Page:Classical Poets Of Gujarat.pdf/47

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thinks that pilgrimages are worse than useless.. Hari is to be got at’ home and not by wasting time in wandering abroad. The fools don’t see that silk does not become hair by washing. Akho laughs to find these fools wor- shipping stones and brass of their own make and search- ing for God outside themselves when he is in reality within them. How can devotion and prayer and Bhakti be a means to your knowing Brahma? Man’s soul swims like fishes and flies like birds with her own: wings -of reasoning and does not want other means to know her Highest Self. The song of prayer without. know- ledge is like the barking of a dog that. prompts and sets all its fellow dogs of the street to ‘set up a joint. howl of barking. How do blind people stick to caste and the like? That is like embracing the wave in order that you may swim. Brahma is the ocean that fills the universe and people have to swim with their own art and strength on its bosom. Akho oncé saw a fool worshipping all the stones he could lay hold of! This was preposterous ! Where did the dunce find more than one ‘God! In the midst of such fools who only wander near their destruc- ‘tion when the whole town is on fire, Akho is like the bird that flies up to the wide wide heavens’ and::defies the flames. qj

Where is Brahma,—God—to be found? The.six -schools of philosophy destroy one another, like the blind ‘well wherein none was able to live—to: restore things to