Page:Personality (Lectures delivered in America).djvu/153

work remained vacant. I well remember when an old disciple of my father came and said to me, "What I see about me is like a wedding hall where nothing is wanting in preparation, only the bridegroom is absent." The mistake I made was in thinking that my own purpose was that bridegroom. But gradually my heart found its centre. It was not in the work, not in my wish, but in truth. I sat alone on the upper terrace of the Shanti-Niketan house and gazed upon the tree tops of the sal avenue before me. I withdrew my heart from my own schemes and calculations, from my daily struggles, and held it up in silence before the peace and presence that permeated the sky; and gradually my heart was filled. I began to see the world around me through the eyes of my soul. The trees seemed to me like silent hymns rising from the mute heart of the earth, and the shouts and laughter of the boys mingling in the evening sky came before me like trees of living sounds rising up from the depth of human life. I found my message in the sunlight that touched my inner mind and felt a fulness in the sky that spoke to me in the word of our ancient rishi,—"Ko hyevānyāt, Kah prānyāt yadesha ākāsha ānando no syāt"—"Who could ever move and