{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7176/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7176","id":"gutenberg_7176","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7176","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Evil, Non-resistance to","Government, Resistance to","National characteristics, East Indian"],"text":"Produced by Chetan Jain\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA LETTER TO A HINDU\n\n\nTHE SUBJECTION OF INDIA--ITS CAUSE AND CURE\n\n\n_With an Introduction by_ M. K. GANDHI\n\n\nBy Leo Tolstoy\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe letter printed below is a translation of Tolstoy's letter written in\nRussian in reply to one from the Editor of Free Hindustan. After having\npassed from hand to hand, this letter at last came into my possession\nthrough a friend who asked me, as one much interested in Tolstoy's\nwritings, whether I thought it worth publishing. I at once replied in\nthe affirmative, and told him I should translate it myself into Gujarati\nand induce others' to translate and publish it in various Indian\nvernaculars.\n\nThe letter as received by me was a type-written copy. It was therefore\nreferred to the author, who confirmed it as his and kindly granted me\npermission to print it.\n\nTo me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long\nlooked upon as one of my guides, it is a matter of honour to be\nconnected with the publication of his letter, such especially as the one\nwhich is now being given to the world.\n\nIt is a mere statement of fact to say that every Indian, whether he\nowns up to it or not, has national aspirations. But there are as many\nopinions as there are Indian nationalists as to the exact meaning of\nthat aspiration, and more especially as to the methods to be used to\nattain the end.\n\nOne of the accepted and 'time-honoured' methods to attain the end\nis that of violence. The assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie was an\nillustration of that method in its worst and most detestable form.\nTolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for\nremoving tyranny or securing reform by the method of non-resistance to\nevil. He would meet hatred expressed in violence by love expressed in\nself-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great\nand divine law of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble\nmankind.\n\nWhen a man like Tolstoy, one of the clearest thinkers in the western\nworld, one of the greatest writers, one who as a soldier has known\nwhat violence is and what it can do, condemns Japan for having blindly\nfollowed the law of modern science, falsely so-called, and fears for\nthat country 'the greatest calamities', it is for us to pause and\nconsider whether, in our impatience of English rule, we do not want to\nreplace one evil by another and a worse. India, which is the nursery\nof the great faiths of the world, will cease to be nationalist India,\nwhatever else she may become, when she goes through the process of\ncivilization in the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun\nfactories and the hateful industrialism which has reduced the people of\nEurope to a state of slavery, and all but stifled among them the best\ninstincts which are the heritage of the human family.\n\nIf we do not want the English in India we must pay the price.\nTolstoy indicates it. 'Do not resist evil, but also do not yourselves\nparticipate in evil--in the violent deeds of the administration of the\nlaw courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of\nthe soldiers, and no one in the world will enslave you', passionately\ndeclares the sage of Yasnaya Polyana. Who can question the truth of\nwhat he says in the following: 'A commercial company enslaved a\nnation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from\nsuperstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does\nit mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and\nordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever,\ncapable, freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that\nnot the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?'\n\nOne need not accept all that Tolstoy says--some of his facts are not\naccurately stated--to realize the central truth of his indictment of\nthe present system, which is to understand and act upon the irresistible\npower of the soul over the body, of love, which is an attribute of the\nsoul, over the brute or body force generated by the stirring in us of\nevil passions.\n\nThere is no doubt that there is nothing new in what Tolstoy preaches.\nBut his presentation of the old truth is refreshingly forceful. His\nlogic is unassailable. And above all he endeavours to practise what\nhe preaches. He preaches to convince. He is sincere and in earnest. He\ncommands attention.\n\n[_19th November, 1909_] M. K. GANDHI\n\n\n\n\n\nA LETTER TO A HINDU\n\n\nBy Leo Tolstoy\n\n\n\n_All that exists is One. People only call this One by different names._\nTHE VEDAS.\n\n_God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God\nabideth in him._ I JOHN iv. 16.\n\n_God is one whole; we are the parts._ EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE\nVEDAS BY VIVEKANANDA.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nDo not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and\ndesires are engendered, for if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through\nthe rough wilderness of life, which is far from Me.\n\nWhenever thou feelest that thy feet are becoming entangled in the\ninterlaced roots of life, know that thou has strayed from the path to\nwhich I beckon thee: for I have placed thee in broad, smooth paths,\nwhich are strewn with flowers. I have put a light before thee, which\nthou canst follow and thus run without stumbling. KRISHNA.