Great Mesage from Sawmi Vivekenanda

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pasting this message from Sami Vivekananda only hoping

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-pratap

 

 

Swami Vivekananda

 

THE FUTURE OF INDIA

 

This is the ancient land where wisdom made its

home before

it went into any other country, the same India

whose influx

of spirituality is represented, as it were, on

the material

plane, by rolling rivers like oceans, where

the eternal

Himalayas, rising tier above tier with their

snowcaps, looks

as it were into the very mysteries of heaven.

Here is the

same India whose soil has been trodden by the

feet of the

greatest sages that ever lived. Here first

sprang up

inquiries into the nature of man and into the

internal

world. Here first arose the doctrines of the

immortality of

the soul, the existence of a supervising God,

an immanent

God in nature and in man, and here the highest

ideals of

religion and philosophy have attained their

culminating

points. This is the land from whence, like

tidal waves,

spirituality and philosophy have again and

again rushed out

and deluged the world, and this is the land

from whence once

more such tides must proceed in order to bring

life and

vigour into the decaying races of mankind. It

is the same

India which has withstood the shocks of

centuries, of

hundreds of foreign invasions, of hundreds of

upheavals of

manners and customs. It is the same land which

stands firmer

than any rock in the world, with its undying

vigour,

indestructible life. Its life is of the same

nature as the

soul, without beginning and without end,

immortal; and we

are the children of such a country.

 

Children of India, I am here to speak to you

today about

some practical things, and my object in

reminding you about

the glories of the past is simply this. Many

times have I

been told that looking into the past only

degenerates and

leads to nothing, and that we should look to

the future.

That is true. But out of the past is built the

future. Look

back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep

of the

eternal fountains that are behind, and after

that, look

forward, march forward and make India

brighter, greater,

much higher than she ever was. Our ancestors

were great. We

must first recall that. We must learn the

elements of our

being, the blood that courses in our veins; we

must have

faith in that blood and what it did in the

past; and out of

that faith and consciousness of past

greatness, we must

build an India yet greater than what she has

been. There

have been periods of decay and degradation. I

do not attach

much importance to them; we all know that.

Such periods have

been necessary. A mighty tree produces a

beautiful ripe

fruit. That fruit falls on the ground, it

decays and rots,

and out of that decay springs the root and the

future tree,

perhaps mightier than the first one. This

period of decay

through which we have passed was all the more

necessary. Out

of this decay is coming the India of the

future; it is

sprouting, its first leaves are already out;

and a mighty,

gigantic tree, the Urdhvamula, is here,

already beginning to

appear; and it is about that that I am going

to speak to

you.

 

The problems in India are more complicated,

more momentous,

than the problems in any other country. Race,

religion,

language, government--all these together make

a nation. The

elements which compose the nations of the

world are indeed

very few, taking race after race, compared to

this country.

Here have been the Aryan, the Dravidian, the

Tartar, the

Turk, the Mogul, the European--all the nations

of the world,

as it were, pouring their blood into this

land. Of languages

the most wonderful conglomeration is here; of

manners and

customs there is more difference between two

Indian races

than between the European and the Eastern

races.

 

The one common ground that we have is our

sacred tradition,

our religion. That is the only common ground,

and upon that

we shall have to build. In Europe, political

ideas form the

national unity. In Asia, religious ideals form

the national

unity. The unity in religion, therefore, is

absolutely

necessary as the first condition of the future

of India.

There must be the recognition of one religion

throughout the

length and breadth of this land. What do I

mean by one

religion? Not in the sense of one religion as

held among the

Christians, or the Mohammedans, or the

Buddhists. We know

that our religion has certain common grounds,

common to all

our sects, however varying their conclusions

may be, however

different their claims may be. So there are

certain common

grounds; and within their limitation this

religion of ours

admits of a marvellous variation, an infinite

amount of

liberty to think and live our own lives. We

all know that,

at least those of us who have thought; and

what we want is

to bring out these life-giving common

principles of our

religion, and let every man, woman, and child,

throughout

the length and breadth of this country,

understand them,

know them, and try to bring them out in their

lives. This is

the first step; and, therefore, it has to be

taken.

