XXI. NIRBAL KE BAL
RAM
Though I had acquired a nodding acquaintance with
Hinduism and other religions of the world, I should have
known that it would not be enough to save me in my
trails. Of the thing that sustains him through trials man
has no inkling, much less knowledge, at the time. If an
unbeliever, he will attribute his safety to chance. If a
believer, he will say God saved him. He will conclude, as
well he may, that his religious study or spiritual
discipline was at the back of the state of grace within
him. But in the hour of his deliverance he does not know
whether his spiritual discipline or something else saves
him. Who that has prided himself on his spiritual
strength has not seen it humbled to the dust? A knowledge
of religion, as distinguished from experience, seems but
chaff in such moments of trial.
It was in England that I first discovered the futility
of mere religious knowledge. How I was saved on previous
occasions is more than I can say, for I was very young
then; but now I was twenty and had gained some experience
as husband and father.
During the last year, as far as I can remember, of my
stay in England, that is in 1890, there was a Vegetarian
Conference at Portsmouth to which an Indian friend and I
were invited. Portsmouth is a sea-port with a large naval
population. It has many houses with women of ill fame,
women not actually prostitutes, but at the same time, not
very scrupulous about their morals. We were put up in one
of these houses. Needles to say, the Reception Committee
did not know anything about it. It would have been
difficult in a town like Portsmouth to find out which
were good lodgings and which were bad for occasional
travellers like us.
We returned from the Conference in the evening. After
dinner we sat down to play a rubber of bridge, in which
our landlady joined, as is customary in England even in
respectable households. Every player indulges in innocent
jokes as a matter of course, but here my companion and
our hostess began to make indecent ones as well. I did
not know that my friend was an adept in the art. It
captured me and I also joined in. Just when I was about
to go beyond the limit, leaving the cards and the game to
themselves. God through the good companion uttered the
blessed warning: 'Whence this devil in you, my boy? Be
off, quick!'
I was ashamed. I took the warning and expressed within
myself gratefulness to my friend. Remembering the vow I
had taken before my mother, I fled from the scene. To my
room I went quaking, trembling, and with beating heart,
like a quarry escaped from its pursuer.
I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman,
other than my wife, moved me to lust. I passed that night
sleeplessly, all kinds of thoughts assailing me. Should I
leave this house? Should I run away from the place? Where
was I? What would happen to me if I had not my wits about
me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not
to leave the house, but somehow leave Portsmouth. The
Conference was not to go on for more than two days, and I
remember I left Portsmouth the next evening, my companion
staying there some time longer.
I did not then know the essence of religion or of God,
and how He works in us. Only vaguely I understood that
God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of
trial He has saved me. I know that the phrase 'God saved
me' has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel
that I have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only
richer experience can help me to a fuller understanding.
But in all my trials of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer,
in conducting institutions, and in politics I can say
that God saved me. When every hope is gone. 'When helpers
fall and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives
somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship,
prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than
the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is
no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else
is unreal.
Such worship or prayer is no flight of eloquence; it
is no lip-homage. It springs from the heart. If,
therefore, we achieve that purity of the heart when it is
'emptied of all but love', if we keep all the chords in
proper tune, they 'trembling pass in music out of sight'.
Prayer needs no speech. It is itself independent of any
sensuous effort. I have not the slightest doubt that
prayer is an unfailing means of cleaning the heart of
passions. But it must be combined with the utmost
humility.
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