The longest night seems to be passing away, the sorest trouble seems to be coming to an end at last, the seeming corpse appears to be awaking and a voice is coming to us away back where history and even tradition fails to peep into the gloom of the past, coming down from there, reflected as it were from peak to peak of the infinite Himalaya of knowledge, and of love, and of work, India, this motherland of ours a voice is coming unto us, gentle, firm, and yet unmistakable in its utterances, and is gaining volume as days pass by, and behold, the sleeper is awakening! Like a breeze from the Himalayas, it is bringing life into the almost dead bones and muscles, the lethargy is passing away, and only the blind cannot see, or the perverted will not see, that she is awakening, this motherland of ours, from her deep long sleep. None can desist her any more; never is she going to sleep any more; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
A nation may control the elements, develop utilitarian
problems of life seemingly to the limit, and yet not realise that in the
individual the highest type of civilisation is found in him who has learnt to
conquer self. This condition is found in India more than in any country on
earth, for there the material conditions are subservient to the spiritual, and
the individual looks for the soul manifestations in everything that has life,
studying nature to this end. Hence that gentle disposition to endure with
indomitable patience the flings of what appears unkind fortune, the while there
is a full consciousness of a spiritual strength and knowledge greater than
those possessed by any other people; hence the existence of a country and a people
from which flows an unending stream that attracts the attention of thinkers far
and near to approach and throw from their shoulders an oppressive earthly
burden. (CW8 PG.206 INDIA)
The debt which the world owes to our motherland is
immense. Taking country with country there is not one race on this earth to
which the world owes so much as to the patient Hindu, the mild Hindu. Like the
gentle dew that falls unseen and unheard, and yet brings into blossom the
fairest of roses, has been the contribution of India to the thought of the
world. Silent, unperceived, yet omnipotent in its effect, it has revolutionized
the thought of the world, yet nobody knows when it did so ( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE
IN THE EAST )
To many, Indian thought, Indian manners; Indian
customs, Indian philosophy, Indian literature are repulsive at the first sight;
but let them persevere, let them read, let them become familiar with the great
principles underlying these ideas, and it is ninety-nine to one that the charm
will come over them, and fascination will be the result. Slow and silent, as
the gentle dew that falls in the morning, unseen and unheard yet producing a
most tremendous result, has been the work of the calm, patient, all-suffering
spiritual race upon the world of thought. ( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE
EAST )
If there is any land on this earth that can lay claim
to be the blessed Punya Bhumi, to be the land to which all souls on this earth
must come to account for Karma, the land to which every soul that is wending
its way Godward must come to attain its last home, the land where humanity has
attained its highest towards gentleness, towards generosity, towards purity,
towards calmness, above all, the land of introspection and of spirituality it
is India. Hence have started the founders of religions from the most ancient
times, deluging the earth again and again with the pure and perennial waters of
spiritual truth. Hence have proceeded the tidal waves of philosophy that have
covered the earth, East or West, North or South, and hence again must start the
wave which is going to spiritualise the material civilisation of the world.
Here is the life-giving water with which must be quenched the burning fire of
materialism which is burning the core of the hearts of millions in other lands.
Believe me, my friends, this is going to be.( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE
EAST )
In ancient times and in modern times, great ideas have
emanated from strong and great races. In ancient and in modern times, wonderful
ideas have been carried forward from one race to another. In ancient and in
modern times, seeds of great truth and power have been cast abroad by the
advancing tides of national life; but mark you, my friends, it has been always
with the blast of war trumpets and with the march of embattled cohorts. Each
idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood. Each idea had to wade through the
blood of millions of our fellow-beings. Each word of power had to be followed
by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows.
This, in the main, other nations has taught; but India has for thousands of
years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not
exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of the modern
Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves blue. Even earlier, when
history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that
intense past, even from then until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from
her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before
it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and
that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live. ( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE
IN THE EAST )
Let the Persian or the Greek, the Roman, the Arab, or
the Englishman march his battalions, conquer the world, and link the different
nations together, and the philosophy and spirituality of India is ever ready to
flow along the new-made channels into the veins of the nations of the world.
