
I asked for the moon.

SRI CHAITANYA

Brood not over the past.
The Dance of our great Lord is executed
Through rhythms whose deep import we fail to grasp,
For they sound like false steps to our human scanning:

But the Artist knows how His art must evolve
And even a discord He, our Great Composer,
Weaves regally into a richer harmony.

VISHNUPRIYA

I accept it all with bowed head even when
I fail to grasp it fully. But my Lord —

SRI CHAITANYA
Yes? ... Why do you pause?

VISHNUPRIYA

Because ... I know not what

To say. So may I only add, my Lord,

I wait upon your wish: will you not tell me

What you attend from me from now on earth?

SRI CHAITANYA

I will, my dear beloved, with all my heart.
I only know of one path in this life:

The path our heart's one Guide calls us to tread

His marvellous love-songs to manifest.

The only thing He attends from us, in Grace,

Is that we be conscious of the jarring notes

We bring in through our self-will and false pride,

And ask sincerely that we may not wish

To assert them and so mar the symphony

He will compose for His last diapason.

At any given moment He is at work

To build out from deep warring elements

An edifice of beauty and perfection.

'Tis not for us to inveigh against His planning,

Because our human eyes, alas, being blinkered,

Can never appraise His divine architecture

In the right perspective. From the niche of Time

Can one even glimpse the total Dance of the Timeless,

Each step entailing endless repercussions

Of Karma redeemed by Grace? How shall the mind

Conceive what is beyond the mind? And yet,

Such is His lila that 'tis given to us,

Infinitesimal specks of life, to joy

In His cosmic multitudinous play of life

And offer all we have that He may build

With human things a masterpiece divine.

VISHNUPRIYA

I see this more and more, my Lord, and so
I assure you, I will aspire more and more
That I may offer more and more my self-will
To the Master Architect, that He may use

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This useless life of mine too for His mansion,
May I surrender at His feet what little
I have to offer and without demur
Accept what He ordains. My only prayer
Now is that I may not in ignorance
Lend my being to forces which impair
His harmony: that my self-will, I repeat,
Be sunk ever more and more in His All-will;

And since, O my heart's Pilot and Dictator,
You are pleased, in your great mercy, to appear
Before my twin eyes, hungering still for thee,
I would implore you for one boon of Grace.

SRI CHAITANYA

My dear beloved! Know you not that all
I have and all I ever shall win are meant
For all — since now I see in all but the One
Whose utter slave I am and whose Compassion's
One touch has made the whole world kin to me
By revealing His one Self in the forms of all
Though they, being blind, hold soul's last vision suspect
And eyelessness alone beyond attaint.

VISHNUPRIYA (her eyes glistening)

My Lord, address me not so tenderly,
Not only am I unfit to be loved by you,
But what my heart has come now to dread most
Is lest your love for me pollute your soul
By even so much as a chance proximity.
For you yourself have opened my eyes to what
They in deliberate blindness would not see,
So I pray to you today: Oh give me strength,
Not love — which please bestow on the deserving.

SRI CHAITANYA

Be not so sad, my love! and above all
Say not such foolish things. For how can you

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Conceive Love as a judicial patron who

Will visit only those who are deserving?

And what is more, whom do you call the deserving?

'Tis time you realised that those who deemed

Themselves as worthy of His Love Divine

Must, by that very claim forfeit the title

To being adjudged as worthy. No, my dear!

The Love Divine looks not with our human eyes.

If pick and choose it must, it will invite

First those who are more conscious of their flaws

And undeservingness to claim its favour,

Rather than those impeccable, upright souls

Who preside in their world of self-complacency.

For Krishna will not greet the opulent

Highbrow of arid fame and fiery pride.

Remember you not His fling of irony

In His talk with Rukmini against the rich:

(He hums)

A pauper am I and so

To the paupers alone I wend,
For them as loyal I know

Who call me their one Friend!

'Tis the low lands that yield the richest harvests
And not the highest peaks which stay for ever
Barren and gaunt hugging their haughty glare.
The great saints will nor flare nor dazzle like these
But sparkle even as grass athrill and bowing
With divine humility. If you I call
'My dear beloved', 'tis not from a mere
Impulse to shower an empty blandishment,
I hold you dear to me as my heart's breath
Because I have cherished you for what you are:

A thing of beautiful humility

Which made you glimpse in pain the apocalypse

Of His Grace conceded but to the pure of heart.

