Part 49 (1/2)
In 1915, shortly after I had entered the Swami Order, I witnessed a vision of violent contrasts In it the relativity of human consciousness was vividly established; I clearly perceived the unity of the Eternal Light behind the painful dualities of MAYA
The vision descended onin my little attic room in Father's Gurpar Road ho in Europe; I reflected sadly on the vast toll of death
As I closed my eyes in meditation, my consciousness was suddenly transferred to the body of a captain in couns split the air as shots were exchanged between shore batteries and the shi+p's cannons A huge shell hit the powder azine and tore ether with the few sailors who had survived the explosion
Heart pounding, I reached the shore safely But alas! a stray bullet ended its furious flight in round My whole body was paralyzed, yet I are of possessing it as one is conscious of a leg gone to sleep
”At last the ht up with h, I was about to sink into unconsciousness when lo! I found myself seated in the lotus posture in my Gurpar Road room
Hysterical tears poured forth as I joyfully stroked and pinched ained possession-a body free from any bullet hole in the breast
I rocked to and fro, inhaling and exhaling to assure ain I found my consciousness transferred to the captain's dead body by the gory shore Utter confusion of mind came upon me
”Lord,” I prayed, ”aht filled the whole horizon A soft ru vibration formed itself into words:
”What has life or death to do with Light? In the iht I haveto the cos! Awake, , the Lord inspires scientists to discover, at the right time and place, the secrets of His creation
Many modern discoveries help men to apprehend the cosuided by divine intelligence The wonders of the motion picture, of radio, of television, of radar, of the photo-electric cell-the all-seeing ”electric eye,” of atonetic phenoht
The motion picture art can portray any miracle From the impressive visual standpoint, no raphy A ross physical form, he can walk on the water, resurrect the dead, reverse the natural sequence of develop the light irapher achieves optical wonders which a true ht rays
The lifelike ies of thecreation The Cosmic Director has written His own plays, and asseeant of the centuries
From the dark booth of eternity, He pours His creative beaes, and the pictures are thrown on the screen of space Just as the es appear to be real, but are only coht and shade, so is the universal variety a delusive see The planetary spheres, with their countless forures in a cosmic motion picture, temporarily true to five sense perceptions as the scenes are cast on the screen of man's consciousness by the infinite creative beam
A cinees are appearing through the instruht The colorful universal draht of a Cos an entertain them actors as well as audience in His planetary theater
One day I entered a motion picture house to view a newsreel of the European battlefields World War I was still being waged in the West; the newsreel recorded the carnage with such realism that I left the theater with a troubled heart
”Lord,” I prayed, ”why dost Thou per?”
To my intense surprise, an instant answer came in the form of a vision of the actual European battlefields The horror of the struggle, filled with the dead and dying, far surpassed in ferocity any representation of the newsreel
”Look intently!” A gentle voice spoke to my inner consciousness ”You will see that these scenes now being enacted in France are nothing but a play of chiaroscuro They are the cosmic motion picture, as real and as unreal as the theater newsreel you have just seen-a play within a play”
My heart was still not coht and shadow both, else no picture is possible The good and evil of MAYA must ever alternate in supremacy If joy were ceaseless here in this world, wouldhe scarcely cares to recall that he has forsaken his eternal hoh wisdoedy of death is unreal; those who shudder at it are like an ignorant actor who dies of fright on the stage when nothing e My sons are the children of light; they will not sleep forever in delusion”
Although I had read scriptural accounts of MAYA, they had not given ht that ca words of consolation One's values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture, and that not in it, but beyond it, lies his own reality
As I finished writing this chapter, I sat on my bed in the lotus posture My rooaze, I noticed that the ceiling was dotted with s with a radiumlike luster
Myriads of pencilled rays, like sheets of rain, gathered into a transparent shaft and poured silently upon rossness and beca sensation as, barely touching the bed, the weightless body shi+fted slightly and alternately to left and right I looked around the room; the furniture and walls were as usual, but the littlewas invisible I onder-struck