{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_23136/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_23136","id":"gutenberg_23136","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23136","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Philosophy, Hindu"],"text":"Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Irma \u0160pehar and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n                            CREATIVE UNITY\n\n                                  BY\n\n                          RABINDRANATH TAGORE\n\n                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\n                      ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON\n                                 1922\n\n                      MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\n\n                  LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS\n                               MELBOURNE\n\n                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n                      NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO\n                        DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO\n\n                   THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.\n\n                                TORONTO\n\n                               COPYRIGHT\n\n                       PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n\n\n\n                                  TO\n                          DR. EDWIN H. LEWIS\n\n\n\n\n                             INTRODUCTION\n\n\nIt costs me nothing to feel that I am; it is no burden to me. And yet\nif the mental, physical, chemical, and other innumerable facts\nconcerning all branches of knowledge which have united in myself could\nbe broken up, they would prove endless. It is some untold mystery of\nunity in me, that has the simplicity of the infinite and reduces the\nimmense mass of multitude to a single point.\n\nThis One in me knows the universe of the many. But, in whatever it\nknows, it knows the One in different aspects. It knows this room only\nbecause this room is One to it, in spite of the seeming contradiction\nof the endless facts contained in the single fact of the room. Its\nknowledge of a tree is the knowledge of a unity, which appears in the\naspect of a tree.\n\nThis One in me is creative. Its creations are a pastime, through which\nit gives expression to an ideal of unity in its endless show of\nvariety. Such are its pictures, poems, music, in which it finds joy\nonly because they reveal the perfect forms of an inherent unity.\n\nThis One in me not only seeks unity in knowledge for its understanding\nand creates images of unity for its delight; it also seeks union in\nlove for its fulfilment. It seeks itself in others. This is a fact,\nwhich would be absurd had there been no great medium of truth to give\nit reality. In love we find a joy which is ultimate because it is the\nultimate truth. Therefore it is said in the Upanishads that the\n_advaitam_ is _anantam_,--\"the One is Infinite\"; that the _advaitam_\nis _anandam_,--\"the One is Love.\"\n\nTo give perfect expression to the One, the Infinite, through the\nharmony of the many; to the One, the Love, through the sacrifice of\nself, is the object alike of our individual life and our society.\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS\n\n\n                                        PAGE\n\nINTRODUCTION                              v\n\nTHE POET'S RELIGION                       3\n\nTHE CREATIVE IDEAL                       31\n\nTHE RELIGION OF THE FOREST               45\n\nAN INDIAN FOLK RELIGION                  69\n\nEAST AND WEST                            93\n\nTHE MODERN AGE                          115\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM                   133\n\nTHE NATION                              143\n\nWOMAN AND HOME                          157\n\nAN EASTERN UNIVERSITY                   169\n\n\n\n\n                          THE POET'S RELIGION\n\n                                   I\n\n\nCivility is beauty of behaviour. It requires for its perfection\npatience, self-control, and an environment of leisure. For genuine\ncourtesy is a creation, like pictures, like music. It is a harmonious\nblending of voice, gesture and movement, words and action, in which\ngenerosity of conduct is expressed. It reveals the man himself and has\nno ulterior purpose.\n\nOur needs are always in a hurry. They rush and hustle, they are rude\nand unceremonious; they have no surplus of leisure, no patience for\nanything else but fulfilment of purpose. We frequently see in our\ncountry at the present day men utilising empty kerosene cans for\ncarrying water. These cans are emblems of discourtesy; they are curt\nand abrupt, they have not the least shame for their unmannerliness,\nthey do not care to be ever so slightly more than useful.\n\nThe instruments of our necessity assert that we must have food,\nshelter, clothes, comforts and convenience. And yet men spend an\nimmense amount of their time and resources in contradicting this\nassertion, to prove that they are not a mere living catalogue of\nendless wants; that there is in them an ideal of perfection, a sense\nof unity, which is a harmony between parts and a harmony with\nsurroundings.\n\nThe quality of the infinite is not the magnitude of extension, it is\nin the _Advaitam_, the mystery of Unity. Facts occupy endless time and\nspace; but the truth comprehending them all has no dimension; it is\nOne. Wherever our heart touches the One, in the small or the big, it\nfinds the touch of the infinite.\n\nI was speaking to some one of the joy we have in our personality. I\nsaid it was because we were made conscious by it of a spirit of unity\nwithin ourselves. He answered that he had no such feeling of joy about\nhimself, but I was sure he exaggerated. In all probability he had been\nsuffering from some break of harmony between his surroundings and the\nspirit of unity within him, proving all the more strongly its truth.\nThe meaning of health comes home to us with painful force when disease\ndisturbs it; since health expresses the unity of the vital functions\nand is accordingly joyful. Life's tragedies occur, not to demonstrate\ntheir own reality, but to reveal that eternal principle of joy in\nlife, to which they gave a rude shaking. It is the object of this\nOneness in us to realise its infinity by perfect union of love with\nothers. All obstacles to this union create misery, giving rise to the\nbaser passions that are expressions of finitude, of that separateness\nwhich is negative and therefore _maya_.\n\nThe joy of unity within ourselves, seeking expression, becomes\ncreative; whereas our desire for the fulfilment of our needs is\nconstructive. The water vessel, taken as a vessel only, raises the\nquestion, \"Why does it exist at all?\" Through its fitness of\nconstruction, it offers the apology for its existence. But where it is\na work of beauty it has no question to answer; it has nothing to do,\nbut to be. It reveals in its form a unity to which all that seems\nvarious in it is so related that, in a mysterious manner, it strikes\nsympathetic chords to the music of unity in our own being.\n\nWhat is the truth of this world? It is not in the masses of substance,\nnot in the number of things, but in their relatedness, which neither\ncan be counted, nor measured, nor abstracted. It is not in the\nmaterials which are many, but in the expression which is one. All our\nknowledge of things is knowing them in their relation to the Universe,\nin that relation which is truth. A drop of water is not a particular\nassortment of elements; it is the miracle of a harmonious mutuality,\nin which the two reveal the One. No amount of analysis can reveal to\nus this mystery of unity. Matter is an abstraction; we shall never be\nable to realise what it is, for our world of reality does not\nacknowledge it. Even the giant forces of the world, centripetal and\ncentrifugal, are kept out of our recognition. They are the\nday-labourers not admitted into the audience-hall of creation. But\nlight and sound come to us in their gay dresses as troubadours singing\nserenades before the windows of the senses. What is constantly before\nus, claiming our attention, is not the kitchen, but the feast; not the\nanatomy of the world, but its countenance. There is the dancing ring\nof seasons; the elusive play of lights and shadows, of wind and water;\nthe many-coloured wings of erratic life flitting between birth and\ndeath. The importance of these does not lie in their existence as mere\nfacts, but in their language of harmony, the mother-tongue of our own\nsoul, through which they are communicated to us.\n\nWe grow out of touch with this great truth, we forget to accept its\ninvitation and its hospitality, when in quest of external success our\nworks become unspiritual and unexpressive. This is what Wordsworth\ncomplained of when he said:\n\n    The world is too much with us; late and soon,\n    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.\n    Little we see in Nature that is ours.\n\nBut it is not because the world has grown too familiar to us; on the\ncontrary, it is because we do not see it in its aspect of unity,\nbecause we are driven to distraction by our pursuit of the\nfragmentary.\n\nMaterials as materials are savage; they are solitary; they are ready\nto hurt one another. They are like our individual impulses seeking the\nunlimited freedom of wilfulness. Left to themselves they are\ndestructive. But directly an ideal of unity raises its banner in their\ncentre, it brings these rebellious forces under its sway and creation\nis revealed--the creation which is peace, which is the unity of\nperfect relationship. Our greed for eating is in itself ugly and\nselfish, it has no sense of decorum; but when brought under the ideal\nof social fellowship, it is regulated and made ornamental; it is\nchanged into a daily festivity of life. In human nature sexual passion\nis fiercely individual and destructive, but dominated by the ideal of\nlove, it has been made to flower into a perfection of beauty, becoming\nin its best expression symbolical of the spiritual truth in man which\nis his kinship of love with the Infinite. Thus we find it is the One\nwhich expresses itself in creation; and the Many, by giving up\nopposition, make the revelation of unity perfect.\n\n\n                                  II\n\nI remember, when I was a child, that a row of cocoanut trees by our\ngarden wall, with their branches beckoning the rising sun on the\nhorizon, gave me a companionship as living as I was myself. I know it\nwas my imagination which transmuted the world around me into my own\nworld--the imagination which seeks unity, which deals with it. But we\nhave to consider that this companionship was true; that the universe\nin which I was born had in it an element profoundly akin to my own\nimaginative mind, one which wakens in all children's natures the\nCreator, whose pleasure is in interweaving the web of creation with\nHis own patterns of many-coloured strands. It is something akin to us,\nand therefore harmonious to our imagination. When we find some strings\nvibrating in unison with others, we know that this sympathy carries in\nit an eternal reality. The fact that the world stirs our imagination\nin sympathy tells us that this creative imagination is a common truth\nboth in us and in the heart of existence. Wordsworth says:\n\n                              I'd rather be\n    A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;\n    So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,\n    Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;\n    Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,\n    Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.\n\nIn this passage the poet says we are less forlorn in a world which we\nmeet with our imagination. That can only be possible if through our\nimagination is revealed, behind all appearances, the reality which\ngives the touch of companionship, that is to say, something which has\nan affinity to us. An immense amount of our activity is engaged in\nmaking images, not for serving any useful purpose or formulating\nrational propositions, but for giving varied responses to the varied\ntouches of this reality. In this image-making the child creates his\nown world in answer to the world in which he finds himself. The child\nin us finds glimpses of his eternal playmate from behind the veil of\nthings, as Proteus rising from the sea, or Triton blowing his wreathed\nhorn. And the playmate is the Reality, that makes it possible for the\nchild to find delight in activities which do not inform or bring\nassistance but merely express. There is an image-making joy in the\ninfinite, which inspires in us our joy in imagining. The rhythm of\ncosmic motion produces in our mind the emotion which is creative.\n\nA poet has said about his destiny as a dreamer, about the\nworthlessness of his dreams and yet their permanence:\n\n    I hang 'mid men my heedless head,\n    And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:\n    The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper,\n    Time shall reap; but after the reaper\n    The world shall glean to me, me the sleeper.\n\nThe dream persists; it is more real than even bread which has\nsubstance and use. The painted canvas is durable and substantial; it\nhas for its production and transport to market a whole array of\nmachines and factories. But the picture which no factory can produce\nis a dream, a _maya_, and yet it, not the canvas, has the meaning of\nultimate reality.\n\nA poet describes Autumn:\n\n    I saw old Autumn in the misty morn\n    Stand shadowless like Silence, listening\n    To silence, for no lonely bird would sing\n    Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn.\n\nOf April another poet sings:\n\n        April, April,\n    Laugh thy girlish laughter;\n    Then the moment after\n    Weep thy girlish tears!\n    April, that mine ears\n    Like a lover greetest,\n    If I tell thee, sweetest,\n    All my hopes and fears.\n\n        April, April,\n    Laugh thy golden laughter.\n    But the moment after\n    Weep thy golden tears!\n\nThis Autumn, this April,--are they nothing but phantasy?\n\nLet us suppose that the Man from the Moon comes to the earth and\nlistens to some music in a gramophone. He seeks for the origin of the\ndelight produced in his mind. The facts before him are a cabinet made\nof wood and a revolving disc producing sound; but the one thing which\nis neither seen nor can be explained is the truth of the music, which\nhis personality must immediately acknowledge as a personal message. It\nis neither in the wood, nor in the disc, nor in the sound of the\nnotes. If the Man from the Moon be a poet, as can reasonably be\nsupposed, he will write about a fairy imprisoned in that box, who sits\nspinning fabrics of songs expressing her cry for a far-away magic\ncasement opening on the foam of some perilous sea, in a fairyland\nforlorn. It will not be literally, but essentially true. The facts of\nthe gramophone make us aware of the laws of sound, but the music gives\nus personal companionship. The bare facts about April are alternate\nsunshine and showers; but the subtle blending of shadows and lights,\nof murmurs and movements, in April, gives us not mere shocks of\nsensation, but unity of joy as does music. Therefore when a poet sees\nthe vision of a girl in April, even a downright materialist is in\nsympathy with him. But we know that the same individual would be\nmenacingly angry if the law of heredity or a geometrical problem were\ndescribed as a girl or a rose--or even as a cat or a camel. For these\nintellectual abstractions have no magical touch for our lute-strings\nof imagination. They are no dreams, as are the harmony of bird-songs,\nrain-washed leaves glistening in the sun, and pale clouds floating in\nthe blue.\n\nThe ultimate truth of our personality is that we are no mere\nbiologists or geometricians; \"we are the dreamers of dreams, we are\nthe music-makers.\" This dreaming or music-making is not a function of\nthe lotus-eaters, it is the creative impulse which makes songs not\nonly with words and tunes, lines and colours, but with stones and\nmetals, with ideas and men:\n\n    With wonderful deathless ditties\n    We build up the world's great cities,\n    And out of a fabulous story\n    We fashion an empire's glory.\n\nI have been told by a scholar friend of mine that by constant practice\nin logic he has weakened his natural instinct of faith. The reason is,\nfaith is the spectator in us which finds the meaning of the drama from\nthe unity of the performance; but logic lures us into the greenroom\nwhere there is stagecraft but no drama at all; and then this logic\nnods its head and wearily talks about disillusionment. But the\ngreenroom, dealing with its fragments, looks foolish when questioned,\nor wears the sneering smile of Mephistopheles; for it does not have\nthe secret of unity, which is somewhere else. It is for faith to\nanswer, \"Unity comes to us from the One, and the One in ourselves\nopens the door and receives it with joy.\" The function of poetry and\nthe arts is to remind us that the greenroom is the greyest of\nillusions, and the reality is the drama presented before us, all its\npaint and tinsel, masks and pageantry, made one in art. The ropes and\nwheels perish, the stage is changed; but the dream which is drama\nremains true, for there remains the eternal Dreamer.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nPoetry and the arts cherish in them the profound faith of man in the\nunity of his being with all existence, the final truth of which is the\ntruth of personality. It is a religion directly apprehended, and not a\nsystem of metaphysics to be analysed and argued. We know in our\npersonal experience what our creations are and we instinctively know\nthrough it what creation around us means.\n\nWhen Keats said in his \"Ode to a Grecian Urn\":\n\n    Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought,\n    As doth eternity,...\n\nhe felt the ineffable which is in all forms of perfection, the mystery\nof the One, which takes us beyond all thought into the immediate\ntouch of the Infinite. This is the mystery which is for a poet to\nrealise and to reveal. It comes out in Keats' poems with struggling\ngleams through consciousness of suffering and despair:\n\n    Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth\n    Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,\n    Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways\n    Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,\n    Some shape of beauty moves away the pall\n    From our dark spirits.\n\nIn this there is a suggestion that truth reveals itself in beauty. For\nif beauty were mere accident, a rent in the eternal fabric of things,\nthen it would hurt, would be defeated by the antagonism of facts.\nBeauty is no phantasy, it has the everlasting meaning of reality. The\nfacts that cause despondence and gloom are mere mist, and when through\nthe mist beauty breaks out in momentary gleams, we realise that Peace\nis true and not conflict, Love is true and not hatred; and Truth is\nthe One, not the disjointed multitude. We realise that Creation is the\nperpetual harmony between the infinite ideal of perfection and the\neternal continuity of its realisation; that so long as there is no\nabsolute separation between the positive ideal and the material\nobstacle to its attainment, we need not be afraid of suffering and\nloss. This is the poet's religion.\n\nThose who are habituated to the rigid framework of sectarian creeds\nwill find such a religion as this too indefinite and elastic. No doubt\nit is so, but only because its ambition is not to shackle the Infinite\nand tame it for domestic use; but rather to help our consciousness to\nemancipate itself from materialism. It is as indefinite as the\nmorning, and yet as luminous; it calls our thoughts, feelings, and\nactions into freedom, and feeds them with light. In the poet's\nreligion we find no doctrine or injunction, but rather the attitude of\nour entire being towards a truth which is ever to be revealed in its\nown endless creation.\n\nIn dogmatic religion all questions are definitely answered, all doubts\nare finally laid to rest. But the poet's religion is fluid, like the\natmosphere round the earth where lights and shadows play\nhide-and-seek, and the wind like a shepherd boy plays upon its reeds\namong flocks of clouds. It never undertakes to lead anybody anywhere\nto any solid conclusion; yet it reveals endless spheres of light,\nbecause it has no walls round itself. It acknowledges the facts of\nevil; it openly admits \"the weariness, the fever and the fret\" in the\nworld \"where men sit and hear each other groan\"; yet it remembers that\nin spite of all there is the song of the nightingale, and \"haply the\nQueen Moon is on her throne,\" and there is:\n\n    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine,\n    Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;\n            And mid-day's eldest child,\n    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,\n    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.\n\nBut all this has not the definiteness of an answer; it has only the\nmusic that teases us out of thought as it fills our being.\n\nLet me read a translation from an Eastern poet to show how this idea\ncomes out in a poem in Bengali:\n\n        In the morning I awoke at the flutter of thy boat-sails,\n    Lady of my Voyage, and I left the shore to follow the beckoning waves.\n        I asked thee, \"Does the dream-harvest ripen in the\n            island beyond the blue?\"\n        The silence of thy smile fell on my question like\n            the silence of sunlight on waves.\n        The day passed on through storm and through calm,\n    The perplexed winds changed their course, time after time,\n            and the sea moaned.\n        I asked thee, \"Does thy sleep-tower stand somewhere beyond the\n            dying embers of the day's funeral pyre?\"\n    No answer came from thee, only thine eyes smiled like\n            the edge of a sunset cloud.\n        It is night. Thy figure grows dim in the dark.\n    Thy wind-blown hair flits on my cheek and thrills my\n            sadness with its scent.\n        My hands grope to touch the hem of thy robe, and\n    I ask thee--\"Is there thy garden of death beyond the stars,\n            Lady of my Voyage, where thy silence blossoms into songs?\"\n        Thy smile shines in the heart of the hush like the\n            star-mist of midnight.\n\n\n                                  IV\n\nIn Shelley we clearly see the growth of his religion through periods\nof vagueness and doubt, struggle and searching. But he did at length\ncome to a positive utterance of his faith, though he died young. Its\nfinal expression is in his \"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.\" By the title\nof the poem the poet evidently means a beauty that is not merely a\npassive quality of particular things, but a spirit that manifests\nitself through the apparent antagonism of the unintellectual life.\nThis hymn rang out of his heart when he came to the end of his\npilgrimage and stood face to face with the Divinity, glimpses of which\nhad already filled his soul with restlessness. All his experiences of\nbeauty had ever teased him with the question as to what was its truth.\nSomewhere he sings of a nosegay which he makes of violets, daisies,\ntender bluebells and--\n\n                That tall flower that wets,\n    Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth,\n    Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears.\n\nHe ends by saying:\n\n                  And then, elate and gay,\n    I hastened to the spot whence I had come,\n    That I might there present it!--Oh! to whom?\n\nThis question, even though not answered, carries a significance. A\ncreation of beauty suggests a fulfilment, which is the fulfilment of\nlove. We have heard some poets scoff at it in bitterness and despair;\nbut it is like a sick child beating its own mother--it is a sickness\nof faith, which hurts truth, but proves it by its very pain and anger.\nAnd the faith itself is this, that beauty is the self-offering of the\nOne to the other One.\n\nIn the first part of his \"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty\" Shelley dwells\non the inconstancy and evanescence of the manifestation of beauty,\nwhich imparts to it an appearance of frailty and unreality:\n\n    Like hues and harmonies of evening,\n        Like clouds in starlight widely spread,\n        Like memory of music fled.\n\nThis, he says, rouses in our mind the question:\n\n    Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,\n        Why fear and dream and death and birth\n        Cast on the daylight of this earth\n        Such gloom,--why man has such a scope\n    For love and hate, despondency and hope?\n\nThe poet's own answer to this question is:\n\n        Man were immortal, and omnipotent,\n    Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,\n    Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.\n\nThis very elusiveness of beauty suggests the vision of immortality and\nof omnipotence, and stimulates the effort in man to realise it in some\nidea of permanence. The highest reality has actively to be achieved.\nThe gain of truth is not in the end; it reveals itself through the\nendless length of achievement. But what is there to guide us in our\nvoyage of realisation? Men have ever been struggling for direction:\n\n    Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven\n    Remain the records of their vain endeavour,\n    Frail spells,--whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,\n    From all we hear and all we see,\n    Doubt, chance and mutability.\n\nThe prevalent rites and practices of piety, according to this poet,\nare like magic spells--they only prove men's desperate endeavour and\nnot their success. He knows that the end we seek has its own direct\ncall to us, its own light to guide us to itself. And truth's call is\nthe call of beauty. Of this he says:\n\n    Thy light alone,--like mist o'er mountain driven,\n          Or music by the night wind sent,\n    Thro' strings of some still instrument,\n          Or moonlight on a midnight stream\n    Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.\n\nAbout this revelation of truth which calls us on, and yet which is\neverywhere, a village singer of Bengal sings:\n\n    My master's flute sounds in everything,\n        drawing me out of my house to everywhere.\n    While I listen to it I know that every step I take\n        is in my master's house.\n    For he is the sea, he is the river that leads to the sea,\n        and he is the landing place.\n\nReligion, in Shelley, grew with his life; it was not given to him in\nfixed and ready-made doctrines; he rebelled against them. He had the\ncreative mind which could only approach Truth through its joy in\ncreative effort. For true creation is realisation of truth through the\ntranslation of it into our own symbols.\n\n\n                                   V\n\nFor man, the best opportunity for such a realisation has been in men's\nSociety. It is a collective creation of his, through which his social\nbeing tries to find itself in its truth and beauty. Had that Society\nmerely manifested its usefulness, it would be inarticulate like a dark\nstar. But, unless it degenerates, it ever suggests in its concerted\nmovements a living truth as its soul, which has personality. In this\nlarge life of social communion man feels the mystery of Unity, as he\ndoes in music. From the sense of that Unity, men came to the sense of\ntheir God. And therefore every religion began with its tribal God.