The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2/Chapter 26
XXVI
THE SPIRIT INDWELLING.
(1916)
" God is immanent in all things, in whatsoever lives and moves in the universe : enjoy, therefore, without being attached ; covet not wealth belonging to others." — Isopanishad.
This text has a noteworthy and grate- fully remembered place in the history of the Brahma Samaj. While he was pass- ing through the severest mental and spiritual transition of life, Maharshi Devendranath Tagore chanced upon a leaf of the Upanishads accidentally blown in by the wind. He picked it up, showed it to the family priest and requested him to read that leaf of Sanskrit matter and tell him, on his return, what it was about. The priest read it but could not make much of it. When the Maharshi returned home and made enquiries, the priest said he could not expound the lore. "What shall I do?" asked Devendranath. "I do not know ; they of the Brahma Samaj may tell you. Send for Ramachendra Vidya vageesh, and he will tell you." Ramachendra Vidyavageesh, the direct spiritual successor of Rajah Rammohan Roy and the faithful and hopeful soul that sus- tained and kept alive through several years the little light the departing hand of the Rajah had lit, said, "This is from the Isopanishad" Thereafter, Devendranath took vigorously to the study of the Upanishads. He was absorbed in it. He was so possessed with the spirit of the Upanishads that the father, one of the immediate companions of the Rajah, raised the complaint — I dare say, echoed in manv a home in our days — " Devendranath is hopelessly gone: always Brahma and Brahma Samaj!"; till Devendranath, to avoid the unpleasantness of annoying the father, had to meet the Pandit in a printing press.
This little episode in the annals of the Brahma Samaj goes to show on what spirtual food the soul of the Brahma Samaj has fed all along and what importance we give to this noble, hoary message that the whole universe is indwelt by the spirit of God, the message which presents God as the indwelling Spirit, the vitalising Life, the illuminating Light, the inspiring Oracle, the sanctifying Grace, of the universe, radiating out from the very centre through all its illimitable expression and variegated evolution. It is the clear consciousness, the direct perception, the immediate knowledge, the felt contact, the personal experience, the enraptured enjoyment of God that the Brahma Samaj seeks to realise and, in all brotherly humility, to invite others to share in. This opening text, very brief but very pregnant, of the Isopanishad is the bounding, rejoicing expression of a soul that has seen and felt and enjoyed the eternal, all-comprehensive truth that the whole universe is indwelt by the Spirit of God and that we live by, and thrive on, what the self-denying God imparts out of Himself, His very Holy Spirit, for bringing us into Being in Him and fostering us towards Becoming His forever