\n\nI have received your letter and two numbers of your periodical, both of\nwhich interest me extremely. The oppression of a majority by a minority,\nand the demoralization inevitably resulting from it, is a phenomenon\nthat has always occupied me and has done so most particularly of late.\nI will try to explain to you what I think about that subject in general,\nand particularly about the cause from which the dreadful evils of which\nyou write in your letter, and in the Hindu periodical you have sent me,\nhave arisen and continue to arise.\n\nThe reason for the astonishing fact that a majority of working people\nsubmit to a handful of idlers who control their labour and their very\nlives is always and everywhere the same--whether the oppressors and\noppressed are of one race or whether, as in India and elsewhere, the\noppressors are of a different nation.\n\nThis phenomenon seems particularly strange in India, for there more than\ntwo hundred million people, highly gifted both physically and mentally,\nfind themselves in the power of a small group of people quite alien\nto them in thought, and immeasurably inferior to them in religious\nmorality.\n\nFrom your letter and the articles in _Free Hindustan_ as well as from\nthe very interesting writings of the Hindu Swami Vivekananda and\nothers, it appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of all\nnations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching\nwhich by explaining the meaning of life would supply a supreme law for\nthe guidance of conduct and would replace the more than dubious precepts\nof pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions\ndeduced from them and commonly called 'civilization'.\n\nYour letter, as well as the articles in _Free Hindustan_ and Indian\npolitical literature generally, shows that most of the leaders of public\nopinion among your people no longer attach any significance to the\nreligious teachings that were and are professed by the peoples of India,\nand recognize no possibility of freeing the people from the oppression\nthey endure except by adopting the irreligious and profoundly immoral\nsocial arrangements under which the English and other pseudo-Christian\nnations live to-day.\n\nAnd yet the chief if not the sole cause of the enslavement of the\nIndian peoples by the English lies in this very absence of a religious\nconsciousness and of the guidance for conduct which should flow from\nit--a lack common in our day to all nations East and West, from Japan to\nEngland and America alike.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n_O ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to\nthe right and left of you; you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves\nuntil ye become humble and joyful as children. Then will ye find Me, and\nhaving found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds, and looking\nout from the great world within to the little world without, you will\nbless everything that is, and find all is well with time and with you._\nKRISHNA.\n\n\nTo make my thoughts clear to you I must go farther back. We do not,\ncannot, and I venture to say need not, know how men lived millions of\nyears ago or even ten thousand years ago, but we do know positively\nthat, as far back as we have any knowledge of mankind, it has always\nlived in special groups of families, tribes, and nations in which\nthe majority, in the conviction that it must be so, submissively and\nwillingly bowed to the rule of one or more persons--that is to a very\nsmall minority. Despite all varieties of circumstances and personalities\nthese relations manifested themselves among the various peoples of\nwhose origin we have any knowledge; and the farther back we go the more\nabsolutely necessary did this arrangement appear, both to the rulers and\nthe ruled, to make it possible for people to live peacefully together.\n\nSo it was everywhere. But though this external form of life existed for\ncenturies and still exists, very early--thousands of years before\nour time--amid this life based on coercion, one and the same thought\nconstantly emerged among different nations, namely, that in every\nindividual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that\nexists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything\nof a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love. This\nthought appeared in most various forms at different times and\nplaces, with varying completeness and clarity. It found expression in\nBrahmanism, Judaism, Mazdaism (the teachings of Zoroaster), in Buddhism,\nTaoism, Confucianism, and in the writings of the Greek and Roman sages,\nas well as in Christianity and Mohammedanism. The mere fact that this\nthought has sprung up among different nations and at different times\nindicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth.\nBut this truth was made known to people who considered that a community\ncould only be kept together if some of them restrained others, and so\nit appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society.\nMoreover it was at first expressed only fragmentarily, and so obscurely\nthat though people admitted its theoretic truth they could not entirely\naccept it as guidance for their conduct. Then, too, the dissemination of\nthe truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and\nthe same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition\nof this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes\nunconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign\nto it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth--that his\nlife should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis,\nwhich manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man--this\ntruth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle\nnot merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the\nintentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also\nagainst deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and\npunishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized\nby the rulers and conflicting with the truth. Such a hindrance and\nmisrepresentation of the truth--which had not yet achieved complete\nclarity--occurred everywhere: in Confucianism and Taoism, in Buddhism\nand in Christianity, in Mohammedanism and in your Brahmanism.