Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

SR No.: 001785
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 674
Language: English, Hindi, Gujarati
Classification: Book_English, Biography, & Articles
File Size: 11 MB

Page 48

The Kaleidoscope of Indian Wisdom*
Human life is a strange thing. Here we are, all of us, destined to live and condemned to die : ignorant all the time as to who and what we are, where we came from, and whither we are bound, why we are here, and why we have to suffer pain now, and, the next moment, are allowed to enjoy. Ignorant we are as to what this world in which we are placed, may be like, and as to the power that prescribes its laws. Nor do we know how to act, nor what to leave undone in the face of this chaos of struggling powers round about.
But here we are, and there are our instincts that bid us preserve our lives at any cost, that bid us eat and drink and sleep, live and grow, seek happiness, and shun displeasure and pain. If our intellect asks us why we do not hesitate to obey them, we find just as much time as is sufficient to persuade ourselves that we do not know it, that we cannot know it, and that we need not know it either, but that we only need live and prosper, multiply and die.
Still, since pre-historical times, and perhaps earlier, human society has always produced such individuals as did not rest pleased with this kind to reply, but tried to reveal the great secrets of life. Some tried it by Science, working by the means of observation, experiment and logical inference. And science has indeed found out marvellous things. Science can tell us what time a ray of light requires in order to travel from the sun down to us. Science knows the secrets of the rainbow, of lightning, and of the shining crystals in the depths of the earth. Science knows how delicate green ferns and * A Lecture by Dr. Charlotte Krause. Published by Phulchandji
Ved, Secretary, Shri Yashovijaya Jaina Granthamala, Bhavnagar (Kathiawar ), 1930, on behalf of Desai Lallubhai Velchand in the sacred memory of his father Velchand Vishram of Paladi, Sihore.