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VISHNUPRIYA (rivetting her eyes on him)

But what else could one be, my Lord, but humble
Who claims but one asset: sterility?

(She gives a melancholy smile)
And can you wonder why I now implored you
To address me nevermore as your 'beloved' ?
And shall I tell you something else — a thing
I kept from you so long — yes, even from you?

(She clears her voice, now thick with tears)
Lord, when I saw you first, seven years ago,
My heart and soul upheaved and I surrendered
All I possessed: my pride and gift of beauty.
But one thing still I could not give away:

My yearning that you would remain for ever

My own and only mine. I worshipped you

With every drop of my adoring blood

But even then I dimly saw, although

I strove to close my eyes to what I had glimpsed,

That I gave my all to claim your all: I loved,

To win your love: I dreaded even the thought

That others might come to claim your love and so

Curtail the quota that was due to me.

I failed to see, nay, I declined to see

That you were made not of the common stuff,

Nor destined to stay mine alone for ever

And I was vowed to an unconfessed desire

To reserve your love for my poor love alone.

I stifled my deep agony, for I knew,

And this knowledge only grew with passing time,

That all the time I deified you, I was

Deifying but my arrogating self,

Entering like a servant of the King

To grow into the status of his mate

And ministering angel and guiding star.

I wanted to make a God of you because

I longed to be the beloved of a God.

This deep low voice of conscience I did stifle

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with loud reasons fabricated to kill my qualms.

Yes, to be absolved from this my sense of shame
I vindicated all I did and argued
That you I served to joy in your sole glory
And not in the mirror of my doting self
Which shone with the bright lustre it reflected.
And 'twas for this my sin of sins I lost you
My light's last fount, one sun to my pining moon!

(She covers her face in her hands and sobs disconsolately)

SRI CHAITANYA (placing his palm gently on her head)

Oh, be not over-repentant, my beloved,
For a failing that is an adjunct of our egos
Whose blind desires dog us ever on earth
Branding us with self-pity and pain and sorrow,
Nor lash yourself too hard for what may well be
Likened to spots that are born with the leopard's birth,
A heritage of our terrestrial life.
Who ever was born immaculate on our earth?
The One who over broods his creatures knows
Their natures' flaws which chase them like their shadows.
And being the soul of patience and compassion,
He sets us tasks but not as a task-master.
For even when we fail Him signally
He knows why we all fail — impelled by forces
Of sceptred instincts that have ruled for ages
Through a long line of births in diverse forms.
Nor is He fain to judge us by our lapses
Nor by our lamentations of remorse:

He takes our measure by our aspiration
And our hearts' sincerity and deepest dreams.
And, seeing all from His last peak. He knows
We are seldom as responsible for our deeds,
Far less for our impulses and thoughts and feelings,
As the moralist proclaims omnisciently
Menacing us with Hell's dread chastisements,
In the name of God he conceives in the image

6

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Of his high moral and judicial self.
And least of all can one in the realm of love
Hope to comport oneself as one aspires.
For in love's intense ambit the ego derives
The fiercest joy from finding the freest play.
So 'tis in this realm desire reigns supreme,
The fulcrum whereon Nature's mechanics rest.
And life's desires being self-regarding
Must war for ever with true love which is
In essence a deep urge to lose one's self.

VISHNUPRIYA
` I know, my Lord, or rather, shall I say:

I came to learn through bitter experience.
But you will pardon me if I confess
I cannot stifle a sigh when I feel thus
Humiliated — lost in my own eyes ...
Nor is the anguished question answered yet:

Why are we born under one flag on earth
If we must disclaim it driven by suffering
To seek the aegis of another? — Oh why?

SRI CHAITANYA (smiling indulgently)

To answer this I must repeat, my love,
What I hinted at a little while ago:

That the human mind can never truly plumb
The primal Purpose which brought into being.
The evolving architecture of the Master
Architect. And may I add that this
Our human mind behaves still like a child
Asking deep questions without understanding
Even the import of its curiosity,
Far less the answers of the soul.