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n_My hand has sowed love everywhere, giving unto all that will receive.\nBlessings are offered unto all My children, but many times in their\nblindness they fail to see them. How few there are who gather the gifts\nwhich lie in profusion at their feet: how many there are, who, in wilful\nwaywardness, turn their eyes away from them and complain with a wail\nthat they have not that which I have given them; many of them defiantly\nrepudiate not only My gifts, but Me also, Me, the Source of all\nblessings and the Author of their being._ KRISHNA.\n\n_I tarry awhile from the turmoil and strife of the world. I will\nbeautify and quicken thy life with love and with joy, for the light of\nthe soul is Love. Where Love is, there is contentment and peace, and\nwhere there is contentment and peace, there am I, also, in their midst._\nKRISHNA.\n\n_The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow\nto others, although he could attain to great power by ignoring their\nfeelings._\n\n_The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have\ndone evil unto him._\n\n_If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any\nreason, he will ultimately have grief not to be overcome._\n\n_The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of\nthemselves by doing them a great kindness._\n\n_Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavour\nto relieve his neighbour's want as much as his own?_\n\n_If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the\nevening the evil will return to him._\n\n\nTHE HINDU KURAL.\n\n\nThus it went on everywhere. The recognition that love represents the\nhighest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was\nso interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted\nit, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that\nthis highest morality was only applicable to private life--for home\nuse, as it were--but that in public life all forms of violence--such as\nimprisonment, executions, and wars--might be used for the protection\nof the majority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were\ndiametrically opposed to any vestige of love. And though common sense\nindicated that if some men claim to decide who is to be subjected to\nviolence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these men to whom\nviolence is applied may, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion with\nregard to those who have employed violence to them, and though the\ngreat religious teachers of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and above all of\nChristianity, foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have\nconstantly drawn attention to the one invariable condition of love\n(namely, the enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds\nwithout resisting evil by evil) people continued--regardless of all\nthat leads man forward--to try to unite the incompatibles: the virtue\nof love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil by\nviolence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so\nfirmly established that the very people who recognize love as a virtue\naccept as lawful at the same time an order of life based on violence and\nallowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.\n\nFor a long time people lived in this obvious contradiction without\nnoticing it. But a time arrived when this contradiction became more\nand more evident to thinkers of various nations. And the old and simple\ntruth that it is natural for men to help and to love one another, but\nnot to torture and to kill one another, became ever clearer, so that\nfewer and fewer people were able to believe the sophistries by which the\ndistortion of the truth had been made so plausible.\n\nIn former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence and\nthereby infringing the law of love was by claiming a divine right\nfor the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs, and other heads of\nstates. But the longer humanity lived the weaker grew the belief in this\npeculiar, God--given right of the ruler. That belief withered in the\nsame way and almost simultaneously in the Christian and the Brahman\nworld, as well as in Buddhist and Confucian spheres, and in recent times\nit has so faded away as to prevail no longer against man's reasonable\nunderstanding and the true religious feeling. People saw more and more\nclearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness and\nimmorality of subordinating their wills to those of other people just\nlike themselves, when they are bidden to do what is contrary not only to\ntheir interests but also to their moral sense. And so one might suppose\nthat having lost confidence in any religious authority for a belief in\nthe divinity of potentates of various kinds, people would try to free\nthemselves from subjection to it. But unfortunately not only were the\nrulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by having the\npeoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the\nrule of, these pseudodivine beings, ever larger and larger circles of\npeople grouped and established themselves around them, and under an\nappearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old\ndeception of a supernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled\naway these men were only concerned to devise a new one which like its\npredecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage to a\nlimited number of rulers.