What is it that India is to win and maintain? Can anything small or
circumscribed ever satisfy the mind of India? Has her own history and
the teaching of the past prepared her for some temporary and quite
subordinate gain? There are at this moment two complementary and not
antagonistic ideals before the country. India is drawn into the vortex
of international competition. She has to become efficient in every
way,--through spread of education, through performance of civic duties
and responsibilities, through activities both industrial and commercial.
Neglect of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very
existence; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in success
and satisfaction of personal ambition.
But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation. Such material
activities have brought in the West their fruit, in accession of power
and wealth. There has been a feverish rush even in the realm of science,
for exploiting applications of knowledge, not so often for saving as
for destruction. In the absence of some power of restraint, civilisation
is trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some
complementary ideal there must be to save man from that mad rush which
must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some
insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate
object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He
forgot that far more potent than competition was mutual help and
co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this country through
milleniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and
absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realisation of the highest
ideal of life--not through passive renunciation, but through active
struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired
nothing has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won, can
enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience.
In India such examples of constant realisation of ideals through work
have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by
her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through
infinite transformations. Thus while the soul of Babylon and the Nile
Valley have transmigrated, ours still remains vital and with capacity of
absorbing what time has brought, and making it one with itself.
The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in
response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary
ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition
but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that
ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at
others' loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except in
the absence of all sources of distraction, and when the mind has reached
the point of rest.
Public life, and the various professions will be the appropriate spheres
of activity for many aspiring young men. But for my disciples, I call on
those very few, who, realising inner call, will devote their whole life
with strengthened character and determined purpose to take part in that
infinite struggle to win knowledge for its own sake and see truth face
to face.