Page 47 - NAMAH-Jul-2019

Namah Insight

receptacle, a mere responsive medium but it same as that created by a Napoleon, nor
is a dynamo — a power-station generating should they be the same. It does not prove
and throwing out energy that produces and anything that I cannot become a Kalidasa; for
creates. that matter Kalidasa cannot become what I
am. If you have not the genius of a Shankara it
Now the centre of this energy, the matrix of does not mean that you have no genius at all.
creativity is the soul itself, one’s own soul. If Be and become yourself — ma gridhah kasyachit
you want to create — live, grow and be real dhanam, says the Upanishad. The fountain-
— find yourself, be yourself. The simple old head of creative genius lies there, in the free
wisdom still remains the eternal wisdom. It choice and the particular delight — the self-
is because we fall off from our soul that we determination of the spirit within you and
wander into side-paths, paths that do not not in the desire for your neighbor’s riches.
belong to our real nature and hence that lead The world has become dull and uniform and
to imitation and repetition, decay and death. mechanical, since everybody endeavours to
This is what happens to what we call common become not himself, but always somebody
souls. The force of circumstances, the pressure else. Imitation is servitude and servitude
of environment or simply the momentum brings in grief.
of custom or habit compel them to choose
the easiest and the readiest way that may lie In one’s own soul lies the very height and
before them. They do not consult the demand profundity of a god-head. Each soul by bringing
of the inner being but the requirement of the out the note that is his, makes for the most
moment. Our bodily needs, our vital hungers wondrous symphony. Once a man knows
and our mental prejudices obsess and obscure what he is and holds fast to it, refusing to be
the impulsions that thrill the hidden spirit. drawn away by any necessity or temptation,
We hasten to gratify the immediate and forget he begins to uncover himself, to do what his
the eternal, we clutch at the shadow and let inmost nature demands and takes joy in, that
go the substance. We are carried away in is to say, begins to create. Indeed there may
the flux and tumult of life. It is a mixed and be much difference in the forms that different
collective whirl — a Weltgeist that moves and souls take. But because each is itself, therefore
governs us. We are helpless straws drifting each is grounded upon the fundamental
in the current. But manhood demands that equality of things. All our valuations are
we stop and pause, pull ourselves out of the in reference to some standard or other set
Maelstrom and be what we are. We must up with a particular end in view, but that is
shape things as we want and not allow things a question of the practical world which in
to shape us as they want. no way takes away from the intrinsic value
of the greatness of the soul. So long as the
Let each take cognisance of the godhead that thing is there, the how of it does not matter.
is within him — for self is God — and in Infinite are the ways of manifestation and
the strength of the soul-divinity create his all of them the very highest and the most
universe. It does not matter what sort of sublime, provided they are a manifestation
universe he creates, so long as he creates it. of the soul itself, provided they rise and flow
The world created by a Buddha is not the from the same level. Whether it is Agni or

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