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\n_Children, do you want to know by what your hearts should be guided?\nThrow aside your longings and strivings after that which is null and\nvoid; get rid of your erroneous thoughts about happiness and wisdom, and\nyour empty and insincere desires. Dispense with these and you will know\nLove._ KRISHNA.\n\n_Be not the destroyers of yourselves. Arise to your true Being, and then\nyou will have nothing to fear._ KRISHNA.\n\n\nNew justifications have now appeared in place of the antiquated,\nobsolete, religious ones. These new justifications are just as\ninadequate as the old ones, but as they are new their futility cannot\nimmediately be recognized by the majority of men. Besides this, those\nwho enjoy power propagate these new sophistries and support them so\nskilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of those who\nsuffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify. These new\njustifications are termed 'scientific'. But by the term 'scientific' is\nunderstood just what was formerly understood by the term 'religious':\njust as formerly everything called 'religious' was held to be\nunquestionable simply because it was called religious, so now all that\nis called 'scientific' is held to be unquestionable. In the present case\nthe obsolete religious justification of violence which consisted in the\nrecognition of the supernatural personality of the God-ordained ruler\n('there is no power but of God') has been superseded by the 'scientific'\njustification which puts forward, first, the assertion that because the\ncoercion of man by man has existed in all ages, it follows that such\ncoercion must continue to exist. This assertion that people should\ncontinue to live as they have done throughout past ages rather than\nas their reason and conscience indicate, is what 'science' calls\n'the historic law'. A further 'scientific' justification lies in the\nstatement that as among plants and wild beasts there is a constant\nstruggle for existence which always results in the survival of\nthe fittest, a similar struggle should be carried on among human\nbeings--beings, that is, who are gifted with intelligence and love;\nfaculties lacking in the creatures subject to the struggle for\nexistence and survival of the fittest. Such is the second 'scientific'\njustification.\n\nThe third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread\njustification is, at bottom, the age-old religious one just a little\naltered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection\nof the majority cannot be avoided--so that coercion is unavoidable\nhowever desirable reliance on love alone might be in human intercourse.\nThe only difference in this justification by pseudo-science consists in\nthe fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others\nhave the right to decide against whom violence may and must be\nused, pseudo-science now gives a different reply to that given by\nreligion--which declared that the right to decide was valid because it\nwas pronounced by persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says\nthat these decisions represent the will of the people, which under a\nconstitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all\nthe decisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment.\n\nSuch are the scientific justifications of the principle of coercion.\nThey are not merely weak but absolutely invalid, yet they are so much\nneeded by those who occupy privileged positions that they believe in\nthem as blindly as they formerly believed in the immaculate conception,\nand propagate them just as confidently. And the unfortunate majority of\nmen bound to toil is so dazzled by the pomp with which these 'scientific\ntruths' are presented, that under this new influence it accepts these\nscientific stupidities for holy truth, just as it formerly accepted\nthe pseudo-religious justifications; and it continues to submit to the\npresent holders of power who are just as hard-hearted but rather more\nnumerous than before.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\n_Who am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes\ngazed wonderingly upon the world, whose horizon hides this real life\nfrom thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hast prayed for, demanded\nas thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am\nthat which has lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years.\nSometimes I lay in thee grieving because thou didst not recognize me;\nsometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes, and extended my arms calling\nthee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that thou\nshouldst rebel against the iron chains which bound thee to the earth._\n\nKRISHNA.\n\n\nSo matters went on, and still go on, in the Christian world. But we\nmight have hope that in the immense Brahman, Buddhist, and Confucian\nworlds this new scientific superstition would not establish itself, and\nthat the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus, once their eyes were opened to\nthe religious fraud justifying violence, would advance directly to a\nrecognition of the law of love inherent in humanity, and which had\nbeen so forcibly enunciated by the great Eastern teachers. But what has\nhappened is that the scientific superstition replacing the religious one\nhas been accepted and secured a stronger and stronger hold in the East.\n\nIn your periodical you set out as the basic principle which should guide\nthe actions of your people the maxim that: 'Resistance to aggression is\nnot simply justifiable but imperative, nonresistance hurts both Altruism\nand Egotism.'