\n\nThe one question before all others that has to be answered by our\ncivilisations is not what they have and in what quantity, but what\nthey express and how. In a society, the production and circulation of\nmaterials, the amassing and spending of money, may go on, as in the\ninterminable prolonging of a straight line, if its people forget to\nfollow some spiritual design of life which curbs them and transforms\nthem into an organic whole. For growth is not that enlargement which\nis merely adding to the dimensions of incompleteness. Growth is the\nmovement of a whole towards a yet fuller wholeness. Living things\nstart with this wholeness from the beginning of their career. A child\nhas its own perfection as a child; it would be ugly if it appeared as\nan unfinished man. Life is a continual process of synthesis, and not\nof additions. Our activities of production and enjoyment of wealth\nattain that spirit of wholeness when they are blended with a creative\nideal. Otherwise they have the insane aspect of the eternally\nunfinished; they become like locomotive engines which have railway\nlines but no stations; which rush on towards a collision of\nuncontrolled forces or to a sudden breakdown of the overstrained\nmachinery.\n\nThrough creation man expresses his truth; through that expression he\ngains back his truth in its fulness. Human society is for the best\nexpression of man, and that expression, according to its perfection,\nleads him to the full realisation of the divine in humanity. When that\nexpression is obscure, then his faith in the Infinite that is within\nhim becomes weak; then his aspiration cannot go beyond the idea of\nsuccess. His faith in the Infinite is creative; his desire for success\nis constructive; one is his home, and the other is his office. With\nthe overwhelming growth of necessity, civilisation becomes a gigantic\noffice to which the home is a mere appendix. The predominance of the\npursuit of success gives to society the character of what we call\n_Shudra_ in India. In fighting a battle, the _Kshatriya_, the noble\nknight, followed his honour for his ideal, which was greater than\nvictory itself; but the mercenary _Shudra_ has success for his object.\nThe name Shudra symbolises a man who has no margin round him beyond\nhis bare utility. The word denotes a classification which includes all\nnaked machines that have lost their completeness of humanity, be their\nwork manual or intellectual. They are like walking stomachs or brains,\nand we feel, in pity, urged to call on God and cry, \"Cover them up for\nmercy's sake with some veil of beauty and life!\"\n\nWhen Shelley in his view of the world realised the Spirit of Beauty,\nwhich is the vision of the Infinite, he thus uttered his faith:\n\n          Never joy illumed my brow\n    Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free\n          This world from its dark slavery;\n          That thou,--O awful Loveliness,--\n    Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.\n\nThis was his faith in the Infinite. It led his aspiration towards the\nregion of freedom and perfection which was beyond the immediate and\nabove the successful. This faith in God, this faith in the reality of\nthe ideal of perfection, has built up all that is great in the human\nworld. To keep indefinitely walking on, along a zigzag course of\nchange, is negative and barren. A mere procession of notes does not\nmake music; it is only when we have in the heart of the march of\nsounds some musical idea that it creates song. Our faith in the\ninfinite reality of Perfection is that musical idea, and there is that\none great creative force in our civilisation. When it wakens not, then\nour faith in money, in material power, takes its place; it fights and\ndestroys, and in a brilliant fireworks of star-mimicry suddenly\nexhausts itself and dies in ashes and smoke.\n\n\n                                  VI\n\nMen of great faith have always called us to wake up to great\nexpectations, and the prudent have always laughed at them and said\nthat these did not belong to reality. But the poet in man knows that\nreality is a creation, and human reality has to be called forth from\nits obscure depth by man's faith which is creative. There was a day\nwhen the human reality was the brutal reality. That was the only\ncapital we had with which to begin our career. But age after age\nthere has come to us the call of faith, which said against all the\nevidence of fact: \"You are more than you appear to be, more than your\ncircumstances seem to warrant. You are to attain the impossible, you\nare immortal.\" The unbelievers had laughed and tried to kill the\nfaith. But faith grew stronger with the strength of martyrdom and at\nher bidding higher realities have been created over the strata of the\nlower. Has not a new age come to-day, borne by thunder-clouds, ushered\nin by a universal agony of suffering? Are we not waiting to-day for a\ngreat call of faith, which will say to us: \"Come out of your present\nlimitations. You are to attain the impossible, you are immortal\"? The\nnations who are not prepared to accept it, who have all their trust in\ntheir present machines of system, and have no thought or space to\nspare to welcome the sudden guest who comes as the messenger of\nemancipation, are bound to court defeat whatever may be their present\nwealth and power.\n\nThis great world, where it is a creation, an expression of the\ninfinite--where its morning sings of joy to the newly awakened life,\nand its evening stars sing to the traveller, weary and worn, of the\ntriumph of life in a new birth across death,--has its call for us.\nThe call has ever roused the creator in man, and urged him to reveal\nthe truth, to reveal the Infinite in himself. It is ever claiming from\nus, in our own creations, co-operation with God, reminding us of our\ndivine nature, which finds itself in freedom of spirit. Our society\nexists to remind us, through its various voices, that the ultimate\ntruth in man is not in his intellect or his possessions; it is in his\nillumination of mind, in his extension of sympathy across all barriers\nof caste and colour; in his recognition of the world, not merely as a\nstorehouse of power, but as a habitation of man's spirit, with its\neternal music of beauty and its inner light of the divine\npresence.\n\n\n\n\n                          THE CREATIVE IDEAL\n\n\nIn an old Sanskrit book there is a verse which describes the essential\nelements of a picture. The first in order is _Vrupa-bhedah_--\"separateness\nof forms.\" Forms are many, forms are different, each of them having\nits limits. But if this were absolute, if all forms remained\nobstinately separate, then there would be a fearful loneliness of\nmultitude. But the varied forms, in their very separateness, must\ncarry something which indicates the paradox of their ultimate unity,\notherwise there would be no creation.\n\nSo in the same verse, after the enumeration of separateness comes that\nof _Pram[=a]n[=a]ni_--proportions. Proportions indicate relationship,\nthe principle of mutual accommodation. A leg dismembered from the body\nhas the fullest licence to make a caricature of itself. But, as a\nmember of the body, it has its responsibility to the living unity\nwhich rules the body; it must behave properly, it must keep its\nproportion. If, by some monstrous chance of physiological\nprofiteering, it could outgrow by yards its fellow-stalker, then we\nknow what a picture it would offer to the spectator and what\nembarrassment to the body itself. Any attempt to overcome the law of\nproportion altogether and to assert absolute separateness is\nrebellion; it means either running the gauntlet of the rest, or\nremaining segregated.\n\nThe same Sanskrit word _Pram[=a]n[=a]ni_, which in a book of aesthetics\nmeans proportions, in a book of logic means the proofs by which the\ntruth of a proposition is ascertained. All proofs of truth are\ncredentials of relationship. Individual facts have to produce such\npassports to show that they are not expatriated, that they are not a\nbreak in the unity of the whole. The logical relationship present in\nan intellectual proposition, and the aesthetic relationship indicated\nin the proportions of a work of art, both agree in one thing. They\naffirm that truth consists, not in facts, but in harmony of facts. Of\nthis fundamental note of reality it is that the poet has said, \"Beauty\nis truth, truth beauty.\"\n\nProportions, which prove relativity, form the outward language of\ncreative ideals. A crowd of men is desultory, but in a march of\nsoldiers every man keeps his proportion of time and space and relative\nmovement, which makes him one with the whole vast army. But this is\nnot all. The creation of an army has, for its inner principle, one\nsingle idea of the General. According to the nature of that ruling\nidea, a production is either a work of art or a mere construction. All\nthe materials and regulations of a joint-stock company have the unity\nof an inner motive. But the expression of this unity itself is not the\nend; it ever indicates an ulterior purpose. On the other hand, the\nrevelation of a work of art is a fulfilment in itself.\n\nThe consciousness of personality, which is the consciousness of unity\nin ourselves, becomes prominently distinct when coloured by joy or\nsorrow, or some other emotion. It is like the sky, which is visible\nbecause it is blue, and which takes different aspect with the change\nof colours. In the creation of art, therefore, the energy of an\nemotional ideal is necessary; as its unity is not like that of a\ncrystal, passive and inert, but actively expressive. Take, for\nexample, the following verse:\n\n    Oh, fly not Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure,\n    Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay.\n        For my heart no measure\n        Knows, nor other treasure\n    To buy a garland for my love to-day.\n\n    And thou too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,\n    Thou grey-eyed mourner, fly not yet away.\n        For I fain would borrow\n        Thy sad weeds to-morrow,\n    To make a mourning for love's yesterday.\n\nThe words in this quotation, merely showing the metre, would have no\nappeal to us; with all its perfection and its proportion, rhyme and\ncadence, it would only be a construction. But when it is the outer\nbody of an inner idea it assumes a personality. The idea flows through\nthe rhythm, permeates the words and throbs in their rise and fall. On\nthe other hand, the mere idea of the above-quoted poem, stated in\nunrhythmic prose, would represent only a fact, inertly static, which\nwould not bear repetition. But the emotional idea, incarnated in a\nrhythmic form, acquires the dynamic quality needed for those things\nwhich take part in the world's eternal pageantry.\n\nTake the following doggerel:\n\n    Thirty days hath September,\n    April, June, and November.\n\nThe metre is there, and it simulates the movement of life. But it\nfinds no synchronous response in the metre of our heart-beats; it has\nnot in its centre the living idea which creates for itself an\nindivisible unity. It is like a bag which is convenient, and not like\na body which is inevitable.\n\nThis truth, implicit in our own works of art, gives us the clue to the\nmystery of creation. We find that the endless rhythms of the world are\nnot merely constructive; they strike our own heart-strings and produce\nmusic.\n\nTherefore it is we feel that this world is a creation; that in its\ncentre there is a living idea which reveals itself in an eternal\nsymphony, played on innumerable instruments, all keeping perfect time.\nWe know that this great world-verse, that runs from sky to sky, is not\nmade for the mere enumeration of facts--it is not \"Thirty days hath\nSeptember\"--it has its direct revelation in our delight. That delight\ngives us the key to the truth of existence; it is personality acting\nupon personalities through incessant manifestations. The solicitor\ndoes not sing to his client, but the bridegroom sings to his bride.\nAnd when our soul is stirred by the song, we know it claims no fees\nfrom us; but it brings the tribute of love and a call from the\nbridegroom.\n\nIt may be said that in pictorial and other arts there are some designs\nthat are purely decorative and apparently have no living and inner\nideal to express. But this cannot be true. These decorations carry the\nemotional motive of the artist, which says: \"I find joy in my\ncreation; it is good.\" All the language of joy is beauty. It is\nnecessary to note, however, that joy is not pleasure, and beauty not\nmere prettiness. Joy is the outcome of detachment from self and lives\nin freedom of spirit. Beauty is that profound expression of reality\nwhich satisfies our hearts without any other allurements but its own\nultimate value. When in some pure moments of ecstasy we realise this\nin the world around us, we see the world, not as merely existing, but\nas decorated in its forms, sounds, colours and lines; we feel in our\nhearts that there is One who through all things proclaims: \"I have joy\nin my creation.\"\n\nThat is why the Sanskrit verse has given us for the essential elements\nof a picture, not only the manifoldness of forms and the unity of\ntheir proportions, but also _bhavah_, the emotional idea.\n\nIt is needless to say that upon a mere expression of emotion--even the\nbest expression of it--no criterion of art can rest. The following\npoem is described by the poet as \"An earnest Suit to his unkind\nMistress\":\n\n    And wilt thou leave me thus?\n    Say nay, say nay, for shame!\n    To save thee from the blame\n    Of all my grief and grame.\n    And wilt thou leave me thus?\n        Say nay! say nay!\n\nI am sure the poet would not be offended if I expressed my doubts\nabout the earnestness of his appeal, or the truth of his avowed\nnecessity. He is responsible for the lyric and not for the sentiment,\nwhich is mere material. The fire assumes different colours according\nto the fuel used; but we do not discuss the fuel, only the flames. A\nlyric is indefinably more than the sentiment expressed in it, as a\nrose is more than its substance. Let us take a poem in which the\nearnestness of sentiment is truer and deeper than the one I have\nquoted above:\n\n                  The sun,\n    Closing his benediction,\n    Sinks, and the darkening air\n    Thrills with the sense of the triumphing night,--\n    Night with her train of stars\n    And her great gift of sleep.\n        So be my passing!\n\n    My task accomplished and the long day done,\n    My wages taken, and in my heart\n    Some late lark singing,\n    Let me be gathered to the quiet West,\n    The sundown splendid and serene,\n        Death.\n\nThe sentiment expressed in this poem is a subject for a psychologist.\nBut for a poem the subject is completely merged in its poetry, like\ncarbon in a living plant which the lover of plants ignores, leaving it\nfor a charcoal-burner to seek.\n\nThis is why, when some storm of feeling sweeps across the country, art\nis under a disadvantage. In such an atmosphere the boisterous passion\nbreaks through the cordon of harmony and thrusts itself forward as the\nsubject, which with its bulk and pressure dethrones the unity of\ncreation. For a similar reason most of the hymns used in churches\nsuffer from lack of poetry. For in them the deliberate subject,\nassuming the first importance, benumbs or kills the poem. Most\npatriotic poems have the same deficiency. They are like hill streams\nborn of sudden showers, which are more proud of their rocky beds than\nof their water currents; in them the athletic and arrogant subject\ntakes it for granted that the poem is there to give it occasion to\ndisplay its powers. The subject is the material wealth for the sake of\nwhich poetry should never be tempted to barter her soul, even though\nthe temptation should come in the name and shape of public good or\nsome usefulness. Between the artist and his art must be that perfect\ndetachment which is the pure medium of love. He must never make use of\nthis love except for its own perfect expression.\n\nIn everyday life our personality moves in a narrow circle of immediate\nself-interest. And therefore our feelings and events, within that\nshort range, become prominent subjects for ourselves. In their\nvehement self-assertion they ignore their unity with the All. They\nrise up like obstructions and obscure their own background. But art\ngives our personality the disinterested freedom of the eternal, there\nto find it in its true perspective. To see our own home in flames is\nnot to see fire in its verity. But the fire in the stars is the fire\nin the heart of the Infinite; there, it is the script of creation.\n\nMatthew Arnold, in his poem addressed to a nightingale, sings:\n\n    Hark! ah, the nightingale--\n    The tawny-throated!\n    Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!\n    What triumph! hark!--what pain!\n\nBut pain, when met within the boundaries of limited reality, repels\nand hurts; it is discordant with the narrow scope of life. But the\npain of some great martyrdom has the detachment of eternity. It\nappears in all its majesty, harmonious in the context of everlasting\nlife; like the thunder-flash in the stormy sky, not on the laboratory\nwire. Pain on that scale has its harmony in great love; for by hurting\nlove it reveals the infinity of love in all its truth and beauty. On\nthe other hand, the pain involved in business insolvency is\ndiscordant; it kills and consumes till nothing remains but ashes.\n\nThe poet sings again:\n\n    How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!\n    Eternal Passion!\n    Eternal Pain!\n\nAnd the truth of pain in eternity has been sung by those Vedic poets\nwho had said, \"From joy has come forth all creation.\" They say:\n\n    Sa tapas tapatva sarvam asrajata Yadidam kincha.\n\n    (God from the heat of his pain created all that there is.)\n\nThe sacrifice, which is in the heart of creation, is both joy and pain\nat the same moment. Of this sings a village mystic in Bengal:\n\n                        My eyes drown in the darkness of joy,\n    My heart, like a lotus, closes its petals in the rapture of the\n        dark night.\n\nThat song speaks of a joy which is deep like the blue sea, endless\nlike the blue sky; which has the magnificence of the night, and in its\nlimitless darkness enfolds the radiant worlds in the awfulness of\npeace; it is the unfathomed joy in which all sufferings are made one.\n\nA poet of mediaeval India tells us about his source of inspiration in a\npoem containing a question and an answer:\n\n    Where were your songs, my bird, when you spent your nights in the nest?\n    Was not all your pleasure stored therein?\n    What makes you lose your heart to the sky, the sky that is limitless?\n\nThe bird answers:\n\n    I had my pleasure while I rested within bounds.\n    When I soared into the limitless, I found my songs!\n\nTo detach the individual idea from its confinement of everyday facts\nand to give its soaring wings the freedom of the universal: this is\nthe function of poetry. The ambition of Macbeth, the jealousy of\nOthello, would be at best sensational in police court proceedings; but\nin Shakespeare's dramas they are carried among the flaming\nconstellations where creation throbs with Eternal Passion, Eternal\nPain.\n\n\n\n\n                      THE RELIGION OF THE FOREST\n\n                                   I\n\n\nWe stand before this great world. The truth of our life depends upon\nour attitude of mind towards it--an attitude which is formed by our\nhabit of dealing with it according to the special circumstance of our\nsurroundings and our temperaments. It guides our attempts to establish\nrelations with the universe either by conquest or by union, either\nthrough the cultivation of power or through that of sympathy. And\nthus, in our realisation of the truth of existence, we put our\nemphasis either upon the principle of dualism or upon the principle of\nunity.\n\nThe Indian sages have held in the Upanishads that the emancipation of\nour soul lies in its realising the ultimate truth of unity. They said:\n\n    Ishavasyam idam sarvam yat kinch jagatyam jagat.\n    Yena tyaktena bhunjitha ma graha kasyasvit dhanam.\n\n     (Know all that moves in this moving world as enveloped by\n     God; and find enjoyment through renunciation, not through\n     greed of possession.)\n\nThe meaning of this is, that, when we know the multiplicity of things\nas the final truth, we try to augment ourselves by the external\npossession of them; but, when we know the Infinite Soul as the final\ntruth, then through our union with it we realise the joy of our soul.\nTherefore it has been said of those who have attained their\nfulfilment,--\"sarvam eva vishanti\" (they enter into all things). Their\nperfect relation with this world is the relation of union.\n\nThis ideal of perfection preached by the forest-dwellers of ancient\nIndia runs through the heart of our classical literature and still\ndominates our mind. The legends related in our epics cluster under the\nforest shade bearing all through their narrative the message of the\nforest-dwellers. Our two greatest classical dramas find their\nbackground in scenes of the forest hermitage, which are permeated by\nthe association of these sages.\n\nThe history of the Northmen of Europe is resonant with the music of\nthe sea. That sea is not merely topographical in its significance, but\nrepresents certain ideals of life which still guide the history and\ninspire the creations of that race. In the sea, nature presented\nherself to those men in her aspect of a danger, a barrier which\nseemed to be at constant war with the land and its children. The sea\nwas the challenge of untamed nature to the indomitable human soul. And\nman did not flinch; he fought and won, and the spirit of fight\ncontinued in him. This fight he still maintains; it is the fight\nagainst disease and poverty, tyranny of matter and of man.\n\nThis refers to a people who live by the sea, and ride on it as on a\nwild, champing horse, catching it by its mane and making it render\nservice from shore to shore. They find delight in turning by force the\nantagonism of circumstances into obedience. Truth appears to them in\nher aspect of dualism, the perpetual conflict of good and evil, which\nhas no reconciliation, which can only end in victory or defeat.\n\nBut in the level tracts of Northern India men found no barrier between\ntheir lives and the grand life that permeates the universe. The forest\nentered into a close living relationship with their work and leisure,\nwith their daily necessities and contemplations. They could not think\nof other surroundings as separate or inimical. So the view of the\ntruth, which these men found, did not make manifest the difference,\nbut rather the unity of all things. They uttered their faith in these\nwords: \"Yadidam kinch sarvam prana ejati nihsratam\" (All that is\nvibrates with life, having come out from life). When we know this\nworld as alien to us, then its mechanical aspect takes prominence in\nour mind; and then we set up our machines and our methods to deal with\nit and make as much profit as our knowledge of its mechanism allows us\nto do. This view of things does not play us false, for the machine has\nits place in this world. And not only this material universe, but\nhuman beings also, may be used as machines and made to yield powerful\nresults. This aspect of truth cannot be ignored; it has to be known\nand mastered. Europe has done so and has reaped a rich harvest.\n\nThe view of this world which India has taken is summed up in one\ncompound Sanskrit word, Sachid[=a]nanda. The meaning is that Reality,\nwhich is essentially one, has three phases. The first is Sat; it is\nthe simple fact that things are, the fact which relates us to all\nthings through the relationship of common existence. The second is\nChit; it is the fact that we know, which relates us to all things\nthrough the relationship of knowledge. The third is Ananda: it is the\nfact that we enjoy, which unites us with all things through the\nrelationship of love.\n\nAccording to the true Indian view, our consciousness of the world,\nmerely as the sum total of things that exist, and as governed by laws,\nis imperfect. But it is perfect when our consciousness realises all\nthings as spiritually one with it, and therefore capable of giving us\njoy. For us the highest purpose of this world is not merely living in\nit, knowing it and making use of it, but realising our own selves in\nit through expansion of sympathy; not alienating ourselves from it and\ndominating it, but comprehending and uniting it with ourselves in\nperfect union.\n\n\n                                  II\n\nWhen Vikramaditya became king, Ujjayini a great capital, and Kalidasa\nits poet, the age of India's forest retreats had passed. Then we had\ntaken our stand in the midst of the great concourse of humanity. The\nChinese and the Hun, the Scythian and the Persian, the Greek and the\nRoman, had crowded round us. But, even in that age of pomp and\nprosperity, the love and reverence with which its poet sang about the\nhermitage shows what was the dominant ideal that occupied the mind of\nIndia; what was the one current of memory that continually flowed\nthrough her life.\n\nIn Kalidasa's drama, _Shakuntala_, the hermitage, which dominates the\nplay, overshadowing the king's palace, has the same idea running\nthrough it--the recognition of the kinship of man with conscious and\nunconscious creation alike.\n\nA poet of a later age, while describing a hermitage in his Kadambari,\ntells us of the posture of salutation in the flowering lianas as they\nbow to the wind; of the sacrifice offered by the trees scattering\ntheir blossoms; of the grove resounding with the lessons chanted by\nthe neophytes, and the verses repeated by the parrots, learnt by constantly\nhearing them; of the wild-fowl enjoying \"vaishva-deva-bali-pinda\"\n(the food offered to the divinity which is in all creatures); of the\nducks coming up from the lake for their portion of the grass seed\nspread in the cottage yards to dry; and of the deer caressing with\ntheir tongues the young hermit boys. It is again the same story. The\nhermitage shines out, in all our ancient literature, as the place\nwhere the chasm between man and the rest of creation has been bridged.\n\nIn the Western dramas, human characters drown our attention in the\nvortex of their passions. Nature occasionally peeps out, but she is\nalmost always a trespasser, who has to offer excuses, or bow\napologetically and depart. But in all our dramas which still retain\ntheir fame, such as _Mrit-Shakatika_, _Shakuntala_, _Uttara-Ramacharita_,\nNature stands on her own right, proving that she has her great\nfunction, to impart the peace of the eternal to human emotions.\n\nThe fury of passion in two of Shakespeare's youthful poems is\nexhibited in conspicuous isolation. It is snatched away, naked, from\nthe context of the All; it has not the green earth or the blue sky\naround it; it is there ready to bring to our view the raging fever\nwhich is in man's desires, and not the balm of health and repose which\nencircles it in the universe.\n\n_Ritusamhara_ is clearly a work of Kalidasa's immaturity. The youthful\nlove-song in it does not reach the sublime reticence which is in\n_Shakuntala_ and _Kumara-Sambhava_. But the tune of these voluptuous\noutbreaks is set to the varied harmony of Nature's symphony. The\nmoonbeams of the summer evening, resonant with the flow of fountains,\nacknowledge it as a part of its own melody. In its rhythm sways the\nKadamba forest, glistening in the first cool rain of the season; and\nthe south breezes, carrying the scent of the mango blossoms, temper it\nwith their murmur.