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John
said, “Those believers whom He leads aright, they discover the true meaning of
love. At peace they remember Him and also in contention. In their houses they
rejoice in His name and also in the gravepit.
A
young and handsome prince, whose name is remembered as Nilesh, led his army to
great conquests in the east. He conquered city after city and overran the lands
which opposed him. Now the people of the east were terrified of him. All manner
of rumor had been spread about him. They said he was bloodthirsty and cruel and
avaricious, though in truth he was none of these things, but rather was adorned
with every virtue.
Now
the prince’s military campaign in Rajasthan was crowned with great success
and, as this prince was dividing the spoils of war between
himself and his lieutenants, his eyes alighted upon a girl across the
river which separated his palace from the farmers’ fields.
From
his porch he saw her, she who was supremely unaware of him. A red shawl covered
her head, and her long black locks spilt out from under it, and she wore on her
slender form a necklace of sweet-smelling flowers.
The
prince gazed on her and he decided to have her, to make this beautiful farm
girl his wife and queen over his dominions. Stricken by her beauty, the prince
had her brought to him. He asked her name.
Terrified
in the presence of one so feared and reviled by the people, she trembled, but
spoke the word ‘Lakshmi,’ which was her name. When asked of her family, she declared
herself an orphan.
Pitying
her and smiling on this beauty of the village, the prince gave her precious
gifts. He bid his attendants take her from him, to prepare her for his company.
They bathed her in rosewater and braided her black hair, adorning it with
beautiful flowers.
Jewels they affixed to her nose and her
delicate ears. Rings of gold they placed on her long fingers, and bangles they
wrapped around her wrists and ankles. She was clothed in finery of silk dyed
with indigo. She was returned to the prince, who beheld her with even greater
joy.
The
prince was generous with this farm girl
and when she became his wife, he made
her not only his wife, but his queen to rule with him. He built for her a
throne of gold where she might sit beside him.
Lakshmi
became the envy of all women, and her every wish was realized. Her husband, the
prince, was handsome and kind and wholly devoted to her well-being. He who once
had kindled terror in her heart, now was her patient lover.
One
day the prince found Lakshmi weeping. Taking her hand, he knelt before her and
asked, ‘Why are you crying? You are my wife and my queen. The nations of men
array themselves before you, ready to obey.’
Lakshmi
replied, ‘When I was younger, how often my father and mother frightened me with
threats of you! And on the day you brought me to your palace, they wept and
moaned, “What is to become of our daughter?”
They
cowered at the very mention of your name, and they begged me to tell you that I
was an orphan lest you come and take them away to your palace also. In their
fear of you, they bid me disown them, and in haste they fled the village.’
The
prince smiled at this and wiped the tears from the face of his beloved. He
said, ‘Where are they now, when they should see you sitting here?’
Lakshmi
smiled at her prince and
kissed his hand, saying, ‘They feared you as men fear
death. They fled unknowingly from paradise.’
One
morning, Nilesh bid his wife farewell as he prepared to hunt in the wilderness.
And as she embraced him and kissed him on his lips, he took her face in his
hands and whispered into her ear, ‘When the sun has set, meet me at the river
Kawthar, at the bridge over it, and you will repose with me in my tent and in
the couch of my embrace.’
All
day she waited anxiously, scarcely able to eat, distracted by the absence of
her beloved, eager that she might set eyes on him soon. She occupied herself
with little chores, gathering fruits with her handmaidens in the palace garden.
As
the afternoon waned, she bathed herself in
sweet rosewater, and her handmaidens dressed her in a yellow sari.
They held her mirror as she applied collyrium to her eyes and painted her lips.
They braided her hair and perfumed her body with sweet perfumes.
As
Lakshmi prepared to leave the
palace, to meet
Nilesh by the waters of the river Kawthar, the sky darkened and a
terrible gale blew over the land. Storm winds howled through the halls of the
palace, thunder shook the trees of the
forest, and light- ning scorched the earth. Lakshmi’s handmaids cowered in the palace and were afraid to step
out of their rooms or even to a window.
