Though I had acquired a nodding acquaintance with Hinduism and other
religions of the world, I should have known that it would not be
enough to save me in my trails. Of the thing that sustains him
through trials man has no inkling, much less knowledge, at the time.
If an unbeliever, he will attribute his safety to chance. If a
believer, he will say God saved him. He will conclude, as well he
may, that his religious study or spiritual discipline was at the
back of the state of grace within him. But in the hour of his
deliverance he does not know whether his spiritual discipline or
something else saves. Who that has prided himself on his
spiritual strength has not seen it humbled to the dust? A knowledge
of religion, as distinguished from experience, seems but chaff in
such moments of trial.
It was in England that I first discovered the
futility of mere religious knowledge. How I was saved on previous
occasions is more than I can say, for I was very young then; but now
I was twenty and had gained some experience as husband and father.
During the last year, as far as I can remember, of my stay in England, that
is in 1890, there was a Vegetarian Conference at Portsmouth to which
an Indian friend and I were invited. Portsmouth is a sea-port with a
large naval population. It has many houses with women of ill fame,
women not actually prostitutes, but at the same time, not very
scrupulous about their morals. We were put up in one of these
houses. Needles to say, the Reception Committee did not know
anything about it. It would have been difficult in a town like
Portsmouth to find out which were good lodgings and which were bad
for occasional travelers like us.
We returned from the Conference in the evening. After dinner we sat
down to play a rubber of bridge, in which our landlady joined, as is
customary in England even in respectable households. Every player
indulges in innocent jokes as a matter of course, but here my
companion and our hostess began to make indecent ones as well. I did
not know that my friend was an adept in the art. It captured me and
I also joined in. Just when I was about to go beyond the limit,
leaving the cards and the game to themselves, God through the good
companion uttered the blessed warning: 'Whence this devil in you, my
boy? Be off, quick!'
I was ashamed. I took the warning and expressed within myself gratefulness
to my friend. Remembering the vow I had taken before my mother, I
fled from the scene. To my room I went quaking, trembling, and with
beating heart, like a quarry escaped from its pursuer.
I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman, other than my wife,
moved me to lust. I passed that night sleeplessly, all kinds of
thoughts assailing me. Should I leave this house? Should I run away
from the place? Where was I? What would happen to me if I had not my
wits about me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not
to leave the house, but somehow leave Portsmouth. The Conference was
not to go on for more than two days, and I remember I left
Portsmouth the next evening, my companion staying there some time
longer.
I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works in us.
Only vaguely I understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On
all occasions of trial He has saved me. I know that the phrase 'God
saved me' has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel that I
have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only richer experience can
help me to a fuller understanding. But in all my trials – of a
spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in
politics – I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone. 'when
helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow,
from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no
superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating,
drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they
alone are real, all else is unreal.
Such worship or prayer is no flight of eloquence; it is no lip-homage. It
springs from the heart. If, therefore, we achieve that purity of the
heart when it is 'emptied of all but love', if we keep all the
chords in proper tune, they 'trembling pass in music out of sight'.
Prayer needs no speech. It is in itself independent of any sensuous
effort. I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing
means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined
with the utmost humility.