Notes on Lectures : Colombo To Almora
THE WORK BEFORE US ( Full Text Here )
Delivered at the Triplicane Literary Society, Madras
Problem of Life becoming deeper. Essence – Solidarity of Life. Every idea, Aspiration need to cover Whole World. Narrowing of scope of views or actions leads to degeneration. Hindu Aryans became introspective. Great Theme – Analysis of own mind. Greek mind became externally oriented. Analysis of External World. India – Analytical Sciences and Greek – Sciences of Generalisation. India National vigour got depleted two centuries before Mohammedan Conquest. National Faculty including Logic got degraded. Art, Music Science. Originality of race got lost. Music Each note lost its individuality, jumble of notes. Attempt at ornate figures and loss of originality. Eg Drink water from left or right hand, whether to touch or not to touch , what’s the penance if touched , Dress, Food. Themes of Vedanta Half-Lost, forests – Sanyasins. Mohammedan conquest gave us many good things. Even the lowest man can teach something to the highest. It could not bring the vigour. English Conquest. All conquest is evil, foreign government is evil. Yet even through evil some good comes. England brought back Greek stamp with it – Building, Furniture, Art , European Sciences .
So Ancient Greek Meets Ancient Hindu on Soil of India. Broadening and Life Giving revivalist movement.
A broader and more generous conception of life, broader conceptions of life. Carrying out of effect of the primary conception of our ancients. Become broad, go out, amalgamate, to universalise. Yet we had been making ourselves smaller and smaller and disassociating ourselves.
Love, patriotism & veneration for ancients yet learn many things from other nations. Receive good knowledge, Learn by service from lowest of the birth. Learn the lessons of life from anyone who can teach. We also have to teach a great lesson to the world. We cannot do without the world outside India. Penalty has been thousand years of slavery.
We did not go out to compare things with other nations, did not mark the workings that have been all around us led to degradation of Indian Mind. Better for you and country that you go out and travel amongst the nations of the world. Absence of this has resulted in we being at the feet of every nation that wants to rule India.
Expansion – First Manifest effect of life.Must expand if you want to live. Our expansion – our offering to human knowledge. Our contribution to general upheaval of world.
Each nation must give in order to live. When you give , you will have life. When you receive , you must pay for it by giving to all others.
Gift of India is Religion , Philosophy, Wisdom and Spirituality. Kshyatriya – Conquest is greatest glory of one man can have over other. We have never conquered and that is our glory. Words of blessings, peace , love and sympathy. Ideas of Toleration and Sympathy became practical.
Our message – silent , unperceived. Indian thought characteristic – silence and calmness. Tremendous power , never expressed with violence. Silent mesmerism. Does not rouse , stir instantly. Quiet Silent , they fascinate , you cannot mover . Gentle dews unseen and unheard , blossom of fairest of roses. Silent unperceived , yet omnipotent in effect. Revolutionised the thought of world but when it did so, nobody knows.
Modern writers – Steal ninety percent of their ideas from other authors, while only ten per cent is their own, and they take care to write a preface in which they say, “For these ideas I am responsible”
Great Master Minds Producing momentous results in heart of mankind. Puranas, Philosophy. Vyasa Kapila generic names. Work without right to fruits.
Thoughts need to run through channels like merchandise do. Roads, Networks. Indian Thought enters the veins of every race. Before Buddhist too Indian thought penetrated the world. Vedanta – China, Persia and Islands of Eastern Archipelago. Then Mighty mind of Greek linked Eastern World and Indian Thought came out. Christianity is Collection of little bits of Indian Thought. Buddhism is Rebel Child and Christianity a very patchy imitation. England has tremendous power – roads and through oceans and electricity.
Every part of the world has been linked to every other part, and electricity plays a most marvellous part as the new messenger.
Thus India is reviving and giving her own quota to progress and civilisation of the world. Indian Thought Philosophical and spiritual will go over and conquer the world.
Problem is is assuming larger proportions every day. It is not only that we must revive our own country — that is a small matter; I am an imaginative man — and my idea is the conquest of the whole world by the Hindu race.
