 |
Chapter 15
THE INTEGRAL YOGA: SEEING THE LORD EVERYWHERE
84. The Triad Of Service
12. It is because of the perishability of the creation that we have fresh flowers every day. A town is lovable because there is a cremation ground near it. Everyday, old people die and new children are born. That makes life interesting. Had there been no death, and therefore no cremation ground, life would have become a veritable hell. You would have got tired of seeing the same people day after day. In the hot summer, earth is parched. But do not be troubled; summer days will pass. The heat of the summer is necessary to have later the joy of the rainy season. If summer is not hot enough, rains will make the earth slushy. We would not then have plentiful crops. Once I was wandering about on a hot summer day. My head felt the heat and it made me happy. A friend warned me that I could fall ill. I told him, “The earth below is getting heated. Let this head, a lump of clay, too get heated like it.” How joyful is the experience of receiving the shower on the heated head! But if a man is not in the habit of being out in the scorching summer heat, he would not feel like coming out in the open when it is raining; he would remain within the four walls of the house and bury his head in books; he would not dance under the grand and sacred shower. He would miss the divine joy. The sage Manu was a great lover of nature. He writes in his Smriti, “When it starts raining, holiday should be declared.” Should the pupils sit in the ashram roting something when it is raining outside? That is the time for singing, dancing, becoming one with nature, watching ecstatically the meeting of the earth and the sky. Nature is itself a great teacher. In short, the perishability of creation implies newn ess in the means of worship. Thus we have creation endowed with creative energy to create endlessly new means, the eternal and ever-ready servant and the Lord. With the coming together of these three, let the game go on. Purushottam, the Supreme Person, is giving the bhakta different means of worship and taking from him service that springs from love. ‘He is ever-engaging me in play by putting in my hands new and newer means. I am nothing but His instrument.’—Let this feeling pervade the life and it will then be full of joy. |
 |