 

We see how in Asia, and especially in India,

race

difficulties, linguistic difficulties, social

difficulties,

national difficulties, all melt away before

this unifying

power of religion. We know that to the Indian

mind there is

nothing higher than religious ideals, that

this is the

keynote of Indian life, and we can only work

in the line of

least resistance. It is not only true that the

ideal of

religion is the highest ideal; in the case of

India it is

the only possible means of work; work in any

other line,

without first strengthening this, would be

disastrous.

Therefore the first plank in the making of a

future India,

the first step that is to be hewn out of that

rock of ages,

is this unification of religion. All of us

have to be taught

that we Hindus--dualists, qualified monists,

or monists,

Shaivas, Vaishnavas, or Pashupatas--to

whatever denomination

we may belong, have certain common ideas

behind us, and that

the time has come when for the well-being of

ourselves, for

the well-being of our race, we must give up

all our little

quarrels and differences. Be sure, these

quarrels are

entirely wrong; they are condemned by our

scriptures,

forbidden by our forefathers; and those great

men from whom

we claim our descent, whose blood is in our

veins, look down

with contempt on their children quarrelling

about minute

differences.

 

With the giving up of quarrels all other

improvements will

come. When the life-blood is strong and pure,

no disease

germ can live in that body. Our life-blood is

spirituality.

If it flows clear, if it flows strong and pure

and vigorous,

everything is right; political, social, any

other material

defects, even the poverty of the land, will

all be cured if

that blood is pure. For if the disease germ be

thrown out,

nothing will be able to enter into the blood.

To take a

simile from modern medicine, we know that

there must be two

causes to produce a disease, some poison germ

outside, and

the state of the body. Until the body is in a

state to admit

the germs, until the body is degraded to a

lower vitality so

that the germs may enter and thrive and

multiply, there is

no power in any germ and in the world to

produce a disease

in the body. In fact, millions of germs are

continually

passing through everyone's body; but so long

as it is

vigorous, it never is conscious of them. It is

only when the

body is weak that these germs take possession

of it and

produce disease. Just so with the national

life. It is when

the national body is weak that all sorts of

disease germs,

in the political state of the race or in its

social state,

in its educational or intellectual state,

crowd into the

system and produce disease. To remedy it,

therefore, we must

go to the root of this disease and cleanse the

blood of all

impurities. The one tendency will be to

strengthen the man,

to make the blood pure, the body vigorous, so

that it will

be able to resist and throw off all external

poisons. We

have seen that our vigour, our strength, nay,

our national

life is in our religion. I am not going to

discuss now

whether it is right or not, whether it is

correct or not,

whether it is beneficial or not in the long

run, to have

this vitality in religion, but for good or

evil it is there;

you cannot get out of it, you have it now and

for ever, and

you have to stand by it, even if you have not

the same faith

that I have in our religion. You are bound by

it, and if you

give it up, you are smashed to pieces. That is

the life of

our race and that must be strengthened. You

have withstood

the shocks of centuries simply because you

took great care

of it, you sacrificed everything else for it.

Your

forefathers underwent everything boldly, even

death itself,

but preserved their religion. Temple after

temple was broken

down by the foreign conqueror, but no sooner

had the wave

passed than the spire of the temple rose up

again. Some of

these old temples of Southern India and those

like Somnath

of Gujarat will teach you volumes of wisdom,

will give you a

keener insight into the history of the race

than any amount

of books. Mark how these temples bear the

marks of a hundred

attacks and a hundred regenerations,

continually destroyed

and continually springing up out of the ruins,

rejuvenated

and strong as ever! That is the national mind,

that is the

national life-current. Follow it and it leads

to glory. Give

it up and you die; death will be the only

result,

annihilation the only effect, the moment you

step beyond

that life-current. I do not mean to say that

other things

are not necessary. I do not mean to say that

political or

social improvements are not necessary, but

what I mean is

this, and I want you to bear it in mind, that

they are

secondary here and that religion is primary.

The Indian mind

is first religious, then anything else. So

this is to be

strengthened, and how to do it? I will lay

before you my

ideas. They have been in my mind for a long

time, even years

before I left the shores of Madras for

America, and that I

went to America and England was simply for

propagating those

ideas. I did not care at all for the

Parliament of Religions

or anything else; it was simply an

opportunity; for it was

really those ideas of mine that took me all

over the world.

