Religious Problem in India

Author(s): Annie Besant
Publisher: Theosophist Office Adyar

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THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
Lord, cry." Who is he that he should cry? What is he to cry? Rent with doubt and angiislı, with self-despair of his own power, he, illiterate, untrained, how shall he trust the inner voice that calls him? Is it not his own priile, his own selfconceit, his own longing for dominion that call him, and not the voice of the Supreme, that bids His Prophets speak forth His word ? Thus fifteen years pass, years of struggle that few can measure, and then on one night of nights as he lies there on the ground in his agony, a light shines around him from Heaven, and a glorious form stands before him: “Rise, thou art the Prophet of God; go forth and cry in the name of Thy Lord.” “What shall I cry?” “Cry," the Angel says; and then he teaches him of the building of the worlds, and the making of man, teaches him of the unity of God, and of the mystery of the Angels, teaches him of the work that lies before him. He the most solitary of men, with a nation around him, he is to go forth and cry, and cry in the name of his Lord.
Forth he goes, and home he rushes, on the ground at home he falls, and Khadīja is there. "What shall I do?” he says to her; “ who am I? what am I?” “Nay,” says the quiet voice of the faithful wife, “thou art true and faithful, thy world is never broken, men kuow thy character; God does not deceive the faithful; follow the voice then ; obey the call.” And the voice of the wife, the first disciple, gives the tonch of courage to the human heart that fails before the greatness of the mission,