in the Mother’s presence he forgot everything about the world and go had not sought succour, In the presence of the Divine all else is transcended, I sat in the evening session of darsan, After a few minutes, the question formed itself in my mind. What will happen to the hundreds that will be deprived of spiritual nourishment. As I was mentally addressing this question to Sri Ramana, a radiance was felt by me. His physical form on the chowki gradually became shrunk- en, smaller and smaller and venished into the radiance. The radiance grew deeper and more powerful. I felt I had the answer tomy query. Even though the body may disappear the concentration of spiritual power which was focassed round it will continue to shed its influence. And as long as one can put oneself into attunement with that form and with that radiance, one can draw spiritual sustenance. RESIGNATION ( By Spt Kenweta Gray, London ) “Let things take their course”. These five words resume the entire mystical philosophy of the East, The Maharshi of Tiravannamalai is often quoted as using these words to seekers who came to him for advice and guidance on widely varying matters, It is, on the face of it, a peculiarly negative doctrine that is implied by these five words and yet, if we investigate the matter closely, we shall see that it is identical in spirit and ~ ultimately —-im actual practice, with its seemingly opposite doctrine: “Do what thon wilt shall be the whole of the Law”, the which eleven words fairly resume the ‘Western’ counterpart of the mystic utterance of the East. In the one case there isa negative stress, as evidenced by the word “Lev”, while in the other case there is a posi- tive stress, implied by the word “Do”. ‘The one word is of apparent inactivity and mystico-passive tailing, while the Ist. SEPTEMBER 1965 19other is of apparent activity aad magico-positive perfor: mance, It will, it seems, be @ great step towards a closer har- mony. and understanding between Kastern and Western points of view if the two apparently different and opposite precepts are carefully if briefly examined. In the first place, as is almost too well known to require detailed mention, the East has come to represent a certain negative or mystical attitude in matters of the Spirit, while the West would seem to be set up as the champion of what may best be described asa magically directed, purposeful,” and very positive application of those powers or shaktis of Nature which are the attributes or dynamic stresses of the One pure Shiva-Consciousness, But that the doctrine of resignation is concealed at the heart of the Western precept no less than that it forms the obvions and outer veil of the mystic utterance of the Fast is easily recognizable when we consider the nature of the Wil] and the varied means of its expression. The precept “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” is not to be confused with the spiritually empty and mieaningless, and apparently identical statement ‘Do whatever yon like”, for it is as rigid an injunction as the law of gravitation or the attraction of opposites. No true law may be broken, however we dodge the issue by pretend- ing that if we step into a mechanized vehicle of some sort or another we can defy the waves, the air, the very laws of Nature herself. This is all nonsense and wanifestly absurd when it is realized that all we have done is so to master the theory of a particular natural law, its underlying principle, and applied ourselves to construct a machine capable of so harmonizing with this law, as to apparently render it obso- lete, if not actually flout it altogether. We still cannot jump over the Moon, and never will be able to do so, and in the moral order of things itis just as impossible for ‘certain people to commit murder as it is casy and seemingly natural to others to do so. And so, however we look at it we cannot do other than ‘our will’, i. e., follow ont the 20. THE CALL Divingspecific line of development laid down for us, and-incident- ally-by us. Ihe world at large is subject to general Jaws and each individual unit of that world is likewise subject - absolutely - to its own immutable laws, generated, as it were, by its own karmic and inner necessity. To obtain release from the function of these laws is not possible to the ego, but, by resignation to the ‘trae will’ or pattern of the life-wave as a whole, such release may be obtained, and it is this resignation which is indicated by the two seemingly contradictory precepts of East and West: “Let things take their course”, and “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” No Kasterner raised in the true tradition believes that he can in any way alter or transform the ‘laws’ in which his ego has enmeshed him, and nor does any truly initiated Westerner, but they both believe that by adopting the attitude of the ‘Witness’, and observing the effects and work- ings of these ‘laws’ as.if they occurred to ‘another’ individual, they can, by this method of supreme resignation, gradually separate the wheat from the chaff, become conscious of the ego’s falsity and realize liberation from illusory subjection to the laws which such egos must necessarily evolve. Next to Atmavichara itself, Bhagavan has said that ‘self surrender’, ‘resignation’ or ‘letting things take their course’- letting them, in other words, fulfil their allotted destiny while the Self looks on detachedly - is the highest and most perfect means of locating the deceit of the ego and bringing all its ‘works’ and all its ‘laws’ to nought. We cannot inflnence events however much we imagine that we can, but we are free to stand apart and watch these events asif they joecurred to another entity or being. By stich resignation @ dichotomy is established which gradually reveals the ego as an illusory superimposition, a phantasma- gotia of imaginings, dancing upon the surface of the waters of the One Unsullied Consciousness. And so, the Kastern method (of Advaita) contemplates the ever tranquil and immutable Shiva by the resignation ist, SEPTEMBER 1955 21implied by the words “Let things take their course”, while the highest initiates of the West ~ now as ever — contemplate the ever-restless stirrings of Shakti by that same resignation which is equally implied in the precept “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”, tor by ‘doing the true will’, i. e,, letting all parts of the picture fulfil themselves evenly without let or hindrance, we come to see the illnsoriness of the picture and its mirage-like beauty cast in the shining waters of the Unmoving Shiva. For only by withdrawing to a coign of vantage without the picture itself and refusing to identify the Self with the ego playing therein, can the picture be geen in its entirety and as a limited and separate and wholly illusory representation of the thoughts and desires which form a perpetual river of unhindered dream. EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY * (By Dr. T. M. P. MamADEVAN, M. A. PH. D., Professor of Philosophy, University of Madras) Ancient Philosophy:— The pioneers in European philosophy were the ancient Greeks. There was in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.a thinker by name Thales who was a native of Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor, and who is regarded as the Father of western philosophy. The importance of Thales lies in the fact that he was concerned with the central question in philosophy, viz. ‘what is the nature of the root-reality?’, and answered it without refer- ence to mythical beings. ‘‘Water”, said Thales, "is the stuff of all things, the ground of all existence”. Anaximander, who folllowed him, gave a different answer, He said that the essence of things is an eternal, imperishable, infinite substance—a boundless space-filling animate mass. Anaxi- menes (588-527 B.C.}, who was also a philosopher of the Milesian school, while endorsing the view of his predecessor that the primary substance is one and infinite, identified it with air. ¥A Tamil rendering of this article appoars in Zamil Encyclopedia, vol, IT (Madras), 22 THE CALL DIvINe