More Suitable Audience

[Ani]

More Suitable Audience

 

This happened many years ago, perhaps in 1935 or 1936.

 

At sunset I was sitting alone on a bench in front of the Hall at Izgrev drinking in the quietness of the evening. Everything around me was beautiful and pure, like in a children's story. They yard was cleanly swept. Under the hazel trees, just opposite the Hall, the tables for the community dinner were set with white table cloths. In between the tiles in front of the Hall and the reception room of the Master, grew and bloomed many-colored cobblestone flowers. On the left two big flower-beds of roses and anemones filled the air with fragrance. All was so quiet, so beautiful, so soul-elevating.

 

But by the door of the Master, as usual, stood two or three sisters with doleful faces, dressed in quite an unsightly manner, looking very hopeless, of the kind that all the time hung around the Master, looking at him as though hypnotized. I watched them, wondering how they could stand all day long by the door of the Master and wondering still more how he could stand them!

 

Soon the door of the reception room opened and the Master came out bidding farewell to two persons who had come up to him from the city. After they left, he started to go up to his room, but at that moment several brothers and sisters, all of the kind I didn't like, surrounded him.

 

I watch from afar thinking: all afternoon the Master had received guests, had talked, advised, thought, and now again with what attention he listened to everyone as if they had to solve some problems of the greatest importance. If only they were some men of science and not . . .

 

I didn't include myself in that group, not wanting to look like them and not suspecting that being anxious as to how I look, I myself ranked even below them who, after all, cared more about the Master's words than about their own looks.

The Master was dear to me, so at the first chance I got when we were alone (only then I could freely talk to him) I asked:

 

"Master, why don't you chose a more suitable audience, consisting of more cultured persons?"

 

"Whom don't you like?"

 

"Those that hang all day long at your doors. Strangers come up from the city and what will they think!" I replied thoughtfully.

 

"Who do you think needs a doctor —the sick or the healthy?"

 

"Oh, the sick, of course!"

 

The Master waited for my reply then continued:

 

"Those that hang at my doors all day long are the sick. Ought the doctor to send them away? Being a doctor he has to heal. The healthy are at work. The sick, when they become healthy, will go to work too. Isn't it so?" the Master asked warmly of me.

 

"But your teaching opens up such a deep philosophy of life that an audience of professors and men of science would understand it better and would spread it throughout the world. I don't think that I am above the others but if you surround yourself with more cultured persons it will be better" I insisted persuasively.

 

"Listen to what I am going to tell you," the Master continued waving lightly his hand, "the sower sows the field and the seeds grow up alone when the time of growing comes. The important thing is to sow the field. If my teaching, if my words are divine, they will spread throughout the world. The divine works by unknown, living paths. If I speak empty words and contrive an empty philosophy, even if hundreds of professors popularize it, it will die out one day.

 

He was silent for a moment, then continued:

 

"The Divine succeeds by itself. All experiences, all suffering and trials of the whole of humanity come to confirm that only the divine succeeds!" calmly and convincingly ended the Master.

 

I kept silent. It was perfectly true-the sick need a doctor. Where and to whom could they go if not to the Master?