The Upanishad says: Knowledge, power, and
action are of his nature. [Footnote: Svabhavikijnana
bala kriya cha.] It is because this naturalness has
not yet been born in us that we tend to divide joy
from work. Our day of work is not our day of
joy— for that we require a holiday; for,
miserable that we are, we cannot find our holiday
in our work. The river finds its holiday in
its onward flow, the fire in its outburst of flame,
the scent of the flower in its permeation of the atmosphere;
but in our everyday work there is no such holiday
for us. It is because we do not let ourselves
go, because we do not give ourselves joyously and
entirely up to it, that our work overpowers us.
O giver of thyself! at the vision of thee as joy let
our souls flame up to thee as the fire, flow on to
thee as the river, permeate thy being as the fragrance
of the flower. Give us strength to love, to
love fully, our life in its joys and sorrows, in its
gains and losses, in its rise and fall. Let us
have strength enough fully to see and hear thy universe,
and to work with full vigour therein. Let us
fully live the life thou hast given us, let us bravely
take and bravely give. This is our prayer to
thee. Let us once for all dislodge from our minds
the feeble fancy that would make out thy joy to be
a thing apart from action, thin, formless, and unsustained.
Wherever the peasant tills the hard earth, there
does thy joy gush out in the green of the corn, wherever
man displaces the entangled forest, smooths the stony
ground, and clears for himself a homestead, there does
thy joy enfold it in orderliness and peace.
O worker of the universe! We would pray to thee
to let the irresistible current of thy universal energy
come like the impetuous south wind of spring, let
it come rushing over the vast field of the life of
man, let it bring the scent of many flowers, the murmurings
of many woodlands, let it make sweet and vocal the
lifelessness of our dried-up soul-life. Let our
newly awakened powers cry out for unlimited fulfilment
in leaf and flower and fruit.
VII
THE REALISATION OF BEAUTY
Things in which we do not take joy are either a burden
upon our minds to be got rid of at any cost; or they
are useful, and therefore in temporary and partial
relation to us, becoming burdensome when their utility
is lost; or they are like wandering vagabonds, loitering
for a moment on the outskirts of our recognition,
and then passing on. A thing is only completely
our own when it is a thing of joy to us.
The greater part of this world is to us as if it were
nothing. But we cannot allow it to remain so,
for thus it belittles our own self. The entire
world is given to us, and all our powers have their
final meaning in the faith that by their help we are
to take possession of our patrimony.
Copyrights
Sadhana : the realisation of life from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
