 | Back To Godhead Vol 03 P.14, 1958
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Under caption of LITERARY LAPSES in the editorial column of the Times of India, Bombay dated 12/10/58 it was argued whether truth and beauty are compatible terms with one another. The editorial said, while criticizing Professor Humayun Kabir’s speeches in Calcutta on literary lapses, that one would agree willingly, if it came to that, to express the truth, but since truth is not always beautiful—indeed it is frequently rather startling and unpleasant—how is one to express truth and beauty at the same time?
In reply to this we may inform all concerned that Truth and Beauty are compatible terms. It is rather emphatically asserted that truth which is Absolute is always beautiful. The Truth is so beautiful that it attracts everyone including the Truth itself. Truth is so beautiful that many sages, saints and devotees have left everything for the sake of Truth. Mahatma Gandhi the idol of the modern world dedicated his life for experimenting with Truth and all his activities were targeted towards Truth only.
Why Mahatma Gandhi—every one of us is searching after an urge of truth only because it is not only beautiful but also all powerful, all resourceful, all famous, all renouncing and all knowledge.
Unfortunately people have no information of the actual Truth and 99.9 percent men in all ranks of life are following the footprints of Untruth only in the name of Truth and its searching after. We are actually attracted with the beauty of Truth but we are habituated to love untruth from time immemorial in the name of Truth. And therefore to the mundaner Truth and Beauty are incompatible terms. The mundane Truth and beauty is explained as follows:
A person fell in love with a beautiful girl(?). The man was very powerful and strongly built but his character was very doubtful. The girl was not only beautiful in appearance but also saintly in character. As such the beautiful girl did not like the proposal of the powerful man. The powerful man however insisted upon his lustful desires and the beautiful girl requested the man to wait for seven days only and after that she fixed up a time when the man could meet her.
The strongman agreed and with high expectations began to count and wait for the zero hour when he was fixed up to meet the girl.
The saintly girl however in order to manifest the real beauty of relative Truth adopted a means which is very instructive. She took up a very strong dose of purgative medicine and for seven days continually she passed only loose stool and also vomited all that she ate. And all the loose stool and the vomits were stored up in suitable reservoirs. As a result of this laxative medicine the so-called beautiful girl became lean, thin like a skeleton and turned blackish in complexion and the beautiful eye balls were pushed into the sockets of the skull. And at the appointed hour she was waiting anxiously to receive the man in love.
The man appeared on the scene well dressed and well behaved and asked the waiting girl, who was depressed in appearance, about the beautiful girl who called him there. The man could not recognize the waiting girl as the same beautiful girl whom he was asking for. The same girl however was in a pitiable condition and the foolish man in spite of repeated assertion could not recognize her. It was all due to the action of the medicine only.
At last the girl told the powerful man all the story of her beauty and told him that she had separated the ingredients of beauty and stored them up in the reservoirs. She also told him that he could enjoy the juices of beauty stored up in the reservoirs. The mundane poetic or the lunatic man agreed to see the juices of beauty and thus he was directed to the store of loose stool and liquid vomit which were emanating unbearable bad smell and thus the whole story of beauty liquid was disclosed to him. The characterless man by the grace of the saintly girl was able to distinguish between the shadow and the substance and thus he came to his senses.
That is the real position of every one of us who are attracted with the false material beauty. The girl as above mentioned developed a beautiful material body as she desired in her mind but in fact she was apart from such temporary material body and mind. She is in fact a spiritual spark and so also the man in love who was attracted by the false skin of the girl.
Both Professor Humayun Kabir and the editor of the Times of India are however deluded by the outward beauty and attraction of the relative truth and are unaware of the spiritual spark which is both Truth and Beauty at one and the same time. The spiritual spark is so beautiful that on its leaving the so-called beautiful body full of stools and vomit—nobody would like to touch it even though the same is decorated with costly costume.
And because we are all after a false relative truth therefore the same is incompatible with real beauty. The truth is so permanently beautiful that it maintains the same standard of beauty as it is for lacs and crores of years. Besides that such spiritual spark is indestructible. The beauty of the outer skin can be destroyed in a few hours time only by one dose of strong purgative pill but the beauty of Truth is always the same and indestructible as it is always. Unfortunately mundane editors and professors are ignorant of this beautiful sparks of spirit as well as the whole fiery resources of these spiritual sparks and their interrelations of transcendental pastimes. When the same is displayed here by the Grace of the Almighty the foolish persons who cannot see beyond the senses take that pastime of Truth and Beauty in the light of the above store of loose stools and liquid vomit and thus become despaired and declare how Truth and Beauty can be accommodated at one and the same time.
The mundaners do not know that the Whole spiritual Entity is the beautiful Person attracting everything as the Prime Substance and the Prime source and Fountain Head of everything that be. And the infinitesimal spiritual sparks as parts and parcels of the Whole spirit are qualitatively the same beautiful and eternal entities. The difference is that the Whole is eternally the Whole and the parts are eternally the parts. Both of them are the Ultimate Truth, ultimate beauty, ultimate knowledge, ultimate energy, ultimate renunciation and ultimate opulence.
So far literary lapses are concerned any literature which does not describe such Ultimate Truth and Beauty is a store of loose stools and liquid vomit of the relative truth may it be described by any mundane poet or thinker of any country. Real literature is that which describes about these ultimate Truth and beauty. Poet Kalidas is as much a mundane litterateur as Professor Humayun Kabir or the editor of the Times of India. Such a mundane litterateur like poet Kalidas went to see a learned queen of his time and sent his card.(To be Continued)
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