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This blow brought about a change within Gora’s mind. He reflected upon the reason why his mind had been assailed by Sucharita — he had mixed with these people, and at some point, unknown even to himself, he had become entangled with them. Where a boundary of prohibition had been drawn, Gora had crossed it with arrogant pride. This was not the manner of our country. If each person fails to guard his own boundary, he not only wrongs himself in ways both known and unknown, but also loses the uncontaminated power to do good to others. Through association, diverse passions of the heart grow strong and begin to cloud knowledge, steadfastness, and strength.

It was not only in going to mix with the women of Brahmo households that he had discovered this truth. When Gora had gone to mingle with the common people, there too he had found himself caught in a kind of whirlpool and had come near to losing himself. For at every step compassion was kindling within him; driven by this compassion, he kept thinking — this is wrong, this is unjust, this ought to be removed. But does not this very impulse of compassion distort the capacity for sound judgment between good and evil? The more the inclination to show compassion increases within us, the more our power to perceive truth with detachment deserts us — smeared with the smoky darkness of an impassioned pity, we see what is altogether pale as if it were densely coloured.

Gora reasoned thus: it is for this very reason that in our country the rule has come down through the ages that he upon whom rests the burden of the welfare of the whole must remain unattached. That a king can fulfil his duty of protecting his subjects only by mingling with them in intimate closeness is entirely without foundation. Through such proximity, the knowledge that the king requires regarding his subjects becomes contaminated. It is for this reason that the subjects themselves, of their own will, have surrounded their king with the protection of distance. The moment the king becomes their companion, the need for a king will have passed.

The Brahmin, too, stands at such a remove — equally unattached. Because the Brahmin must do good to many, the Brahmin is debarred from the company of many.

Gora said to himself, ‘I am that Brahmin of India.’ The Brahmin who, entangled with ten thousand others, wallowing in the mire of commerce, inflamed by the lure of money, has tied the noose of Shudrahood around his neck and is dying by self-strangulation — Gora did not count such men among the living substance of his motherland; he regarded them as lower than Shudras, for the Shudra lives and thrives by virtue of his own Shudrahood, but these men are dead for want of Brahminhood, and therefore they are impure. It is on account of these dead that India today mourns in such wretched and defiled bereavement.

Gora prepared his mind this day with the resolve to practise within himself the life-restoring mantra of that Brahmin. He said, ‘I must become utterly pure. I do not stand upon common ground with all others. Friendship is not a commodity I require. I am not one of that ordinary class of men for whom the company of women is an indispensable delight, and the intimate fellowship of the common masses of this country is something I must entirely renounce. As the earth looks up to the distant sky for rain, so do these people look up towards the Brahmin — if I descend and come among them, who then will save them?’

Gora had never before turned his mind to the worship of the deity. From the time his heart had grown restless and he could no longer hold himself together, when his work felt empty and hollow and life seemed to weep and languish as though cut in two — from that time Gora had been making the effort to give his mind to worship. Sitting still before the image, he strove to immerse his entire mind in that form. But by no means could he rouse his devotion. He could only explain the deity by means of intellect; he could not receive it unless he rendered it allegorical. Yet to allegory one cannot offer the devotion of the heart. One cannot worship a spiritual interpretation. It was rather when he sat not in the temple but at home — either alone, his mind and tongue borne upon a current of thought, or in the midst of debate with someone — that a joy and an infusion of devotional feeling would arise within him. Nevertheless Gora did not relent; he continued to sit at worship every day according to the prescribed rule, receiving it as a discipline of observance. He reasoned with his own mind thus: where there is no power to unite with all through the thread of feeling, it is through the thread of rule that connection is maintained everywhere. Whenever Gora had gone to a village and entered its temple, he had sat in deep inward meditation and said to himself: here precisely is my proper station — the deity on one side, the devotee on the other — and between them the Brahmin stands as a bridge, preserving the union of both. Gradually it seemed to Gora that the Brahmin has no need of devotion. Devotion is the particular possession of the common people. The bridge between the devotee and the object of devotion is a bridge of knowledge. As this bridge preserves the union of both, so too does it preserve the boundary between them. If pure knowledge does not stand as a separating wall between the devotee and the deity, everything becomes distorted. For this reason, the ecstasy of devotion is not for the Brahmin’s enjoyment — the Brahmin sits upon the summit of knowledge in austerity, striving to keep the essence of devotion uncontaminated for the enjoyment of all people. Just as in worldly life there is no comfort or ease for the Brahmin, so too in divine worship there is no enjoyment of devotion for the Brahmin. This is the Brahmin’s glory. In worldly life, discipline and restraint for the Brahmin; in religious practice, knowledge for the Brahmin.

The heart had defeated Gora; for that offence Gora now pronounced upon the heart a sentence of banishment. But who would lead it into exile? Where was that army?