Unconcerned
by the gale’s fury, Lakshmi went out into the storm to meet Nilesh. Her
maidservants pleaded with her, ‘Do not go, my lady. The storm is too powerful
and you will lose your way.’
Undaunted, Lakshmi waved away their concerns. Her
maidservants cried out, ‘The prince will understand that
you cannot meet him tonight. Stay with us where you will be safe.’
Lakshmi
answered, ‘It is
only a little
rain, like a
spring shower.’
Again
they pleaded with her, but she laughed at them, replying, ‘It is nothing to me. My
husband is more important.’
She
left the palace and disappeared into the wind-lashed forest beyond the palace
gardens. Now the handmaids turned
angrily on Yamini, who was Lakshmi’s closest friend but who had said
nothing to stop her. They said to her, ‘What friend of our lady are you? You,
of all of us, could have stopped her. Now she wanders into terrible danger.’
Yamini
smiled and told them, ‘The true lover who goes out to commune with her beloved
will see the darkest clouds as rays of sun, the sharpest stones as cushions for
her feet, the hardest rains as soothing collyrium. Indeed, to her the world is
as paradise, though she doesn’t desire paradise but
only the sight of her beloved.’
Through
the wilderness, blinded by the pouring rain, deafened by the thunder that
rumbled like war drums, Lakshmi wandered in search of the path to the river
Kawthar and to the tent of her husband there.
Though
she thought nothing of the rain or the
thunder, her heart
was sad and incomparably heavy. She was tormented by the absence of her beloved. She saw no
rain, but was blinded by the vision of his face. She heard no thunder, but was
deafened by the sound of his name on her lips. A thousand times she spoke his
name, and each syllable was a droplet of pain on her heart.
In
the midst of this gale, she imagined she caught the scent of him, the smell of
sandalwood. But she did not see him, though she strained her eyes to find
some trace of him in her midst.
‘Where is the river?’ she despaired. She did not recognize her path in the wilderness. She
cried, and each tear was a remembrance of separation from him.
As
she wandered and meditated on the name of her beloved, a handsome
youth approached her.
Sensing in his features something akin to the features of
her husband, she asked him, ‘Has
my beloved sent you?’
The
youth answered, ‘I have watched you
wandering in the forest and have wished to possess a beauty like you.’
Lakshmi
said, ‘Have you seen my husband?’
The
young man replied, ‘I have come to take you with me, to my kingdom in the
mountains; you will forget your husband.’ This youth was very handsome, but she
thought nothing of him.
Lakshmi
said, ‘I cannot go with you; I am looking for Nilesh.’ Now the youth became
angry and blocked her way, taking the form of a monstrous serpent. She took no
notice of this and stepped over his coils, walking around him as though
he were another felled tree in her path. The demon said, ‘I could
destroy you.’
Lakshmi
said nothing and continued along her way.
The
serpent spit venom, which struck the ground and became a river of wildly
flowing waters, the river Kawthar. And the serpent himself was transformed in
her sight, becoming a bridge over the river, beyond which stood the
lantern-lit tent in which Nilesh waited.
Overjoyed,
she ran across the bridge and entered the tent of her beloved. There he stood,
greeting her with his embrace. And as they lay together in his bed, she
trembled at his touch. When he spoke words of love, Lakshmi blushed and
turned her face away from his.
He
said, ‘What am I to do? I speak quiet words of devotion, and yet you turn
your face away, you whom the thunder
did not frighten. I touch you gently, yet you tremble at my caresses,
you whom even the deluge could not disturb. You do not speak a word, you who
boldly rejected the demon.’
Lakshmi
looked at Nilesh with loving anger, biting her lip. She said, ‘Send me away if
you’d like.’
Nilesh
smiled at her. ‘What would become of you, little bird?’ And he took her
beautiful face between his lotus hands. ‘Do you love me or fear me?’