\n\nIn the third canto of _Kumara-Sambhava_, Madana, the God Eros, enters\nthe forest sanctuary to set free a sudden flood of desire amid the\nserenity of the ascetics' meditation. But the boisterous outbreak of\npassion so caused was shown against a background of universal life.\nThe divine love-thrills of Sati and Shiva found their response in the\nworld-wide immensity of youth, in which animals and trees have their\nlife-throbs.\n\nNot only its third canto but the whole of the Kumara-Sambhava poem is\npainted upon a limitless canvas. It tells of the eternal wedding of\nlove, its wooing and sacrifice, and its fulfilment, for which the gods\nwait in suspense. Its inner idea is deep and of all time. It answers\nthe one question that humanity asks through all its endeavours: \"How\nis the birth of the hero to be brought about, the brave one who can\ndefy and vanquish the evil demon laying waste heaven's own kingdom?\"\n\nIt becomes evident that such a problem had become acute in Kalidasa's\ntime, when the old simplicity of Hindu life had broken up. The Hindu\nkings, forgetful of their duties, had become self-seeking epicureans,\nand India was being repeatedly devastated by the Scythians. What\nanswer, then, does the poem give to the question it raises? Its\nmessage is that the cause of weakness lies in the inner life of the\nsoul. It is in some break of harmony with the Good, some dissociation\nfrom the True. In the commencement of the poem we find that the God\nShiva, the Good, had remained for long lost in the self-centred\nsolitude of his asceticism, detached from the world of reality. And\nthen Paradise was lost. But _Kumara-Sambhava_ is the poem of Paradise\nRegained. How was it regained? When Sati, the Spirit of Reality,\nthrough humiliation, suffering, and penance, won the Heart of Shiva,\nthe Spirit of Goodness. And thus, from the union of the freedom of the\nreal with the restraint of the Good, was born the heroism that\nreleased Paradise from the demon of Lawlessness.\n\nViewed from without, India, in the time of Kalidasa, appeared to have\nreached the zenith of civilisation, excelling as she did in luxury,\nliterature and the arts. But from the poems of Kalidasa it is evident\nthat this very magnificence of wealth and enjoyment worked against the\nideal that sprang and flowed forth from the sacred solitude of the\nforest. These poems contain the voice of warnings against the\ngorgeous unreality of that age, which, like a Himalayan avalanche, was\nslowly gliding down to an abyss of catastrophe. And from his seat\nbeside all the glories of Vikramaditya's throne the poet's heart\nyearns for the purity and simplicity of India's past age of spiritual\nstriving. And it was this yearning which impelled him to go back to\nthe annals of the ancient Kings of Raghu's line for the narrative\npoem, in which he traced the history of the rise and fall of the ideal\nthat should guide the rulers of men.\n\nKing Dilipa, with Queen Sudakshina, has entered upon the life of the\nforest. The great monarch is busy tending the cattle of the hermitage.\nThus the poem opens, amid scenes of simplicity and self-denial. But it\nends in the palace of magnificence, in the extravagance of\nself-enjoyment. With a calm restraint of language the poet tells us of\nthe kingly glory crowned with purity. He begins his poem as the day\nbegins, in the serenity of sunrise. But lavish are the colours in\nwhich he describes the end, as of the evening, eloquent for a time\nwith the sumptuous splendour of sunset, but overtaken at last by the\ndevouring darkness which sweeps away all its brilliance into night.\n\nIn this beginning and this ending of his poem there lies hidden that\nmessage of the forest which found its voice in the poet's words. There\nruns through the narrative the idea that the future glowed gloriously\nahead only when there was in the atmosphere the calm of self-control,\nof purity and renunciation. When downfall had become imminent, the\nhungry fires of desire, aflame at a hundred different points, dazzled\nthe eyes of all beholders.\n\nKalidasa in almost all his works represented the unbounded\nimpetuousness of kingly splendour on the one side and the serene\nstrength of regulated desires on the other. Even in the minor drama of\n_Malavikagnimitra_ we find the same thing in a different manner. It\nmust never be thought that, in this play, the poet's deliberate object\nwas to pander to his royal patron by inviting him to a literary orgy\nof lust and passion. The very introductory verse indicates the object\ntowards which this play is directed. The poet begins the drama with\nthe prayer, \"Sanmargalokayan vyapanayatu sa nastamasi vritimishah\"\n(Let God, to illumine for us the path of truth, sweep away our\npassions, bred of darkness). This is the God Shiva, in whose nature\nParvati, the eternal Woman, is ever commingled in an ascetic purity of\nlove. The unified being of Shiva and Parvati is the perfect symbol of\nthe eternal in the wedded love of man and woman. When the poet opens\nhis drama with an invocation of this Spirit of the Divine Union it is\nevident that it contains in it the message with which he greets his\nkingly audience. The whole drama goes to show the ugliness of the\ntreachery and cruelty inherent in unchecked self-indulgence. In the\nplay the conflict of ideals is between the King and the Queen, between\nAgnimitra and Dharini, and the significance of the contrast lies\nhidden in the very names of the hero and the heroine. Though the name\nAgnimitra is historical, yet it symbolises in the poet's mind the\ndestructive force of uncontrolled desire--just as did the name\nAgnivarna in _Raghuvamsha_. Agnimitra, \"the friend of the fire,\" the\nreckless person, who in his love-making is playing with fire, not\nknowing that all the time it is scorching him black. And what a great\nname is Dharini, signifying the fortitude and forbearance that comes\nfrom majesty of soul! What an association it carries of the infinite\ndignity of love, purified by a self-abnegation that rises far above\nall insult and baseness of betrayal!\n\nIn _Shakuntala_ this conflict of ideals has been shown, all through\nthe drama, by the contrast of the pompous heartlessness of the king's\ncourt and the natural purity of the forest hermitage. The drama opens\nwith a hunting scene, where the king is in pursuit of an antelope. The\ncruelty of the chase appears like a menace symbolising the spirit of\nthe king's life clashing against the spirit of the forest retreat,\nwhich is \"sharanyam sarva-bhutanam\" (where all creatures find their\nprotection of love). And the pleading of the forest-dwellers with the\nking to spare the life of the deer, helplessly innocent and beautiful,\nis the pleading that rises from the heart of the whole drama. \"Never,\noh, never is the arrow meant to pierce the tender body of a deer, even\nas the fire is not for the burning of flowers.\"\n\nIn the _Ramayana_, Rama and his companions, in their banishment, had\nto traverse forest after forest; they had to live in leaf-thatched\nhuts, to sleep on the bare ground. But as their hearts felt their\nkinship with woodland, hill, and stream, they were not in exile amidst\nthese. Poets, brought up in an atmosphere of different ideals, would\nhave taken this opportunity of depicting in dismal colours the\nhardship of the forest-life in order to bring out the martyrdom of\nRamachandra with all the emphasis of a strong contrast. But, in the\n_Ramayana_, we are led to realise the greatness of the hero, not in a\nfierce struggle with Nature, but in sympathy with it. Sita, the\ndaughter-in-law of a great kingly house, goes along the forest paths.\nWe read:\n\n\"She asks Rama about the flowering trees, and shrubs and creepers\nwhich she has not seen before. At her request Lakshmana gathers and\nbrings her plants of all kinds, exuberant with flowers, and it\ndelights her heart to see the forest rivers, variegated with their\nstreams and sandy banks, resounding with the call of heron and duck.\n\n\"When Rama first took his abode in the Chitrakuta peak, that\ndelightful Chitrakuta, by the Malyavati river, with its easy slopes\nfor landing, he forgot all the pain of leaving his home in the capital\nat the sight of those woodlands, alive with beast and bird.\"\n\nHaving lived on that hill for long, Rama, who was \"giri-vana-priya\"\n(lover of the mountain and the forest), said one day to Sita:\n\n\"When I look upon the beauties of this hill, the loss of my kingdom\ntroubles me no longer, nor does the separation from my friends cause\nme any pang.\"\n\nThus passed Ramachandra's exile, now in woodland, now in hermitage.\nThe love which Rama and Sita bore to each other united them, not only\nto each other, but to the universe of life. That is why, when Sita was\ntaken away, the loss seemed to be so great to the forest itself.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nStrangely enough, in Shakespeare's dramas, like those of Kalidasa, we\nfind a secret vein of complaint against the artificial life of the\nking's court--the life of ungrateful treachery and falsehood. And\nalmost everywhere, in his dramas, foreign scenes have been introduced\nin connection with some working of the life of unscrupulous ambition.\nIt is perfectly obvious in _Timon of Athens_--but there Nature offers\nno message or balm to the injured soul of man. In _Cymbeline_ the\nmountainous forest and the cave appear in their aspect of obstruction\nto life's opportunities. These only seem tolerable in comparison with\nthe vicissitudes of fortune in the artificial court life. In _As You\nLike It_ the forest of Arden is didactic in its lessons. It does not\nbring peace, but preaches, when it says:\n\n    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet\n    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods\n    More free from peril than the envious court?\n\nIn the _Tempest_, through Prospero's treatment of Ariel and Caliban we\nrealise man's struggle with Nature and his longing to sever connection\nwith her. In _Macbeth_, as a prelude to a bloody crime of treachery\nand treason, we are introduced to a scene of barren heath where the\nthree witches appear as personifications of Nature's malignant forces;\nand in _King Lear_ it is the fury of a father's love turned into\ncurses by the ingratitude born of the unnatural life of the court that\nfinds its symbol in the storm on the heath. The tragic intensity of\n_Hamlet_ and _Othello_ is unrelieved by any touch of Nature's\neternity. Except in a passing glimpse of a moonlight night in the love\nscene in the _Merchant of Venice_, Nature has not been allowed in\nother dramas of this series, including _Romeo and Juliet_ and _Antony\nand Cleopatra_, to contribute her own music to the music of man's\nlove. In _The Winter's Tale_ the cruelty of a king's suspicion stands\nbare in its relentlessness, and Nature cowers before it, offering no\nconsolation.\n\nI hope it is needless for me to say that these observations are not\nintended to minimise Shakespeare's great power as a dramatic poet, but\nto show in his works the gulf between Nature and human nature owing to\nthe tradition of his race and time. It cannot be said that beauty of\nnature is ignored in his writings; only he fails to recognise in them\nthe truth of the inter-penetration of human life with the cosmic life\nof the world. We observe a completely different attitude of mind in\nthe later English poets like Wordsworth and Shelley, which can be\nattributed in the main to the great mental change in Europe, at that\nparticular period, through the influence of the newly discovered\nphilosophy of India which stirred the soul of Germany and aroused the\nattention of other Western countries.\n\nIn Milton's _Paradise Lost_, the very subject--Man dwelling in the\ngarden of Paradise--seems to afford a special opportunity for bringing\nout the true greatness of man's relationship with Nature. But though\nthe poet has described to us the beauties of the garden, though he has\nshown to us the animals living there in amity and peace among\nthemselves, there is no reality of kinship between them and man. They\nwere created for man's enjoyment; man was their lord and master. We\nfind no trace of the love between the first man and woman gradually\nsurpassing themselves and overflowing the rest of creation, such as we\nfind in the love scenes in _Kumara-Sambhava_ and _Shakuntala_. In the\nseclusion of the bower, where the first man and woman rested in the\ngarden of Paradise--\n\n                  Bird, beast, insect or worm\n    Durst enter none, such was their awe of man.\n\nNot that India denied the superiority of man, but the test of that\nsuperiority lay, according to her, in the comprehensiveness of\nsympathy, not in the aloofness of absolute distinction.\n\n\n                                  IV\n\nIndia holds sacred, and counts as places of pilgrimage, all spots\nwhich display a special beauty or splendour of nature. These had no\noriginal attraction on account of any special fitness for cultivation\nor settlement. Here, man is free, not to look upon Nature as a source\nof supply of his necessities, but to realise his soul beyond himself.\nThe Himalayas of India are sacred and the Vindhya Hills. Her majestic\nrivers are sacred. Lake Manasa and the confluence of the Ganges and\nthe Jamuna are sacred. India has saturated with her love and worship\nthe great Nature with which her children are surrounded, whose light\nfills their eyes with gladness, and whose water cleanses them, whose\nfood gives them life, and from whose majestic mystery comes forth the\nconstant revelation of the infinite in music, scent, and colour, which\nbrings its awakening to the soul of man. India gains the world through\nworship, through spiritual communion; and the idea of freedom to which\nshe aspired was based upon the realisation of her spiritual unity.\n\nWhen, in my recent voyage to Europe, our ship left Aden and sailed\nalong the sea which lay between the two continents, we passed by the\nred and barren rocks of Arabia on our right side and the gleaming\nsands of Egypt on our left. They seemed to me like two giant brothers\nexchanging with each other burning glances of hatred, kept apart by\nthe tearful entreaty of the sea from whose womb they had their birth.\n\nThere was an immense stretch of silence on the left shore as well as\non the right, but the two shores spoke to me of the two different\nhistorical dramas enacted. The civilisation which found its growth in\nEgypt was continued across long centuries, elaborately rich with\nsentiments and expressions of life, with pictures, sculptures,\ntemples, and ceremonials. This was a country whose guardian-spirit was\na noble river, which spread the festivities of life on its banks\nacross the heart of the land. There man never raised the barrier of\nalienation between himself and the rest of the world.\n\nOn the opposite shore of the Red Sea the civilisation which grew up in\nthe inhospitable soil of Arabia had a contrary character to that of\nEgypt. There man felt himself isolated in his hostile and bare\nsurroundings. His idea of God became that of a jealous God. His mind\nnaturally dwelt upon the principle of separateness. It roused in him\nthe spirit of fight, and this spirit was a force that drove him far\nand wide. These two civilisations represented two fundamental\ndivisions of human nature. The one contained in it the spirit of\nconquest and the other the spirit of harmony. And both of these have\ntheir truth and purpose in human existence.\n\nThe characters of two eminent sages have been described in our\nmythology. One was Vashishtha and another Vishvamitra. Both of them\nwere great, but they represented two different types of wisdom; and\nthere was conflict between them. Vishvamitra sought to achieve power\nand was proud of it; Vashishtha was rudely smitten by that power. But\nhis hurt and his loss could not touch the illumination of his soul;\nfor he rose above them and could forgive. Ramachandra, the great hero\nof our epic, had his initiation to the spiritual life from Vashishtha,\nthe life of inner peace and perfection. But he had his initiation to\nwar from Vishvamitra, who called him to kill the demons and gave him\nweapons that were irresistible.\n\nThose two sages symbolise in themselves the two guiding spirits of\ncivilisation. Can it be true that they shall never be reconciled? If\nso, can ever the age of peace and co-operation dawn upon the human\nworld? Creation is the harmony of contrary forces--the forces of\nattraction and repulsion. When they join hands, all the fire and fight\nare changed into the smile of flowers and the songs of birds. When\nthere is only one of them triumphant and the other defeated, then\neither there is the death of cold rigidity or that of suicidal\nexplosion.\n\nHumanity, for ages, has been busy with the one great creation of\nspiritual life. Its best wisdom, its discipline, its literature and\nart, all the teachings and self-sacrifice of its noblest teachers,\nhave been for this. But the harmony of contrary forces, which give\ntheir rhythm to all creation, has not yet been perfected by man in his\ncivilisation, and the Creator in him is baffled over and over again.\nHe comes back to his work, however, and makes himself busy, building\nhis world in the midst of desolation and ruins. His history is the\nhistory of his aspiration interrupted and renewed. And one truth of\nwhich he must be reminded, therefore, is that the power which\naccomplishes the miracle of creation, by bringing conflicting forces\ninto the harmony of the One, is no passion, but a love which accepts\nthe bonds of self-control from the joy of its own immensity--a love\nwhose sacrifice is the manifestation of its endless wealth within\nitself.\n\n\n\n\n                        AN INDIAN FOLK RELIGION\n\n                                   I\n\n\nIn historical time the Buddha comes first of those who declared\nsalvation to all men, without distinction, as by right man's own. What\nwas the special force which startled men's minds and, almost within\nthe master's lifetime, spread his teachings over India? It was the\nunique significance of the event, when a man came to men and said to\nthem, \"I am here to emancipate you from the miseries of the thraldom\nof self.\" This wisdom came, neither in texts of Scripture, nor in\nsymbols of deities, nor in religious practices sanctified by ages, but\nthrough the voice of a living man and the love that flowed from a\nhuman heart.\n\nAnd I believe this was the first occasion in the history of the world\nwhen the idea of the Avatar found its place in religion. Western\nscholars are never tired of insisting that Buddhism is of the nature\nof a moral code, coldly leading to the path of extinction. They forget\nthat it was held to be a religion that roused in its devotees an\ninextinguishable fire of enthusiasm and carried them to lifelong exile\nacross the mountain and desert barriers. To say that a philosophy of\nsuicide can keep kindled in human hearts for centuries such fervour of\nself-sacrifice is to go against all the laws of sane psychology. The\nreligious enthusiasm which cannot be bound within any daily ritual,\nbut overflows into adventures of love and beneficence, must have in\nits centre that element of personality which rouses the whole soul. In\nanswer, it may possibly be said that this was due to the personality\nof Buddha himself. But that also is not quite true. The personality\nwhich stirs the human heart to its immense depths, leading it to\nimpossible deeds of heroism, must in that process itself reveal to men\nthe infinite which is in all humanity. And that is what happened in\nBuddhism, making it a religion in the complete sense of the word.\n\nLike the religion of the Upanishads, Buddhism also generated two\ndivergent currents; the one impersonal, preaching the abnegation of\nself through discipline, and the other personal, preaching the\ncultivation of sympathy for all creatures, and devotion to the\ninfinite truth of love; the other, which is called the Mahayana, had\nits origin in the positive element contained in Buddha's teachings,\nwhich is immeasurable love. It could never, by any logic, find its\nreality in the emptiness of the truthless abyss. And the object of\nBuddha's meditation and his teachings was to free humanity from\nsufferings. But what was the path that he revealed to us? Was it some\nnegative way of evading pain and seeking security against it? On the\ncontrary, his path was the path of sacrifice--the utmost sacrifice of\nlove. The meaning of such sacrifice is to reach some ultimate truth,\nsome positive ideal, which in its greatness can accept suffering and\ntransmute it into the profound peace of self-renunciation. True\nemancipation from suffering, which is the inalienable condition of the\nlimited life of the self, can never be attained by fleeing from it,\nbut rather by changing its value in the realm of truth--the truth of\nthe higher life of love.\n\nWe have learnt that, by calculations made in accordance with the law\nof gravitation, some planets were discovered exactly in the place\nwhere they should be. Such a law of gravitation there is also in the\nmoral world. And when we find men's minds disturbed, as they were by\nthe preaching of the Buddha, we can be sure, even without any\ncorroborative evidence, that there must have been some great luminous\nbody of attraction, positive and powerful, and not a mere unfathomable\nvacancy. It is exactly this which we discover in the heart of the\nMahayana system; and we have no hesitation in saying that the truth of\nBuddhism is there. The oil has to be burnt, not for the purpose of\ndiminishing it, but for the purpose of giving light to the lamp. And\nwhen the Buddha said that the self must go, he said at the same moment\nthat love must be realised. Thus originated the doctrine of the\nDharma-kaya, the Infinite Wisdom and Love manifested in the Buddha. It\nwas the first instance, as I have said, when men felt that the\nUniversal and the Eternal Spirit was revealed in a human individual\nwhom they had known and touched. The joy was too great for them, since\nthe very idea itself came to them as a freedom--a freedom from the\nsense of their measureless insignificance. It was the first time, I\nrepeat, when the individual, as a man, felt in himself the Infinite\nmade concrete.\n\nWhat was more, those men who felt the love welling forth from the\nheart of Buddhism, as one with the current of the Eternal Love itself,\nwere struck with the idea that such an effluence could never have been\ndue to a single cataclysm of history--unnatural and therefore untrue.\nThey felt instead that it was in the eternal nature of truth, that the\nevent must belong to a series of manifestations; there must have been\nnumberless other revelations in the past and endless others to follow.\n\nThe idea grew and widened until men began to feel that this Infinite\nBeing was already in every one of them, and that it rested with\nthemselves to remove the sensual obstructions and reveal him in their\nown lives. In every individual there was, they realised, the\npotentiality of Buddha--that is to say, the Infinite made manifest.\n\nWe have to keep in mind the great fact that the preaching of the\nBuddha in India was not followed by stagnation of life--as would\nsurely have happened if humanity was without any positive goal and his\nteaching was without any permanent value in itself. On the contrary,\nwe find the arts and sciences springing up in its wake, institutions\nstarted for alleviating the misery of all creatures, human and\nnon-human, and great centres of education founded. Some mighty power\nwas suddenly roused from its obscurity, which worked for long\ncenturies and changed the history of man in a large part of the world.\nAnd that power came into its full activity only by the individual\nbeing made conscious of his infinite worth. It was like the sudden\ndiscovery of a great mine of living wealth.\n\nDuring the period of Buddhism the doctrine of deliverance flourished,\nwhich reached all mankind and released man's inner resources from\nneglect and self-insult. Even to-day we see in our own country human\nnature, from its despised corner of indignity, slowly and painfully\nfinding its way to assert the inborn majesty of man. It is like the\nimprisoned tree finding a rift in the wall, and sending out its eager\nbranches into freedom, to prove that darkness is not its birthright,\nthat its love is for the sunshine. In the time of the Buddha the\nindividual discovered his own immensity of worth, first by witnessing\na man who united his heart in sympathy with all creatures, in all\nworlds, through the power of a love that knew no bounds; and then by\nlearning that the same light of perfection lay confined within\nhimself behind the clouds of selfish desire, and that the\nBodhi-hridaya--\"the heart of the Eternal Enlightenment\"--every moment\nclaimed its unveiling in his own heart. Nagarjuna speaks of this\nBodhi-hridaya (another of whose names is Bodhi-Citta) as follows:\n\n     One who understands the nature of the Bodhi-hridaya, sees\n     everything with a loving heart; for love is the essence of\n     Bodhi-hridaya.[1]\n\n     [Footnote 1: _Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism_, by Dr. D. T.\n     Suzuki.]\n\nMy object in writing this paper is to show, by the further help of\nillustration from a popular religious sect of Bengal, that the\nreligious instinct of man urges him towards a truth, by which he can\ntranscend the finite nature of the individual self. Man would never\nfeel the indignity of his limitations if these were inevitable. Within\nhim he has glimpses of the Infinite, which give him assurance that\nthis truth is not in his limitations, but that this truth can be\nattained by love. For love is the positive quality of the Infinite,\nand love's sacrifice accordingly does not lead to emptiness, but to\nfulfilment, to Bodhi-hridaya, \"the heart of enlightenment.\"\n\nThe members of the religious sect I have mentioned call themselves\n\"Bauel.\" They live outside social recognition, and their very obscurity\nhelps them in their seeking, from a direct source, the enlightenment\nwhich the soul longs for, the eternal light of love.\n\nIt would be absurd to say that there is little difference between\nBuddhism and the religion of these simple people, who have no system\nof metaphysics to support their faith. But my object in bringing close\ntogether these two religions, which seem to belong to opposite poles,\nis to point out the fundamental unity in them. Both of them believe in\na fulfilment which is reached by love's emancipating us from the\ndominance of self. In both these religions we find man's yearning to\nattain the infinite worth of his individuality, not through any\nconventional valuation of society, but through his perfect\nrelationship with Truth. They agree in holding that the realisation of\nour ultimate object is waiting for us in ourselves. The Bauel likens\nthis fulfilment to the blossoming of a bud, and sings:\n\n    Make way, O bud, make way,\n      Burst open thy heart and make way.\n    The opening spirit has overtaken thee,\n      Canst thou remain a bud any longer?\n\n\n                                  II\n\nOne day, in a small village in Bengal, an ascetic woman from the\nneighbourhood came to see me. She had the name \"Sarva-khepi\" given to\nher by the village people, the meaning of which is \"the woman who is\nmad about all things.\" She fixed her star-like eyes upon my face and\nstartled me with the question, \"When are you coming to meet me\nunderneath the trees?\" Evidently she pitied me who lived (according to\nher) prisoned behind walls, banished away from the great meeting-place\nof the All, where she had her dwelling. Just at that moment my\ngardener came with his basket, and when the woman understood that the\nflowers in the vase on my table were going to be thrown away, to make\nplace for the fresh ones, she looked pained and said to me, \"You are\nalways engaged reading and writing; you do not see.