An Evening in July

THIS evening, the rains of July, pouring in ceaseless torrents, have swept away and drowned all other voices of the Earth. The darkness is thick upon the meadows, and dumb space, ever silent, is brimming over with words.

Nothing but this sound of rainfall could make the darkness vocal with its true language. The pattering of rain draws, as it were, veil upon veil over the stillness of the evening, making it more and more intense and close, and thickening the shroud of slumber that spreads over the world. This monotonous sound of rain seems to me to be the darkness of sound itself.

To-day the evening sky seems like a child, struck with wonder at the mystery of its own first utterance, lisping the same word over and over again and listening to it in unceasing joy,

It rouses a response in our hearts too, which yearn for a similar expression, for saying something, equally large, filling, in like manner, all land and water and sky. The language of the Great Nature in the babbling of streams, in the rustling of woods, in the murmurs of spring, is never expressed in narrow and clear-cut words, but in hints and suggestions, in symbols of pictures and music. When Nature, therefore, speaks, she hushes up all our words in our hearts, and claims from us an answering music which should be full of the suggestion of the unutterable.

From the very beginning, the mind of man seems to have worked to harmonize its language of everyday life with the eternal language of Nature. It has been borrowing tints and outlines from Nature, and giving forms to its thoughts in pictures; and it has been catching fleeting notes and rhythms from her and weaving its emotions into poetry with them. In this way, the thought of man has ever been running into what is beyond thought, and his ideas and emotions have been finding their way into the ineffable.

This evening, in the deep rains, the language of Nature’s darkness seems to seek its harmony in our human voice. Arguments and analysis are of no avail, for nothing but music can satisfy now.

Let your words be silent therefore. Remove from your vision the limited area of your activities that hem you in on all sides, and welcome into your soul this incessant shower of rain which sweeps the entire sky.

This leads me to think how mysterious the relation of the human heart with Nature must be! In the outer world of activity Nature has one aspect, but in our hearts, in the inner world, it presents an altogether different picture.

Take an instance — the flower of a plant. However fine and dainty it may look, it is pressed to do a great service and its colors and forms are all suited to its work. It must bring forth the fruit, or the continuity of plant life will be broken and the earth will be turned into a desert ere long. The color and the smell of the flower are all for some purpose; therefore no sooner is it fertilized by the bee, no sooner does the time of its fruition arrive, than it sheds its exquisite petals and a cruel economy compels it to give up its sweet perfume. It has no time to flaunt its finery, for it is busy beyond measure. Viewed from without, necessity seems to be the only factor in Nature, for which everything works and moves. There the bud develops into the flower, the flower into the fruit, the fruit into the seed, the seed into a new plant again, and so forth, the chain of activity running on unbroken. Should there crop up any disturbance or impediment, no excuse would be accepted and the unfortunate thing so choked in its movement would at once be labelled as rejected, and be bound to die and disappear post-haste.

In the great office of Nature, there are innumerable departments with endless work going on, and the fine flower that you behold there, gaudily attired and scented like a dandy, is by no means what it appears to be, but rather is like a laborer toiling in sun and shower, who has to submit a clear account of his work, and has no breathing space to enjoy himself in a playful frolic.

But when this same flower enters the heart of men, its aspect of busy practicalness is gone and it becomes the very emblem of leisure and repose. The same object that is the source of endless activity without, is the perfect expression of beauty and peace within.

Science here warns us that we are mistaken, that the purpose of the flower is nothing but what is manifested outwardly, and that the relation of beauty and sweetness which we think it bears to us, is all our own making, gratuitous and imaginary.

But our heart replies that we are not in the least mistaken. In the sphere of Nature, the flower carries with it a letter of introduction which recommends it as having immense capacity for doing useful work; but it brings an altogether different introduction when it knocks at the door of our hearts. Beauty, then, is its only recommendation. At one place it comes as a prisoner, and at another, as a free thing. How then should we give credit to its first introduction and disbelieve the second one? That the flower has got its being in the unbroken chain of causation, is true beyond doubt; but that is an outer truth. The inner truth is: ‘Anandádhyéva Khalvimáni bhutáni, jáyanté,’ — verily from the everlasting joy all objects have their birth.

