(We are proud to publish the book ‘Garden of Flowers’ authored by Mr. C.G. Westerlund for the benefit of our brethren with due acknowledgements to Dr. T.S. Sastry, Hyderabad – Editor)
OUR WORD
Sri Carl Gordon Westerlund of Portland, Oregon State, USA., is a fine specimen of a seeker after Truth. He taught Bible classes for twelve years and more, went up foreign ships to freely distribute Gospel Literature and did his best to help men to enlightenment. Unlike several lovers of religion, he kept an open mind all the time, and was readily receiving, while continuing to give. Impressed deeply by the love shown by some Gujarati Indian sailors on board a ‘Jayanti’, he sought to learn what their religion taught, (he was twenty eight years old at that time) and soon read through the Gita, Upanishads, Bhagavatham and books on Indian Philosophy. He got all the publications of Ramanaashram, Kanhagod Aanandaashrama. Anandamayi samsthan and Matrusri Publications Trust (for the Mother at Jillellamudi) and studied them. The sayings of Anandamayi and Anasuyadevi inspired him most and he “learnt more about the ONE from the words of these two than from the words of Christ”. In the words of Swami Vivekananda he evolved into a better Christian.
He lives a life as Christ taught him, extending his love to animals too. He spends very little for himself, and all the rest of his income, for others. These ‘others’ include the institutions in India, devoting their time and resources to telling men about the ONE, birds that perch in flocks on the tree by his window, dogs of his neighbourhood following him as he walks to work, needy negro ‘boys’ asking him for money. But his attention is always on the All, who alone is and who alone initiates all. The two ladies mentioned enter his life here, one to show him the spread of Everything, and the other, entering his life later, to show that all activity and repose is at the initiative of the ONE.
Today Sri Gordon Westerlund hears the Lord chirping in hungry birds, running across his path as a little mouse, smiling at him through the familiar watchman, questioning him as his friends, glaring at him through the lighted windows of a skyscraper, beating at his face as the breeze, sharing his drying bread as a fly and calmly looking at him as the stillness of the arctic region. He sees only the play and initiative of the ONE MOTHER in the pictures appearing in the dailies, periodicals calendars and special numbers; in the horrors of dreams; in the grotesque line-up of advancing and receding canyon wrecks, in the mesh of highways, in everything that shows a mark of All.
He would like to be simple like the gopis (shepherd girl devotees of Sri Krishna), does not wish to go to heaven, only wants to be in the state, where HE alone IS. Glory to this shepherd, who sings about the All Everything and Initiative to flocks that do not know him!.
This ‘Garden of Flowers’ is the offspring of a random layout of ‘plants’ Gordon sent us across the seas in his hundreds of ‘letters’ during the past few years. We thank him for according us permission to publish these blossoms of his moments of leisure during work, and moments of peace before sleep.
Any one is free to use any of these flowers for the purpose they could best serve.
1-7-1970
Bapatla S.India
Matrusri Publications Trust,
Publishers
Everything is here and now –
For, (says G) HE, who is Everything
is HERE Now – Glory!
He who is equally in All
And everything,
He is wholeness,
Full and Fullness
The Sky is His Peace;
Water is His Bliss;
(HE is SHE, and SHE is HE
The obverse and reverse of all that is)
Amma, God, or Truth
(All) is ONE (and only ONE)
But how many forms
How many Shapes
(How many thoughts Thousands, millions, myriads) – Huh!
What are we? asks K
“Just some names and shapes”
(Says G), “of the ONE ‘NAME’ and “Shape,
Who at once is beyond all Form and name”.
Relative happiness and sorrow
Will one day end in
Eternal peace and happiness.
For, (says G)
Behind all relativity is SHE,
Who is Eternity?
All forms HER forms
All ways HIS ways
He is SHE, SHE is HE
Verily ONE plans all the parts.
Are not differences and troubles
Passing, short lived, relative, temporal?
Underneath all forms and names
IS the same Existence, Mother,
This ONE we all are
All are of the ONE
All are of the Same ONE.
Mother and daughter,
Father and son,
Brother and brother
Traveler and his fellow
Are two forms of the ONE
The same abounds as ALL.
Sometimes those forms are most amusing!
She alone is doer of every deed I
impeller of every action
Planner of every plan
Form of every form.
Verily, all contain bliss Divine.
Even Food. That’s why It’s so good!
All is SHE, even the rocks,
Glass and Scientists.
From Unseen Mother to seen Mother
Are all these that are seen –
God plays all parts
The seen and the unseen.
‘I feel fine, but my throat is sick’
How true!
(to be continued)