\" Then she took the\ndiscarded flowers in her palms, kissed them and touched them with her\nforehead, and reverently murmured to herself, \"Beloved of my heart.\" I\nfelt that this woman, in her direct vision of the infinite personality\nin the heart of all things, truly represented the spirit of India.\n\nIn the same village I came into touch with some Bauel singers. I had\nknown them by their names, occasionally seen them singing and begging\nin the street, and so passed them by, vaguely classifying them in my\nmind under the general name of Vairagis, or ascetics.\n\nThe time came when I had occasion to meet with some members of the\nsame body and talk to them about spiritual matters. The first Bauel\nsong, which I chanced to hear with any attention, profoundly stirred\nmy mind. Its words are so simple that it makes me hesitate to render\nthem in a foreign tongue, and set them forward for critical\nobservation. Besides, the best part of a song is missed when the tune\nis absent; for thereby its movement and its colour are lost, and it\nbecomes like a butterfly whose wings have been plucked.\n\nThe first line may be translated thus: \"Where shall I meet him, the\nMan of my Heart?\" This phrase, \"the Man of my Heart,\" is not peculiar\nto this song, but is usual with the Bauel sect. It means that, for me,\nthe supreme truth of all existence is in the revelation of the\nInfinite in my own humanity.\n\n\"The Man of my Heart,\" to the Bauel, is like a divine instrument\nperfectly tuned. He gives expression to infinite truth in the music\nof life. And the longing for the truth which is in us, which we have\nnot yet realised, breaks out in the following Bauel song:\n\n    Where shall I meet him, the Man of my Heart?\n    He is lost to me and I seek him wandering from land to land.\n\n    I am listless for that moonrise of beauty,\n        which is to light my life,\n        which I long to see in the fulness of vision, in gladness of heart.\n\nThe name of the poet who wrote this song was Gagan. He was almost\nilliterate; and the ideas he received from his Bauel teacher found no\ndistraction from the self-consciousness of the modern age. He was a\nvillage postman, earning about ten shillings a month, and he died\nbefore he had completed his teens. The sentiment, to which he gave\nsuch intensity of expression, is common to most of the songs of his\nsect. And it is a sect, almost exclusively confined to that lower\nfloor of society, where the light of modern education hardly finds an\nentrance, while wealth and respectability shun its utter indigence.\n\nIn the song I have translated above, the longing of the singer to\nrealise the infinite in his own personality is expressed. This has to\nbe done daily by its perfect expression in life, in love. For the\npersonal expression of life, in its perfection, is love; just as the\npersonal expression of truth in its perfection is beauty.\n\nIn the political life of the modern age the idea of democracy has\ngiven mankind faith in the individual. It gives each man trust in his\nown possibilities, and pride in his humanity. Something of the same\nidea, we find, has been working in the popular mind of India, with\nregard to its religious consciousness. Over and over again it tries to\nassert, not only that God is _for_ each of us, but also that God is\n_in_ each of us. These people have no special incarnations in their\nsimple theology, because they know that God is special to each\nindividual. They say that to be born a man is the greatest privilege\nthat can fall to a creature in all the world. They assert that gods in\nParadise envy human beings. Why? Because God's will, in giving his\nlove, finds its completeness in man's will returning that love.\nTherefore Humanity is a necessary factor in the perfecting of the\ndivine truth. The Infinite, for its self-expression, comes down into\nthe manifoldness of the Finite; and the Finite, for its\nself-realisation, must rise into the unity of the Infinite. Then only\nis the Cycle of Truth complete.\n\nThe dignity of man, in his eternal right of Truth, finds expression in\nthe following song, composed, not by a theologian or a man of letters,\nbut by one who belongs to that ninety per cent of the population of\nBritish India whose education has been far less than elementary, in\nfact almost below zero:\n\n    My longing is to meet you in play of love, my Lover;\n    But this longing is not only mine, but also yours.\n    For your lips can have their smile, and your flute\n        its music, only in your delight in my love;\n        and therefore you are importunate, even as I am.\n\nIf the world were a mere expression of formative forces, then this\nsong would be pathetic in its presumption. But why is there beauty at\nall in creation--the beauty whose only meaning is in a call that\nclaims disinterestedness as a response? The poet proudly says: \"Your\nflute could not have its music of beauty if your delight were not in\nmy love. Your power is great--and there I am not equal to you--but it\nlies even in me to make you smile, and if you and I never meet, then\nthis play of love remains incomplete.\"\n\nIf this were not true, then it would be an utter humiliation to exist\nat all in this world. If it were solely _our_ business to seek the\nLover, and _his_ to keep himself passively aloof in the infinity of\nhis glory, or actively masterful only in imposing his commands upon\nus, then we should dare to defy him, and refuse to accept the\neverlasting insult latent in the one-sided importunity of a slave. And\nthis is what the Bauel says--he who, in the world of men, goes about\nsinging for alms from door to door, with his one-stringed instrument\nand long robe of patched-up rags on his back:\n\n    I stop and sit here on the road. Do not ask me to walk farther.\n    If your love can be complete without mine, let me turn back\n        from seeing you.\n    I have been travelling to seek you, my friend, for long;\n    Yet I refuse to beg a sight of you, if you do not feel my need.\n    I am blind with market dust and midday glare,\n        and so wait, my heart's lover, in hopes that your own love\n          will send you to find me out.\n\nThe poet is fully conscious that his value in the world's market is\npitifully small; that he is neither wealthy nor learned. Yet he has\nhis great compensation, for he has come close to his Lover's heart. In\nBengal the women bathing in the river often use their overturned water\njars to keep themselves floating when they swim, and the poet uses\nthis incident for his simile:\n\n    It is lucky that I am an empty vessel,\n    For when you swim, I keep floating by your side.\n    Your full vessels are left on the empty shore, they are for use;\n    But I am carried to the river in your arms, and I dance\n        to the rhythm of your heart-throbs and heaving of the waves.\n\nThe great distinguished people of the world do not know that these\nbeggars--deprived of education, honour, and wealth--can, in the pride\nof their souls, look down upon them as the unfortunate ones, who are\nleft on the shore for their worldly uses, but whose life ever misses\nthe touch of the Lover's arms.\n\nThe feeling that man is not a mere casual visitor at the palace-gate\nof the world, but the invited guest whose presence is needed to give\nthe royal banquet its sole meaning, is not confined to any particular\nsect in India. Let me quote here some poems from a mediaeval poet of\nWestern India--Jnandas--whose works are nearly forgotten, and have\nbecome scarce from the very exquisiteness of their excellence. In the\nfollowing poem he is addressing God's messenger, who comes to us in\nthe morning light of our childhood, in the dusk of our day's end, and\nin the night's darkness:\n\n    Messenger, morning brought you, habited in gold.\n    After sunset, your song wore a tune of ascetic grey,\n        and then came night.\n    Your message was written in bright letters across the black.\n    Why is such splendour about you, to lure the heart of one\n        who is nothing?\n\nThis is the answer of the messenger:\n\n    Great is the festival hall where you are to be the only guest.\n    Therefore the letter to you is written from sky to sky,\n    And I, the proud servant, bring the invitation with all ceremony.\n\nAnd thus the poet knows that the silent rows of stars carry God's own\ninvitation to the individual soul.\n\nThe same poet sings:\n\n    What hast thou come to beg from the beggar, O King of Kings?\n    My Kingdom is poor for want of him, my dear one, and I\n        wait for him in sorrow.\n\n    How long will you keep him waiting, O wretch,\n        who has waited for you for ages in silence and stillness?\n    Open your gate, and make this very moment fit for the union.\n\nIt is the song of man's pride in the value given to him by Supreme\nLove and realised by his own love.\n\nThe Vaishnava religion, which has become the popular religion of\nIndia, carries the same message: God's love finding its finality in\nman's love. According to it, the lover, man, is the complement of the\nLover, God, in the internal love drama of existence; and God's call\nis ever wafted in man's heart in the world-music, drawing him towards\nthe union. This idea has been expressed in rich elaboration of symbols\nverging upon realism. But for these Bauels this idea is direct and\nsimple, full of the dignified beauty of truth, which shuns all tinsels\nof ornament.\n\nThe Bauel poet, when asked why he had no sect mark on his forehead,\nanswered in his song that the true colour decoration appears on the\nskin of the fruit when its inner core is filled with ripe, sweet\njuice; but by artificially smearing it with colour from outside you do\nnot make it ripe. And he says of his Guru, his teacher, that he is\npuzzled to find in which direction he must make salutation. For his\nteacher is not one, but many, who, moving on, form a procession of\nwayfarers.\n\nBauels have no temple or image for their worship, and this utter\nsimplicity is needful for men whose one subject is to realise the\ninnermost nearness of God. The Bauel poet expressly says that if we try\nto approach God through the senses we miss him:\n\n    Bring him not into your house as the guest of your eyes;\n        but let him come at your heart's invitation.\n    Opening your doors to that which is seen only, is to lose it.\n\nYet, being a poet, he also knows that the objects of sense can reveal\ntheir spiritual meaning only when they are not seen through mere\nphysical eyes:\n\n    Eyes can see only dust and earth,\n    But feel it with your heart, it is pure joy.\n    The flowers of delight blossom on all sides, in every form,\n        but where is your heart's thread to weave them in a garland?\n\nThese Bauels have a philosophy, which they call the philosophy of the\nbody; but they keep its secret; it is only for the initiated.\nEvidently the underlying idea is that the individual's body is itself\nthe temple, in whose inner mystic shrine the Divine appears before the\nsoul, and the key to it has to be found from those who know. But as\nthe key is not for us outsiders, I leave it with the observation that\nthis mystic philosophy of the body is the outcome of the attempt to\nget rid of all the outward shelters which are too costly for people\nlike themselves. But this human body of ours is made by God's own\nhand, from his own love, and even if some men, in the pride of their\nsuperiority, may despise it, God finds his joy in dwelling in others\nof yet lower birth. It is a truth easier of discovery by these people\nof humble origin than by men of proud estate.\n\nThe pride of the Bauel beggar is not in his worldly distinction, but in\nthe distinction that God himself has given to him. He feels himself\nlike a flute through which God's own breath of love has been breathed:\n\n    My heart is like a flute he has played on.\n    If ever it fall into other hands,--\n        let him fling it away.\n    My lover's flute is dear to him.\n    Therefore, if to-day alien breath have entered it and\n        sounded strange notes,\n    Let him break it to pieces and strew the dust with them.\n\nSo we find that this man also has his disgust of defilement. While the\nambitious world of wealth and power despises him, he in his turn\nthinks that the world's touch desecrates him who has been made sacred\nby the touch of his Lover. He does not envy us our life of ambition\nand achievements, but he knows how precious his own life has been:\n\n    I am poured forth in living notes of joy and sorrow by your breath.\n    Morning and evening, in summer and in rains, I am fashioned to music.\n    Yet should I be wholly spent in some flight of song,\n    I shall not grieve, the tune is so precious to me.\n\nOur joys and sorrows are contradictory when self separates them in\nopposition. But for the heart in which self merges in God's love,\nthey lose their absoluteness. So the Bauel's prayer is to feel in all\nsituations--in danger, or pain, or sorrow--that he is in God's hands.\nHe solves the problem of emancipation from sufferings by accepting and\nsetting them in a higher context:\n\n    I am the boat, you are the sea, and also the boatman.\n    Though you never make the shore, though you let me sink,\n         why should I be foolish and afraid?\n    Is the reaching the shore a greater prize than losing myself\n         with you?\n    If you are only the haven, as they say, then what is the sea?\n    Let it surge and toss me on its waves, I shall be content.\n    I live in you, whatever and however you appear.\n    Save me or kill me as you wish, only never leave me in\n         others' hands.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nIt is needless to say, before I conclude, that I had neither the\ntraining nor the opportunity to study this mendicant religious sect in\nBengal from an ethnological standpoint. I was attracted to find out\nhow the living currents of religious movements work in the heart of\nthe people, saving them from degradation imposed by the society of the\nlearned, of the rich, or of the high-born; how the spirit of man, by\nmaking use even of its obstacles, reaches fulfilment, led thither, not\nby the learned authorities in the scriptures, or by the mechanical\nimpulse of the dogma-driven crowd, but by the unsophisticated\naspiration of the loving soul. On the inaccessible mountain peaks of\ntheology the snows of creed remain eternally rigid, cold, and pure.\nBut God's manifest shower falls direct on the plain of humble hearts,\nflowing there in various channels, even getting mixed with some mud in\nits course, as it is soaked into the underground currents, invisible,\nbut ever-moving.\n\nI can think of nothing better than to conclude my paper with a poem of\nJnandas, in which the aspiration of all simple spirits has found a\ndevout expression:\n\n    I had travelled all day and was tired; then I bowed my head\n          towards thy kingly court still far away.\n    The night deepened, a longing burned in my heart.\n    Whatever the words I sang, pain cried through them--for\n          even my songs thirsted--\n      O my Lover, my Beloved, my Best in all the world.\n\n    When time seemed lost in darkness,\n        thy hand dropped its sceptre to take up the lute and\n          strike the uttermost chords;\n    And my heart sang out,\n      O my Lover, my Beloved, my Best in all the world.\n\n    Ah, who is this whose arms enfold me?\n    Whatever I have to leave, let me leave; and whatever I\n          have to bear, let me bear.\n    Only let me walk with thee,\n      O my Lover, my Beloved, my Best in all the world.\n    Descend at whiles from thy high audience hall, come down\n          amid joys and sorrows.\n    Hide in all forms and delights, in love,\n    And in my heart sing thy songs,--\n      O my Lover, my Beloved, my Best in all the world.\n\n\n\n\n                             EAST AND WEST\n\n                                   I\n\n\nIt is not always a profound interest in man that carries travellers\nnowadays to distant lands. More often it is the facility for rapid\nmovement. For lack of time and for the sake of convenience we\ngeneralise and crush our human facts into the packages within the\nsteel trunks that hold our travellers' reports.\n\nOur knowledge of our own countrymen and our feelings about them have\nslowly and unconsciously grown out of innumerable facts which are full\nof contradictions and subject to incessant change. They have the\nelusive mystery and fluidity of life. We cannot define to ourselves\nwhat we are as a whole, because we know too much; because our\nknowledge is more than knowledge. It is an immediate consciousness of\npersonality, any evaluation of which carries some emotion, joy or\nsorrow, shame or exaltation. But in a foreign land we try to find our\ncompensation for the meagreness of our data by the compactness of the\ngeneralisation which our imperfect sympathy itself helps us to form.\nWhen a stranger from the West travels in the Eastern world he takes\nthe facts that displease him and readily makes use of them for his\nrigid conclusions, fixed upon the unchallengeable authority of his\npersonal experience. It is like a man who has his own boat for\ncrossing his village stream, but, on being compelled to wade across\nsome strange watercourse, draws angry comparisons as he goes from\nevery patch of mud and every pebble which his feet encounter.\n\nOur mind has faculties which are universal, but its habits are\ninsular. There are men who become impatient and angry at the least\ndiscomfort when their habits are incommoded. In their idea of the next\nworld they probably conjure up the ghosts of their slippers and\ndressing-gowns, and expect the latchkey that opens their lodging-house\ndoor on earth to fit their front door in the other world. As\ntravellers they are a failure; for they have grown too accustomed to\ntheir mental easy-chairs, and in their intellectual nature love home\ncomforts, which are of local make, more than the realities of life,\nwhich, like earth itself, are full of ups and downs, yet are one in\ntheir rounded completeness.\n\nThe modern age has brought the geography of the earth near to us, but\nmade it difficult for us to come into touch with man. We go to strange\nlands and observe; we do not live there. We hardly meet men: but only\nspecimens of knowledge. We are in haste to seek for general types and\noverlook individuals.\n\nWhen we fall into the habit of neglecting to use the understanding\nthat comes of sympathy in our travels, our knowledge of foreign people\ngrows insensitive, and therefore easily becomes both unjust and cruel\nin its character, and also selfish and contemptuous in its\napplication. Such has, too often, been the case with regard to the\nmeeting of Western people in our days with others for whom they do not\nrecognise any obligation of kinship.\n\nIt has been admitted that the dealings between different races of men\nare not merely between individuals; that our mutual understanding is\neither aided, or else obstructed, by the general emanations forming\nthe social atmosphere. These emanations are our collective ideas and\ncollective feelings, generated according to special historical\ncircumstances.\n\nFor instance, the caste-idea is a collective idea in India. When we\napproach an Indian who is under the influence of this collective idea,\nhe is no longer a pure individual with his conscience fully awake to\nthe judging of the value of a human being. He is more or less a\npassive medium for giving expression to the sentiment of a whole\ncommunity.\n\nIt is evident that the caste-idea is not creative; it is merely\ninstitutional. It adjusts human beings according to some mechanical\narrangement. It emphasises the negative side of the individual--his\nseparateness. It hurts the complete truth in man.\n\nIn the West, also, the people have a certain collective idea that\nobscures their humanity. Let me try to explain what I feel about it.\n\n\n                                  II\n\nLately I went to visit some battlefields of France which had been\ndevastated by war. The awful calm of desolation, which still bore\nwrinkles of pain--death-struggles stiffened into ugly ridges--brought\nbefore my mind the vision of a huge demon, which had no shape, no\nmeaning, yet had two arms that could strike and break and tear, a\ngaping mouth that could devour, and bulging brains that could conspire\nand plan. It was a purpose, which had a living body, but no complete\nhumanity to temper it. Because it was passion--belonging to life, and\nyet not having the wholeness of life--it was the most terrible of\nlife's enemies.\n\nSomething of the same sense of oppression in a different degree, the\nsame desolation in a different aspect, is produced in my mind when I\nrealise the effect of the West upon Eastern life--the West which, in\nits relation to us, is all plan and purpose incarnate, without any\nsuperfluous humanity.\n\nI feel the contrast very strongly in Japan. In that country the old\nworld presents itself with some ideal of perfection, in which man has\nhis varied opportunities of self-revelation in art, in ceremonial, in\nreligious faith, and in customs expressing the poetry of social\nrelationship. There one feels that deep delight of hospitality which\nlife offers to life. And side by side, in the same soil, stands the\nmodern world, which is stupendously big and powerful, but\ninhospitable. It has no simple-hearted welcome for man. It is living;\nyet the incompleteness of life's ideal within it cannot but hurt\nhumanity.\n\nThe wriggling tentacles of a cold-blooded utilitarianism, with which\nthe West has grasped all the easily yielding succulent portions of the\nEast, are causing pain and indignation throughout the Eastern\ncountries. The West comes to us, not with the imagination and sympathy\nthat create and unite, but with a shock of passion--passion for power\nand wealth. This passion is a mere force, which has in it the\nprinciple of separation, of conflict.\n\nI have been fortunate in coming into close touch with individual men\nand women of the Western countries, and have felt with them their\nsorrows and shared their aspirations. I have known that they seek the\nsame God, who is my God--even those who deny Him. I feel certain that,\nif the great light of culture be extinct in Europe, our horizon in the\nEast will mourn in darkness. It does not hurt my pride to acknowledge\nthat, in the present age, Western humanity has received its mission to\nbe the teacher of the world; that her science, through the mastery of\nlaws of nature, is to liberate human souls from the dark dungeon of\nmatter. For this very reason I have realised all the more strongly,\non the other hand, that the dominant collective idea in the Western\ncountries is not creative. It is ready to enslave or kill individuals,\nto drug a great people with soul-killing poison, darkening their whole\nfuture with the black mist of stupefaction, and emasculating entire\nraces of men to the utmost degree of helplessness. It is wholly\nwanting in spiritual power to blend and harmonise; it lacks the sense\nof the great personality of man.\n\nThe most significant fact of modern days is this, that the West has\nmet the East. Such a momentous meeting of humanity, in order to be\nfruitful, must have in its heart some great emotional idea, generous\nand creative. There can be no doubt that God's choice has fallen upon\nthe knights-errant of the West for the service of the present age;\narms and armour have been given to them; but have they yet realised in\ntheir hearts the single-minded loyalty to their cause which can resist\nall temptations of bribery from the devil? The world to-day is offered\nto the West. She will destroy it, if she does not use it for a great\ncreation of man. The materials for such a creation are in the hands of\nscience; but the creative genius is in Man's spiritual ideal.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nWhen I was young a stranger from Europe came to Bengal. He chose his\nlodging among the people of the country, shared with them their frugal\ndiet, and freely offered them his service. He found employment in the\nhouses of the rich, teaching them French and German, and the money\nthus earned he spent to help poor students in buying books. This meant\nfor him hours of walking in the mid-day heat of a tropical summer;\nfor, intent upon exercising the utmost economy, he refused to hire\nconveyances. He was pitiless in his exaction from himself of his\nresources, in money, time, and strength, to the point of privation;\nand all this for the sake of a people who were obscure, to whom he was\nnot born, yet whom he dearly loved. He did not come to us with a\nprofessional mission of teaching sectarian creeds; he had not in his\nnature the least trace of that self-sufficiency of goodness, which\nhumiliates by gifts the victims of its insolent benevolence. Though he\ndid not know our language, he took every occasion to frequent our\nmeetings and ceremonies; yet he was always afraid of intrusion, and\ntenderly anxious lest he might offend us by his ignorance of our\ncustoms. At last, under the continual strain of work in an alien\nclimate and surroundings, his health broke down. He died, and was\ncremated at our burning-ground, according to his express desire.\n\nThe attitude of his mind, the manner of his living, the object of his\nlife, his modesty, his unstinted self-sacrifice for a people who had\nnot even the power to give publicity to any benefaction bestowed upon\nthem, were so utterly unlike anything we were accustomed to associate\nwith the Europeans in India, that it gave rise in our mind to a\nfeeling of love bordering upon awe.\n\nWe all have a realm, a private paradise, in our mind, where dwell\ndeathless memories of persons who brought some divine light to our\nlife's experience, who may not be known to others, and whose names\nhave no place in the pages of history. Let me confess to you that this\nman lives as one of those immortals in the paradise of my individual\nlife.\n\nHe came from Sweden, his name was Hammargren. What was most remarkable\nin the event of his coming to us in Bengal was the fact that in his\nown country he had chanced to read some works of my great countryman,\nRam Mohan Roy, and felt an immense veneration for his genius and his\ncharacter. Ram Mohan Roy lived in the beginning of the last century,\nand it is no exaggeration when I describe him as one of the immortal\npersonalities of modern time. This young Swede had the unusual gift of\na far-sighted intellect and sympathy, which enabled him even from his\ndistance of space and time, and in spite of racial differences, to\nrealise the greatness of Ram Mohan Roy. It moved him so deeply that he\nresolved to go to the country which produced this great man, and offer\nher his service. He was poor, and he had to wait some time in England\nbefore he could earn his passage money to India. There he came at\nlast, and in reckless generosity of love utterly spent himself to the\nlast breath of his life, away from home and kindred and all the\ninheritances of his motherland. His stay among us was too short to\nproduce any outward result. He failed even to achieve during his life\nwhat he had in his mind, which was to found by the help of his scanty\nearnings a library as a memorial to Ram Mohan Roy, and thus to leave\nbehind him a visible symbol of his devotion. But what I prize most in\nthis European youth, who left no record of his life behind him, is not\nthe memory of any service of goodwill, but the precious gift of\nrespect which he offered to a people who are fallen upon evil times,\nand whom it is so easy to ignore or to humiliate. For the first time\nin the modern days this obscure individual from Sweden brought to our\ncountry the chivalrous courtesy of the West, a greeting of human\nfellowship.