Agony and Ecstacy of Eman - VIII

Eman sees in his mind's eye the return of the native to the centre in the days to come, when the rational scientific man would also return home from his adventures. The natives will set in motion the spacious wheel to provide room to pursue Eman's prime vocation - to be himself, to belong to the family in the community of emotional men. Eman will then take courage and declare:

    Follow me ...

    let the dead bury their own dead.

    This house will be a house of prayer,

    Not a den of robbers.'

Eman discriminates between one thief and the another, one noble man from another, one religious man from another, and in doing so demonstrates the overcoming of opposite categories and clears the path for his own travel, his own transformation. He restlessly seeks to realize the essence, replaces the quantifications with invariant smooth qualities evident to the core of his being, at the center of his own self. And he knows each of his ilk does the same.

Eman more often does not realize the powers of his own inner forces and suffers for holding his words within his chest. He would weep bitterly than shout, meekly take the beating than humiliate himself by raising his hand according to the rule:

    If your right hand or eye causes you to sin,

    cut it off and throw it away.

    It is better for you

    to lose one part of your body

    than for your whole body to go to hell.

Eman knows the rule : The easier gets done first; the difficult ones follow much later. So, he has to only prepare for what has been postponed by hos enemy, the rational man. He starts drumming:

    My brother, you ask me : why do you live?

    why do you fight?

    Take courage and answer thus:

    'I live, because you are alive,

    I struggle because you are struggling!

    What is my life and struggle,

    without your life and your struggles ?

Eman entertains a deep desire to behold the grand vision, wherein every being, the sun, moon, and all other visible and invisible friends and the laws of their nature fall into place. He waits for the great churning of the ocean to behold Amrutam in all its grandeur and Poison to recede to the background. And then, he will act with his total mind and gain immortality with a smile.

Why does the Eman crave thus ? Because he knows this to be the way of freeing from the corruption of all craving. Listen to his method:

With thoughts stilled, purified, cleansed free from lust and impurity, pliable, alert, steady and unshakable, I directed my mind to the comprehension-of-the-cessation-of-the-corruptions. I realized that in accordance with the fact:

    This is sorrow

    This is the Rising of Sorrow

    This is the Ceasing of Sorrow

Likewise, in accordance with the fact I realized:

    These are Corruptions

    This is the rising of Corruptions

    This is Ceasing of Corruptions

    ...

    This is the path leading to

    The cessation of corruptions

Thus perceiving, thus recognizing, my mind was delivered from the corruption-of-the-sensual-craving, from the corruption-of-the-craving-for-existence, from the corruption of ignorance.

    Being delivered I knew: Delivered am I.

    I realized, 'Rebirth is ended,

    fulfilled the holy life;

    done, what was to be done

    There is no life beyond this life!

That was the last knowledge I realized in the last watch of the night:

    Ignorance was dispelled,Wisdom arose

    darkness vanished, light arose,

    As it would be to a person,

    Strenous, energetic and resolute.

Even though such pleasurable sensations arose in me, they did not at all affect my mind.