Part II — Amrita

I

```

What we understand easily we believe we understand rightly,

We make a confusion between the face and its mask.

We think the horizon line is the finishing line,

We forget that a blue sky stretches still beyond.

The world is built with the tears and smiles of the gods...

A child is at play on the sandy beaches:

He is never to be met in the crowd...

A jewel knows not itself, nor does a pearl know that it is a pearl!

The goal fixed for ever, for ever he goes on,

The path offers no bar, no call reaches from behind:

Lo!

The eternal voyager, eternally free,

Eyes ever turned to the dawning East, never to the setting West.

He hides behind a veil and moves on...

Is it the stream?

Is it the ocean vast?

— Nolini Kanta Gupta

``` Translated from the Bengali of Robi Gupta

From:Sri Chinmoy,A service-flame and a service-sun, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sf