 

My idea is first of all to bring out the gems

of

spirituality that are stored up in our books

and in the

possession of a few only, hidden, as it were,

in monasteries

and in forests--to bring them out; to bring

the knowledge

out of them, not only from the hands where it

is hidden, but

from the still more inaccessible chest, the

language in

which it is preserved, the incrustation of

centuries of

Sanskrit words. In one word, I want to make

them popular. I

want to bring out these ideas and let them be

the common

property of all, of every man in India,

whether he knows the

Sanskrit language or not. The great difficulty

in the way is

the Sanskrit language--the glorious language

of ours; and

this difficulty cannot be removed until--if it

is

possible--the whole of our nation are good

Sanskrit

scholars. You will understand the difficulty

when I tell you

that I have been studying this language all my

life, and yet

every new book is new to me. How much more

difficult would

it then be for people who never had time to

study the

language thoroughly! Therefore the ideas must

be taught in

the language of the people; at the same time,

Sanskrit

education must go on along with it, because

the very sound

of Sanskrit words gives a prestige and a power

and a

strength to the race. The attempts of the

great Ramanuja and

of Chaitanya and of Kabir to raise the lower

classes of

India show that marvellous results were

attained during the

lifetime of those great prophets; yet the

later failures

have to be explained, and cause shown why the

effect of

their teachings stopped almost within a

century of the

passing away of these great Masters. The

secret is here.

They raised the lower classes; they had all

the wish that

these should come up, but they did not apply

their energies

to the spreading of the Sanskrit language

among the masses.

Even the great Buddha made one false step when

he stopped

the Sanskrit language from being studied by

the masses. He

wanted rapid and immediate results, and

translated and

preached in the language of the day, Pali.

That was grand;

he spoke in the language of the people, and

the people

understood him. That was great; it spread the

ideas quickly

and made them reach far and wide. But along

with that,

Sanskrit ought to have spread. Knowledge came,

but the

prestige was not there, culture was not there.

It is culture

that withstands shocks, not a simple mass of

knowledge. You

can put a mass of knowledge into the world,

but that will

not do it much good. There must come culture

into the blood.

We all know in modern times of nations which

have masses of

knowledge, but what of them? They are like

tigers, they are

like savages, because culture is not there.

Knowledge is

only skin-deep, as civilisation is, and a

little scratch

brings out the old savage. Such things happen;

this is the

danger. Teach the masses in the vernaculars,

give them

ideas; they will get information, but

something more is

necessary; give them culture. Until you give

them that,

there can be no permanence in the raised

condition of the

masses. There will be another caste created,

having the

advantage of the Sanskrit language, which will

quickly get

above the rest and rule them all the same. The

only safety,

I tell you men who belong to the lower castes,

the only way

to raise your condition is to study Sanskrit,

and this

fighting and writing and frothing against the

higher castes

is in vain, it does no good, and it creates

fight and

quarrel, and this race, unfortunately already

divided, is

going to be divided more and more. The only

way to bring

about the levelling of caste is to appropriate

the culture,

the education which is the strength of the

higher castes.

That done, you have what you want.

 

In connection with this I want to discuss one

question which

has a particular bearing with regard to

Madras. There is a

theory that there was a race of mankind in

Southern India

called Dravidians, entirely differing from

another race in

Northern India called the Aryans, and that the

Southern

Indian Brahmins are the only Aryans that came

from the

North, the other men of Southern India belong

to an entirely

different caste and race to those of Southern

India

Brahmins. Now I beg your pardon, Mr.

Philologist. This is

entirely unfounded. The only proof of it is

that there is a

difference of language between the North and

the South. I do

not see any other difference. We are so many

Northern men

here, and I ask my European friends to pick

out the Northern

and Southern men from this assembly. Where is

the

difference? A little difference of language.