(He smiles abstractedly)

Our mind
Has yet to know how little it can know
With all its loud pretensions. And this I came

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To realise anew in Orissa

Through a strange tragedy. She was a Princess.

Her father, vowed to make his daughter happy,

Insisted on her having for spouse a Prince,

A handsome youth of twenty, who was smitten

By her mystic elusive beauty. But she loved

Krishna alone and swore she never would marry.

The rational father, a born sceptic, laughing

To scorn a legend, wished to harness her

With a youth afire with passion and large as life,

And the wedding bells rang out at his command.

The daughter, in her desperation, swallowed

Some fatal poison. I was summoned when

She lay in the palace, gasping. But as I

Drew near her bed she opened her eyes of trance

And gave me a smile dripping pure ecstasy!

I was amazed: for her frail body writhed

In agony hard to see and harder to bear.

Yet she calmly said: "Please bless me that I may

Be havened at the feet of my Beloved."

I prayed as her frail frame quivered in the grip

Of the deadly poison. But, to the last, there passed

Not a shadow of regret across her face

Radiant with the beatific smile,

And her eyes a picture of ineffable bliss,

Even when her limbs were twisted in the throes

Of dire convulsions the like of which I never

Have witnessed heretofore! Before the end

She gave me a last look and then smiled. "My people,"

She said, "are cursing Krishna; they call him cruel

For ordaining such a horrible fate for me!

But how dare they judge the high Omniscient —

They, who fail so pitifully everytime

To take the measure of pigmy men and women?

How can they render unto the vast Divine

What is due to Him when they cannot even render

The little that they owe to His puny creatures?

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Can those who never have delved down to the simple

Genesis of a single grass-blade's birth

Hope to elucidate the mysteried

Passion Play of multitudinous Life

And the fathomless role of human aspiration

And the birth of Beauty in the sphere of Pain?

And lastly, how can they divine His Love's

Import who never have hearkened to His Flute-call?

I tell you I can feel my heart's Beloved

Breathing into my heart when this my body

Is tortured in the pitiless clutch of Death.

I marvel at His great stupendous lila

As you too must oft marvel in your heart,

0 Master mine, who, havened at His feet,

Call shipwrecked souls to the harbour you have reached,

Even as the tree, inspired by the example

Of clouds with their cool retinue of shades,

Invites for a like protection from the sun

Pilgrims on their way to the holy haunts.

So you too smile at them, the prudent fools,

When, solemnly adjudicating, they

Decide: I am a thing for pity's grace

And those alone are God's own darlings who

Pass goalless days, starving in an isle of plenty,

Ringed round by darkling waters of destiny,

And the ones who outsoar this Valley of False Glimmers

Escorted by His light are lost for ever!

Lila ... lila ... a magic word! To think:

That all the bliss of earth or paradise

Should have in a moment lost its gaudy glamour....

And who could rival my beautitude

Whom He, my mystic Prince, to claim and own

Had made a pauper Princess but to change me

Into a faithful slave of His and show

The difference between the moon and marsh-light:

He lured me with a phantom opulence
To countervail it with His mystic Flute-call

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And lead back to His Bliss for which He made me
Draw my last breath in pain." ... She gave a smile
As in a trance, then heaved a sigh and murmured:

"But how can the worldlings' hooded eyes even glimpse
The iridescence of His rainbow Grace
Which shows me an exit into the Life Divine
Through the dark portals of death-agony!"
And she hummed a song of mine she had heard me sing,
Of Radha's everlasting pledge to Krishna,
And, improvising with a rare emotion,
Her virgin soul she poured forth as she sang:

(breaking out passionately into song)

Whether He tramples on me, my Lord,

Or hugs me tenderly: .
My life is given to Him alone

For all eternity.
Whether He spurns me from His door

Or will abide with me:

My thoughts will dwell in Him alone

In pain or ecstasy.
Whether He courts me or consorts

With the fickle frivolously:

My heart will bow to Him alone,

None else my King shall be.

