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Here or Elsewhere
IT is easy and comfortable to go within and in an inner consciousness find and maintain a
union, even a close union with the Divine. It is because of such a state of
peace and bliss that many, nay, most who go there do
not want to come back, to normal life upon this earth. And teachers, great or
small, almost invariably, have taught that in the end it is best like that, and
perhaps the only thing to do under the circumstances. For this life and this
earth mean the very opposite of that inner heaven and that highest good. But
some are not given this comfortable solution of the difficulty. They are asked
to turn back and live the life of the earth. They are not allowed to remain cosy in a narrow room and be busy always with themselves
alone. Indeed, is it not narrow egoism to seek only one's own salvation? When
one has saved himself, is it not his duty – the logical outcome and implication
of his personal freedom – that he should seek to help
others in their salvation? Such was in fact the attitude of the Amitabha
Buddha. A
house is on fire. It has a tarred roof. One can easily understand the fury of
the fire. Some inmates
who were trapped have managed to come out in time, although some-what bruised
and scalded. But there were others, some children, left inside. One of those who came out rushes back again through the flames and comes
and goes till all are saved. He is badly burnt, he has risked his life: he did
not mind and could not remain at a safe distance. He could not be contented
with saving himself, which was to be sure a sufficient gain in one respect.
This soul had a consciousness of his wider self. In the same way, there are souls
that have emerged out of the fire of earthly life and are enjoying the safety
and security
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268 of the heavens; but they have been called to come back into
the world, add to the experience of the tranquil above the experience of the
trouble below. Surely it increases the scope of their consciousness. But to
turn upon the world means also to re-enter into ignorance, for this world means
ignorance, as it is, it is nothing but ignorance. The role then of one who
returns is once more to embrace ignorance, but with a view to bringing into it
the light and bliss that he gained from above, permeating the stuff of the
present world with the substance of the higher consciousness. It is a sacrifice
demanded of him, thus to abandon the eternal felicity of the high heavens – the
unbroken union with the Divine above – and to enter into the depths of
"this great perilous world": but this is a privilege too, to bring
solace to the afflicted, the transforming light to obscure souls, the radiant
energy to inert earth. It is a high privilege for which the luminous soul is
thankful: he modestly accepts a gift of grace from the Supreme. He accepts the
Ignorance and offers it: he lays it at the feet of the Supreme so that it may
be transmuted into light – light here below. His own role is that of a modest
intermediary.
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