BENGALI WRITINGS

18Bengali Writingsrepeating the Divine Name three times a day; observing allthe rites and rituals prescribed in the Shastras, he was followingthe path shown by Raghunandan, and was leadingthe life of an ideal father, an ideal husband and an ideal son.But the next moment he saw to his dismay that theresidents of the locality he was living in had neither mutualgood-will nor any happiness; they considered the mechanicalobservance of social conventions the highest virtue. Insteadof the ecstatic feeling that had been his in the beginning,he now had a feeling of suffering. It seemed to himas if he had been very thirsty but, lacking water, had beeneating dust, — only dust, infinite dust. He ran away fromthat place and went to another locality. There, in front of agrand mansion, a huge crowd had gathered; words of blessingwere on every one's lips. Advancing he saw Tinkari Sheelseated on a verandah, distributing large amounts of moneyto the crowd; no one was going away empty-handed. Harimohonchuckled and thought, “What is this dream? TinkariSheel is giving alms!” Then he looked into Tinkari's mind.He saw that thousands of dissatisfactions and evil impulsessuch as greed, jealousy, passion, selfishness were all astirthere. For the sake of virtuous appearance and fame, outof vanity, Tinkari had kept them suppressed, kept them starving,instead of driving them away from within.In the meantime someone took Harimohon on a swiftvisit to the other world. He saw the hells and heavens ofthe Hindus, those of the Christians, the Muslims and theGreeks, and also many other hells and heavens. Then hefound himself sitting once more in his own hut, on the sameold torn and dirty mattress with Shyamsundar in front ofhim. The boy remarked, “It is quite late in the night; nowif I don't return home I shall get a scolding, everybody willstart beating me. Let me therefore be brief. The hells and theheavens you have visited are nothing but a dream-world, a