She
looked at him with unblinking eyes, relishing the sweetness of his face and
inhaling his sandalwood scent. Not for an instant was her heart sated with his presence. She declared,
‘Nothing whatsoever can frighten me but separation from you. The world and its
trifles are meaningless apart from you.’”
Herod
said, “I cannot understand separation when I have never known union.”
John
answered, “Your separation is proof of union. That you forget the day of your
birth is not proof that you were never born. That you ask is a token of the
Answerer. That you are ignorant is witness to His knowledge.
A
droplet of water resided in a storm
cloud, and came to consider this his true home. But the
cloud expelled him and sent him on his downward journey. As he descended, the
droplet of water beheld a vast ocean below him and despaired. ‘What is this
abyss before me? A thousand, a million droplets could not rival it. What am I
compared to it? In its depths I will be lost forever.’
The
ocean replied, ‘Do not despair. Be grateful. Do not hesitate at the threshold
of my bounty. Enter this paradise I have prepared for you. Do not think that
you are lost in my unfathomed depths.
You
did not make me; I made you as a token of my grace and might. Only that part of
you which is transient will perish. Return as I have bidden you, for I have
made you as my remembrance and welcome you with delight.’”
Herod
said, “How can I love what I cannot conceive? And how will such love profit
me?”
John
said, “Who would ask of that munificent King a reward before the prize is even
sought? Who would require from Him collateral against His promise?”
Herod
laughed at this and remarked: “So the promise is hidden. What value does it
have then? Why would I trade my life as king for a gravepit in the name of a
love I cannot conceive?
My
reign is soon over and I will join my fathers in their tombs. Why would I
welcome the misery of serving your inscrutable master when, by serving, my life
will be over sooner yet? If I believed in your god, I would begin my
prostrations each day with a prayer that he respite me from death a thousand
years, because I do not want to meet him as quickly as you do.”
John
answered: “Were He to respite you for a thousand years, you will yet taste the
chastisement of a terrible Day. And the near eternity that intervened between
yourself and that Day will seem only a moment.
And
a moment of that terrible Day will weigh
more heavily on you than a hundred thousand
years of respite. It is better for you to renounce your dominion
and all your possessions and die naked and hungry at the hands of your
enemies today, than for you to clutch at these things and die in your opulence
one hundred years from now. When that Day is on you, there is no respite.
A
number of fishermen were caught in a gale and the winds lashed their vessel and
the waves threatened to capsize it. These fishermen fell to their knees and
wept and pleaded and performed prostrations to their Lord. ‘If you deliver us
from this gale, we will be forever grateful!’ In the bargain there is terrible
sin, but men are weak and their Lord is forgiving.
When
He delivered them from death and calmed the waters of the sea and withdrew the
wind, the fishermen landed on a sandy beach. Crawling from their battered
vessel, they came on an object in the sand made in the likeness of a woman.
This
object, they declared, had delivered them and they paid homage to it and sacrificed to it,
forgetting their promise. And when they took to the sea again, they made
obeisance to the object and asked its protection. But the object took no part
in their worship and their praise was profitless.
The
winds grew strong and the waves rose against them. Although they pleaded again
to their Lord for deliverance, they had wasted their respite in folly and
perversity and were drowned.
Have
you not heard it revealed to those who would listen? Your rebellion will recoil
back upon yourselves. The joys of the world are evanescent and its pleasures
are but baubles and trinkets to amuse children.
How
could you preoccupy yourself with such
when you will come back to your Lord in the end? Your life in this world is
only a frolic and mummery, an ornamentation, a boasting among yourselves of
your lusts and riches.
The
fishermen rebelled against their promise. When they were saved, they fell
heedless and showed no gratitude. It would have been better had they died in
their first trial than to have tasted His mercy only to waste it.
He guides or
leads astray whom He will. Those
He leads astray are like you,
untouched by the sorrows and agonies of life, given dominion over the world, so that their
prayers are cold and passionless. Indeed, what have they to pray for?
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