\n\nThe coincidence came to me with a great and delightful surprise when\nthe Nobel Prize was offered to me from Sweden. As a recognition of\nindividual merit it was of great value to me, no doubt; but it was the\nacknowledgment of the East as a collaborator with the Western\ncontinents, in contributing its riches to the common stock of\ncivilisation, which had the chief significance for the present age. It\nmeant joining hands in comradeship by the two great hemispheres of the\nhuman world across the sea.\n\n\n                                  IV\n\nTo-day the real East remains unexplored. The blindness of contempt is\nmore hopeless than the blindness of ignorance; for contempt kills the\nlight which ignorance merely leaves unignited. The East is waiting to\nbe understood by the Western races, in order not only to be able to\ngive what is true in her, but also to be confident of her own mission.\n\nIn Indian history, the meeting of the Mussulman and the Hindu produced\nAkbar, the object of whose dream was the unification of hearts and\nideals. It had all the glowing enthusiasm of a religion, and it\nproduced an immediate and a vast result even in his own lifetime.\n\nBut the fact still remains that the Western mind, after centuries of\ncontact with the East, has not evolved the enthusiasm of a chivalrous\nideal which can bring this age to its fulfilment. It is everywhere\nraising thorny hedges of exclusion and offering human sacrifices to\nnational self-seeking. It has intensified the mutual feelings of envy\namong Western races themselves, as they fight over their spoils and\ndisplay a carnivorous pride in their snarling rows of teeth.\n\nWe must again guard our minds from any encroaching distrust of the\nindividuals of a nation. The active love of humanity and the spirit of\nmartyrdom for the cause of justice and truth which I have met with in\nthe Western countries have been a great lesson and inspiration to me.\nI have no doubt in my mind that the West owes its true greatness, not\nso much to its marvellous training of intellect, as to its spirit of\nservice devoted to the welfare of man. Therefore I speak with a\npersonal feeling of pain and sadness about the collective power which\nis guiding the helm of Western civilisation. It is a passion, not an\nideal. The more success it has brought to Europe, the more costly it\nwill prove to her at last, when the accounts have to be rendered. And\nthe signs are unmistakable, that the accounts have been called for.\nThe time has come when Europe must know that the forcible parasitism\nwhich she has been practising upon the two large Continents of the\nworld--the two most unwieldy whales of humanity--must be causing to\nher moral nature a gradual atrophy and degeneration.\n\nAs an example, let me quote the following extract from the concluding\nchapter of _From the Cape to Cairo_, by Messrs. Grogan and Sharp, two\nwriters who have the power to inculcate their doctrines by precept and\nexample. In their reference to the African they are candid, as when\nthey say, \"We have stolen his land. Now we must steal his limbs.\"\nThese two sentences, carefully articulated, with a smack of\nenjoyment, have been more clearly explained in the following\nstatement, where some sense of that decency which is the attenuated\nghost of a buried conscience, prompts the writers to use the phrase\n\"compulsory labour\" in place of the honest word \"slavery\"; just as the\nmodern politician adroitly avoids the word \"injunction\" and uses the\nword \"mandate.\" \"Compulsory labour in some form,\" they say, \"is the\ncorollary of our occupation of the country.\" And they add: \"It is\npathetic, but it is history,\" implying thereby that moral sentiments\nhave no serious effect in the history of human beings.\n\nElsewhere they write: \"Either we must give up the country\ncommercially, or we must make the African work. And mere abuse of\nthose who point out the impasse cannot change the facts. We must\ndecide, and soon. Or rather the white man of South Africa will\ndecide.\" The authors also confess that they have seen too much of the\nworld \"to have any lingering belief that Western civilisation benefits\nnative races.\"\n\nThe logic is simple--the logic of egoism. But the argument is\nsimplified by lopping off the greater part of the premise. For these\nwriters seem to hold that the only important question for the white\nmen of South Africa is, how indefinitely to grow fat on ostrich\nfeathers and diamond mines, and dance jazz dances over the misery and\ndegradation of a whole race of fellow-beings of a different colour\nfrom their own. Possibly they believe that moral laws have a special\ndomesticated breed of comfortable concessions for the service of the\npeople in power. Possibly they ignore the fact that commercial and\npolitical cannibalism, profitably practised upon foreign races, creeps\nback nearer home; that the cultivation of unwholesome appetites has\nits final reckoning with the stomach which has been made to serve it.\nFor, after all, man is a spiritual being, and not a mere living\nmoney-bag jumping from profit to profit, and breaking the backbone of\nhuman races in its financial leapfrog.\n\nSuch, however, has been the condition of things for more than a\ncentury; and to-day, trying to read the future by the light of the\nEuropean conflagration, we are asking ourselves everywhere in the\nEast: \"Is this frightfully overgrown power really great? It can bruise\nus from without, but can it add to our wealth of spirit? It can sign\npeace treaties, but can it give peace?\"\n\nIt was about two thousand years ago that all-powerful Rome in one of\nits eastern provinces executed on a cross a simple teacher of an\nobscure tribe of fishermen. On that day the Roman governor felt no\nfalling off of his appetite or sleep. On that day there was, on the\none hand, the agony, the humiliation, the death; on the other, the\npomp of pride and festivity in the Governor's palace.\n\nAnd to-day? To whom, then, shall we bow the head?\n\n    Kasmai devaya havisha vidhema?\n\n    (To which God shall we offer oblation?)\n\nWe know of an instance in our own history of India, when a great\npersonality, both in his life and voice, struck the keynote of the\nsolemn music of the soul--love for all creatures. And that music\ncrossed seas, mountains, and deserts. Races belonging to different\nclimates, habits, and languages were drawn together, not in the clash\nof arms, not in the conflict of exploitation, but in harmony of life,\nin amity and peace. That was creation.\n\nWhen we think of it, we see at once what the confusion of thought was\nto which the Western poet, dwelling upon the difference between East\nand West, referred when he said, \"Never the twain shall meet.\" It is\ntrue that they are not yet showing any real sign of meeting. But the\nreason is because the West has not sent out its humanity to meet the\nman in the East, but only its machine. Therefore the poet's line has\nto be changed into something like this:\n\n    Man is man, machine is machine,\n    And never the twain shall wed.\n\nYou must know that red tape can never be a common human bond; that\nofficial sealing-wax can never provide means of mutual attachment;\nthat it is a painful ordeal for human beings to have to receive\nfavours from animated pigeonholes, and condescensions from printed\ncirculars that give notice but never speak. The presence of the\nWestern people in the East is a human fact. If we are to gain anything\nfrom them, it must not be a mere sum-total of legal codes and systems\nof civil and military services. Man is a great deal more to man than\nthat. We have our human birthright to claim direct help from the man\nof the West, if he has anything great to give us. It must come to us,\nnot through mere facts in a juxtaposition, but through the\nspontaneous sacrifice made by those who have the gift, and therefore\nthe responsibility.\n\nEarnestly I ask the poet of the Western world to realise and sing to\nyou with all the great power of music which he has, that the East and\nthe West are ever in search of each other, and that they must meet not\nmerely in the fulness of physical strength, but in fulness of truth;\nthat the right hand, which wields the sword, has the need of the left,\nwhich holds the shield of safety.\n\nThe East has its seat in the vast plains watched over by the\nsnow-peaked mountains and fertilised by rivers carrying mighty volumes\nof water to the sea. There, under the blaze of a tropical sun, the\nphysical life has bedimmed the light of its vigour and lessened its\nclaims. There man has had the repose of mind which has ever tried to\nset itself in harmony with the inner notes of existence. In the\nsilence of sunrise and sunset, and on star-crowded nights, he has sat\nface to face with the Infinite, waiting for the revelation that opens\nup the heart of all that there is. He has said, in a rapture of\nrealisation:\n\n\"Hearken to me, ye children of the Immortal, who dwell in the Kingdom\nof Heaven. I have known, from beyond darkness, the Supreme Person,\nshining with the radiance of the sun.\"\n\nThe man from the East, with his faith in the eternal, who in his soul\nhad met the touch of the Supreme Person--did he never come to you in\nthe West and speak to you of the Kingdom of Heaven? Did he not unite\nthe East and the West in truth, in the unity of one spiritual bond\nbetween all children of the Immortal, in the realisation of one great\nPersonality in all human persons?\n\nYes, the East did once meet the West profoundly in the growth of her\nlife. Such union became possible, because the East came to the West\nwith the ideal that is creative, and not with the passion that\ndestroys moral bonds. The mystic consciousness of the Infinite, which\nshe brought with her, was greatly needed by the man of the West to\ngive him his balance.\n\nOn the other hand, the East must find her own balance in Science--the\nmagnificent gift that the West can bring to her. Truth has its nest as\nwell as its sky. That nest is definite in structure, accurate in law\nof construction; and though it has to be changed and rebuilt over and\nover again, the need of it is never-ending and its laws are eternal.\nFor some centuries the East has neglected the nest-building of truth.\nShe has not been attentive to learn its secret. Trying to cross the\ntrackless infinite, the East has relied solely upon her wings. She has\nspurned the earth, till, buffeted by storms, her wings are hurt and\nshe is tired, sorely needing help. But has she then to be told that\nthe messenger of the sky and the builder of the nest shall never\nmeet?\n\n\n\n\n                            THE MODERN AGE\n\n                                   I\n\n\nWherever man meets man in a living relationship, the meeting finds its\nnatural expression in works of art, the signatures of beauty, in which\nthe mingling of the personal touch leaves its memorial.\n\nOn the other hand, a relationship of pure utility humiliates man--it\nignores the rights and needs of his deeper nature; it feels no\ncompunction in maltreating and killing things of beauty that can never\nbe restored.\n\nSome years ago, when I set out from Calcutta on my voyage to Japan,\nthe first thing that shocked me, with a sense of personal injury, was\nthe ruthless intrusion of the factories for making gunny-bags on both\nbanks of the Ganges. The blow it gave to me was owing to the precious\nmemory of the days of my boyhood, when the scenery of this river was\nthe only great thing near my birthplace reminding me of the existence\nof a world which had its direct communication with our innermost\nspirit.\n\nCalcutta is an upstart town with no depth of sentiment in her face and\nin her manners. It may truly be said about her genesis:--In the\nbeginning there was the spirit of the Shop, which uttered through its\nmegaphone, \"Let there be the Office!\" and there was Calcutta. She\nbrought with her no dower of distinction, no majesty of noble or\nromantic origin; she never gathered around her any great historical\nassociations, any annals of brave sufferings, or memory of mighty\ndeeds. The only thing which gave her the sacred baptism of beauty was\nthe river. I was fortunate enough to be born before the smoke-belching\niron dragon had devoured the greater part of the life of its banks;\nwhen the landing-stairs descending into its waters, caressed by its\ntides, appeared to me like the loving arms of the villages clinging to\nit; when Calcutta, with her up-tilted nose and stony stare, had not\ncompletely disowned her foster-mother, rural Bengal, and had not\nsurrendered body and soul to her wealthy paramour, the spirit of the\nledger, bound in dead leather.\n\nBut as an instance of the contrast of the different ideal of a\ndifferent age, incarnated in the form of a town, the memory of my last\nvisit to Benares comes to my mind. What impressed me most deeply,\nwhile I was there, was the mother-call of the river Ganges, ever\nfilling the atmosphere with an \"unheard melody,\" attracting the whole\npopulation to its bosom every hour of the day. I am proud of the fact\nthat India has felt a most profound love for this river, which\nnourishes civilisation on its banks, guiding its course from the\nsilence of the hills to the sea with its myriad voices of solitude.\nThe love of this river, which has become one with the love of the best\nin man, has given rise to this town as an expression of reverence.\nThis is to show that there are sentiments in us which are creative,\nwhich do not clamour for gain, but overflow in gifts, in spontaneous\ngenerosity of self-sacrifice.\n\nBut our minds will nevermore cease to be haunted by the perturbed\nspirit of the question, \"What about gunny-bags?\" I admit they are\nindispensable, and am willing to allow them a place in society, if my\nopponent will only admit that even gunny-bags should have their\nlimits, and will acknowledge the importance of leisure to man, with\nspace for joy and worship, and a home of wholesale privacy, with\nassociations of chaste love and mutual service. If this concession to\nhumanity be denied or curtailed, and if profit and production are\nallowed to run amuck, they will play havoc with our love of beauty, of\ntruth, of justice, and also with our love for our fellow-beings. So it\ncomes about that the peasant cultivators of jute, who live on the\nbrink of everlasting famine, are combined against, and driven to lower\nthe price of their labours to the point of blank despair, by those who\nearn more than cent per cent profit and wallow in the infamy of their\nwealth. The facts that man is brave and kind, that he is social and\ngenerous and self-sacrificing, have some aspect of the complete in\nthem; but the fact that he is a manufacturer of gunny-bags is too\nridiculously small to claim the right of reducing his higher nature to\ninsignificance. The fragmentariness of utility should never forget its\nsubordinate position in human affairs. It must not be permitted to\noccupy more than its legitimate place and power in society, nor to\nhave the liberty to desecrate the poetry of life, to deaden our\nsensitiveness to ideals, bragging of its own coarseness as a sign of\nvirility. The pity is that when in the centre of our activities we\nacknowledge, by some proud name, the supremacy of wanton\ndestructiveness, or production not less wanton, we shut out all the\nlights of our souls, and in that darkness our conscience and our\nconsciousness of shame are hidden, and our love of freedom is killed.\n\nI do not for a moment mean to imply that in any particular period of\nhistory men were free from the disturbance of their lower passions.\nSelfishness ever had its share in government and trade. Yet there was\na struggle to maintain a balance of forces in society; and our\npassions cherished no delusions about their own rank and value. They\ncontrived no clever devices to hoodwink our moral nature. For in those\ndays our intellect was not tempted to put its weight into the balance\non the side of over-greed.\n\nBut in recent centuries a devastating change has come over our\nmentality with regard to the acquisition of money. Whereas in former\nages men treated it with condescension, even with disrespect, now they\nbend their knees to it. That it should be allowed a sufficiently large\nplace in society, there can be no question; but it becomes an outrage\nwhen it occupies those seats which are specially reserved for the\nimmortals, by bribing us, tampering with our moral pride, recruiting\nthe best strength of society in a traitor's campaign against human\nideals, thus disguising, with the help of pomp and pageantry, its true\ninsignificance. Such a state of things has come to pass because, with\nthe help of science, the possibilities of profit have suddenly become\nimmoderate. The whole of the human world, throughout its length and\nbreadth, has felt the gravitational pull of a giant planet of greed,\nwith concentric rings of innumerable satellites, causing in our\nsociety a marked deviation from the moral orbit. In former times the\nintellectual and spiritual powers of this earth upheld their dignity\nof independence and were not giddily rocked on the tides of the money\nmarket. But, as in the last fatal stages of disease, this fatal\ninfluence of money has got into our brain and affected our heart. Like\na usurper, it has occupied the throne of high social ideals, using\nevery means, by menace and threat, to seize upon the right, and,\ntempted by opportunity, presuming to judge it. It has not only science\nfor its ally, but other forces also that have some semblance of\nreligion, such as nation-worship and the idealising of organised\nselfishness. Its methods are far-reaching and sure. Like the claws of\na tiger's paw, they are softly sheathed. Its massacres are invisible,\nbecause they are fundamental, attacking the very roots of life. Its\nplunder is ruthless behind a scientific system of screens, which have\nthe formal appearance of being open and responsible to inquiries. By\nwhitewashing its stains it keeps its respectability unblemished. It\nmakes a liberal use of falsehood in diplomacy, only feeling\nembarrassed when its evidence is disclosed by others of the trade. An\nunscrupulous system of propaganda paves the way for widespread\nmisrepresentation. It works up the crowd psychology through regulated\nhypnotic doses at repeated intervals, administered in bottles with\nmoral labels upon them of soothing colours. In fact, man has been able\nto make his pursuit of power easier to-day by his art of mitigating\nthe obstructive forces that come from the higher region of his\nhumanity. With his cult of power and his idolatry of money he has, in\na great measure, reverted to his primitive barbarism, a barbarism\nwhose path is lit up by the lurid light of intellect. For barbarism is\nthe simplicity of a superficial life. It may be bewildering in its\nsurface adornments and complexities, but it lacks the ideal to impart\nto it the depth of moral responsibility.\n\n\n                                  II\n\nSociety suffers from a profound feeling of unhappiness, not so much\nwhen it is in material poverty as when its members are deprived of a\nlarge part of their humanity. This unhappiness goes on smouldering in\nthe subconscious mind of the community till its life is reduced to\nashes or a sudden combustion is produced. The repressed personality of\nman generates an inflammable moral gas deadly in its explosive force.\n\nWe have seen in the late war, and also in some of the still more\nrecent events of history, how human individuals freed from moral and\nspiritual bonds find a boisterous joy in a debauchery of destruction.\nThere is generated a disinterested passion of ravage. Through such\ncatastrophe we can realise what formidable forces of annihilation are\nkept in check in our communities by bonds of social ideas; nay, made\ninto multitudinous manifestations of beauty and fruitfulness. Thus we\nknow that evils are, like meteors, stray fragments of life, which need\nthe attraction of some great ideal in order to be assimilated with the\nwholesomeness of creation. The evil forces are literally outlaws;\nthey only need the control and cadence of spiritual laws to change\nthem into good. The true goodness is not the negation of badness, it\nis in the mastery of it. Goodness is the miracle which turns the\ntumult of chaos into a dance of beauty.\n\nIn modern society the ideal of wholeness has lost its force. Therefore\nits different sections have become detached and resolved into their\nelemental character of forces. Labour is a force; so also is Capital;\nso are the Government and the People; so are Man and Woman. It is said\nthat when the forces lying latent in even a handful of dust are\nliberated from their bond of unity, they can lift the buildings of a\nwhole neighbourhood to the height of a mountain. Such disfranchised\nforces, irresponsible free-booters, may be useful to us for certain\npurposes, but human habitations standing secure on their foundations\nare better for us. To own the secret of utilising these forces is a\nproud fact for us, but the power of self-control and the\nself-dedication of love are truer subjects for the exultation of\nmankind. The genii of the Arabian Nights may have in their magic their\nlure and fascination for us. But the consciousness of God is of\nanother order, infinitely more precious in imparting to our minds\nideas of the spiritual power of creation. Yet these genii are abroad\neverywhere; and even now, after the late war, their devotees are\ngetting ready to play further tricks upon humanity by suddenly\nspiriting it away to some hill-top of desolation.\n\n\n                                  III\n\nWe know that when, at first, any large body of people in their history\nbecame aware of their unity, they expressed it in some popular symbol\nof divinity. For they felt that their combination was not an\narithmetical one; its truth was deeper than the truth of number. They\nfelt that their community was not a mere agglutination but a creation,\nhaving upon it the living touch of the infinite Person. The\nrealisation of this truth having been an end in itself, a fulfilment,\nit gave meaning to self-sacrifice, to the acceptance even of death.\n\nBut our modern education is producing a habit of mind which is ever\nweakening in us the spiritual apprehension of truth--the truth of a\nperson as the ultimate reality of existence. Science has its proper\nsphere in analysing this world as a construction, just as grammar has\nits legitimate office in analysing the syntax of a poem. But the\nworld, as a creation, is not a mere construction; it too is more than\na syntax. It is a poem, which we are apt to forget when grammar takes\nexclusive hold of our minds.\n\nUpon the loss of this sense of a universal personality, which is\nreligion, the reign of the machine and of method has been firmly\nestablished, and man, humanly speaking, has been made a homeless\ntramp. As nomads, ravenous and restless, the men from the West have\ncome to us. They have exploited our Eastern humanity for sheer gain of\npower. This modern meeting of men has not yet received the blessing of\nGod. For it has kept us apart, though railway lines are laid far and\nwide, and ships are plying from shore to shore to bring us together.\n\nIt has been said in the Upanishads:\n\n    Yastu sarvani bhutani atmanyevanupashyati\n    Sarva bhuteshu chatmanam na tato vijugupsate.\n\n     (He who sees all things in _atma_, in the infinite spirit,\n     and the infinite spirit in all beings, remains no longer\n     unrevealed.)\n\nIn the modern civilisation, for which an enormous number of men are\nused as materials, and human relationships have in a large measure\nbecome utilitarian, man is imperfectly revealed. For man's revelation\ndoes not lie in the fact that he is a power, but that he is a spirit.\nThe prevalence of the theory which realises the power of the machine\nin the universe, and organises men into machines, is like the eruption\nof Etna, tremendous in its force, in its outburst of fire and fume;\nbut its creeping lava covers up human shelters made by the ages, and\nits ashes smother life.\n\n\n                                  IV\n\nThe terribly efficient method of repressing personality in the\nindividuals and the races who have failed to resist it has, in the\npresent scientific age, spread all over the world; and in consequence\nthere have appeared signs of a universal disruption which seems not\nfar off. Faced with the possibility of such a disaster, which is sure\nto affect the successful peoples of the world in their intemperate\nprosperity, the great Powers of the West are seeking peace, not by\ncurbing their greed, or by giving up the exclusive advantages which\nthey have unjustly acquired, but by concentrating their forces for\nmutual security.\n\nBut can powers find their equilibrium in themselves? Power has to be\nmade secure not only against power, but also against weakness; for\nthere lies the peril of its losing balance. The weak are as great a\ndanger for the strong as quicksands for an elephant. They do not\nassist progress because they do not resist; they only drag down. The\npeople who grow accustomed to wield absolute power over others are apt\nto forget that by so doing they generate an unseen force which some\nday rends that power into pieces. The dumb fury of the downtrodden\nfinds its awful support from the universal law of moral balance. The\nair which is so thin and unsubstantial gives birth to storms that\nnothing can resist. This has been proved in history over and over\nagain, and stormy forces arising from the revolt of insulted humanity\nare openly gathering in the air at the present time.\n\nYet in the psychology of the strong the lesson is despised and no\ncount taken of the terribleness of the weak. This is the latent\nignorance that, like an unsuspected worm, burrows under the bulk of\nthe prosperous. Have we never read of the castle of power, securely\nbuttressed on all sides, in a moment dissolving in air at the\nexplosion caused by the weak and outraged besiegers? Politicians\ncalculate upon the number of mailed hands that are kept on the\nsword-hilts: they do not possess the third eye to see the great\ninvisible hand that clasps in silence the hand of the helpless and\nwaits its time. The strong form their league by a combination of\npowers, driving the weak to form their own league alone with their\nGod. I know I am crying in the wilderness when I raise the voice of\nwarning; and while the West is busy with its organisation of a\nmachine-made peace, it will still continue to nourish by its\niniquities the underground forces of earthquake in the Eastern\nContinent. The West seems unconscious that Science, by providing it\nwith more and more power, is tempting it to suicide and encouraging it\nto accept the challenge of the disarmed; it does not know that the\nchallenge comes from a higher source.\n\nTwo prophecies about the world's salvation are cherished in the hearts\nof the two great religions of the world. They represent the highest\nexpectation of man, thereby indicating his faith in a truth which he\ninstinctively considers as ultimate--the truth of love. These\nprophecies have not for their vision the fettering of the world and\nreducing it to tameness by means of a close-linked power forged in the\nfactory of a political steel trust. One of the religions has for its\nmeditation the image of the Buddha who is to come, Maitreya, the\nBuddha of love; and he is to bring peace. The other religion waits for\nthe coming of Christ. For Christ preached peace when he preached love,\nwhen he preached the oneness of the Father with the brothers who are\nmany. And this was the truth of peace. Christ never held that peace\nwas the best policy. For policy is not truth. The calculation of\nself-interest can never successfully fight the irrational force of\npassion--the passion which is perversion of love, and which can only\nbe set right by the truth of love. So long as the powers build a\nleague on the foundation of their desire for safety, secure enjoyment\nof gains, consolidation of past injustice, and putting off the\nreparation of wrongs, while their fingers still wriggle for greed and\nreek of blood, rifts will appear in their union; and in future their\nconflicts will take greater force and magnitude. It is political and\ncommercial egoism which is the evil harbinger of war. By different\ncombinations it changes its shape and dimensions, but not its nature.