Page:Personality (Lectures delivered in America).djvu/103

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE SECOND BIRTH
85

That is the Supreme Path of This,
That is the Supreme Treasure of This,
That is the Supreme World of This,
That is the Supreme Joy of This.[1]

Life is the relationship of the That and the This. In the world of things and men, this rhythm of That and This flows on in countless channels of metres; but the meaning of it is absent, till the realization is made perfect in the Supreme That and This.

The relation of the unborn child to its surroundings in the mother's womb is intimate, but it is without its final meaning. There its wants are ministered to in all their details, but its greatest want remains unfulfilled. It must be born into the world of light and space and freedom of action. That world is so entirely different in every respect from that of the mother's womb, that, if the unborn child had the power to think, it could never imagine what that wider world was. Yet it has limbs, which have their only meaning in the freedom of the air and light.

In the same manner in the natural world

  1. Eshāsya paramā gatih,
    Eshāsya paramā sampat,
    Esho'sya paramo lokah,
    Esho'sya parama ānandah.