God seeketh man

In a beautiful poem named the “Hound of Heaven,” the author, Francis Thompson, describes how a man is trying to escape the Supreme and to find rest in finite things. The Supreme follows the man “with unhurrying chase, unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic constancy.” Rest is denied to the man, though he seeks it by turns in beautiful places, in the stars and the dawn, in the evening sky and in the eyes of little children. And even as he stands within the shadow of death, the voice of the Supreme speaks to man—

“Ah! fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am He whom thou sleekest!

Thou dravest love from thee who dravest Me!”

So, Tukaram says, in an abhanga (verse) that God was running after him while Tukaram was walking along Tukaram says—“I saw God whirling round me in a circle.” So, too, we read in the poems of Kabir—“God followed Kabir as Kabir was walking alone and God called out—“Kabir! Kabir!” But Kabir would not listen and moved on! Then Kabir saw God following him!”

Man is represented often as a seeker after God. It is truer, perhaps, to say that God seeketh man and more, God pursueth man and will not leave him in the dark. For God, the Spirit, is the Life of Nature as He is the Truth of Man.