A hermit in the Himalayas

A HERMIT IN THE HIMALAYAS

eternity, he may afford to bide his time and know how to wait
without complaint. Life is invested with unalterable benign principles.
Let me accept them, then.

Hope is the herald of all Truth. We begin to sense the coming
of our overdue revelation by a blind unconscious questing eagerness
to receive it.

One more evening on the leaf-strewn sanctuary is markedly
fruitful. The inward presence has been waiting unweariedly for me.
The air vibrates with loveliness for I begin to bathe in the beautiful
element of Truth. The mind quietly settles down into its own centre
with hardly an effort. The tide of blessed serenity begins to inundate
the heart. Peace, divine and delectable', roils over my head wave
after wave. Breathing sinks away into the gentlest of movements,
so gentle as to be almost unnoticed.

The procession of eternity passes by. All the petty irritations
and egoistic twists, the deep-scarred bitternesses and rebellious
cynicisms and trivial cares, fall for a time out of my character as
dead brown leaves falling from sapless darkening trees in autumn.
How can they continue to exist in such a grand rarefied atmosphere
as now overwhelms me with such well-defined strength? How can
these futile pain-bringing elements continue to afflict me when
another self, the Overself, now arises in all its sublimity and makes
me its temporary victim, seizing mind, heart and body in its grip as a
cat seizes a mouse with its white teeth?

Ah, but the victim is all too-willing ! For he is utterly helpless.
He is penetrated through and through with the subtle aroma of
those words : "Not my will, but Thine, O Lord, be done." Herein
lies the primal felicity. We must needs love the Absolute Good when
we perceive it.

Helpless, and yet what joyful freedom ! The bonds of the personal
ego are flung aside by the unseen hand, and with their going goes
all care, all anxiety, all concern for the past errors and future un-
certainties. The Overself, in announcing its presence, announces
also that It comes as liberator. It commands — and everything
mean, petty and cramping shrinks back and disappears. It glances —
and flowing sea of love, adoration, humility, surges up to Its feet.

How soothing is the sense of Its benign enfolding presence!
All inner conflict is stilled. The blood no longer wars with the
brain ; nor passion with thought. When our minds have been totally
subdued by logic, we are lost. The divine transcends logic.

Himalaya has opened the golden windows of heaven for me and
I must bless the day that I entered its quiet realm,

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