So , VI. THE DIGNITY OF SEX.
sentinel, and the lamp and seem almost to forget the person of, the . loverimpassioned speaker. And yet in her heart is the commotion of boiling emotion. This is the sensuous spiritualized — an excellent example of samyanm or self-restraint in art. Tagore has given us a picture of "those times in love between man and woman when, " to quote Stopford Brooke again, "the sensuous element is lifted, by pure joy and emotion into the . spiritual world and there transfigured ; and when the. spiritual element, is brought into the sensuous till it is made, as it were, palpable, embodied, incarnated when both sense and spirit . are. fused into one fire."
This expression of the sensuous through the " fusion of sense and spirit " is to be distinguished . from the expression of the. super-sensuous or spiritual in and through the sensuous. Let us hear Vivek-ananda lectur- ing on Bhakti or Devotion (spiritual love) :
"Love knows no fear, How can you frighten love ? Does the lamb love the lion ? The mouse the cat ? The slave the master? Slaves sometimes simulate love, but is it love ? Where do , you ever see love in fear ? It is always sham, Think of a young, mother in the street and a dog barking at her ; she flies into the next house. Suppose the next day she is in the street with her child and a lion Is upon the child ; where will be her position ? Just in the mouth of the lion, protecting her child. Love conquers all. fear. So also is love to God. Who cares whether God . is a rewarder or a punisher ? That is not the thought of a lover. Think of a judge when he comes home, what does his wife see in him ? Not a judge or a rewarder, or a punisher, but her husband, her lover.