But the

Brahmins are a race that came here speaking

the Sanskrit

language! Well then, they took up the

Dravidian language and

forgot their Sanskrit. Why should not the

other castes have

done the same? Why should not all the other

castes have come

one after the other from Northern India, taken

up the

Dravidian language, and so forgotten their

own? That is an

argument working both ways. Do not believe in

such silly

things. There may have been a Dravidian people

who vanished

from here, and the few who remained lived in

forests and

other places. It is quite possible that the

language may

have been taken up, but all these are Aryans

who came from

the North. The whole of India is Aryan,

nothing else.

 

Then there is the other idea that the Shudra

caste are

surely the aborigines. What are they? They are

slaves. They

say history repeats itself. The Americans,

English, Dutch,

and the Portuguese got hold of the poor

Africans and made

them work hard while they lived, and their

children of mixed

birth were born in slavery and keep in that

condition for a

long period. From that wonderful example, the

mind jumps

back several thousand years and fancies that

the same thing

happened here, and our archaeologist dreams of

India being

full of dark-eyed aborigines, and the bright

Aryan came

from--the Lord knows where. According to some,

they came

from Central Tibet, others will have it that

they came from

Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen

who think that

the Aryans were all red-haired. Others,

according to their

idea, think that they were all black-haired.

If the writer

happens to be a black-haired man, the Aryans

were all

black-haired. Of late, there was an attempt

made to prove

that the Aryans lived on the Swiss lakes. I

should not be

sorry if they had been all drowned there,

theory and all.

Some say now that they lived at the North

Pole. Lord bless

the Aryans and their habitations! As for the

truth of these

theories, there is not one word in our

scriptures, not one,

to prove that the Aryan ever came from

anywhere outside of

India, and in ancient India was included

Afghanistan. There

it ends. And the theory that the Shudra caste

were all

non-Aryans and they were a multitude, is

equally illogical

and equally irrational. It could not have been

possible in

those days that a few Aryans settled and lived

there with a

hundred thousands slaves at their command.

These slaves

would have eaten them up, made "chutney" of

them in five

minutes. The only explanation is to be found

in the

Mahabharata, which says that in the beginning

of the Satya

Yuga there was one caste, the Brahmins, and

then by

difference of occupations they went on

dividing themselves

into different castes, and that is the only

true and

rational explanation that has been given. And

in the coming

Satya Yuga all the other castes will have to

go back to the

same condition.

 

The solution of the caste problem in India,

therefore,

assumes this form, not to degrade the higher

castes, not to

crush out the Brahmin. The Brahminhood is the

ideal of

humanity in India, as wonderfully put forward

by

Shankaracharya at the beginning of his

commentary on the

Gita, where he speaks about the reason for

Krishna's coming

as a preacher for the preservation of

Brahminhood, of

Brahminness. That was the great end. This

Brahmin, the man

of God, he who has known Brahman, the ideal

man, the perfect

man, must remain; he must not go. And with all

the defects

of the caste now, we know that we must all be

ready to give

to the Brahmins this credit, that from them

have come more

men with real Brahminness in them than from

all the other

castes. That is true. That is the credit due

to them from

all the other castes. We must be bold enough,

must be brave

enough to speak of their defects, but at the

same time we

must give the credit that is due to them.

Remember the old

English proverb, "Give every man his due".

Therefore, my

friends, it is no use fighting among the

castes. What good

will it do? It will divide us all the more,

weaken us all

the more, degrade us all the more. The days of

exclusive

privileges and exclusive claims are gone, gone

for ever from

the soil of India, and it is one of the great

blessings of

the British Rule in India. Even to the

Mohammedan Rule we

owe that great blessing, the destruction of

exclusive

privilege. That Rule was, after all, not all

bad; nothing is

all bad, and nothing is all good. The

Mohammedan conquest of

India came as a salvation to the downtrodden,

to the poor.

That is why one-fifth of our people have

become Mohammedans.

It was not the sword that did it all. It would

be the height

of madness to think it was all the work of

sword and fire.

And one-fifth--one-half--of your Madras people

will become

Christians if you do not take care. Was there

ever a sillier

thing before in the world than what I saw in

the Malabar

country? The poor Pariah is not allowed to

pass through the

same street as the high-caste man, but if he

changes his

name to a hodge-podge English name, it is all

right; or to a

Mohammedan name, it is all right. What

inference would you

draw except that these Malabaris are all

lunatics, their

homes so many lunatic asylums, and that they

are to be

treated with derision by every race in India

until they mend

their manners and know better. Shame upon them

that such

wicked and diabolical customs are allowed;

their own

children are allowed to die of starvation, but

as soon as

they take up some other religion they are well

fed. There

ought to be no more fight between the castes.

