Religious Problem in India

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

Page 18

THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM IN INDIA
were aware ; and he called us to the unity of God, and taught us not to associate anything with Him; he forbade us the worship of idols, and enjoined us to speak the truth, to be faithful to our trusts, to be merciful, and to regard the rights of neighbors ; he forbade us to speak evil of women, or to eat the substance of orphans; he ordered us to fly vices, and to abstain from evil; to offer prayers, to render alms, to observe the fast. We have believed in him, we have accepted his teachings." *
Such the testimony of the followers to their Prophet's teaching, such the witness that they bore who gave their lives for him.
And what manner of man was le now when followers gathered round him ? One day as he was talking to a rich man whom he desired to win to his cause--for to win the rich and powerful men meant life for those who followed him-a blind man came along and cried alond: “O Prophet of God, teach me the way of Salvation,” but he did not listen. He was talking to the high-born and the well-to-rlo, and this blind beggar, why should he interrupt? And the blind beggar, knowing not that he was engaged, cried alond again : “O Prophet of God, show me the way". The Prophet frowned and turned aside. The next day there came a message that for ever remains written in Al Quran, "wherein he put it that all might remember”. “The Prophet frowned and turned aside because the blind man came to him: and how dost thou know whether he shall peradventure be cleansed from his sins, or
* Ibid, pp. 100, 101.