A flower, therefore, has not its only function in Nature, but has another great function to exercise in the mind of man. And what is that function? In Nature, its work is that of a slave who has to make his appearance at appointed times, but in the heart of man, it comes like a messenger from the King. In the Ramayana, when Sita, forcibly separated from her husband, was bewailing her evil fate in Rávana’s golden palace, she was met by a messenger who brought with him a ring of Rámchandra himself. The very sight of it convinced Sita of the truth of the tidings he bore. She was at once reassured that he came indeed from her beloved one, who had not forgotten her and who was at hand to rescue her.

Such a messenger is a flower from our Great Lover. Surrounded with the pomp and pageantry of worldliness which may be likened to this golden city of Ravan, we still live in exile, and there the insolent spirit of worldly prosperity tempts us with allurements and claims us as its own bride. In the mean time comes the flower across, with the message from the other shore, and whispers in our ears, ‘I am come. He has sent me — I am a messenger of the Beautiful, the one whose soul is the bliss of love. This island of isolation has been bridged over by Him, and He has not forgotten thee and will rescue thee even now. He will draw thee unto Him and make thee his own. This illusion will not hold thee in thralldom forever.’

If we happen to be awake then, we question him: ‘How are we to know that thou art come from Him indeed!' The messenger says, ‘Look! I have this ring from Him. How lovely are its hues and charm! ’

Ah, of course. It is his indeed — our wedding ring. Now all else passes into oblivion, only this sweet symbol of the touch of the Eternal love fills us with a deep longing. We realize that the palace of gold where we are is not all — our deliverance is outside it; and there, our love has its fruition and our life has its fulfillment.

What to the bee, in Nature, are merely color and scent and the marks or spots to know the right track to honey, are to the human heart, beauty and joy untrammeled by necessity. They bring a love-letter to the heart, written in colored inks.

I was telling you, therefore, that however busy our active Nature outwardly may be, she has a secret passage within the heart, where she comes and goes freely, without any design whatsoever. There, the fire of her workshop is transformed into lamps of a festival, the noise of her factory is heard like music. The iron chain of cause and effect sounds heavily outside in Nature, but in the human heart, its unalloyed delight seems to play, as it were, on the golden strings of a harp.

This, indeed, seems to be wonderful, that Nature has these two aspects at one and the same time, so antithetical — one being of thralldom and the other of freedom. In the same form, sound, color and taste, two contrary notes are heard, one of necessity and the other of joy. Outwardly, Nature is busy and restless, inwardly she is all silence and peace. She has toil on one side and leisure on the other. You see her bondage only when you see her from without, but within her heart is a limitless beauty.

At this very moment, when this rainfall resounds in the sky of the evening, it hides from us its aspect of action. In this silent meeting of darkness, it throws no hint of its busy mission of supplying each blade of grass and each leaf of the tree with their nourishment. It descends to our heart, leaving off its office dress, to entertain us with music, to please the poet in us. Hence, in the tune of the rainfall, this plaintive note overspreads the sky: —

Indeed, this message must be made known to us, that we live in separation from our Lord. For the pain of separation and the joy of meeting are closely connected. As smoke may be called the beginning of the flame, so the former may be called the preparation of the latter.

But who bears the news to us? Why, they whom your science takes as galley slaves in the great prison-house of Nature’s law where they are fettered in chains one with another, and are made to toil night and day, mute figures — they,and none but they, deliver to us the tidings. When the sound of their fetters penetrates into our hearts, we discover in it the song of parting from the Beloved, or rather, the glad music of welcome of the meeting with Him. Such messages as can never be given in words are whispered by them secretly to us, and are woven partly into rhyme and partly into words in the poetry of man, who sings: —

To-day this feeling ever recurs to my mind, that these rains are not of one single evening but an unceasing shower pouring from all my life. So far as my vision goes, a deep darkness of an everlasting evening of my lovelorn, sad and solitary soul, shrouds, in thick folds, all my life; there, surrounding the faroff bounding lines of the earth and the sky, hour goes after hour in the untiring and ceaseless fall of rains, and the whole sky is loud with this strain: ‘How could’st thou pass thy weary nights and days, when parted from thy Lord thou art!’

Still, through this pain of separation a deep sweetness secretly wells up, a fragrance from an unknown blossoming woodland wafts hither to us an ineffable breath of love. The very anguish of my heart ever repeats to my ear, ‘He is. Surely He is.’

Where this life-long isolation of mine begins, there He is, and where it will have its end one day, there He waits. And now in the midway He plays so sweetly upon his lute, keeping Himself ever out of sight. Oh, how to pass my nights and days without Him, that Lord of mine own innermost soul!