HISTORY OF THE HUMAN HEART.
Argument. The wide extent of the Heart and its ultimate Dissolution.
Whatever may be the origin and nature of the human heart (which some
take for the mind), it should be always inquired into in seeking
out one’s own liberation. (The heart called _antahkarana_—an inner
organ, is often supposed as the same with the mind; its cravings after
worldliness, are to be suppressed under its longing for liberation from
worldly cares).
2. The heart being fixed in the Supreme, becomes purified of its worldly
desires and attachments; and then O Ráma! it perceives that soul in
itself, which transcends all imaginations of the mind. (Kalpanás are
imaginary attributes of God in the mind; who can only be seen in the
heart).
3. It is the province of the heart, to secure the sedateness of the
world in itself; and it lies in the power of the heart, either to make
its bondage or get its freedom, from the desires and troubles of the
world.
4. On this subject there hangs a curious tale relating the legend of the
heart, which was revealed to me of yore by Brahmá himself; and which I
will now relate to you Ráma, if you will listen to it with attention.
5. There is a long, open and dreary desert, Rámátaví by name; which was
quite still and solitary and without an inhabitant, in it; and so vast
in its extent, as to make a pace of a league of it. (Or rather to make a
league of a pace of it).
6. There stood a man of a terrific and gigantic figure in it, with a
sorrowful visage and troubled mind, and having a thousand arms and a
thousand eyes.
7. He held many clubs and maces in all his manifold arms, with which he
was striking his own back and breast, and then running away in this
direction and that (as if for fear of being caught by some one).
8. Then having struck himself fast and hard with his own hands, he fled
afar a hundred leagues for fear of being laid hold by some body.
9. Thus striking and crying and flying afar on all sides, he became
tired and spent, and lank in his legs and arms.
10. He fell flat with his languid limbs in a large blind pit, amidst the
deep gloom of a dark night, and in the depth of a dire dark cave (from
which he could not rise).
11. After the lapse of a long time, he scrambled out of the pit with
difficulty; and again continued to run away, and strike himself with his
own hands as before.
12. He ran again a great way, till at last he fell upon a thorny thicket
of _Karanja_ plants, which caught him as fast in its brambles, as a moth
or grasshopper is caught in a flame.
13. He with much difficulty extricated himself from the prickles of the
_Karanja_ furze; and began again to beat himself as before, and run in
his wonted course as usual.
14. Having then gone a great way off from that place, he got to a grove
of plantain arbour under the cooling moonbeams, where he sat for a while
with a smiling countenance.
15. Having then come out of the plantain grove, he went on running and
beating himself in his usual way.
16. Going again a great way in his hurriedness, he fell down again in a
great and darksome ditch, by being exhausted in all his limbs and his
whole body.
17. Rising from the ditch, he entered a plantain forest, and coming out
from that spot, he fell into another ditch and then in another _Karanja_
thicket.
18. Thus he was falling into one ditch after rising from a thorny furze,
and repeatedly beating himself and crying in secret.
19. I beheld him going on in this way for a long time, and then I with
all my force, rushed forward and stopped him in his way.
20. I asked him saying:—Who are you Sir, and why do you act in this
manner? What business have you in this place, and why do you wail and
trouble yourself for nothing?
21. Being thus asked by me, O Ráma! he answered me saying:—I am no body,
O sage! nor do I do any such thing as you are telling me about.
22. I am here stricken by you, and you are my greatest enemy; I am here
beheld and persecuted by you, both to my great sorrow and delight.
23. Saying so, he looked sorrowfully into his bruised body and limbs,
and then cried aloud and wept a flood of tears, which fell like a shower
of rain on the forest ground.
24. After a short while he ceased from his weeping, and then looking at
his limbs, he laughed and cried aloud in his mirth.
25. After his laughter and loud shouts were over, hear, O Ráma! what the
man next did before me. He began to tear off and separate the members of
his big body, and cast them away on all sides.
26. He first let fall his big head, and then his arms, and afterwards
his breast and then his belly also.
27. Thus the man having severed the parts of his body one after another,
was now ready to remove himself elsewhere with his legs only, by the
decree of his destiny.
28. After he had gone, there appeared another man to my sight, of the
same form and figure with the former one, and striking his body himself
as the other.
29. He kept running with his big legs and outstretched stout arms, until
he fell into the pit, whence he rose again, and betook to his flight as
before.
30. He fell into a pond again, and then rose and ran with his body
wringing with pain; falling again in hidden caves, and then resorting to
the cooling shade of forest trees.
31. Now ailing and now regaling, and now torturing himself with his own
hands; and in this way I saw him for sometime with horror and surprise
in myself.
32. I stopped him in his course, and asked about what he was doing; to
which he returned his crying and laughter for his answers by turns.
33. Finding at last his body and limbs decaying in their strength, he
thought upon the power of destiny, and the state of human lot, and was
prepared to depart.
34. I came again to see another succeeding him in the same desert path,
who had been flying and torturing himself in the same way as the others
gone before him.
35. He fell in the same dark pit in his flight, where I stood long to
witness his sad and fearful plight.
36. Finding this wretched man not rising above the pit for a long time,
I advanced to raise him up, when I saw another man following his
footsteps.
37. Seeing him of the same form, and hastening to his impending fall in
the doleful pit, I ran to stop his fate, by the same query I made to the
others before.
38. But O lotus-eyed Ráma! the man paid no heed to my question and only
said, you must be a fool to know nothing of me.
39. You wicked Bráhman! he said to me, and went on in his course; while
I kept wandering in that dreadful desert in my own way.
40. I saw many such men coming one after the other to their unavoidable
ruin, and though I addressed to all and every one of them, yet they
softly glided away by me, like phantoms in a dream.
41. Some of them gave no heed to my saying, as a man pays no attention
to a dead body; and some among the pit-fallen had the good fortune of
rising again.
42. Some among these had no egress from the plantain grove for a long
while, and some were lost forever, amidst the thorns and thistles of
_Karanja_ thickets.
43. There were some pious persons among them, that had no place for
their abode; though that great desert was so very extensive as I have
told you already (and capable of affording habitations for all and many
more of them).
44. This vast desert is still in existence, together with these sorts of
men therein; and that place is well known to you, Ráma, as the common
range of mankind. Don’t you remember it now, with all the culture of
your mind from your early youth?
45. O that dreadful desert is this world, filled with thorns and dangers
on all sides. It is a dark desert amidst a thick spread darkness, and no
body that comes herein, finds the peace and quiet of his heart, except
such as have acquired the divine knowledge, which makes it a rose garden
to them. (See the pit-falls in the bridge of Addison’s Vision of
Mirza).