But now that I am brimming with The silence of the Lord I have ceased to be a sword-maker And learned to be the sword.
In by-gone days I used to be A dreamer who would hurl On every side an insolence Of emerald and pearl.
But now that I am kneeling At the feet of the Supreme I have ceased to be the dreamer And have learned to be the dream.
After this I asked H.C. to recite before Bhagavan (or rather act as on the stage) a piece from a play of his in which a dock-labourer groaning under his work bursts out into a complaint. H.C. did so and all saw how moving a good recitation can be. After a while H.C. asked Bhagavan, “How is it, Bhagavan, we sometimes feel choked with tears in Bhagavan’s Presence?” Bhagavan smiled and kept quiet. I said, “It is a good thing if one’s tears gush forth like that and even of Bhagavan it is recorded that when he used to go and stand before the image in the temple at Madura, before he came here, tears used to flow involuntarily out of his eyes, not as the result of any joy or pain, but purely out of bhakti.” Bhagavan was thereupon kind enough to add, “Even after coming here such a thing has happened. Even on reading or hearing touching passages from books such a thing has happened. Apparently a stock of emotional tears is latent in so many of us, so that at any opportune moment, or on the slightest provocation, they well out without any control on our part.” Then Bhagavan narrated, very dramatically as is usual with him, an incident which occurred when he was about 22 and living in the Virupakshi Cave. It seems he was sitting on a rock near the cave and a boy of about 8 or 10 years came there,