uers.
Exactly the same idea. Intellect, everything, fails the naked soul
before God.[11]

[Footnote 11: So in the _Imitation of Christ_, the work of an occultist,
it is written that we must "naked follow the naked Jesus."]

If I have taken up this story specially, out of hundreds of stories, to
dwell upon, it is because it is one of the points of attack, and because
you who are Hindus by birth ought to know enough of the inner truths of
your own religion not to stand silent and ashamed when attacks are made,
but should speak with knowledge and thus prevent such blasphemies.

Then we learn more details of His play with the Gopis as a child of
seven: how He wandered into the forest and disappeared and all went
after Him seeking Him; how they tried to imitate His own play, in order
to fill up the void that was left by His absence. The child of seven,
that He was at this time, disappeared for a while, but came back to
those who loved Him, as God ever does with His bhaktas. And then takes
place that wondrous dance, the Rasa[12] of Shri Krishna, part
of His Lila, when He multiplied Himself so that every pair of Gopis
found Him standing between them; amid the ring of women the child was
there between each pair of them, giving a hand to each; and so the
mystic dance was danced. This is another of these points of attack which
are made by ignorant minds. What but an unclean mind can see aught that
is impure in the child dancing there as lover and beloved? It is as
though He looked forward down the ages, and saw what later would be
said, and it is as though He kept the child form in the Lila, in order
that He might breathe harmlessly into men's blind unclean hearts the
lesson that He would fain give. And what was the lesson? One other
incident I remind you of, before I draw the lesson from the whole of
this stage of His life. He sent for food, He who is the Feeder of the
worlds, and some of His Brahmanas refused to give it, and sent away
the boys who came to ask for food for Him; and when the men refused, He
sent them back to the women, to see if they too would refuse the food
their husbands had declined to give. And the women--who have ever loved
the Lord--caught up the food from every part of their houses where they
could find it and went out, crowds of them, bearing food for Him,
leaving house, and husband, and household duties. And all tried to stop
them, but they would not be stopped; and brothers and husbands and
friends