XLII. THE FEAR OF DEATH

My Mind, why so fretful, like a motherless child? Coming into the world you sit brooding, shivering in the dread of death. Yet there is a Death[162] that conquers death, the Mightiest Death, which lies beneath the Mother's Feet. You, a serpent, fearing frogs! How amazing! What terror of death is this in you, the child of the Mother-Heart of all? What folly is this, what utter madness? Child of that Mother-Heart, what will you dread? Wherefore brood in vain sorrow?

Utter without ceasing Durgā's name, as terror vanishes with waking, so will it be with you.

The twice-born Rāmprasād says: Mind, quit you like mind! Act the truth your teachers showed you. What then can the Child of the Sun[163] do unto you?

FOOTNOTES:

[162] Śiva the Destroyer. He has conquered death, being himself that Destruction in which all lesser destructions merge; yet it will be remembered that he is represented as lying beneath Kālī's feet, while she stands on his prostrate body.

[163] Yama, God of Death. In the Purāṇic mythology, he is child of the Sun.

XLIII. LIFE'S FOURTH STAGE

Mother, tell me where to stand. I have no one here. Bidding good-bye to action,[164] I shall wander hither, thither. Joined with saints, in divers fashion I will banish my griefs of mind.

[58]

You are the daughter of the rocks, and my Mother is like my Father.[165]

Rāmprasād says: Keep in your heart your teacher's chain of wisdom.[166]

FOOTNOTES:

[164] Life's four stages, in Hinduism, are: As Student, as Householder and Citizen, as Saint in Forest Meditation, as Wandering Mendicant. Rāmprasād means he will take up the fourth stage.

[165] Śiva, the careless and forgetful. Kālī (as Pārvatī, the Mountain-Queen) was daughter of Himālaya.

[166] Srīnāth Datta's teaching.