This life in the open air, this constant spiritual activity, and the lively interchange of thought, as a result of which no time was left for sad brooding over personal sorrows or for idle reveries, and finally the elevating and purifying of my whole nature by the power of the truth—all this strengthened both body and mind marvellously. A new and nobler life opened out before, and I enjoyed a calm and cheerful happiness of which a few weeks earlier I could not even have dreamt.
When the rainy season came, the building already stood prepared for the sisters, with a roomy hall for common use, and a separate cell for each one. My husband and several other rich citizens who had relatives among the nuns insisted upon fitting out these abodes of ours with mats and carpets, seats and couches, so that we were richly provided with everything needed to make life reasonably comfortable, and all the more willingly dispensed with its luxury. So this period of enforced seclusion passed quite tolerably in the regular alternation of conversation on religious questions with independent thought and contemplation. Towards evening, however, we betook ourselves, when the weather permitted, to the common hall of the monks to listen to the Master, or else he or one of his great disciples came over to us.
But when the forest, so dear to the heart of the Master, in all its freshness of renewed youth, in its hundredfold richness of leaf and splendour of flower, again invited us to transfer the calm of our solitary contemplation and our common meetings to its more open shelter, we were met by the sorrowful news that the Master was now preparing to set out on his journey to the eastern provinces. Of course we had not dared to hope that he would always remain in Kosambi; and we also knew how foolish it is to complain of the inevitable, and how little we would show ourselves worthy of the Master if overcome by grief.
So we turned our steps, late in the afternoon, quiet and composed, to the Temple of Krishna, to listen for the last time, perhaps, in years, to the words of the Buddha, and then to bid him farewell.
Standing on the steps, the Master spoke of the transitoriness of all that comes into existence, of the dissolution of everything that has been compounded, of the fleeting nature of all phenomena, of the unreality of all forms whatsoever. And after he had shown that, nowhere in this nor in the other world, far as the desire for existence propagates itself, nowhere in time or space, is there a fixed spot, an abiding place of refuge to be found, he gave utterance to that sentence which thou didst with justice call “world-crushing,” and which is now verifying itself round about us—
“Upward to heaven’s sublimest light, life presses—then decays.
Know, that the future will even quench the glow of Brahma’s rays.”
We sisters had been told by one of the disciples that after the address we were to go, one by one, to the Master, in order to take leave of him, and to receive a motto which should be a spiritual guide to us in all our future endeavours, As I was one of the youngest, and purposely kept myself in the background, I succeeded in being the last. For I grudged to any other that she should speak to the Master after I did, and I also thought that a longer and less hasty interview would be more possible if no others waited to come after me.
After I had bent myself reverently, the Master looked at me with a glance which filled my being with light to its innermost depths, and said—
“And to thee, Vasitthi, I give, on the threshold of this ruined sanctuary of the Sixteen-thousand-one-hundredfold Bridegroom—to remember me by, and to think of under the leafy shelter of this Sinsapa wood, of which thou dost carry a leaf on, and a shadow in, thy heart—the following motto: ‘Where love is, there is also suffering.’ ”
“Is that all?” I foolishly asked.
“All, and enough.”
“And it will be permitted me, when I have made its meaning fully my own, to make a pilgrimage to the Master and to receive a new sentence?”
“It will be permitted, if thou dost still feel the need of asking the Master.”
“How should I not feel the need? Art thou not, O Reverend Master, our refuge?”
“Seek refuge in thyself; take refuge in the doctrine.”
“I shall certainly do so. But thou, O Master, art the very self of the disciples; thou art the living doctrine. And thou hast said: ‘It will be permitted.’ ”
“If the way do not tire thee.”
“No way can tire me.”
“The way is long, Vasitthi! The way is longer than thou dost think for, longer than human thought is able to realise.”
“And if the way lead through a thousand lives and over a thousand worlds, no way shall tire me.”
“Good then, Vasitthi. Farewell, and remember thy motto.”
At this instant the king, followed by a large retinue, approached to take leave of the Master.
I withdrew to the rearmost circle, whence I was a somewhat inattentive spectator of