(His face flushes with emotion and his eyes fill. ...He

pauses for a little, then fastens his gaze upon her and

clears his voice tremulous with tears.)
Her eyes took on a hue unknown to light
And then a strange thing happened: I felt a Presence
I know so well... and ... thrilled, I sang with her
When, lo, on a sudden, oblivious to us all,
She stood up from her bed and faltered out
In ecstasy: "My Lord, my Lord, my Lord!"

(Vishnupriya wipes her eyes. He goes on)
Her people thought she was delirious

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And rushed to her side to put her back to bed

But she eluded them and fell down forward

Prostrate upon the floor — when I too saw Him,

The Kings of kings in person, aureoled

In a blue light. His eyes deep with compassion,

And the magic smile upon His magic lips!

I lost all count of time ... And when at last

I came to — He was there no more, nor the virgin

He had come to take back home to His Vaikuntha.

(He pauses and holds her eyes)
Her parents could not see what she had glimpsed
And so dubbed Krishna a fiend or else a myth.
But, as she said. His smile is lost on those
Who will not win to the deeper vision, and so
When I left my all they said, unanimously,
That I lost everything when I lost only
My chains and blinkers. And yet such is His
Inscrutable Maya that we fail to see:

He leads, how often, to His Heaven through Hell....

(He smiles ironically)

No wonder we quail to answer His dangerous call
As I too once did, summoned to cut away
From my old moorings I so dearly loved "
But none can ever attain the summit bliss
Until he bid farewell to the lower strands;

And nowhere is renunciation more

Imperative than in Love's deep domain.

For though nought can ever rival true love's raptures,

Yet nowhere else can pain be paramount

As in the empire of what we call love.

But when we will not do His will through joy,

The initiation is taken in hand by pain

Which visits not to make us derelict,

But to spur us ever onward, onward till

We find a harbour lovelier than our last

From which nought but the storm of pain could wean us.

(He looks at her tenderly/or a few seconds, then puts his

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hand on her shoulder, very gently)
But since you ask me to enlighten you
I will say only this: trust not your heart
Too much to the keeping of that wise fool. Reason,
Whose glimmer, at its best, is like a glow-worms'
Which cannot quell the gloom that dogs our lives
But only shows its girth and density.
I would advise you to accept on faith
What mental reason cannot reach: that we
Are born to a nature with two diverse urges:

One would cajole us to stay where we are,
The other goads us to climb ever higher,
Leaving the stagnant bogs we grow to cherish.
And every joy on earth becomes a bog:

Every haven save the one pledged by the highest.

And nowhere holds this truer than in the realm

Of human love and nowhere is the prison

More stifling than where lust is dominant,

For lust can never win to lasting bliss

Because its rhythm falls out of step with love's.

For lust by its very nature will exult

In its instinct of possession whereas love's

One impulse is to give away its all

Without reserve or fear or thought of the morrow:

Ever squandering, never garnering,

Ever offering, never questioning.

But this movement, being essentially divine,

Is dreaded by us, humans, till we learn

To see with wisdom's eyes the limitation

Of each impulse acting on the human level.

But to see clear and far one must discard

The stained glass of desire, and this occasions

Often a pain so great to its votary

That he would even smite His hand of Grace,

(Which can alone wipe off desire's stains,

And lead us to the vision that gives salvation)

He even would curse the hand that comes to bless

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Rather than hail the boon of bliss it offers.
(He holds her hand tenderly)

And that is why you suffer misconceiving

The message of true love which, in its essence,

Is a message of surrender unbargaining

Which whispers in the heart: "Give all you have

And are to Krishna and never in return

Ask even for the meed of His answering Love."

But, alas, it sounds like madness to the wise,

And so I sing now only for the crazy

Whom I adore today since none but they

Will respond to Folly's message which declares

(Reversing the prudent values of sanity):

"None but the fool who squanders all he counts

As the most precious of this earth-life's boons

Shall win to His last pinnacle of Bliss

Through Love which, starting as a flickering flame,

Must grow till its apocalyptic sun

Will burn away the dross of our desire

And this shall be achieved when we will learn

To merge, like moths, in Krishna's Fire — of Love.

(Vishnupriya falls prostrate and kisses his feet. He puts
his hands upon her head in a half-trance and goes on
repeating: Krishna ... Krishna ... Krishna ... Krishna
... Krishna ...)

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