Our conquest if of Religion and Spirituality. Once more the world must be conquered by India. This is the dream of my life, and I wish that each one of you who hear me today will have the same dream in your minds, and stop not till you have realised the dream.
Best work for yourselves when you work for others. Not that we must look to our homes first and then outside. Attempt to enlighten other countries with your thoughts is helping your own country. 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.
Love must conquer hatred. Hatred cannot conquer itself. Materialism and all its miseries can never be conquered by materialism. Army multiply and make brutes. Spirituality must conquer west. What they want is spirituality to preserve them as nations. Waiting and eager for it. Searched corners of world, deep of pleasure and found vanity, Now time to work out India’s spirituality.
Sending life-giving principles not superstitions , Weed out from our soil and thrown aside to die. They degrade and soften the brain. Brain that cannot think high and noble thoughts. Lost all powers of originality , lost all vigour , poisoned with all sorts of superstitions in name of religion.
Scylla and Charybdis : Rank Materialism and Arrant Superstition.
Western Wisdom – Thinks he knows everything. Laughs at ancient sages. Hindu thought to him is arrant trash; philosophy mere child’s prattle and religion superstition of fools.
Other Man is monomaniac. Wants to explain omens. Philosophical and metaphysical and other puerile explanations for every superstitions – peculiar race ,gods, village. Says its mandate of Veda. Says national life depends on it.
Better be alive atheist. Superstition enters , brain is gone , softens Degradation seized on life.
Avoid both – Materialism is all & Unthinking Superstition of Brains.
What we want – Vigour in blood, strength in the nerves, iron muscles and nerves of steel, not softening namby-pamby ideas.
Avoid Mystery . No such in Vedas, Puranas or Samhitas. No secret societies no sleight-of-hand tricks. For grant truth to humanity.
Mystery Mongering & Superstitions are signs of weakness.
Be strong. Stand on own feet. Great things, marvellous , supernatural but not mysterious. Truths are not mysteries. or properties of secret societies. I am a Sannyâsin, and I have been for the last fourteen years on my feet.
Don’t invent allegories to explain rotten superstitions of the world. Be bold . Don’t explain that way.
Excise spots and sores , cut off and destroy. Don;t destroy our religion, our national life our spirituality. Principle of religion is safe. Remove black spots. Stick of Religion.
Other religion – On Historical man. Disprove the historicity and things tumble down. Half of lives broken and other half doubted seriously. allegiance is to the principles always, and not to the persons. it should be the life-work of everyone of us to keep them safe, and to keep them free from the accumulating dirt and dust of ages.these principles of the Vedanta were never tarnished ;directing the human mind towards the ideal, the goal. Vedas is are dualistic and non-dualistic both. Vedas show the various steps to the higher goal.
So long as we have a body and so long as we are deluded by the idea of our identity with the body, so long as we have five senses and see the external world, we must have a Personal God.God Nature Individualised soul.
Shruti declares, “whence words fall back with the mind without reaching it””There the eyes cannot reach nor speech nor mind”; “We cannot say that we know it, we cannot say that we do not know it”.
Conclusion through knowledge and philosophy and power of love.This identity comes even through love.If there have been Vyâsas and Vâlmikis and Shankarâchâryas in ancient times, why may not each one of you become a Shankaracharya?
But the truth came to the Rishis of India — the Mantra-drashtâs, the seers of thought — and will come to all Rishis in the future, not to talkers, not to book-swallowers, not to scholars, not to philologists, but to seers of thought.not even by the study of the Vedas will you reach the Atman? You must open your heart.Apt to degenerate and instead of helping they retard, and a man identifies religion with externalities.Now is only the preparation. Then religion dawns upon you, now you are only undergoing intellectual gymnastics and physical tortures.
Rishihood — must become a Mantra-drashta, must see God. That is salvation. Then it becomes easy to look into the scripture with our own eyes, understand the meaning for ourselves, to analyse just what we want, and to understand the truth for ourselves. This is what has to be done
All admit the truth that the power is there — potential or manifest it is there — and the sooner you believe that, the better for you. All power is within you; you can do anything and everything.
You can do anything and everything without even the guidance of any one. All power is there. Stand up and express the divinity within you.
06 Oct 2020