The Hindu's calm brain must pour out its own quota to give to the sum total of
human progress. India's gift to the world is the light spiritual.( CW3 FIRST
PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE EAST )
Those who keep their eyes open, those who understand
the workings in the minds of different nations of the West, those who are
thinkers and study the different nations, will find the immense change that has
been produced in the tone, the procedure, in the methods, and in the literature
of the world by this slow, never-ceasing permeation of Indian thought.( CW3
FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IN THE EAST )
Once more history is going to repeat itself. For
today, under the blasting light of modern science, when old and apparently
strong and invulnerable beliefs have been shattered to their very foundations,
when special claims laid to the allegiance of mankind by different sects have
been all blown into atoms and have vanished into air, when the sledge-hammer
blows of modern antiquarian researches are pulverising like masses of porcelain
all sorts of antiquated orthodoxies, when
religion in the West is only in the hands of the ignorant and the knowing ones
look down with scorn upon anything belonging to religion, here comes to the
fore the philosophy of India, which displays the highest religious aspirations
of the Indian mind, where the grandest philosophical facts have been the
practical spirituality of the people. This naturally is coming to the rescue,
the idea of the oneness of all, the Infinite, the idea of the Impersonal, the
wonderful idea of the eternal soul of man, of the unbroken continuity in the
march of beings, and the infinity of the universe.( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC LECTURE IN
THE EAST )
The great principles underlying all this wonderful,
infinite, ennobling, expansive view of man and God and the world have been
produced in India. In India alone man has not stood up to fight for a little
tribal God, saying "My God is true and yours is not true; let us have a
good fight over it." It was only here that such ideas did not occur as
fighting for little gods. These great underlying principles, being based upon
the eternal nature of man, are as potent today for working for the good of the
human race as they were thousands of years ago, and they will remain so, so
tong as this earth remains, so
long as the law of Karma remains, so long as we are born as individuals and
have to work out our own destiny by our individual power. ( CW3 FIRST PUBLIC
LECTURE IN THE EAST )
This is the motherland of philosophy, of spirituality,
and of ethics, of sweetness, gentleness, and love. These still exist, and my
experience of the world leads me to stand on firm ground and make the bold
statement that India is still the first and foremost of all the nations of the
world in these respects.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
My friends, the way out is that first and foremost we
must keep a firm hold on spirituality - that inestimable gift handed down to us
by our ancient forefathers. Did you ever hear of a country where the greatest
kings tried to trace their descent not to kings, not to robber-barons living in
old castles who plundered poor travellers, but to semi-naked sages who lived in
the forest? Did you ever hear of such a land? This is the land. In other
countries great priests try to trace their descent to some king, but here the
greatest kings would trace their descent to some ancient priest. Therefore,
whether you believe in spirituality or not, for the sake of the national life,
you have to get a hold on spirituality and keep to it. Then stretch the other
hand out and gain all you can from other races, but everything must be
subordinated to that one ideal of life; and out of that a wonderful, glorious,
future India will come I am sure it is coming a greater India than ever was.
Sages will spring up greater than all the ancient sages; and your ancestors
will not only be satisfied, but I am sure, they will be proud from their
positions in other worlds to look down upon their descendants, so glorious, and
so great.(CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
Let us all work hard, my brethren; this is no time for
sleep. On our work depends the coming of the India of the future. She is there
ready waiting. She is only sleeping. Arise and awake and see her seated here on
her eternal throne, rejuvenated, more glorious than she ever was this
motherland of ours.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
I have said, gentlemen that we have yet something to
teach to the world. This is the very reason, the raison d'tre, that this nation
has lived on, in spite of hundreds of years of persecution, in spite of nearly
a thousand year of foreign rule and foreign oppression. This nation still lives;
the raison d'tre is it still holds to God, to the
treasure-house of religion and spirituality.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF
WELCOME AT RAMNAD)
But mark you, if you give up that spirituality, leaving it aside to go after the materialising civilisation of the West, the result will be that in three generations you will be an extinct race; because the backbone of the nation will be broken, the foundation upon which the national edifice has been built will be undermined, and the result will be annihilation all round.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
Yet, perhaps, some sort of materialism, toned down to
our own requirements, would be a blessing to many of our brothers who are not
yet ripe for the highest truths. This is the mistake made in every country and
in every society, and it is a greatly regrettable thing that in India, where it
was always understood, the same mistake of forcing the highest truths on people
who are not ready for them has been made of late.( CW3 REPLY TO THE ADDRESS OF
WELCOME AT RAMNAD )
I love my nation, I cannot see you degraded, weakened
any more than you are now. Therefore I am bound for your sake and for truth's
sake to cry, "Hold!" and to raise my voice against this degradation
of my race. Give up these weakening mysticisms and be strong. Go back to your Upanishads the
shining, the strengthening, the bright philosophy and part from all these
mysterious things, all these weakening things. Take up this philosophy; the
greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own
existence. The truths of the Upanishads are before you. Take them up, live up
to them, and the salvation of India will be at hand.( CW3 MY PLAN OF CAMPAIGN )
In India, religious life forms the centre, the keynote
of the whole music of national life; and if any nation attempts to throw off
its national vitality the direction which has become its own through the
transmission of centuries that nation dies if it succeeds in the attempt. And,
therefore, if you succeed in the attempt to throw off your religion and take up
either politics, or society, or any other things as your centre, as the
vitality of your national life, the result will be that you will become
extinct. To prevent this you must make all and everything work through that
vitality of your religion. Let all your nerves vibrate through the backbone of
your religion. ( CW3 MY PLAN OF CAMPAIGN )
Gifts of secular knowledge and social knowledge can be
made with fire and sword. But spiritual knowledge can only be given in silence
like the dew that falls unseen and unheard, yet bringing into bloom masses of
roses. This has been the gift of India to the world again and again. Whenever
there has been a great conquering race, bringing the nations of the world
together, making roads and transit possible, immediately India arose and gave
her quota of spiritual power to the sum total of the progress of the world.
