“VAISESIKA assigned the origin of the world
to atoms, eternal in their nature, i.e., their
ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were regarded
as possessing an incessant vibratory motion. . . .
The recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar
system would be no news to the old VAISESIKA philosophers,
who also reduced time to its furthest mathematical
concept by describing the smallest unit of time (Kala)
as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own
unit of space.”
{FN8-6} Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath
Tagore, by Manmohan Ghosh, in Viswa-Bharati.
THE BLISSFUL DEVOTEE AND HIS COSMIC ROMANCE
“Little sir, please be seated. I am talking
to my Divine Mother.”
Silently I had entered the room in great awe.
The angelic appearance of Master Mahasaya fairly dazzled
me. With silky white beard and large lustrous
eyes, he seemed an incarnation of purity. His
upraised chin and folded hands apprized me that my
first visit had disturbed him in the midst of his
devotions.
His simple words of greeting produced the most violent
effect my nature had so far experienced. The
bitter separation of my mother’s death I had
thought the measure of all anguish. Now an agony
at separation from my Divine Mother was an indescribable
torture of the spirit. I fell moaning to the
floor.
“Little sir, quiet yourself!” The saint
was sympathetically distressed.
Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his
feet as the sole raft of my rescue.
“Holy sir, thy intercession! Ask Divine
Mother if I find any favor in Her sight!”
This promise is one not easily bestowed; the master
was constrained to silence.
Beyond reach of doubt, I was convinced that Master
Mahasaya was in intimate converse with the Universal
Mother. It was deep humiliation to realize that
my eyes were blind to Her who even at this moment
was perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint.
Shamelessly gripping his feet, deaf to his gentle
remonstrances, I besought him again and again for
his intervening grace.
“I will make your plea to the Beloved.”
The master’s capitulation came with a slow,
compassionate smile.
What power in those few words, that my being should
know release from its stormy exile?
“Sir, remember your pledge! I shall return
soon for Her message!” Joyful anticipation rang
in my voice that only a moment ago had been sobbing
in sorrow.
Descending the long stairway, I was overwhelmed by
memories. This house at 50 Amherst Street, now
the residence of Master Mahasaya, had once been my
family home, scene of my mother’s death.
Here my human heart had broken for the vanished mother;
and here today my spirit had been as though crucified
by absence of the Divine Mother. Hallowed walls,
silent witness of my grievous hurts and final healing!