\nThis egoism is still held sacred, and made a religion; and such a\nreligion, by a mere change of temple, and by new committees of\npriests, will never save mankind. We must know that, as, through\nscience and commerce, the realisation of the unity of the material\nworld gives us power, so the realisation of the great spiritual Unity\nof Man alone can give us peace.\n\n\n\n\n                         THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM\n\n        (A LETTER FROM NEW YORK TO THE AUTHOR'S OWN COUNTRYMEN)\n\n\nWhen freedom is not an inner idea which imparts strength to our\nactivities and breadth to our creations, when it is merely a thing of\nexternal circumstance, it is like an open space to one who is\nblindfolded.\n\nIn my recent travels in the West I have felt that out there freedom as\nan idea has become feeble and ineffectual. Consequently a spirit of\nrepression and coercion is fast spreading in the politics and social\nrelationships of the people.\n\nIn the age of monarchy the king lived surrounded by a miasma of\nintrigue. At court there was an endless whispering of lies and\ncalumny, and much plotting and planning among the conspiring courtiers\nto manipulate the king as the instrument of their own purposes.\n\nIn the present age intrigue plays a wider part, and affects the whole\ncountry. The people are drugged with the hashish of false hopes and\nurged to deeds of frightfulness by the goadings of manufactured\npanics; their higher feelings are exploited by devious channels of\nunctuous hypocrisy, their pockets picked under anaesthetics of\nflattery, their very psychology affected by a conspiracy of money and\nunscrupulous diplomacy.\n\nIn the old order the king was given to understand that he was the\nfreest individual in the world. A greater semblance of external\nfreedom, no doubt, he had than other individuals. But they built for\nhim a gorgeous prison of unreality.\n\nThe same thing is happening now with the people of the West. They are\nflattered into believing that they are free, and they have the\nsovereign power in their hands. But this power is robbed by hosts of\nself-seekers, and the horse is captured and stabled because of his\ngift of freedom over space. The mob-mind is allowed the enjoyment of\nan apparent liberty, while its true freedom is curtailed on every\nside. Its thoughts are fashioned according to the plans of organised\ninterest; in its choosing of ideas and forming of opinions it is\nhindered either by some punitive force or by the constant insinuation\nof untruths; it is made to dwell in an artificial world of hypnotic\nphrases. In fact, the people have become the storehouse of a power\nthat attracts round it a swarm of adventurers who are secretly\ninvesting its walls to exploit it for their own devices.\n\nThus it has become more and more evident to me that the ideal of\nfreedom has grown tenuous in the atmosphere of the West. The mentality\nis that of a slave-owning community, with a mutilated multitude of men\ntied to its commercial and political treadmill. It is the mentality of\nmutual distrust and fear. The appalling scenes of inhumanity and\ninjustice, which are growing familiar to us, are the outcome of a\npsychology that deals with terror. No cruelty can be uglier in its\nferocity than the cruelty of the coward. The people who have\nsacrificed their souls to the passion of profit-making and the\ndrunkenness of power are constantly pursued by phantoms of panic and\nsuspicion, and therefore they are ruthless even where they are least\nafraid of mischances. They become morally incapable of allowing\nfreedom to others, and in their eagerness to curry favour with the\npowerful they not only connive at the injustice done by their own\npartners in political gambling, but participate in it. A perpetual\nanxiety for the protection of their gains at any cost strikes at the\nlove of freedom and justice, until at length they are ready to forgo\nliberty for themselves and for others.\n\nMy experience in the West, where I have realised the immense power of\nmoney and of organised propaganda,--working everywhere behind screens\nof camouflage, creating an atmosphere of distrust, timidity, and\nantipathy,--has impressed me deeply with the truth that real freedom\nis of the mind and spirit; it can never come to us from outside. He\nonly has freedom who ideally loves freedom himself and is glad to\nextend it to others. He who cares to have slaves must chain himself to\nthem; he who builds walls to create exclusion for others builds walls\nacross his own freedom; he who distrusts freedom in others loses his\nmoral right to it. Sooner or later he is lured into the meshes of\nphysical and moral servility.\n\nTherefore I would urge my own countrymen to ask themselves if the\nfreedom to which they aspire is one of external conditions. Is it\nmerely a transferable commodity? Have they acquired a true love of\nfreedom? Have they faith in it? Are they ready to make space in their\nsociety for the minds of their children to grow up in the ideal of\nhuman dignity, unhindered by restrictions that are unjust and\nirrational?\n\nHave we not made elaborately permanent the walls of our social\ncompartments? We are tenaciously proud of their exclusiveness. We\nboast that, in this world, no other society but our own has come to\nfinality in the classifying of its living members. Yet in our\npolitical agitations we conveniently forget that any unnaturalness in\nthe relationship of governors and governed which humiliates us,\nbecomes an outrage when it is artificially fixed under the threat of\nmilitary persecution.\n\nWhen India gave voice to immortal thoughts, in the time of fullest\nvigour of vitality, her children had the fearless spirit of the\nseekers of truth. The great epic of the soul of our people--the\n_Mahabharata_--gives us a wonderful vision of an overflowing life,\nfull of the freedom of inquiry and experiment. When the age of the\nBuddha came, humanity was stirred in our country to its uttermost\ndepth. The freedom of mind which it produced expressed itself in a\nwealth of creation, spreading everywhere in its richness over the\ncontinent of Asia. But with the ebb of life in India the spirit of\ncreation died away. It hardened into an age of inert construction. The\norganic unity of a varied and elastic society gave way to a\nconventional order which proved its artificial character by its\ninexorable law of exclusion.\n\nLife has its inequalities, I admit, but they are natural and are in\nharmony with our vital functions. The head keeps its place apart from\nthe feet, not through some external arrangement or any conspiracy of\ncoercion. If the body is compelled to turn somersaults for an\nindefinite period, the head never exchanges its relative function for\nthat of the feet. But have our social divisions the same\ninevitableness of organic law? If we have the hardihood to say \"yes\"\nto that question, then how can we blame an alien people for subjecting\nus to a political order which they are tempted to believe eternal?\n\nBy squeezing human beings in the grip of an inelastic system and\nforcibly holding them fixed, we have ignored the laws of life and\ngrowth. We have forced living souls into a permanent passivity, making\nthem incapable of moulding circumstance to their own intrinsic design,\nand of mastering their own destiny. Borrowing our ideal of life from a\ndark period of our degeneracy, we have covered up our sensitiveness\nof soul under the immovable weight of a remote past. We have set up an\nelaborate ceremonial of cage-worship, and plucked all the feathers\nfrom the wings of the living spirit of our people. And for us,--with\nour centuries of degradation and insult, with the amorphousness of our\nnational unity, with our helplessness before the attack of disasters\nfrom without and our unreasoning self-obstructions from within,--the\npunishment has been terrible. Our stupefaction has become so absolute\nthat we do not even realise that this persistent misfortune, dogging\nour steps for ages, cannot be a mere accident of history, removable\nonly by another accident from outside.\n\nUnless we have true faith in freedom, knowing it to be creative,\nmanfully taking all its risks, not only do we lose the right to claim\nfreedom in politics, but we also lack the power to maintain it with\nall our strength. For that would be like assigning the service of God\nto a confirmed atheist. And men, who contemptuously treat their own\nbrothers and sisters as eternal babies, never to be trusted in the\nmost trivial details of their personal life,--coercing them at every\nstep by the cruel threat of persecution into following a blind lane\nleading to nowhere, driving a number of them into hypocrisy and into\nmoral inertia,--will fail over and over again to rise to the height of\ntheir true and severe responsibility. They will be incapable of\nholding a just freedom in politics, and of fighting in freedom's\ncause.\n\nThe civilisation of the West has in it the spirit of the machine which\nmust move; and to that blind movement human lives are offered as fuel,\nkeeping up the steam-power. It represents the active aspect of inertia\nwhich has the appearance of freedom, but not its truth, and therefore\ngives rise to slavery both within its boundaries and outside. The\npresent civilisation of India has the constraining power of the mould.\nIt squeezes living man in the grip of rigid regulations, and its\nrepression of individual freedom makes it only too easy for men to be\nforced into submission of all kinds and degrees. In both of these\ntraditions life is offered up to something which is not life; it is a\nsacrifice, which has no God for its worship, and is therefore utterly\nin vain. The West is continually producing mechanical power in excess\nof its spiritual control, and India has produced a system of\nmechanical control in excess of its vitality.\n\n\n\n\n                              THE NATION\n\n\nThe peoples are living beings. They have their distinct personalities.\nBut nations are organisations of power, and therefore their inner\naspects and outward expressions are everywhere monotonously the same.\nTheir differences are merely differences in degree of efficiency.\n\nIn the modern world the fight is going on between the living spirit of\nthe people and the methods of nation-organising. It is like the\nstruggle that began in Central Asia between cultivated areas of man's\nhabitation and the continually encroaching desert sands, till the\nhuman region of life and beauty was choked out of existence. When the\nspread of higher ideals of humanity is not held to be important, the\nhardening method of national efficiency gains a certain strength; and\nfor some limited period of time, at least, it proudly asserts itself\nas the fittest to survive. But it is the survival of that part of man\nwhich is the least living. And this is the reason why dead monotony is\nthe sign of the spread of the Nation. The modern towns, which present\nthe physiognomy due to this dominance of the Nation, are everywhere\nthe same, from San Francisco to London, from London to Tokyo. They\nshow no faces, but merely masks.\n\nThe peoples, being living personalities, must have their\nself-expression, and this leads to their distinctive creations. These\ncreations are literature, art, social symbols and ceremonials. They\nare like different dishes at one common feast. They add richness to\nour enjoyment and understanding of truth. They are making the world of\nman fertile of life and variedly beautiful.\n\nBut the nations do not create, they merely produce and destroy.\nOrganisations for production are necessary. Even organisations for\ndestruction may be so. But when, actuated by greed and hatred, they\ncrowd away into a corner the living man who creates, then the harmony\nis lost, and the people's history runs at a break-neck speed towards\nsome fatal catastrophe.\n\nHumanity, where it is living, is guided by inner ideals; but where it\nis a dead organisation it becomes impervious to them. Its building\nprocess is only an external process, and in its response to the moral\nguidance it has to pass through obstacles that are gross and\nnon-plastic.\n\nMan as a person has his individuality, which is the field where his\nspirit has its freedom to express itself and to grow. The professional\nman carries a rigid crust around him which has very little variation\nand hardly any elasticity. This professionalism is the region where\nmen specialise their knowledge and organise their power, mercilessly\nelbowing each other in their struggle to come to the front.\nProfessionalism is necessary, without doubt; but it must not be\nallowed to exceed its healthy limits, to assume complete mastery over\nthe personal man, making him narrow and hard, exclusively intent upon\npursuit of success at the cost of his faith in ideals.\n\nIn ancient India professions were kept within limits by social\nregulation. They were considered primarily as social necessities, and\nin the second place as the means of livelihood for individuals. Thus\nman, being free from the constant urging of unbounded competition,\ncould have leisure to cultivate his nature in its completeness.\n\nThe Cult of the Nation is the professionalism of the people. This cult\nis becoming their greatest danger, because it is bringing them\nenormous success, making them impatient of the claims of higher\nideals. The greater the amount of success, the stronger are the\nconflicts of interest and jealousy and hatred which are aroused in\nmen's minds, thereby making it more and more necessary for other\npeoples, who are still living, to stiffen into nations. With the\ngrowth of nationalism, man has become the greatest menace to man.\nTherefore the continual presence of panic goads that very nationalism\ninto ever-increasing menace.\n\nCrowd psychology is a blind force. Like steam and other physical\nforces, it can be utilised for creating a tremendous amount of power.\nAnd therefore rulers of men, who, out of greed and fear, are bent upon\nturning their peoples into machines of power, try to train this crowd\npsychology for their special purposes. They hold it to be their duty\nto foster in the popular mind universal panic, unreasoning pride in\ntheir own race, and hatred of others. Newspapers, school-books, and\neven religious services are made use of for this object; and those\nwho have the courage to express their disapprobation of this blind and\nimpious cult are either punished in the law-courts, or are socially\nostracised. The individual thinks, even when he feels; but the same\nindividual, when he feels with the crowd, does not reason at all. His\nmoral sense becomes blurred. This suppression of higher humanity in\ncrowd minds is productive of enormous strength. For the crowd mind is\nessentially primitive; its forces are elemental. Therefore the Nation\nis for ever watching to take advantage of this enormous power of\ndarkness.\n\nThe people's instinct of self-preservation has been made dominant at\nparticular times of crisis. Then, for the time being, the\nconsciousness of its solidarity becomes aggressively wide-awake. But\nin the Nation this hyper-consciousness is kept alive for all time by\nartificial means. A man has to act the part of a policeman when he\nfinds his house invaded by burglars. But if that remains his normal\ncondition, then his consciousness of his household becomes acute and\nover-wrought, making him fly at every stranger passing near his house.\nThis intensity of self-consciousness is nothing of which a man should\nfeel proud; certainly it is not healthful. In like manner, incessant\nself-consciousness in a nation is highly injurious for the people. It\nserves its immediate purpose, but at the cost of the eternal in man.\n\nWhen a whole body of men train themselves for a particular narrow\npurpose, it becomes a common interest with them to keep up that\npurpose and preach absolute loyalty to it. Nationalism is the training\nof a whole people for a narrow ideal; and when it gets hold of their\nminds it is sure to lead them to moral degeneracy and intellectual\nblindness. We cannot but hold firm the faith that this Age of\nNationalism, of gigantic vanity and selfishness, is only a passing\nphase in civilisation, and those who are making permanent arrangements\nfor accommodating this temporary mood of history will be unable to fit\nthemselves for the coming age, when the true spirit of freedom will\nhave sway.\n\nWith the unchecked growth of Nationalism the moral foundation of man's\ncivilisation is unconsciously undergoing a change. The ideal of the\nsocial man is unselfishness, but the ideal of the Nation, like that of\nthe professional man, is selfishness. This is why selfishness in the\nindividual is condemned, while in the nation it is extolled, which\nleads to hopeless moral blindness, confusing the religion of the\npeople with the religion of the nation. Therefore, to take an example,\nwe find men more and more convinced of the superior claims of\nChristianity, merely because Christian nations are in possession of\nthe greater part of the world. It is like supporting a robber's\nreligion by quoting the amount of his stolen property. Nations\ncelebrate their successful massacre of men in their churches. They\nforget that Thugs also ascribed their success in manslaughter to the\nfavour of their goddess. But in the case of the latter their goddess\nfrankly represented the principle of destruction. It was the criminal\ntribe's own murderous instinct deified--the instinct, not of one\nindividual, but of the whole community, and therefore held sacred. In\nthe same manner, in modern churches, selfishness, hatred and vanity in\ntheir collective aspect of national instincts do not scruple to share\nthe homage paid to God.\n\nOf course, pursuit of self-interest need not be wholly selfish; it can\neven be in harmony with the interest of all. Therefore, ideally\nspeaking, the nationalism, which stands for the expression of the\ncollective self-interest of a people, need not be ashamed of itself\nif it maintains its true limitations. But what we see in practice is,\nthat every nation which has prospered has done so through its career\nof aggressive selfishness either in commercial adventures or in\nforeign possessions, or in both. And this material prosperity not only\nfeeds continually the selfish instincts of the people, but impresses\nmen's minds with the lesson that, for a nation, selfishness is a\nnecessity and therefore a virtue. It is the emphasis laid in Europe\nupon the idea of the Nation's constant increase of power, which is\nbecoming the greatest danger to man, both in its direct activity and\nits power of infection.\n\nWe must admit that evils there are in human nature, in spite of our\nfaith in moral laws and our training in self-control. But they carry\non their foreheads their own brand of infamy, their very success\nadding to their monstrosity. All through man's history there will be\nsome who suffer, and others who cause suffering. The conquest of evil\nwill never be a fully accomplished fact, but a continuous process like\nthe process of burning in a flame.\n\nIn former ages, when some particular people became turbulent and tried\nto rob others of their human rights, they sometimes achieved success\nand sometimes failed. And it amounted to nothing more than that. But\nwhen this idea of the Nation, which has met with universal acceptance\nin the present day, tries to pass off the cult of collective\nselfishness as a moral duty, simply because that selfishness is\ngigantic in stature, it not only commits depredation, but attacks the\nvery vitals of humanity. It unconsciously generates in people's minds\nan attitude of defiance against moral law. For men are taught by\nrepeated devices the lesson that the Nation is greater than the\npeople, while yet it scatters to the winds the moral law that the\npeople have held sacred.\n\nIt has been said that a disease becomes most acutely critical when the\nbrain is affected. For it is the brain that is constantly directing\nthe siege against all disease forces. The spirit of national\nselfishness is that brain disease of a people which shows itself in\nred eyes and clenched fists, in violence of talk and movements, all\nthe while shattering its natural restorative powers. But the power of\nself-sacrifice, together with the moral faculty of sympathy and\nco-operation, is the guiding spirit of social vitality. Its function\nis to maintain a beneficent relation of harmony with its\nsurroundings. But when it begins to ignore the moral law which is\nuniversal and uses it only within the bounds of its own narrow sphere,\nthen its strength becomes like the strength of madness which ends in\nself-destruction.\n\nWhat is worse, this aberration of a people, decked with the showy\ntitle of \"patriotism,\" proudly walks abroad, passing itself off as a\nhighly moral influence. Thus it has spread its inflammatory contagion\nall over the world, proclaiming its fever flush to be the best sign of\nhealth. It is causing in the hearts of peoples, naturally inoffensive,\na feeling of envy at not having their temperature as high as that of\ntheir delirious neighbours and not being able to cause as much\nmischief, but merely having to suffer from it.\n\nI have often been asked by my Western friends how to cope with this\nevil, which has attained such sinister strength and vast dimensions.\nIn fact, I have often been blamed for merely giving warning, and\noffering no alternative. When we suffer as a result of a particular\nsystem, we believe that some other system would bring us better luck.\nWe are apt to forget that all systems produce evil sooner or later,\nwhen the psychology which is at the root of them is wrong. The system\nwhich is national to-day may assume the shape of the international\nto-morrow; but so long as men have not forsaken their idolatry of\nprimitive instincts and collective passions, the new system will only\nbecome a new instrument of suffering. And because we are trained to\nconfound efficient system with moral goodness itself, every ruined\nsystem makes us more and more distrustful of moral law.\n\nTherefore I do not put my faith in any new institution, but in the\nindividuals all over the world who think clearly, feel nobly, and act\nrightly, thus becoming the channels of moral truth. Our moral ideals\ndo not work with chisels and hammers. Like trees, they spread their\nroots in the soil and their branches in the sky, without consulting\nany architect for their plans.\n\n\n\n\n                            WOMAN AND HOME\n\n\nCreative expressions attain their perfect form through emotions\nmodulated. Woman has that expression natural to her--a cadence of\nrestraint in her behaviour, producing poetry of life. She has been an\ninspiration to man, guiding, most often unconsciously, his restless\nenergy into an immense variety of creations in literature, art, music\nand religion. This is why, in India, woman has been described as the\nsymbol of Shakti, the creative power.\n\nBut if woman begins to believe that, though biologically her function\nis different from that of man, psychologically she is identical with\nhim; if the human world in its mentality becomes exclusively male,\nthen before long it will be reduced to utter inanity. For life finds\nits truth and beauty, not in any exaggeration of sameness, but in\nharmony.\n\nIf woman's nature were identical with man's, if Eve were a mere\ntautology of Adam, it would only give rise to a monotonous\nsuperfluity. But that she was not so was proved by the banishment she\nsecured from a ready-made Paradise. She had the instinctive wisdom to\nrealise that it was her mission to help her mate in creating a\nParadise of their own on earth, whose ideal she was to supply with her\nlife, whose materials were to be produced and gathered by her comrade.\n\nHowever, it is evident that an increasing number of women in the West\nare ready to assert that their difference from men is unimportant. The\nreason for the vehement utterance of such a paradox cannot be ignored.\nIt is a rebellion against a necessity, which is not equal for both the\npartners.\n\nLove in all forms has its obligations, and the love that binds women\nto their children binds them to their homes. But necessity is a\ntyrant, making us submit to injury and indignity, allowing advantage\nover us to those who are wholly or comparatively free from its burden.\nSuch has been the case in the social relationship between man and\nwoman. Along with the difference inherent in their respective natures,\nthere have grown up between them inequalities fostered by\ncircumstances. Man is not handicapped by the same biological and\npsychological responsibilities as woman, and therefore he has the\nliberty to give her the security of home. This liberty exacts payment\nwhen it offers its boon, because to give or to withhold the gift is\nwithin its power. It is the unequal freedom in their mutual\nrelationships which has made the weight of life's tragedies so\npainfully heavy for woman to bear.\n\nSome mitigation of her disadvantage has been effected by her rendering\nherself and her home a luxury to man. She has accentuated those\nqualities in herself which insidiously impose their bondage over her\nmate, some by pandering to his weakness, and some by satisfying his\nhigher nature, till the sex-consciousness in our society has grown\nabnormal and overpowering. There is no actual objection to this in\nitself, for it offers a stimulus, acting in the depth of life, which\nleads to creative exuberance. But a great deal of it is a forced\ngrowth of compulsion bearing seeds of degradation. In those ages when\nmen acknowledged spiritual perfection to be their object, women were\ndenounced as the chief obstacle in their way. The constant and\nconscious exercise of allurements, which gave women their power,\nattacked the weak spots in man's nature, and by doing so added to its\nweakness. For all relationships tainted with repression of freedom\nmust become sources of degeneracy to the strong who impose such\nrepression.\n\nBalance of power, however, between man and woman was in a measure\nestablished when home wielded a strong enough attraction to make men\naccept its obligations. But at last the time has come when the\nmaterial ambition of man has assumed such colossal proportions that\nhome is in danger of losing its centre of gravity for him, and he is\nreceding farther and farther from its orbit.\n\nThe arid zone in the social life is spreading fast. The simple\ncomforts of home, made precious by the touch of love, are giving way\nto luxuries that can only have their full extension in the isolation\nof self-centred life. Hotels are being erected on the ruins of homes;\nproductions are growing more stupendous than creations; and most men\nhave, for the materials of their happiness and recreation, their dogs\nand horses, their pipes, guns, and gambling clubs.\n\nReactions and rebellions, not being normal in their character, go on\nhurting truth until peace is restored. Therefore, when woman refuses\nto acknowledge the distinction between her life and that of man, she\ndoes not convince us of its truth, but only proves to us that she is\nsuffering. All great sufferings indicate some wrong somewhere. In the\npresent case, the wrong is in woman's lack of freedom in her\nrelationship with man, which compels her to turn her disabilities into\nattractions, and to use untruths as her allies in the battle of life,\nwhile she is suffering from the precariousness of her position.