“…as it was the Almighty Power of God which had raised that cry, that hope, so it was the same Power which had sent down that silence. He who was in the shouting and the movement was also in the pause and the hush. He has sent it upon us, so that the nation might draw back for a moment and look into itself and know His will. I have not been disheartened by that silence because I had been made familiar with silence in my prison and because I knew it was in the pause and the hush that I had myself learned this lesson through the long year of my detention.”
“He turned the hearts of my jailers to me and they spoke to the Englishman in charge of the jail, “He is suffering in his confinement; let him at least walk outside his cell for half an hour in the morning and in the evening.” So it was arranged, and it was while I was walking that His strength again entered into me. I looked the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me.
I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me….I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies. Amongst these thieves and dacoits there were many who put me to shame by their sympathy, their kindness, the humanity triumphant over such adverse circumstances.
One I saw among them especially, who seemed to me a saint, a peasant of my nation who did not know how to read and write, an alleged dacoit sentenced to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment, one of those whom we look down upon in our Pharisaical pride of class as Chhotalok…(lower orders) Once more He spoke to me and said, “Behold the people among whom I have sent you to do a little of my work. This is the nature of the nation I am raising up and the reason why I raise them.”
When the case opened in the lower court and we were brought before the Magistrate I was followed by the same insight. He said to me, “When you were cast into jail, did not your heart fail and did you not cry out to me, where is Thy protection? Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting Counsel.”
I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was Naryana who was sitting there on the bench….”
When I look at Justice Scalia, I never see Vishnu, Bhuddha, or Jesus.
I see a small and petty man, brain damaged by education in dalaw, and dressed in a silly looking black robe.
Am I lacking in spirituality, or just clear-headed?
1. Scalia is a very smart man but a convinced statist. I didn’t mention Vishnu or anyone else in relation to him, so I wonder what your point is. I ‘ve never heard anyone who knows anything about the law – left or right – claim that Scalia was stupid, so acknowledging something fairly obvious (he’s smart) is not an endorsement of his positions, which as I said, err on the side of majoritarianism in my opinion.
2. Aurobindo was a polymath, a literary genius and a physically brave revolutionary, whose ideas are fascinating to me because he accomplished a great deal more than most of us.
3. It’s not clearheaded to constantly misread what someone says…..