 

The solution is not by bringing down the

higher, but by

raising the lower up to the level of the

higher. And that is

the line of work that is found in all our

books, in spite of

what you may hear from some people whose

knowledge of their

own scriptures and whose capacity to

understand the mighty

plans of the ancients are only zero. They do

not understand,

but those do that have brains, that have the

intellect to

the grasp the whole scope of the work. They

stand aside and

follow the wonderful procession of national

life through the

ages. They can trace it step by step through

all the books,

ancient and modern. What is the plan? The

ideal at one end

is the Brahmin and the ideal at the other end

is the

Chandala, and the whole work is to raise the

Chandala up to

the Brahmin. Slowly and slowly you find more

and more

privileges granted to them. There are books

where you read

such fierce words as these: "If the Shudra

hears the Vedas,

fill his ears with molten lead, and if he

remembers a line,

cut his tongue out. If he says to the Brahmin,

`You

Brahmin', cut his tongue out". This is

diabolical old

barbarism no doubt; that goes without saying;

but do not

blame the law-givers, who simply record the

customs of some

section of the community. Such devils

sometimes arose among

the ancients. There have been devils

everywhere more or less

in all ages. Accordingly, you will find that

later on, this

tone is modified a little, as for instance,

"Do not disturb

the Shudras, but do not teach them higher

things". Then

gradually we find in other Smritis, especially

in those that

have full power now, that if the Shudras

imitate the manner

and customs of the Brahmins they do well, they

ought to be

encouraged. Thus it is going on. I have no

time to place

before you all these workings, nor how they

can be traced in

detail; but coming to plain facts, we find

that all the

castes are to rise slowly and slowly. There

are thousands of

castes, and some are even getting admission

into

Brahminhood, for what prevents any caste from

declaring they

are Brahmins? Thus caste, with all its rigour,

has been

created in that manner. Let us suppose that

there are castes

here with ten thousand people in each. If

these put their

heads together and say, we will call ourselves

Brahmins,

nothing can stop them; I have seen it in my

own life. Some

castes become strong, and as soon as they all

agree, who is

to say nay? Because whatever it was, each

caste was

exclusive of the other. It did not meddle with

others'

affairs; even the several divisions of one

caste did not

meddle with the other divisions, and those

powerful

epoch-makers, Shankaracharya and others, were

the great

caste-makers. I cannot tell you all the

wonderful things

they fabricated, and some of you may resent

what I have to

say. But in my travels and experiences I have

traced them

out, and have arrived at most wonderful

results. They would

sometimes get hordes of Baluchis and at once

make them

Kshatriyas, also get hold of hordes of

fishermen and make

them Brahmins forthwith. They were all Rishis

and sages, and

we have to bow down to their memory. So, be

you all Rishis

and sages; that is the secret. More or less we

shall all be

Rishis. What is meant by a Rishi? The pure

one. Be pure

first, and you will have power. Simply saying,

"I am a

Rishi", will not do; but when you are a Rishi

you will find

that others obey you instinctively. Something

mysterious

emanates from you, which makes them follow

you, makes them

hear you, makes them unconsciously, even

against their will,

carry out your plans. That is Rishihood.Now as

to the

details, they of course have to be worked out

through

generations. But this is merely a suggestion

in order to

show you that these quarrels should cease.

Especially do I

regret that in modern times there should be so

much

dissension between the castes. This must stop.

It is useless

on both sides, especially on the side of the

higher caste,

the Brahmin, because the day for these

privileges and

exclusive claims is gone. The duty of every

aristocracy is

to dig its own grave, and the sooner it does

so, the better.

The more it delays, the more it will fester

and the worse

death it will die. It is the duty of the

Brahmin, therefore,

to work for the salvation of the rest of

mankind in India.

