THE SPIRITUAL PATH 113

must be the effect of many devotees meeting together
to sing His Name in tuneful chorus with overflowing
hearts ? This practice of Sankirtan, taught to the world
again by Sri Krishna Chaitanya, gave Hinduism what
it might otherwise have almost lacked—the tremendous
force of united prayer, of congregational worship. Those
who have enjoyed a whole day and night lost to the
outer world amid such devotees, uplifted on the blessed
Name sung to many sweet tunes, those who have come
again and again through a thrilling saptaham, seven
continuous days of ceaseless song—these alone can try
to say how sweet, how powerful it is. All troubles sink
into the abyss whence they came, all separation from the
Beloved vanishes for the time, heart and mind are
united with the Lord in ecstasy, and the echo, with its
power, holds the soul in deep peace for weeks after the
outer sounds have died away and the singers have
dispersed.

It is not only those who take part, but even those who
casually pass by and hear the sweet Sankirtan, who are
cleansed from all impurities and given a chance to stay
pure from that moment. All Divine holiness gathers
round the spot where God*s holy Name is thus chanted
by those who love Him ; such people need no pilgri-
mage, no absolution, no sacraments; they are wholly
pure with God's own holiness. Others coming to that
place are themselves sanctified by its vast vibrations,
uplifted to Divine nobility, thrilled to a fleeting sense
of the Eternal Presence—a thrill which, if cultivated
thereafter, swiftly divinises even the very sinner. To
such a place men go in tlieir last hours of life, as
pilgrims go to die at Banaras on the banks of holy
Ganga; such a place becomes the scene of spiritual
efforts that attain great things, those dying there achieve
Liberation.

Such a place as this, such a time as that when the
holy and life-giving vibrations of God's Name fill the
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