IS IT BEYOND thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? to be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy? All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind, no power can hold them back, they rush on. Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away-colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment.
IF THERE is nothing but pain in loving then why is this love? What folly is this to claim her heart because you have offered her your own! With the desire burning in your blood and madness glowing in your eyes why is this circling of a desert? He bankers for nothing in the world who is in possession of himself; the sweet air of the spring is for him, the flowers, the bird songs; but love comes like a devouring shadow effacing the whole world, eclipsing life and youth. Then why seek this mist that darkens existence?
THE SUN shone on a far-away morning, while the forest murmured its hymn of praise to light; and the hills, veiled in vapour, dimly glimmered like earth's dream in purple. The King sat alone in the coconut grove, his eyes drowned in a vision, his heart exultant with the rapturous hope of spreading the chant of adoration along the unending path of time: 'Let Buddha be my refuge.' His words found utterance in a deathless speech of delight, in an ecstasy of forms. The island took it upon her heart; her hill raised it to the sky. Age after age, the morning sun daily illumined its great meaning. While the harvest was sown and reaped in the near-by fields by the stream, and life, with its chequered light, made pictured shadows on its epochs of changing screen, the prayer, once Uttered in the quiet green of an ancient morning, ever rose in the midst of the hide-and-seek of tumultuous time: 'Let Buddha be my refuge.' The King, at the end of his days, is merged in the shadow of a nameless night among the unremembered, leaving his salutation in an imperishable rhythm of stone which ever cries: 'Let Buddha be my refuge.' Generations of pilgrims came on the quest of an immortal voice for their worship; and this sculptured hymn, in a grand symphony of gestures, took up their lowly names and uttered for them: 'Let Buddha be my refuge.' The spirit of those words has been muffled in mist in this mocking age of unbelief, and the curious crowds gather here to gloat in the gluttony of an irreverent sight. Man to-day has no peace,his heart arid with pride. He clamours for an ever-increasing speed in a fury of chase for objects that ceaselessly run, but never reach a meaning. And now is the time when he must come groping at last to the sacred silence, which stands still in the midst of surging centuries of noise, till he feels assured that in an immeasurable love dwells the final meaning of Freedom, whose prayer is: 'Let Buddha be my refuge.'