If he does that, and so long as he does that,

he is a

Brahmin, but he is no Brahmin when he goes

about making

money. You on the other hand should give help

only to the

real Brahmin who deserves it; that leads to

heaven. But

sometimes a gift to another person who does

not deserve it

leads to the other place, says our scripture.

You must be on

your guard about that. He only is the Brahmin

who has no

secular employment. Secular employment is not

for the

Brahmin but for the other castes. To the

Brahmins I appeal,

that they must work hard to raise the Indian

people by

teaching them what they know, by giving out

the culture that

they have accumulated for centuries. It is

clearly the duty

of the Brahmins of India to remember what real

Brahminhood

is. As Manu says, all these privileges and

honours are given

to the Brahmin, because "with him is the

treasury of

virtue". He must open that treasury and

distribute its

valuables to the world. It is true that he was

the earliest

preacher to the Indian races, he was the first

to renounce

everything in order to attain to the higher

realisation of

life before others could reach to the idea. It

was not his

fault that he marched ahead of the other

castes. Why did not

the other castes so understand and do as he

did? Why did

they sit down and be lazy, and let the

Brahmins win the

race?

 

But it is one thing to gain an advantage, and

another thing

to preserve it for evil use. Whenever power is

used for

evil, it becomes diabolical; it must be used

for good only.

So this accumulated culture of ages of which

the Brahmin has

been the trustee, he must now give to the

people at large,

and it was because he did not give it to the

people that the

Mohammedan invasion was possible. It was

because he did not

open this treasury to the people from the

beginning, that

for a thousand years we have been trodden

under the heels of

every one who chose to come to India. It was

through that we

have become degraded, and the first task must

be to break

open the cells that hide the wonderful

treasures which our

common ancestors accumulated; bring them out

and give them

to everybody, and the Brahmin must be the

first to do it.

There is an old superstition in Bengal that if

the cobra

that bites, sucks out his own poison from the

patient, the

man must survive. Well then, the Brahmin must

suck out his

own poison. To the non-Brahmin castes I say,

wait, be not in

a hurry. Do not seize every opportunity of

fighting the

Brahmin, because, as I have shown, you are

suffering from

your own fault. Who told you to neglect

spirituality and

Sanskrit learning? What have you been doing

all this time?

Why have you been indifferent? Why do you now

fret and fume

because somebody else had more brains, more

energy, more

pluck and go, than you? Instead of wasting

your energies in

vain discussions and quarrels in the

newspapers, instead of

fighting and quarrelling in your own

homes--which is

sinful--use all your energies in acquiring the

culture which

the Brahmin has, and the thing is done. Why do

you not

become Sanskrit scholars? Why do you not spend

millions to

bring Sanskrit education to all the castes of

India? That is

the question. The moment you do these things,

you are equal

to the Brahmin. That is the secret of power in

India.

 

Sanskrit and prestige go together in India. As

soon as you

have that, none dares say anything against

you. That is the

one secret; take that up. The whole universe,

to use the

ancient Advaitist's simile, is in a state of

self-hypnotism.

It is will that is the power. It is the man of

strong will

that throws, as it were, a halo round him and

brings all

other people to the same state of vibration as

he has in his

own mind. Such gigantic men do appear. And

what is the idea?

When a powerful individual appears, his

personality infuses

his thoughts into us, and many of us come to

have the same

thoughts, and thus we become powerful. Why is

it that

organisations are so powerful? Do not say

organisation is

material. Why is it, to take a case in point,

that forty

millions of Englishmen rule three hundred

millions of people

here? What is the psychological explanation?

These forty

millions put their wills together and that

means infinite

power, and you three hundred millions have a

will each

separate from the other. Therefore to make a

great future in

India, the whole secret lies in organisation,

accumulation

of power, co-ordination of wills.

 

Already before my mind rises one of the

marvellous verses of

the Rig-Veda Samhita which says, "Be thou all

of one mind,

be thou all of one thought, for in the days of

yore, the

gods being of one mind were enabled to receive

oblations."

That the gods can be worshipped by men is

because they are

of one mind. Being of one mind is the secret

of society. And

the more you go on fighting and quarrelling

about all

trivialities such as "Dravidian" and "Aryan",

and the

question of Brahmins and non-Brahmins and all

that, the

further you are off from that accumulation of

energy and

power which is going to make the future India.