\n\nLove is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you\ntoo have the only method of saving your people from enslavement. In very\nancient times love was proclaimed with special strength and clearness\namong your people to be the religious basis of human life. Love, and\nforcible resistance to evil-doers, involve such a mutual contradiction\nas to destroy utterly the whole sense and meaning of the conception of\nlove. And what follows? With a light heart and in the twentieth\ncentury you, an adherent of a religious people, deny their law, feeling\nconvinced of your scientific enlightenment and your right to do so, and\nyou repeat (do not take this amiss) the amazing stupidity indoctrinated\nin you by the advocates of the use of violence--the enemies of truth,\nthe servants first of theology and then of science--your European\nteachers.\n\nYou say that the English have enslaved your people and hold them in\nsubjection because the latter have not resisted resolutely enough and\nhave not met force by force.\n\nBut the case is just the opposite. If the English have enslaved the\npeople of India it is just because the latter recognized, and still\nrecognize, force as the fundamental principle of the social order. In\naccord with that principle they submitted to their little rajahs, and\non their behalf struggled against one another, fought the Europeans, the\nEnglish, and are now trying to fight with them again.\n\nA commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions.\nTell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp\nwhat these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand men, not\nathletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred\nmillion vigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people? Do not the\nfigures make it clear that it is not the English who have enslaved the\nIndians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?\n\nWhen the Indians complain that the English have enslaved them it is as\nif drunkards complained that the spirit-dealers who have settled among\nthem have enslaved them. You tell them that they might give up drinking,\nbut they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot\nabstain, and that they must have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it\nnot the same thing with the millions of people who submit to thousands'\nor even to hundreds, of others--of their own or other nations?\n\nIf the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they\nthemselves live and have lived by violence, and do not recognize the\neternal law of love inherent in humanity.\n\n_Pitiful and foolish is the man who seeks what he already has, and does\nnot know that he has it. Yes, Pitiful and foolish is he who does not\nknow the bliss of love which surrounds him and which I have given him._\nKRISHNA.\n\n\nAs soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to\ntheir hearts and now revealed to them, which excludes all resistance\nby violence, and therefore hold aloof from all participation in\nviolence--as soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to\nenslave millions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single\nindividual. Do not resist the evil-doer and take no part in doing so,\neither in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts,\nthe collection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the\nworld will be able to enslave you.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\n_O ye who sit in bondage and continually seek and pant for freedom, seek\nonly for love. Love is peace in itself and peace which gives complete\nsatisfaction. I am the key that opens the portal to the rarely\ndiscovered land where contentment alone is found._ KRISHNA.\n\nWhat is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is\nlike what happens to every individual when he passes from childhood to\nadolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses what had hitherto guided\nhis life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard\nsuitable to his age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares,\ndistractions, and stupefactions to divert his attention from the misery\nand senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time.\n\nWhen an individual passes from one period of life to another a time\ncomes when he cannot go on in senseless activity and excitement as\nbefore, but has to understand that although he has outgrown what before\nused to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any\nreasonable guidance, but rather that he must formulate for himself an\nunderstanding of life corresponding to his age, and having elucidated\nit must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in\nthe growth and development of humanity. I believe that such a time has\nnow arrived--not in the sense that it has come in the year 1908, but\nthat the inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme\ndegree of tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the\nbeneficence of the law of love, and on the other the existing order of\nlife which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, and\ntroubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and\nbuilt on the use of violence. This contradiction must be faced, and\nthe solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law of\nviolence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from\nremote antiquity: the truth that the law of love is in accord with the\nnature of man.\n\nBut men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they\nhave completely freed themselves from all religious and scientific\nsuperstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations and\nsophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for\ncenturies.