WITH THE DIVINE.

    To love and live forever in all that the Universe holds, with no thought of self, is the purest joy and the grandest immortality that Nature vouchsafes to Man.

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    We shall have Love for our prayer, Humanity for our devotion. We shall then weave dreams of joy for us, now and here. While the lamp and lute of Life remain for us, let us have the splendor of Thought and the music of love.

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    If sorrow comes to us: we shall take her and kiss her to death. Why make Misery our constant mate? Why let despair tyrannize us? Let Hope sing her melodies.

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    Let us have freedom from self's cares and fears. And before this Freedom, even Tyranny should sit mute – even Corruption should shrink scorched. No error of Fame – no freak of Fortune – shall give us one moment of despair. With the skill of an Orpheus, we shall soften the brute passions. With the fire of Prometheus, of genius, of eloquence, we shall kindle all the loves and hopes of mankind. And this shall be our life's only task – our life's only joy. Come what may: even if it should be absolute annihilation – we shall joyously bow in silence to Nature's Mysterious law of waste. We shall fear nothing. In Nature's presence, we shall stand bravely and boldly, full of hope and joy.

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    The bubble for a time is an individual: it thinks all the while that the whole sea is centered in it, and that it has this and that; it exults over its possessions: it weeps for lack of then: it craves for its immortality: it pines to be perpetuated.

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    How to sway the doctrines of things that are to be? One puff of wind may bring to you a few leaves of things and another puff drives them out of your reach. Man, thou art bound in the chain of Cause and Effect! Thou canst not break the Chain. Thou art what the Mighty Causes have made thee to be. Thyself and thy environments are determined by the cosmic causes.

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    Read the stories of the stars. How many planets do not live to die! Read the records of oceans and continents. How many continents and oceans are not brought underground! Read the history of man. How many cities and empires have not given up their ghost? How many languages have not been forgotten! How many nations have not been wiped out of existence!

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    The heroism of the hero, the saintliness of the saint, the love of the lover, live in all their beauty and glory without the fostering cares of selfish promptings. He is the greatest hero who would live and love with but his own heroic heart for his lonely witness.

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    Death sweeps away every individual embodiment of Matter-Force. But Matter-Force lives on: and works out new beauties and joys through the birth and death of its countless formations.

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    Let me be free, sceptreless, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless. And when I die lay me with the humblest dead, and above my head spread neither name nor emblem.

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    Deep down all wrong – all falsities, rascalities, tricks and treacheries – you see self-conceit. What are these soul withering perversities and cruelties these scandalous insults and injuries, these brutish barbarities, - but manifestations of selfish greed and hate? Let anybody, if he chooses, despise you, shun you, and speak and do all evil against you. Be a world's outcast. None can rob you of your joy. Amidst all the mists and clouds of a world's mistakes about you, you can be serene and supreme, - if the personal is dead in you. You have nothing or nobody to cling to. You have renounced the idea of your separate existence: you have nobody that violence can hack or burn. You have no name that infamy can stain or hurt. You have renounced your this or that: the Universe has become yours. With the spirit of Renunciation you can laugh at Sorrow and mock Pain with smiles. With Renunciation Life would be a joyous melody and Death a self-less rapture.

A. S. MUDALIAR.