When all my thoughts were furiously revolving, like dead leaves, in a whirlwind of desire for raising funds, a picture came to my hand; it was that of Sujata offering a cup of milk to Buddha. Its message went deep into my heart. It said to me—“The cup of milk comes to you unasked when you have gone through your tapasya. It is offered to you with love, and only love can bring its homage to truth.” Then your figure at once came to my mind. The milk has been sent to me through you. It is infinitely more than anything that can come from the cheque-book of the rich. I had become famished in the wilderness of solitude for lack of sympathy and comradeship, when you brought your cup of love to me which is the true life-giving food freely offered by life. And as the poet Morris says, “Love is enough.” That voice of love every day calls me away from the lure of dollars—the voice that comes to nestle in my heart from across the sea, from the shady avenue of sal trees resonant with the laughter and songs of simple joy.
The mischief is that ambition does not fully believe in love. It believes in power. It leaves the limpid and singing water of everlasting life for the wine of success. Every day I seem to be growing afraid of the very vision of this success. It has been said in the Upanishat, “Happiness is in greatness.” Ambition points out bigness and calls it greatness, and our track is hopelessly lost. When I look at the picture of Buddha, I cry for the great peace of inner fulfilment. My longing grows painfully intense as my mind becomes distracted at the stupendous unmeaningness of monstrosity in things around me. Every morning I sit by my window and say to myself, “I must not bow my head to this ugly idol worshipped by the West with daily human sacrifices.” I remember that morning at Shileida when the Vaishnava woman came to me and said, “When are you coming down from your three-storied building to meet your love under the shade of the trees?”
Just now, I am on the top storey of the sky-scraper, to which the tallest of trees dare not send its whisper; but love silently comes to me saying, “When are you coming down to meet me on the green grass under the rustling leaves, where you have the freedom of the sky and of sunlight and the tender touch of life’s simplicity?” I try to say something about money, but it sounds so ludicrous and yet so tragic, that my words grow ashamed of themselves and they stop.
Lack of means should not be allowed to mock the majesty of soul, seeking its crown in the foolscap of the bank cheque. The Spirit of India comes to me in the midst of my spurious activities and whispers the immortal mantram to my inner spirit, “What shall I do with that which will not make me immortal?”