\n\nTo save a sinking ship it is necessary to throw overboard the ballast,\nwhich though it may once have been needed would now cause the ship to\nsink. And so it is with the scientific superstition which hides the\ntruth of their welfare from mankind. In order that men should embrace\nthe truth--not in the vague way they did in childhood, nor in the\none-sided and perverted way presented to them by their religious and\nscientific teachers, but embrace it as their highest law--the complete\nliberation of this truth from all and every superstition (both\npseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific) by which it is still obscured\nis essential: not a partial, timid attempt, reckoning with traditions\nsanctified by age and with the habits of the people--not such as was\neffected in the religious sphere by Guru-Nanak, the founder of the\nsect of the Sikhs, and in the Christian world by Luther, and by similar\nreformers in other religions--but a fundamental cleansing of religious\nconsciousness from all ancient religious and modern scientific\nsuperstitions.\n\nIf only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of\nOrmuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their incarnation as Krishnas and\nChrists, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and\nresurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the\nexternal affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed\nthemselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas,\nBibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed\nthemselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings about\ninfinitely small atoms and molecules and in all the infinitely great and\ninfinitely remote worlds, their movements and origin, as well as from\nfaith in the infallibility of the scientific law to which humanity is\nat present subjected: the historic law, the economic laws, the law of\nstruggle and survival, and so on--if people only freed themselves from\nthis terrible accumulation of futile exercises of our lower capacities\nof mind and memory called the 'Sciences', and from the innumerable\ndivisions of all sorts of histories, anthropologies, homiletics,\nbacteriologics, jurisprudences, cosmographies, strategies--their name\nis legion--and freed themselves from all this harmful, stupifying\nballast--the simple law of love, natural to man, accessible to all and\nsolving all questions and perplexities, would of itself become clear and\nobligatory.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\n_Children, look at the flowers at your feet; do not trample upon them.\nLook at the love in your midst and do not repudiate it._ KRISHNA.\n\n_There is a higher reason which transcends all human minds. It is far\nand near. It permeates all the worlds and at the same time is infinitely\nhigher than they._\n\n_A man who sees that all things are contained in the higher spirit\ncannot treat any being with contempt._\n\n_For him to whom all spiritual beings are equal to the highest there can\nbe no room for deception or grief._\n\n_Those who are ignorant and are devoted to the religious rites only, are\nin a deep gloom, but those who are given up to fruitless meditations are\nin a still greater darkness._\n\n\nUPANISHADS, FROM VEDAS.\n\n\nYes, in our time all these things must be cleared away in order that\nmankind may escape from self-inflicted calamities that have reached an\nextreme intensity. Whether an Indian seeks liberation from subjection\nto the English, or anyone else struggles with an oppressor either of his\nown nationality or of another--whether it be a Negro defending himself\nagainst the North Americans; or Persians, Russians, or Turks against\nthe Persian, Russian, or Turkish governments, or any man seeking the\ngreatest welfare for himself and for everybody else--they do not need\nexplanations and justifications of old religious superstitions such as\nhave been formulated by your Vivekanandas, Baba Bharatis, and others, or\nin the Christian world by a number of similar interpreters and exponents\nof things that nobody needs; nor the innumerable scientific theories\nabout matters not only unnecessary but for the most part harmful.\n(In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is\nharmful.) What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the\nFrenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and\nRevolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many\ningenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation,\nnor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the\nenjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities\nwith innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and\nbooks, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for\nthe most part corrupt stupidities termed art--but one thing only is\nneedful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds\nplace in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific\nsuperstitions--the truth that for our life one law is valid--the law of\nlove, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well\nas to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous\nimbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the\ntruth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been\nsmothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is\none and the same in all the great religions of the world. It will in due\ntime emerge and make its way to general recognition, and the nonsense\nthat has obscured it will disappear of itself, and with it will go the\nevil from which humanity now suffers.\n\n_Children, look upwards with your beclouded eyes, and a world full of\njoy and love will disclose itself to you, a rational world made by My\nwisdom, the only real world. Then you will know what love has done\nwith you, what love has bestowed upon you, what love demands from you._\nKRISHNA.\n\n\nYASNAYA POLYANA.\n\nDecember 14th, 1908.","title":"A Letter to a Hindu","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":5772}