For mark you,

the future India depends entirely upon that.

That is the

secret--accumulation of will-power,

co-ordination, bringing

them all, as it were, into one focus. Each

Chinaman thinks

in his own way, and a handful of Japanese all

think in the

same way, and you know the result. That is how

it goes

throughout the history of the world. You find

in every case,

compact little nations always governing and

ruling huge

unwieldy nations, and this is natural, because

it is easier

for the little compact nations to bring their

ideas into the

same focus, and thus they become developed.

And the bigger

the nation, the more unwieldy it is. Born, as

it were, a

disorganised mob, they cannot combine. All

these dissensions

must stop.

 

There is yet another defect in us. Ladies,

excuse me, but

through centuries of slavery, we have become

like a nation

of women. You scarcely can get three women

together for five

minutes in this country or any other country,

but they

quarrel. Women make big societies in European

countries, and

make tremendous declarations of women's power

and so on;

then they quarrel, and some man comes and

rules them all.

All over the world they still require some man

to rule them.

We are like them. Women we are. If a woman

comes to lead

women, they all begin immediately to criticise

her, tear her

to pieces, and make her sit down. If a man

comes and gives

them a little harsh treatment, scolds them now

and then, it

is all right, they have been used to that sort

of mesmerism.

The whole world is full of such mesmerists and

hypnotists.

In the same way, if one of our countrymen

stands up and

tries to become great, we all try to hold him

down, but if a

foreigner comes and tries to kick us, it is

all right. We

have been used to it, have we not? And slaves

must become

great masters! So give up being a slave. For

the next fifty

years this alone shall be our keynote--this,

our great

Mother India. Let all other vain gods

disappear for the time

from our minds. This is the only god that is

awake, our own

race--"everywhere his hands, everywhere his

feet, everywhere

his ears, he covers everything." All other

gods are

sleeping. What vain gods shall we go after and

yet cannot

worship the god that we see all round us, the

Virat? When we

have worshipped this, we shall be able to

worship all the

other gods. Before we can crawl half a mile,

we want to

cross the ocean like Hanuman! It cannot be.

Everyone going

to be a Yogi, everyone going to meditate! It

cannot be. The

whole day mixing with the world with Karma

Kanda, and in the

evening sitting down and blowing through your

nose! Is it so

easy? Should Rishis comes flying through the

air, because

you have blown three times through the nose?

Is it a joke?

It is all nonsense. What is needed is

Chittashuddhi,

purification of the heart. And how does that

come? The first

of all worship is the worship of the Virat--of

those all

around us. Worship It. Worship is the exact

equivalent of

the Sanskrit word, and no other English word

will do. These

are all our gods--men and animals; and the

first gods we

have to worship are our countrymen. These we

have to

worship, instead of being jealous of each

other and fighting

each other. It is the most terrible Karma for

which we are

suffering, and yet it does not open our eyes!

 

Well, the subject is so great that I do not

know where to

stop, and I must bring my lecture to a close

by placing

before you in a few words the plans I want to

carry out in

Madras. We must have a hold on the spiritual

and secular

education of the nation. Do you understand

that? You must

dream it, you must talk it, you must think it,

and you must

work it out. Till then there is no salvation

for the race.

The education that you are getting now has

some good points,

but it has a tremendous disadvantage which is

so great that

the good things are all weighed down. In the

first place it

is not a man-making education, it is merely

and entirely a

negative education. A negative education or

any training

that is based on negation, is worse than

death. The child is

taken to school, and the first thing that he

learns is that

his father is a fool, the second thing that

his grandfather

is a lunatic, the third thing that all his

teachers are

hypocrites, the fourth that all the sacred

books are lies!

By the time he is sixteen he is a mass of

negation, lifeless

and boneless. And the result is that fifty

years of such

education has not produced one original man in

the three

Presidencies. Every man of originality that

has been

produced has been educated elsewhere, and not

in this

country, or they have gone to the old

universities once more

to cleanse themselves of superstitions.

