I cannot tell you how thankful we are that you have shown us the way to true happiness—to true freedom—to God. Those who serve God are free—they are bound to no man. To be dependent upon others is to be in bondage to them. Where is true happiness? It is not far away, but it is so difficult to find the road thither, we cannot go by tram, by horse or by boat, and no gold can pay the cost of the journey. It is hard to find the way, and we must pay the fare in tears and heart's blood and meditation. Where is the road? It is in ourselves. In the world, we find much that delights us, that transports us, so that we think we have found the long sought happiness. But even as the thought comes, we find by bitter experience that what we hold to our hearts, is empty dross.
True, lasting happiness dwells within, and is called soul's peace. We have learned of that from you. God is jealous, it is said; He will not suffer us to pray to any other gods but Him, and He punishes with bitter disillusion those who create gods for themselves, and pray to them with reverence.
So we think, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," a command of love. In it, there lies an earnest admonition that man is man and but a fallible creature. Alas, if that commandment were only understood, so much suffering would be spared us.
Mother says that she would like to meet you; to thank you personally for the miracle that you have wrought in her children in opening their hearts to the Father of Love. You ask what had turned us into unbelievers; The things that we had seen lurking under the mantle of religion, and Oh, the intolerance of so many strong believers.
We were children; how can one understand the thoughts of a child? We did not know, could not understand that it is man who does evil, using God's name to cover his wicked deeds. We asked and still ask for that matter, not what is your belief? but what is the conduct of your life? Righteousness was our God. Now we know that God and righteousness are one.
We are reading a beautiful poem; it is in the flower-tongue. There is no word for poetry in our language, so we say flower-tongue—and is it not expressive? All our books are in poetic metre and can be either read or sung. Do you remember the cool, bright tropical evenings, when everything was quiet, and the stillness was only broken by the rustling of the wind through the tops of the cocoa-nut trees? When the fresh evening breeze brought you on its breath the sweet perfume of kemoening, tjempaka, melati. Did a dreamy song never reach you then? the song of a Javanese, who sings to his family and to his neighbours—of love—heroic deeds, and glittering pageantry—of beauty and of wisdom; of mighty men and women, princes and princesses of the long ago. It is that loveliest hour when the Javanese, tired from the hard day's work, seeks rest in song, dreaming all his cares away, wholly lost in the shining far-away past, whither his song leads him. "The Javanese are a people who live in the past," a young friend of ours says rightly. "They are lost in the blissful dreams of their eternal sleep." That is true, but we are alive, we must live; and life always goes forward.
Our friend says, too: "Your people must be awakened to a practical realization of the outside world." Many things that are dear to us will then be driven into the background, but should we for that reason, delay the awakening?
Dreams are splendid, but what would become of us if we dreamed for ever? We must make ourselves nobler, by trying to make our dreams real.
There is so much charm in the Javanese people. You have been the means of making us realize it anew in the last few days. This collecting of fables brings us into contact with many kinds of people, and it is a great pleasure to find out their ideas. They tell them to us in simple language, but they tell them so graciously, and we are moved by their truth and wisdom. I wish that I could send you some of their beautiful thoughts in our own soft musical tongue. Translated they are no longer what they were.