पृष्ठ:परमार्थ-सोपान.pdf/४६

6 परमार्थ सोपान [ Part I the highly poetic analogies of Raidas about the rela- tion between Saint and God, and Nanak's doctrine of the unity of the internal and the external perception of God. We shall then pass on to the second part of our problem, namely, the prayers which the Saints have offered to God. These prayers fall under two heads, first the philosophical prayers, and second the lyrical prayers. In the philosophical prayers man's mind is equanimous with the Real. In the lyrical prayers, it goes out of itself to reach the highest ideal. We have examples of the first in the ethico-philosophical poem of Dadu, Raidas's poem with its strong emphasis on the necessity of mutual perception by Saint and God, and lastly a poem in imitation of Tulsidas on the parity between Saint and God, the Saint being an oars- man through the river of life, and God an oars- man through the ocean of existence. The lyrical prayers may be illustrated firstly from Surdas's two poems which give us the instances of a bird on a tree caught between the hawk and the hunter, and of a sparrow on the high seas which has no other place to perch on except the mast of God. Then, again, we have a lyrical poem in Surdasian style on a blind man praying to God to make him reach the topmost part of the hill through tortuous and dark ascents. After this, we shall come to two more poems giving us desperate utterances of a female and a male devotee respectively on the fulfilment of their aspirations towards God. Finally, at the end of the chapter, we shall meet with a very remarkable poem by Bahiro, which after reviewing the various kinds of liberation