This happened ages before Buddha was born, and remnants of it are still left in
China, in Asia Minor, and in the heart of the Malayan Archipelago. This was the
case when the great Greek conqueror united the four corners of the then known
world; then rushed out Indian spirituality, and the boasted civilisation of the
West is but the remnant of that deluge. Now the same opportunity has again
come; the power of England has linked the nations of the world together as was
never done before. English roads and channels of communication rush from one
end of the world to the other. Owing to English genius, the world today has been
linked in such a fashion as has never before been done. Today trade centres
have been formed such as have never been before in the history of mankind. And
immediately, consciously or unconsciously, India rises up and pours forth her
gifts of spirituality; and they will rush through these roads till they have
reached the very ends of the world. That I went to America was not my doing or
your doing; but the God of India who is guiding her destiny sent me, and will
send hundreds of such to all the nations of the world. No power on earth can
resist it. This also has to be done. You
must go out to preach your religion, preach it to every nation under the sun,
preach it to every people. This is the first thing to do. And after preaching
spiritual knowledge, along with it will come that secular knowledge and every
other knowledge that you want; but if you attempt to get the secular knowledge
without religion, I tell you plainly, vain is your attempt in India, it will
never have a hold on the people. Even the great Buddhistic movement was a
failure, partially on account of that.( CW3 MY PLAN OF CAMPAIGN )
With all my love for India, and with all my patriotism
and veneration for the ancients, I cannot but think that we have to learn many
things from other nations. We must be always ready to sit at the feet of all,
for, mark you, every one can teach us great lessons. Says our great law-giver,
Manu: "Receive some good knowledge even from the low-born, and even from
the man of lowest birth learn by service the road to heaven." We,
therefore, as true children of Manu, must obey his commands and be ready to
learn the lessons of this life or the life hereafter from any one who can teach
us. At the same time we must not forget that we have also to teach a great
lesson to the world. We cannot do without the world outside India; it was our
foolishness that we thought we could, and we have paid the penalty by about a
thousand years of slavery. That we did not go out to compare things with other
nations, did not mark the workings that have been all around us, has been the
one great cause of this degradation of the Indian mind. We have paid the
penalty; let us do it no more. All such foolish ideas that Indians must not go
out of India are childish. They must be knocked on the head; the more you go
out and travel among the nations of the world, the better for you and for your
country. If you had done that for hundreds of years past, you would not be here
today at the feet of every nation that wants to rule India. The first manifest
effect of life is expansion. You must expand if you want to live. The moment
you have ceased to expand, death is upon you, danger is ahead. ( CW3 THE WORK
BEFORE US )
This is the great ideal before us, and every one must
be ready for it the Conquest of the whole world by India nothing less than
that, and we must all get ready for it, strain every nerve for it. Let
foreigners come and flood the land with their armies, never mind. Up, India,
and conquer the world with your spirituality! Ay,
as has been declared on this soil first, love must conquer hatred, hatred
cannot conquer itself. Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered
by materialism. Armies when they attempt to conquer armies only multiply and
make brutes of humanity. Spirituality must conquer the West. Slowly they
are finding out that what they want is spirituality to preserve them as
nations. They are waiting for it, they are eager for it. Where is the supply to
come from? Where are the men ready to go out to every country in the world with
the messages of the great sages of India? Where are the men who are ready to
sacrifice everything, so that this message shall reach every corner of the
world? Such heroic spurs are wanted to help the spread of truth. Such heroic
workers are wanted to go abroad and help to disseminate the great truths of the
Vedanta. The world wants it; without it the world will be destroyed. The whole
of the Western world is on a volcano which may burst tomorrow, go to pieces
tomorrow. They have searched every corner of the world and have found no
respite. They have drunk deep of the cup of pleasure and found it vanity. Now
is the time to work so that India's spiritual ideas may penetrate deep into the
West. Therefore young men of India, I specially ask you to remember this. We must go out, we must conquer the
world through our spirituality and philosophy. There is no other alternative,
we must do it or die. The only condition of national life, of awakened and
vigorous national life, is the conquest of the world by Indian thought. ( CW3 THE WORK
BEFORE US )
Religion and religion alone is the life of India, and
when that goes, India will die, in spite of politics, in spite of social
reforms, in spite of Kubera's wealth poured upon the head of every one of her
children.
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