\n\nFrom the beginning of our society, women have naturally accepted the\ntraining which imparts to their life and to their home a spirit of\nharmony. It is their instinct to perform their services in such a\nmanner that these, through beauty, might be raised from the domain of\nslavery to the realm of grace. Women have tried to prove that in the\nbuilding up of social life they are artists and not artisans. But all\nexpressions of beauty lose their truth when compelled to accept the\npatronage of the gross and the indifferent. Therefore when necessity\ndrives women to fashion their lives to the taste of the insensitive or\nthe sensual, then the whole thing becomes a tragedy of desecration.\nSociety is full of such tragedies. Many of the laws and social\nregulations guiding the relationships of man and woman are relics of\na barbaric age, when the brutal pride of an exclusive possession had\nits dominance in human relations, such as those of parents and\nchildren, husbands and wives, masters and servants, teachers and\ndisciples. The vulgarity of it still persists in the social bond\nbetween the sexes because of the economic helplessness of woman.\nNothing makes us so stupidly mean as the sense of superiority which\nthe power of the purse confers upon us.\n\nThe powers of muscle and of money have opportunities of immediate\nsatisfaction, but the power of the ideal must have infinite patience.\nThe man who sells his goods, or fulfils his contract, is cheated if he\nfails to realise payment, but he who gives form to some ideal may\nnever get his due and be fully paid. What I have felt in the women of\nIndia is the consciousness of this ideal--their simple faith in the\nsanctity of devotion lighted by love which is held to be divine. True\nwomanliness is regarded in our country as the saintliness of love. It\nis not merely praised there, but literally worshipped; and she who is\ngifted with it is called _Devi_, as one revealing in herself Woman,\nthe Divine. That this has not been a mere metaphor to us is because,\nin India, our mind is familiar with the idea of God in an eternal\nfeminine aspect. Thus the Eastern woman, who is deeply aware in her\nheart of the sacredness of her mission, is a constant education to\nman. It has to be admitted that there are chances of such an influence\nfailing to penetrate the callousness of the coarse-minded; but that is\nthe destiny of all manifestations whose value is not in success or\nreward in honour.\n\nWoman has to be ready to suffer. She cannot allow her emotions to be\ndulled or polluted, for these are to create her life's atmosphere,\napart from which her world would be dark and dead. This leaves her\nheart without any protection of insensibility, at the mercy of the\nhurts and insults of life. Women of India, like women everywhere, have\ntheir share of suffering, but it radiates through the ideal, and\nbecomes, like sunlight, a creative force in their world. Our women\nknow by heart the legends of the great women of the epic age--Savitri\nwho by the power of love conquered death, and Sita who had no other\nreward for her life of sacrifice but the sacred majesty of sorrow.\nThey know that it is their duty to make this life an image of the life\neternal, and that love's mission truly performed has a spiritual\nmeaning. It is a religious responsibility for them to live the life\nwhich is their own. For their activity is not for money-making, or\norganising power, or intellectually probing the mystery of existence,\nbut for establishing and maintaining human relationships requiring the\nhighest moral qualities. It is the consciousness of the spiritual\ncharacter of their life's work, which lifts them above the utilitarian\nstandard of the immediate and the passing, surrounds them with the\ndignity of the eternal, and transmutes their suffering and sorrow into\na crown of light.\n\nI must guard myself from the risk of a possible misunderstanding. The\npermanent significance of home is not in the narrowness of its\nenclosure, but in an eternal moral idea. It represents the truth of\nhuman relationship; it reveals loyalty and love for the personality of\nman. Let us take a wider view, in a perspective truer than can be\nfound in its present conventional associations. With the discovery and\ndevelopment of agriculture there came a period of settled life in our\nhistory. The nomad ever moved on with his tents and cattle; he\nexplored space and exploited its contents. The cultivator of land\nexplored time in its immensity, for he had leisure. Comparatively\nsecured from the uncertainty of his outer resources, he had the\nopportunity to deal with his moral resources in the realm of human\ntruth. This is why agricultural civilisation, like that of India and\nChina, is essentially a civilisation of human relationship, of the\nadjustment of mutual obligations. It is deep-rooted in the inner life\nof man. Its basis is co-operation and not competition. In other words,\nits principle is the principle of home, to which all its outer\nadventures are subordinated.\n\nIn the meanwhile, the nomadic life with its predatory instinct of\nexploitation has developed into a great civilisation. It is immensely\nproud and strong, killing leisure and pursuing opportunities. It\nminimises the claims of personal relationship and is jealously careful\nof its unhampered freedom for acquiring wealth and asserting its will\nupon others. Its burden is the burden of things, which grows heavier\nand more complex every day, disregarding the human and the spiritual.\nIts powerful pressure from all sides narrows the limits of home, the\npersonal region of the human world. Thus, in this region of life,\nwomen are every day hustled out of their shelter for want of\naccommodation.\n\nBut such a state of things can never have the effect of changing woman\ninto man. On the contrary, it will lead her to find her place in the\nunlimited range of society, and the Guardian Spirit of the personal in\nhuman nature will extend the ministry of woman over all developments\nof life. Habituated to deal with the world as a machine, man is\nmultiplying his materials, banishing away his happiness and\nsacrificing love to comfort, which is an illusion. At last the present\nage has sent its cry to woman, asking her to come out from her\nsegregation in order to restore the spiritual supremacy of all that is\nhuman in the world of humanity. She has been aroused to remember that\nwomanliness is not chiefly decorative. It is like that vital health,\nwhich not only imparts the bloom of beauty to the body, but joy to the\nmind and perfection to life.\n\n\n\n\n                         AN EASTERN UNIVERSITY\n\n\nIn the midst of much that is discouraging in the present state of the\nworld, there is one symptom of vital promise. Asia is awakening. This\ngreat event, if it be but directed along the right lines, is full of\nhope, not only for Asia herself, but for the whole world.\n\nOn the other hand, it has to be admitted that the relationship of the\nWest with the East, growing more and more complex and widespread for\nover two centuries, far from attaining its true fulfilment, has given\nrise to a universal spirit of conflict. The consequent strain and\nunrest have profoundly disturbed Asia, and antipathetic forces have\nbeen accumulating for years in the depth of the Eastern mind.\n\nThe meeting of the East and the West has remained incomplete, because\nthe occasions of it have not been disinterested. The political and\ncommercial adventures carried on by Western races--very often by\nforce and against the interest and wishes of the countries they have\ndealt with--have created a moral alienation, which is deeply injurious\nto both parties. The perils threatened by this unnatural relationship\nhave long been contemptuously ignored by the West. But the blind\nconfidence of the strong in their apparent invincibility has often led\nthem, from their dream of security, into terrible surprises of\nhistory.\n\nIt is not the fear of danger or loss to one people or another,\nhowever, which is most important. The demoralising influence of the\nconstant estrangement between the two hemispheres, which affects the\nbaser passions of man,--pride, greed and hypocrisy on the one hand;\nfear, suspiciousness and flattery on the other,--has been developing,\nand threatens us with a world-wide spiritual disaster.\n\nThe time has come when we must use all our wisdom to understand the\nsituation, and to control it, with a stronger trust in moral guidance\nthan in any array of physical forces.\n\nIn the beginning of man's history his first social object was to form\na community, to grow into a people. At that early period, individuals\nwere gathered together within geographical enclosures. But in the\npresent age, with its facility of communication, geographical barriers\nhave almost lost their reality, and the great federation of men, which\nis waiting either to find its true scope or to break asunder in a\nfinal catastrophe, is not a meeting of individuals, but of various\nhuman races. Now the problem before us is of one single country, which\nis this earth, where the races as individuals must find both their\nfreedom of self-expression and their bond of federation. Mankind must\nrealise a unity, wider in range, deeper in sentiment, stronger in\npower than ever before. Now that the problem is large, we have to\nsolve it on a bigger scale, to realise the God in man by a larger\nfaith and to build the temple of our faith on a sure and world-wide\nbasis.\n\nThe first step towards realisation is to create opportunities for\nrevealing the different peoples to one another. This can never be done\nin those fields where the exploiting utilitarian spirit is supreme. We\nmust find some meeting-ground, where there can be no question of\nconflicting interests. One of such places is the University, where we\ncan work together in a common pursuit of truth, share together our\ncommon heritage, and realise that artists in all parts of the world\nhave created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the\nuniverse, philosophers solved the problems of existence, saints made\nthe truth of the spiritual world organic in their own lives, not\nmerely for some particular race to which they belonged, but for all\nmankind. When the science of meteorology knows the earth's atmosphere\nas continuously one, affecting the different parts of the world\ndifferently, but in a harmony of adjustments, it knows and attains\ntruth. And so, too, we must know that the great mind of man is one,\nworking through the many differences which are needed to ensure the\nfull result of its fundamental unity. When we understand this truth in\na disinterested spirit, it teaches us to respect all the differences\nin man that are real, yet remain conscious of our oneness; and to know\nthat perfection of unity is not in uniformity, but in harmony.\n\nThis is the problem of the present age. The East, for its own sake and\nfor the sake of the world, must not remain unrevealed. The deepest\nsource of all calamities in history is misunderstanding. For where we\ndo not understand, we can never be just.\n\nBeing strongly impressed with the need and the responsibility, which\nevery individual to-day must realise according to his power, I have\nformed the nucleus of an International University in India, as one of\nthe best means of promoting mutual understanding between the East and\nthe West. This Institution, according to the plan I have in mind, will\ninvite students from the West to study the different systems of Indian\nphilosophy, literature, art and music in their proper environment,\nencouraging them to carry on research work in collaboration with the\nscholars already engaged in this task.\n\nIndia has her renaissance. She is preparing to make her contribution\nto the world of the future. In the past she produced her great\nculture, and in the present age she has an equally important\ncontribution to make to the culture of the New World which is emerging\nfrom the wreckage of the Old. This is a momentous period of her\nhistory, pregnant with precious possibilities, when any disinterested\noffer of co-operation from any part of the West will have an immense\nmoral value, the memory of which will become brighter as the\nregeneration of the East grows in vigour and creative power.\n\nThe Western Universities give their students an opportunity to learn\nwhat all the European peoples have contributed to their Western\nculture. Thus the intellectual mind of the West has been luminously\nrevealed to the world. What is needed to complete this illumination is\nfor the East to collect its own scattered lamps and offer them to the\nenlightenment of the world.\n\nThere was a time when the great countries of Asia had, each of them,\nto nurture its own civilisation apart in comparative seclusion. Now\nhas come the age of co-ordination and co-operation. The seedlings that\nwere reared within narrow plots must now be transplanted into the open\nfields. They must pass the test of the world-market, if their maximum\nvalue is to be obtained.\n\nBut before Asia is in a position to co-operate with the culture of\nEurope, she must base her own structure on a synthesis of all the\ndifferent cultures which she has. When, taking her stand on such a\nculture, she turns toward the West, she will take, with a confident\nsense of mental freedom, her own view of truth, from her own\nvantage-ground, and open a new vista of thought to the world.\nOtherwise, she will allow her priceless inheritance to crumble into\ndust, and, trying to replace it clumsily with feeble imitations of the\nWest, make herself superfluous, cheap and ludicrous. If she thus\nloses her individuality and her specific power to exist, will it in\nthe least help the rest of the world? Will not her terrible bankruptcy\ninvolve also the Western mind? If the whole world grows at last into\nan exaggerated West, then such an illimitable parody of the modern age\nwill die, crushed beneath its own absurdity.\n\nIn this belief, it is my desire to extend by degrees the scope of this\nUniversity on simple lines, until it comprehends the whole range of\nEastern cultures--the Aryan, Semitic, Mongolian and others. Its object\nwill be to reveal the Eastern mind to the world.\n\nOf one thing I felt certain during my travels in Europe, that a\ngenuine interest has been roused there in the philosophy and the arts\nof the East, from which the Western mind seeks fresh inspiration of\ntruth and beauty. Once the East had her reputation of fabulous wealth,\nand the seekers were attracted from across the sea. Since then, the\nshrine of wealth has changed its site. But the East is famed also for\nher storage of wisdom, harvested by her patriarchs from long\nsuccessive ages of spiritual endeavour. And when, as now, in the midst\nof the pursuit of power and wealth, there rises the cry of privation\nfrom the famished spirit of man, an opportunity is offered to the East\nto offer her store to those who need it.\n\nOnce upon a time we were in possession of such a thing as our own mind\nin India. It was living. It thought, it felt, it expressed itself. It\nwas receptive as well as productive. That this mind could be of any\nuse in the process, or in the end, of our education was overlooked by\nour modern educational dispensation. We are provided with buildings\nand books and other magnificent burdens calculated to suppress our\nmind. The latter was treated like a library-shelf solidly made of\nwood, to be loaded with leather-bound volumes of second-hand\ninformation. In consequence, it has lost its own colour and character,\nand has borrowed polish from the carpenter's shop. All this has cost\nus money, and also our finer ideas, while our intellectual vacancy has\nbeen crammed with what is described in official reports as Education.\nIn fact, we have bought our spectacles at the expense of our eyesight.\n\nIn India our goddess of learning is _Saraswati_. My audience in the\nWest, I am sure, will be glad to know that her complexion is white.\nBut the signal fact is that she is living and she is a woman, and her\nseat is on a lotus-flower. The symbolic meaning of this is, that she\ndwells in the centre of life and the heart of all existence, which\nopens itself in beauty to the light of heaven.\n\nThe Western education which we have chanced to know is impersonal. Its\ncomplexion is also white, but it is the whiteness of the white-washed\nclass-room walls. It dwells in the cold-storage compartments of\nlessons and the ice-packed minds of the schoolmasters. The effect\nwhich it had on my mind when, as a boy, I was compelled to go to\nschool, I have described elsewhere. My feeling was very much the same\nas a tree might have, which was not allowed to live its full life, but\nwas cut down to be made into packing-cases.\n\nThe introduction of this education was not a part of the solemn\nmarriage ceremony which was to unite the minds of the East and West in\nmutual understanding. It represented an artificial method of training\nspecially calculated to produce the carriers of the white man's\nburden. This want of ideals still clings to our education system,\nthough our Universities have latterly burdened their syllabus with a\ngreater number of subjects than before. But it is only like adding to\nthe bags of wheat the bullock carries to market; it does not make the\nbullock any better off.\n\nMind, when long deprived of its natural food of truth and freedom of\ngrowth, develops an unnatural craving for success; and our students\nhave fallen victims to the mania for success in examinations. Success\nconsists in obtaining the largest number of marks with the strictest\neconomy of knowledge. It is a deliberate cultivation of disloyalty to\ntruth, of intellectual dishonesty, of a foolish imposition by which\nthe mind is encouraged to rob itself. But as we are by means of it\nmade to forget the existence of mind, we are supremely happy at the\nresult. We pass examinations, and shrivel up into clerks, lawyers and\npolice inspectors, and we die young.\n\nUniversities should never be made into mechanical organisations for\ncollecting and distributing knowledge. Through them the people should\noffer their intellectual hospitality, their wealth of mind to others,\nand earn their proud right in return to receive gifts from the rest of\nthe world. But in the whole length and breadth of India there is not a\nsingle University established in the modern time where a foreign or\nan Indian student can properly be acquainted with the best products\nof the Indian mind. For that we have to cross the sea, and knock at\nthe doors of France and Germany. Educational institutions in our\ncountry are India's alms-bowl of knowledge; they lower our\nintellectual self-respect; they encourage us to make a foolish display\nof decorations composed of borrowed feathers.\n\nThis it was that led me to found a school in Bengal, in face of many\ndifficulties and discouragements, and in spite of my own vocation as a\npoet, who finds his true inspiration only when he forgets that he is a\nschoolmaster. It is my hope that in this school a nucleus has been\nformed, round which an indigenous University of our own land will find\nits natural growth--a University which will help India's mind to\nconcentrate and to be fully conscious of itself; free to seek the\ntruth and make this truth its own wherever found, to judge by its own\nstandard, give expression to its own creative genius, and offer its\nwisdom to the guests who come from other parts of the world.\n\nMan's intellect has a natural pride in its own aristocracy, which is\nthe pride of its culture. Culture only acknowledges the excellence\nwhose criticism is in its inner perfection, not in any external\nsuccess. When this pride succumbs to some compulsion of necessity or\nlure of material advantage, it brings humiliation to the intellectual\nman. Modern India, through her very education, has been made to suffer\nthis humiliation. Once she herself provided her children with a\nculture which was the product of her own ages of thought and creation.\nBut it has been thrust aside, and we are made to tread the mill of\npassing examinations, not for learning anything, but for notifying\nthat we are qualified for employments under organisations conducted in\nEnglish. Our educated community is not a cultured community, but a\ncommunity of qualified candidates. Meanwhile the proportion of\npossible employments to the number of claimants has gradually been\ngrowing narrower, and the consequent disaffection has been widespread.\nAt last the very authorities who are responsible for this are blaming\ntheir victims. Such is the perversity of human nature. It bears its\nworst grudge against those it has injured.\n\nIt is as if some tribe which had the primitive habit of decorating its\ntribal members with birds' plumage were some day to hold these very\nbirds guilty of the crime of being extinct. There are belated\nattempts on the part of our governors to read us pious homilies about\ndisinterested love of learning, while the old machinery goes on\nworking, whose product is not education but certificates. It is good\nto remind the fettered bird that its wings are for soaring; but it is\nbetter to cut the chain which is holding it to its perch. The most\npathetic feature of the tragedy is that the bird itself has learnt to\nuse its chain for its ornament, simply because the chain jingles in\nfairly respectable English.\n\nIn the Bengali language there is a modern maxim which can be\ntranslated, \"He who learns to read and write rides in a carriage and\npair.\" In English there is a similar proverb, \"Knowledge is power.\" It\nis an offer of a prospective bribe to the student, a promise of an\nulterior reward which is more important than knowledge itself.\nTemptations, held before us as inducements to be good or to pursue\nuncongenial paths, are most often flimsy lies or half-truths, such as\nthe oft-quoted maxim of respectable piety, \"Honesty is the best\npolicy,\" at which politicians all over the world seem to laugh in\ntheir sleeves. But unfortunately, education conducted under a special\nprovidence of purposefulness, of eating the fruit of knowledge from\nthe wrong end, _does_ lead one to that special paradise on earth, the\ndaily rides in one's own carriage and pair. And the West, I have heard\nfrom authentic sources, is aspiring in its education after that\nspecial cultivation of worldliness.\n\nWhere society is comparatively simple and obstructions are not too\nnumerous, we can clearly see how the life-process guides education in\nits vital purpose. The system of folk-education, which is indigenous\nto India, but is dying out, was one with the people's life. It flowed\nnaturally through the social channels and made its way everywhere. It\nis a system of widespread irrigation of culture. Its teachers,\nspecially trained men, are in constant requisition, and find crowded\nmeetings in our villages, where they repeat the best thoughts and\nexpress the ideals of the land in the most effective form. The mode of\ninstruction includes the recitation of epics, expounding of the\nscriptures, reading from the Puranas, which are the classical records\nof old history, performance of plays founded upon the early myths and\nlegends, dramatic narration of the lives of ancient heroes, and the\nsinging in chorus of songs from the old religious literature.\nEvidently, according to this system, the best function of education\nis to enable us to realise that to live as a man is great, requiring\nprofound philosophy for its ideal, poetry for its expression, and\nheroism in its conduct. Owing to this vital method of culture the\ncommon people of India, though technically illiterate, have been made\nconscious of the sanctity of social relationships, entailing constant\nsacrifice and self-control, urged and supported by ideals collectively\nexpressed in one word, _Dharma_.\n\nSuch a system of education may sound too simple for the complexities\nof modern life. But the fundamental principle of social life in its\ndifferent stages of development remains the same; and in no\ncircumstance can the truth be ignored that all human complexities must\nharmonise in organic unity with life, failing which there will be\nendless conflict. Most things in the civilised world occupy more than\ntheir legitimate space. Much of their burden is needless. By bearing\nthis burden civilised man may be showing great strength, but he\ndisplays little skill. To the gods, viewing this from on high, it must\nseem like the flounderings of a giant who has got out of his depth and\nknows not how to swim.\n\nThe main source of all forms of voluntary slavery is the desire of\ngain. It is difficult to fight against this when modern civilisation\nis tainted with such a universal contamination of avarice. I have\nrealised it myself in the little boys of my own school. For the first\nfew years there is no trouble. But as soon as the upper class is\nreached, their worldly wisdom--the malady of the aged--begins to\nassert itself. They rebelliously insist that they must no longer\nlearn, but rather pass examinations. Professions in the modern age are\nmore numerous and lucrative than ever before. They need specialisation\nof training and knowledge, tempting education to yield its spiritual\nfreedom to the claims of utilitarian ambitions. But man's deeper\nnature is hurt; his smothered life seeks to be liberated from the\nsuffocating folds and sensual ties of prosperity. And this is why we\nfind almost everywhere in the world a growing dissatisfaction with the\nprevalent system of teaching, which betrays the encroachment of\nsenility and worldly prudence over pure intellect.\n\nIn India, also, a vague feeling of discontent has given rise to\nnumerous attempts at establishing national schools and colleges. But,\nunfortunately, our very education has been successful in depriving us\nof our real initiative and our courage of thought. The training we get\nin our schools has the constant implication in it that it is not for\nus to produce but to borrow. And we are casting about to borrow our\neducational plans from European institutions. The trampled plants of\nIndian corn are dreaming of recouping their harvest from the\nneighbouring wheat fields. To change the figure, we forget that, for\nproficiency in walking, it is better to train the muscles of our own\nlegs than to strut upon wooden ones of foreign make, although they\nclatter and cause more surprise at our skill in using them than if\nthey were living and real.\n\nBut when we go to borrow help from a foreign neighbourhood we are apt\nto overlook the real source of help behind all that is external and\napparent. Had the deep-water fishes happened to produce a scientist\nwho chose the jumping of a monkey for his research work, I am sure he\nwould give most of the credit to the branches of the trees and very\nlittle to the monkey itself. In a foreign University we see the\nbranching wildernesses of its buildings, furniture, regulations, and\nsyllabus, but the monkey, which is a difficult creature to catch and\nmore difficult to manufacture, we are likely to treat as a mere\naccident of minor importance. It is convenient for us to overlook the\nfact that among the Europeans the living spirit of the University is\nwidely spread in their society, their parliament, their literature,\nand the numerous activities of their corporate life. In all these\nfunctions they are in perpetual touch with the great personality of\nthe land which is creative and heroic in its constant acts of\nself-expression and self-sacrifice. They have their thoughts published\nin their books as well as through the medium of living men who think\nthose thoughts, and who criticise, compare and disseminate them. Some\nat least of the drawbacks of their academic education are redeemed by\nthe living energy of the intellectual personality pervading their\nsocial organism. It is like the stagnant reservoir of water which\nfinds its purification in the showers of rain to which it keeps itself\nopen. But, to our misfortune, we have in India all the furniture of\nthe European University except the human teacher. We have, instead,\nmere purveyors of book-lore in whom the paper god of the bookshop has\nbeen made vocal.