Education is not the

amount of information that is put into your

brain and runs

riot there, undigested, all your life. We must

have

life-building, man-making, character-making

assimilation of

ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and

made them your

life and character, you have more education

than any man who

has got by heart a whole library. ywa

oríNdn-arvahI -arSy

veÄa n tu cNdnSy/,--"The ass carrying its load

of sandalwood

knows only the weight and not the value of the

sandalwood."

If education is identical with information,

the libraries

are the greatest sages in the world, and

encyclopaedias are

the Rishis. The ideal, therefore, is that we

must have the

whole education of our country, spiritual and

secular, in

our own hands, and it must be on national

lines, through

national methods as far as practical.

 

Of course this is a very big scheme, a very

big plan. I do

not know whether it will ever work out. But we

must begin

the work. But how? Take Madras, for instance.

We must have a

temple, for with Hindus religion must come

first. Then, you

may say, all sects will quarrel about it. But

we will make

it a non-sectarian temple, having only "Om" as

the symbol,

the greatest symbol of any sect. If there is

any sect here

which believes that "Om" ought not to be the

symbol, it has

not right to call itself Hindu. All will have

the right to

interpret Hinduism, each one according to his

own sect

ideas, but we must have a common temple. You

can have your

own images and symbols in other places, but do

not quarrel

here with those who differ from you. Here

should be taught

the common grounds of our different sects, and

at the same

time the different sects should have perfect

liberty to come

and teach their doctrines, with only one

restriction, that

is, not to quarrel with other sects. Say what

you have to

say, the world wants it; but the world has no

time to hear

what you think about other people; you can

keep that to

yourselves.

 

Secondly, in connection with this temple there

should be an

institution to train teachers who must go

about preaching

religion and giving secular education to our

people; they

must carry both. As we have been already

carrying religion

from door to door, let us along with it carry

secular

education also. That can be easily done. Then

the work will

extend through these bands of teachers and

preachers, and

gradually we shall have similar temples in

other places,

until we have covered the whole of India. That

is my plan.

It may appear gigantic, but it is much needed.

You may ask,

where is the money. Money is not needed. Money

is nothing.

For the last twelve years of my life, I did

not know where

the next meal would come from; but money and

everything else

I want must come, because they are my slaves,

and not I

theirs; money and everything else must come.

Must--that is

the word. Where are the men? That is the

question. Young men

of Madras, my hope is in you. Will you respond

to the call

of your nation? Each one of you has a glorious

future if you

dare believe me. Have a tremendous faith in

yourselves, like

the faith I had when I was a child, and which

I am working

out now. Have that faith, each one of you, in

yourself--that

eternal power is lodged in every soul--and you

will revive

the whole of India. Ay, we will then go to

every country

underthe sun, and our ideas will before long

be a component

of the many forces that are working to make up

every nation

in the world. We must enter into the life of

every race in

India and abroad; we shall have to work to

bring this about.

Now for that, I want young men. "It is the

young, the

strong, and healthy, of sharp intellect that

will reach the

Lord", say the Vedas. This is the time to

decide your

future--while you possess the energy of youth,

not when you

are worn out and jaded, but in the freshness

and vigour of

youth. Work--this is the time; for the

freshest, the

untouched, and unsmelled flowers alone are to

be laid at the

feet of the Lord, and such He receives. Rouse

yourselves,

therefore, for life is short. There are

greater works to be

done than aspiring to become lawyers and

picking quarrels

and such things. A far greater work is this

sacrifice of

yourselves for the benefit of your race, for

the welfare of

humanity. What is in this life? You are

Hindus, and there is

the instinctive belief in you that life is

eternal.

Sometimes I have young men come and talk to me

about

atheism; I do not believe a Hindu can become

an atheist. He

may read European books, and persuade himself

he is a

materialist, but it is only for a time. It is

not in your

blood. You cannot believe what is not in your

constitution;

it would be a hopeless task for you. Do not

attempt that

sort of thing. I once attempted it when I was

a boy, but it

could not be. Life is short, but the soul is

immortal and

eternal, and one thing being certain, death,

let us

therefore take up a great ideal and give up

our whole life

to it. Let this be our determination, and may

He, the Lord,

who "comes again and again for the salvation

of His own

people", to quote from our scriptures--may the

great Krishna

bless us and lead us all to the fulfilment of

our aims!

 

 

 

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