Walking Wounded

The sky was cast over today. There was a chill in the air, and it crept into my bones. Each time Swamigal is punished, each of us feels the pain.

A friend wrote to me today with the news that the Acharya was once again denied freedom. "Are we all so helpless?... I am not able to concentrate on anything else," she said.

I felt I should write back, with some word of encouragement or solace... convince her that everything will turn out alright in the end - truth always conquers. But how could I do that when I myself feel that way? Broken-hearted... The thought of this blameless mahatma locked up in jail brings a desolate agony.

There is a story they tell in Tamil Nadu - of Siva visiting the land disguised as an ordinary worker. For some reason or the other (that I cannot remember), the rajah passes judgment on the worker and sets about to punish him with lashes from a cane.

When the cane is struck, the worker has not a mark on him.

Again and again, the cane strikes, but the blow falls not on the accused man, but on the man who strikes him. As the cane strikes Shiva, the wound appears on people walking nearby - on everyone else in that land. The rajah reaches back, and finds blood flowing from his own back.

That is so today. When Siva is struck, it is the bhakthas who feel the blow. One only wonders how long this raaj will take to wake up and realize that, in striking at Sankaracharya, it is bleeding itself and all of us.

Until then, we are all walking wounded.

* * *

Still, we are not helpless. Truth does always conquer. Refuse to let it be gagged... speak the truth with abandon.