\n\nA most important truth, which we are apt to forget, is that a teacher\ncan never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can\nnever light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame.\nThe teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living\ntraffic with his knowledge, but merely repeats his lessons to his\nstudents, can only load their minds; he cannot quicken them. Truth not\nonly must inform but inspire. If the inspiration dies out, and the\ninformation only accumulates, then truth loses its infinity. The\ngreater part of our learning in the schools has been wasted because,\nfor most of our teachers, their subjects are like dead specimens of\nonce living things, with which they have a learned acquaintance, but\nno communication of life and love.\n\nThe educational institution, therefore, which I have in mind has\nprimarily for its object the constant pursuit of truth, from which the\nimparting of truth naturally follows. It must not be a dead cage in\nwhich living minds are fed with food artificially prepared. It should\nbe an open house, in which students and teachers are at one. They must\nlive their complete life together, dominated by a common aspiration\nfor truth and a need of sharing all the delights of culture. In former\ndays the great master-craftsmen had students in their workshops where\nthey co-operated in shaping things to perfection. That was the place\nwhere knowledge could become living--that knowledge which not only has\nits substance and law, but its atmosphere subtly informed by a\ncreative personality. For intellectual knowledge also has its aspect\nof creative art, in which the man who explores truth expresses\nsomething which is human in him--his enthusiasm, his courage, his\nsacrifice, his honesty, and his skill. In merely academical teaching\nwe find subjects, but not the man who pursues the subjects; therefore\nthe vital part of education remains incomplete.\n\nFor our Universities we must claim, not labelled packages of truth and\nauthorised agents to distribute them, but truth in its living\nassociation with her lovers and seekers and discoverers. Also we must\nknow that the concentration of the mind-forces scattered throughout\nthe country is the most important mission of a University, which, like\nthe nucleus of a living cell, should be the centre of the intellectual\nlife of the people.\n\nThe bringing about of an intellectual unity in India is, I am told,\ndifficult to the verge of impossibility owing to the fact that India\nhas so many different languages. Such a statement is as unreasonable\nas to say that man, because he has a diversity of limbs, should find\nit impossible to realise life's unity in himself, and that only an\nearthworm composed of a tail and nothing else could truly know that it\nhad a body.\n\nLet us admit that India is not like any one of the great countries of\nEurope, which has its own separate language; but is rather like Europe\nherself, branching out into different peoples with many different\nlanguages. And yet Europe has a common civilisation, with an\nintellectual unity which is not based upon uniformity of language. It\nis true that in the earlier stages of her culture the whole of Europe\nhad Latin for her learned tongue. That was in her intellectual budding\ntime, when all her petals of self-expression were closed in one point.\nBut the perfection of her mental unfolding was not represented by the\nsingularity of her literary vehicle. When the great European countries\nfound their individual languages, then only the true federation of\ncultures became possible in the West, and the very differences of the\nchannels made the commerce of ideas in Europe so richly copious and so\nvariedly active. We can well imagine what the loss to European\ncivilisation would be if France, Italy and Germany, and England\nherself, had not through their separate agencies contributed to the\ncommon coffer their individual earnings.\n\nThere was a time with us when India had her common language of culture\nin Sanskrit. But, for the complete commerce of her thought, she\nrequired that all her vernaculars should attain their perfect powers,\nthrough which her different peoples might manifest their\nidiosyncrasies; and this could never be done through a foreign tongue.\n\nIn the United States, in Canada and other British Colonies, the\nlanguage of the people is English. It has a great literature which had\nits birth and growth in the history of the British Islands. But when\nthis language, with all its products and acquisitions, matured by ages\non its own mother soil, is carried into foreign lands, which have\ntheir own separate history and their own life-growth, it must\nconstantly hamper the indigenous growth of culture and destroy\nindividuality of judgement and the perfect freedom of self-expression.\nThe inherited wealth of the English language, with all its splendour,\nbecomes an impediment when taken into different surroundings, just as\nwhen lungs are given to the whale in the sea. If such is the case even\nwith races whose grandmother-tongue naturally continues to be their\nown mother-tongue, one can imagine what sterility it means for a\npeople which accepts, for its vehicle of culture, an altogether\nforeign language. A language is not like an umbrella or an overcoat,\nthat can be borrowed by unconscious or deliberate mistake; it is like\nthe living skin itself. If the body of a draught-horse enters into the\nskin of a race-horse, it will be safe to wager that such an anomaly\nwill never win a race, and will fail even to drag a cart. Have we not\nwatched some modern Japanese artists imitating European art? The\nimitation may sometimes produce clever results; but such cleverness\nhas only the perfection of artificial flowers which never bear fruit.\n\nAll great countries have their vital centres for intellectual life,\nwhere a high standard of learning is maintained, where the minds of\nthe people are naturally attracted, where they find their genial\natmosphere, in which to prove their worth and to contribute their\nshare to the country's culture. Thus they kindle, on the common altar\nof the land, that great sacrificial fire which can radiate the sacred\nlight of wisdom abroad.\n\nAthens was such a centre in Greece, Rome in Italy; and Paris is such\nto-day in France. Benares has been and still continues to be the\ncentre of our Sanskrit culture. But Sanskrit learning does not exhaust\nall the elements of culture that exist in modern India.\n\nIf we were to take for granted, what some people maintain, that\nWestern culture is the only source of light for our mind, then it\nwould be like depending for daybreak upon some star, which is the sun\nof a far distant sphere. The star may give us light, but not the day;\nit may give us direction in our voyage of exploration, but it can\nnever open the full view of truth before our eyes. In fact, we can\nnever use this cold starlight for stirring the sap in our branches,\nand giving colour and bloom to our life. This is the reason why\nEuropean education has become for India mere school lessons and no\nculture; a box of matches, good for the small uses of illumination,\nbut not the light of morning, in which the use and beauty, and all the\nsubtle mysteries of life are blended in one.\n\nLet me say clearly that I have no distrust of any culture because of\nits foreign character. On the contrary, I believe that the shock of\nsuch extraneous forces is necessary for the vitality of our\nintellectual nature. It is admitted that much of the spirit of\nChristianity runs counter, not only to the classical culture of\nEurope, but to the European temperament altogether. And yet this alien\nmovement of ideas, constantly running against the natural mental\ncurrent of Europe, has been a most important factor in strengthening\nand enriching her civilisation, on account of the sharp antagonism of\nits intellectual direction. In fact, the European vernaculars first\nwoke up to life and fruitful vigour when they felt the impact of this\nforeign thought-power with all its oriental forms and affinities. The\nsame thing is happening in India. The European culture has come to us,\nnot only with its knowledge, but with its velocity.\n\nThen, again, let us admit that modern Science is Europe's great gift\nto humanity for all time to come. We, in India, must claim it from her\nhands, and gratefully accept it in order to be saved from the curse of\nfutility by lagging behind. We shall fail to reap the harvest of the\npresent age if we delay.\n\nWhat I object to is the artificial arrangement by which foreign\neducation tends to occupy all the space of our national mind, and thus\nkills, or hampers, the great opportunity for the creation of a new\nthought-power by a new combination of truths. It is this which makes\nme urge that all the elements in our own culture have to be\nstrengthened, not to resist the Western culture, but truly to accept\nand assimilate it; to use it for our sustenance, not as our burden; to\nget mastery over this culture, and not to live on its outskirts as the\nhewers of texts and drawers of book-learning.\n\nThe main river in Indian culture has flowed in four streams,--the\nVedic, the Puranic, the Buddhist, and the Jain. It has its source in\nthe heights of the Indian consciousness. But a river, belonging to a\ncountry, is not fed by its own waters alone. The Tibetan Brahmaputra\nis a tributary to the Indian Ganges. Contributions have similarly\nfound their way to India's original culture. The Muhammadan, for\nexample, has repeatedly come into India from outside, laden with his\nown stores of knowledge and feeling and his wonderful religious\ndemocracy, bringing freshet after freshet to swell the current. To our\nmusic, our architecture, our pictorial art, our literature, the\nMuhammadans have made their permanent and precious contribution. Those\nwho have studied the lives and writings of our medieval saints, and\nall the great religious movements that sprang up in the time of the\nMuhammadan rule, know how deep is our debt to this foreign current\nthat has so intimately mingled with our life.\n\nSo, in our centre of Indian learning, we must provide for the\nco-ordinate study of all these different cultures,--the Vedic, the\nPuranic, the Buddhist, the Jain, the Islamic, the Sikh and the\nZoroastrian. The Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan will also have to be\nadded; for, in the past, India did not remain isolated within her own\nboundaries. Therefore, in order to learn what she was, in her relation\nto the whole continent of Asia, these cultures too must be studied.\nSide by side with them must finally be placed the Western culture. For\nonly then shall we be able to assimilate this last contribution to our\ncommon stock. A river flowing within banks is truly our own, and it\ncan contain its due tributaries; but our relations with a flood can\nonly prove disastrous.\n\nThere are some who are exclusively modern, who believe that the past\nis the bankrupt time, leaving no assets for us, but only a legacy of\ndebts. They refuse to believe that the army which is marching forward\ncan be fed from the rear. It is well to remind such persons that the\ngreat ages of renaissance in history were those when man suddenly\ndiscovered the seeds of thought in the granary of the past.\n\nThe unfortunate people who have lost the harvest of their past have\nlost their present age. They have missed their seed for cultivation,\nand go begging for their bare livelihood. We must not imagine that we\nare one of these disinherited peoples of the world. The time has come\nfor us to break open the treasure-trove of our ancestors, and use it\nfor our commerce of life. Let us, with its help, make our future our\nown, and not continue our existence as the eternal rag-pickers in\nother people's dustbins.\n\nSo far I have dwelt only upon the intellectual aspect of Education.\nFor, even in the West, it is the intellectual training which receives\nalmost exclusive emphasis. The Western universities have not yet truly\nrecognised that fulness of expression is fulness of life. And a large\npart of man can never find its expression in the mere language of\nwords. It must therefore seek for its other languages,--lines and\ncolours, sounds and movements. Through our mastery of these we not\nonly make our whole nature articulate, but also understand man in all\nhis attempts to reveal his innermost being in every age and clime. The\ngreat use of Education is not merely to collect facts, but to know\nman and to make oneself known to man. It is the duty of every human\nbeing to master, at least to some extent, not only the language of\nintellect, but also that personality which is the language of Art. It\nis a great world of reality for man,--vast and profound,--this growing\nworld of his own creative nature. This is the world of Art. To be\nbrought up in ignorance of it is to be deprived of the knowledge and\nuse of that great inheritance of humanity, which has been growing and\nwaiting for every one of us from the beginning of our history. It is\nto remain deaf to the eternal voice of Man, that speaks to all men the\nmessages that are beyond speech. From the educational point of view we\nknow Europe where it is scientific, or at best literary. So our notion\nof its modern culture is limited within the boundary lines of grammar\nand the laboratory. We almost completely ignore the aesthetic life of\nman, leaving it uncultivated, allowing weeds to grow there. Our\nnewspapers are prolific, our meeting-places are vociferous; and in\nthem we wear to shreds the things we have borrowed from our English\nteachers. We make the air dismal and damp with the tears of our\ngrievances. But where are our arts, which, like the outbreak of\nspring flowers, are the spontaneous overflow of our deeper nature and\nspiritual magnificence?\n\nThrough this great deficiency of our modern education, we are\ncondemned to carry to the end a dead load of dumb wisdom. Like\nmiserable outcasts, we are deprived of our place in the festival of\nculture, and wait at the outer court, where the colours are not for\nus, nor the forms of delight, nor the songs. Ours is the education of\na prison-house, with hard labour and with a drab dress cut to the\nlimits of minimum decency and necessity. We are made to forget that\nthe perfection of colour and form and expression belongs to the\nperfection of vitality,--that the joy of life is only the other side\nof the strength of life. The timber merchant may think that the\nflowers and foliage are mere frivolous decorations of a tree; but if\nthese are suppressed, he will know to his cost that the timber too\nwill fail.\n\nDuring the Moghal period, music and art in India found a great impetus\nfrom the rulers, because their whole life--not merely their official\nlife--was lived in this land; and it is the wholeness of life from\nwhich originates Art. But our English teachers are birds of passage;\nthey cackle to us, but do not sing,--their true heart is not in the\nland of their exile.\n\nConstriction of life, owing to this narrowness of culture, must no\nlonger be encouraged. In the centre of Indian culture which I am\nproposing, music and art must have their prominent seats of honour,\nand not be given merely a tolerant nod of recognition. The different\nsystems of music and different schools of art which lie scattered in\nthe different ages and provinces of India, and in the different strata\nof society, and also those belonging to the other great countries of\nAsia, which had communication with India, have to be brought there\ntogether and studied.\n\nI have already hinted that Education should not be dragged out of its\nnative element, the life-current of the people. Economic life covers\nthe whole width of the fundamental basis of society, because its\nnecessities are the simplest and the most universal. Educational\ninstitutions, in order to obtain their fulness of truth, must have\nclose association with this economic life. The highest mission of\neducation is to help us to realise the inner principle of the unity of\nall knowledge and all the activities of our social and spiritual\nbeing. Society in its early stage was held together by its economic\nco-operation, when all its members felt in unison a natural interest\nin their right to live. Civilisation could never have been started at\nall if such was not the case. And civilisation will fall to pieces if\nit never again realises the spirit of mutual help and the common\nsharing of benefits in the elemental necessaries of life. The idea of\nsuch economic co-operation should be made the basis of our University.\nIt must not only instruct, but live; not only think, but produce.\n\nOur ancient _tapovanas_, or forest schools, which were our natural\nuniversities, were not shut off from the daily life of the people.\nMasters and students gathered fruit and fuel, and took their cattle\nout to graze, supporting themselves by the work of their own hands.\nSpiritual education was a part of the spiritual life itself, which\ncomprehended all life. Our centre of culture should not only be the\ncentre of the intellectual life of India, but the centre of her\neconomic life also. It must co-operate with the villages round it,\ncultivate land, breed cattle, spin cloths, press oil from oil-seeds;\nit must produce all the necessaries, devising the best means, using\nthe best materials, and calling science to its aid. Its very existence\nshould depend upon the success of its industrial activities carried\nout on the co-operative principle, which will unite the teachers and\nstudents and villagers of the neighbourhood in a living and active\nbond of necessity. This will give us also a practical industrial\ntraining, whose motive force is not the greed of profit.\n\nBefore I conclude my paper, a delicate question remains to be\nconsidered. What must be the religious ideal that is to rule our\ncentre of Indian culture? The one abiding ideal in the religious life\nof India has been _Mukti_, the deliverance of man's soul from the grip\nof self, its communion with the Infinite Soul through its union in\n_ananda_ with the universe. This religion of spiritual harmony is not\na theological doctrine to be taught, as a subject in the class, for\nhalf an hour each day. It is the spiritual truth and beauty of our\nattitude towards our surroundings, our conscious relationship with the\nInfinite, and the lasting power of the Eternal in the passing moments\nof our life. Such a religious ideal can only be made possible by\nmaking provision for students to live in intimate touch with nature,\ndaily to grow in an atmosphere of service offered to all creatures,\ntending trees, feeding birds and animals, learning to feel the immense\nmystery of the soil and water and air.\n\nAlong with this, there should be some common sharing of life with the\ntillers of the soil and the humble workers in the neighbouring\nvillages; studying their crafts, inviting them to the feasts, joining\nthem in works of co-operation for communal welfare; and in our\nintercourse we should be guided, not by moral maxims or the\ncondescension of social superiority, but by natural sympathy of life\nfor life, and by the sheer necessity of love's sacrifice for its own\nsake. In such an atmosphere students would learn to understand that\nhumanity is a divine harp of many strings, waiting for its one grand\nmusic. Those who realise this unity are made ready for the pilgrimage\nthrough the night of suffering, and along the path of sacrifice, to\nthe great meeting of Man in the future, for which the call comes to us\nacross the darkness.\n\nLife, in such a centre, should be simple and clean. We should never\nbelieve that simplicity of life might make us unsuited to the\nrequirements of the society of our time. It is the simplicity of the\ntuning-fork, which is needed all the more because of the intricacy of\nstrings in the instrument. In the morning of our career our nature\nneeds the pure and the perfect note of a spiritual ideal in order to\nfit us for the complications of our later years.\n\nIn other words, this institution should be a perpetual creation by the\nco-operative enthusiasm of teachers and students, growing with the\ngrowth of their soul; a world in itself, self-sustaining, independent,\nrich with ever-renewing life, radiating life across space and time,\nattracting and maintaining round it a planetary system of dependent\nbodies. Its aim should lie in imparting life-breath to the complete\nman, who is intellectual as well as economic, bound by social bonds,\nbut aspiring towards spiritual freedom and final perfection.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n  _Printed in Great Britain by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\n\n\n                        BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE\n\n\n=GITANJALI. (Song Offerings.)= Translated by the Author. With an\nIntroduction by W. B. YEATS, and a Portrait by W. ROTHENSTEIN. Crown\n8vo. 5s. net.\n\n_ATHENAEUM._--\"Mr. Tagore's translations are of trance-like beauty....\nThe expanding sentiment of some of the poems wins, even through the\nalien medium of our English prose, a rhythm which in its strength and\nmelody might recall familiar passages in the Psalms or Solomon's\nSong.\"\n\n\n=FRUIT-GATHERING. A Sequel to \"Gitanjali.\"= Crown 8vo. 5s. net.\n\n_ATHENAEUM._--\"The eighty-six pieces that fill this volume are pure\njets of lyric feeling, aphorisms expressed in moving symbols, or fully\ndeveloped parables and allegories ... several are as perfect in form\nas they are beautiful and poignant in content.\"\n\n\n=GITANJALI AND FRUIT-GATHERING.=\n\nWith Illustrations in colour and half-tone by NANDALAL BOSE,\nSURENDRANATH KAR, ABANINDRANATH TAGORE, and NOBINDRANATH TAGORE. Crown\n8vo. 10s. net.\n\n\n=THE GARDENER. Lyrics of Love and Life.= Translated by the Author. With\nPortrait. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.\n\n_DAILY MAIL._--\"Flowers as fresh as sunrise.... One cannot tell what\nthey have lost in the translation, but as they stand they are of\nextreme beauty.... They are simple, exalted, fragrant--episodes and\nincidents of every day transposed to faery.\"\n\n\n=THE CRESCENT MOON. Child-Poems.= Translated by the Author. With 8\nIllustrations in Colour. Pott 4to. 5s. net.\n\n_NATION._--\"A vision of childhood which is only paralleled in our\nliterature by the work of William Blake.\"\n\n\n=STRAY BIRDS.= Poems. With a Frontispiece by WILLY POGANY. Crown 8vo.\n4s. 6d. net.\n\n_SCOTSMAN._--\"The richness of this volume in thought and in imagery,\nin tracing analogies and in discovering apologues, is such as to yield\npleasure and profit to the most fertile and cultured minds.\"\n\n\n=LOVER'S GIFT AND CROSSING.= Crown 8vo. 5s. net.\n\n_ATHENAEUM._--\"The poems often touch extreme heights of passion and\nsublimity, and the diction has a beauty and a music that few have\nattained in this particular medium.\"\n\n\n=THE FUGITIVE.= Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n_SUNDAY TIMES._--\"In 'The Fugitive' the lovers of Tagore will not be\ndisappointed. He has all his powers still undimmed. Indeed, the poet\nnever, in our judgment, has surpassed this work.\"\n\n\n=CHITRA. A Play.= Translated by the Author. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.\n\n_OBSERVER._--\"An allegory of love's meaning, clear as a pool in the\nsunshine. It was written, we are told, twenty-five years ago.... Even\nthen Mr. Tagore had that calm intensity of vision which we have all\ncome to love in his later work. We find in him that for which Arjuna\ngroped in his love, 'that ultimate _you_, that bare simplicity of\ntruth,' and never more than in this little work of beauty, 'Chitra.'\"\n\n\n=THE KING OF THE DARK CHAMBER.= =A Play.= Translated by KSHITISH CHANDRA\nSEN. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\n_PALL MALL GAZETTE._--\"Altogether, the play is a beautiful piece of\nfanciful writing with a veiled purpose at the back of it.\"\n\n\n=THE POST OFFICE. A Play.= Translated by DEVABRATA MUKERJEA. Crown 8vo.\n3s. 6d. net.\n\n_MANCHESTER GUARDIAN._--\"'The Post Office' is a delicate, wistful\nthing, coloured with beautiful imagery; for a moment it lifts a corner\nof the veil of worldly existence. The translation is throughout\nextremely happy.\"\n\n\n=THE CYCLE OF SPRING. A Play.= Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.\n\n_MANCHESTER GUARDIAN._--\"The whole little drama is a spring-gift such\nas England has seldom received.\"\n\n\n=SACRIFICE and other Plays.= Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\n_SCOTSMAN._--\"All the pieces have a rare beauty of their own.\"\n\n\n=THE HOME AND THE WORLD. A Novel.= Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n_SATURDAY REVIEW._--\"In these days of indiscriminating praise, it is\nhard for a reviewer to find words with which to welcome properly a\nbook so good as this.\"\n\n\n=THE WRECK. A Novel.= Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.\n\n_MORNING POST._--\"The story cannot fail to interest and delight.\"\n\n\n=MASHI and other Stories.= Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\n_OXFORD MAGAZINE._--\"Full of pregnant pictures of Indian life and\ncharacter, subdued but vivid in tone.\"\n\n\n=HUNGRY STONES and other Stories.= Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\n_DAILY TELEGRAPH._--\"Contains descriptive passages of rare vigour and\nbeauty, and is embellished with imagery of a delicate and distinctive\ncharacter.\"\n\n\n=S[=A]DHAN[=A]: The Realisation of Life. Lectures.= Extra Crown 8vo. 6s.\nnet.\n\n=NATIONALISM.= Extra Crown 8vo. 6s. net.\n\n=PERSONALITY. Lectures delivered in America.= Illustrated. Crown 8vo.\n6s. net.\n\n=CREATIVE UNITY. Essays.= Extra Crown 8vo.\n\n=MY REMINISCENCES.= Illustrated. Extra Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n=GLIMPSES OF BENGAL. Selected from the Letters of Rabindranath Tagore,\n1885 to 1895.= Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n=ONE HUNDRED POEMS OF KABIR.= Translated by RABINDRANATH TAGORE,\nassisted by EVELYN UNDERHILL. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.\n\n=RABINDRANATH TAGORE.= A Biographical Study. By ERNEST RHYS.\nIllustrated. Extra Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.\n\n=SIX PORTRAITS OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE.= By W. ROTHENSTEIN. Reproduced in\nCollotype. With Prefatory Note by MAX BEERBOHM. Imperial 4to. 10s.\nnet.\n\n=THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MAHARSHI DEVENDRANATH TAGORE= (Father of\nRABINDRANATH TAGORE). Translated by SATYENDRANATH TAGORE and INDIRA\nDEVI. With Introduction by EVELYN UNDERHILL, and Portrait. Extra Crown\n8vo. 7s. 6d. net.\n\n=THE PHILOSOPHY OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE.= By Prof. S. RADHAKRISHNAN. 8vo.\n8s. 6d. net.\n\n=SHANTINIKETAN: The Bolpur School of Rabindranath Tagore.= By W. W.\nPEARSON. With Introduction by RABINDRANATH TAGORE. Illustrated. 8vo.\n4s. 6d. net.\n\n                    LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES\n\nObvious typographic errors have been corrected. The page numbers\nin the Table of Contents have been adjusted to match the actual page\nnumbers.","title":"Creative Unity","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":37490}