Bimala flushed all over with bashful pride and her
hand shook as she went on pouring out the tea.
Another day my master came to me and said: “Why
don’t you two go up to Darjeeling for a change?
You are not looking well. Have you been getting
enough sleep?”
I asked Bimala in the evening whether she would care
to have a trip to the Hills. I knew she had
a great longing to see the Himalayas. But she
refused ... The country’s Cause, I suppose!
I must not lose my faith: I shall wait.
The passage from the narrow to the larger world is
stormy. When she is familiar with this freedom,
then I shall know where my place is. If I discover
that I do not fit in with the arrangement of the outer
world, then I shall not quarrel with my fate, but
silently take my leave ... Use force?
But for what? Can force prevail against Truth?
The impotent man says: “That which has
come to my share is mine.” And the weak
man assents. But the lesson of the whole world
is: “That is really mine which I can snatch
away.” My country does not become mine
simply because it is the country of my birth.
It becomes mine on the day when I am able to win
it by force.
Every man has a natural right to possess, and therefore
greed is natural. It is not in the wisdom of
nature that we should be content to be deprived.
What my mind covets, my surroundings must supply.
This is the only true understanding between our inner
and outer nature in this world. Let moral ideals
remain merely for those poor anaemic creatures of
starved desire whose grasp is weak. Those who
can desire with all their soul and enjoy with all
their heart, those who have no hesitation or scruple,
it is they who are the anointed of Providence.
Nature spreads out her riches and loveliest treasures
for their benefit. They swim across streams,
leap over walls, kick open doors, to help themselves
to whatever is worth taking. In such a getting
one can rejoice; such wresting as this gives value
to the thing taken.
Nature surrenders herself, but only to the robber.
For she delights in this forceful desire, this forceful
abduction. And so she does not put the garland
of her acceptance round the lean, scraggy neck of
the ascetic. The music of the wedding march is
struck. The time of the wedding I must not let
pass. My heart therefore is eager. For,
who is the bridegroom? It is I. The bridegroom’s
place belongs to him who, torch in hand, can come in
time. The bridegroom in Nature’s wedding
hall comes unexpected and uninvited.
