LETTERS FROM ABROAD
cheque-book of the rich. I had become famished in the wilderness of solitude for lack of sympathy and comradeship, when you brought your cup of love to me which is the true life-giving food freely offered by life. And as the poet Morris says, “ Love is enough.” That voice of love every day calls me away from the lure of dollars—the voice that comes to nestle in my heart from across the sea, ‘from the shady avenue of sui trees resonant with the laughter and songs of simple joy.
The mischief is that ambition does not fully believe in love. It believes in power. It leaves the limpid and singing water of everlasting life for the wine of success. Every day I seem to be growing afraid of the very vision of this success. It has been said in the Upanishat, “Happiness is in greatness.” Ambition points out bigness and calls it greatness, and our track is hopelessly lost. When I look at the picture of Buddha, I cry for the great peace of inner fulfilment. My longing grows painfully intense as my mind becomes distracted at the stupendous unmeaningness of monstrosity in things around me. Every morning I sit by my window and say to myself, “I must not bow my head to this ugly idol worshipped by the West with daily human sacrifices.” I remember that morning at Shileida when the Vaishnava woman came to me and said, “ When are you coming down from your three-storied building to meet your love under the shade of the trees?”
