Karmayogi

Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 35

UTTARPARA SPEECH
SRIJUT AUROBINDO GHOSH.
(Continued from the last issue.)
Meanwhile he had brought me out of solitude and placed me among those who had been accused along with me. You have spoken much today of my self sacrifice and devotion to my country. I have heard that kind of speech ever since I came out of jail, but I hear it with embarrassment, with a mething of pain. For I knew my weakness. I am pray to my own faults and backslidings. I was not blind to them before and when they all rose up against me in sclusion, I knew then I felt them utterly. that I the man was a mass of weakness,
a fauly and imperfect instrument, strong only when a higher strength entered into one. Then I found myself among these young men and in many of them I discovered a mighty courage, a power of selfeffacement in comparison with which I was simply nothing. I saw one or two who were not only superior to me in force and character, very many were that,-but in the promise of that intellectual ability on which 1 prided myself. He said to me. "This is the the new and mightiy nation. young generation, that is arising at my command. They are greater than yourself. What have you to fear. If you stood aside or sleept, the work would still be done. If you were cast aside tomorrow here are the young men who will take up your work and do it more mightly than you have "ever done. You have only got some strength from me to speak a word to this nation which. will help to rise it". This was the next thing He told me.
Then a thing happened suddenly and in a moment I was hurried away to the seclusion of a solitary call. What happened to me during that period I am not impelled to say, but only this that day after day, He showed me His wonders and made me realise the utter truth of the Hindu religion. I had had many doubts before. I was brought up in England amongst foreign ideas and an atmosphere entirely foreign. Many things in Hinduism I had once been inclined to believe that it was all imaginations that there was much of dream in it, much that was delusion and mayy. But now day after day I realized in the mind, I realized in the heart, realised in the body the truths of the Hindu religion. They became living experiences to me, and things were opened to me which no material science could explain. When I first approached Him, it was not entirely in the spirit of the Bhatak, it was not entirely in the spirit of Gnana. I came to Him long ago in Baroda some years before the Swadeshi began and I was drawn into the public field. When I approached Ged at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel Hie presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. I felt there must be a mighty truth somewhere in this Yoga a mighty truth in this
KARMAYOGIN.
what me a
two.
prenor
was given as a charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages. But it is not cireumscribed by the confines of a single country, it does not belong peculiarly and for ever to a bounded part of the world. That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, a exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that can triumph. over materialiam by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy. It is the one religion which impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible meaDA
which man can approach God. It in the
religion based on the So when I turned so, the Yoga And relved to practise it and and out if my idea was right, I did it in this spirit and with this prayer to Him, "If Thou art, then thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest that I do not ask for Mukti, 1 do not ask for anything which others ask for. I ask only for strength to uplift this nation, I ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life." I strove long for the realisation of Yoga and at last to some extent I had it, but in what 1 most desired, I was not satisfied. Then in the seclusion of the Jail, of the solitary cell I asked for it again. I said "Give me thy adesh, I do not know work to do or how do it. Give message. " In the communion of Yoga messages came. The first message said, "1 have given you a work and it is to help to uplift this nation. Before long the time will come when you will have to go out of jail: for it is not my will that this time either you should be convicted or that you should pass the time as others have to do, in suffering for their country, I have called you to work, and that is the adesh for which you have asked. I give you the adesk to go forth and do My work." The second message came and it said. "Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that have perfected and developed through the risis, saints and avatars, and now it is one religion which insists every moment on going forth to do my work among the nations the truth which all religions acknowledge that Iam raising up this nation to send forth He is in all I men and all things and that in My word. This is the Sanatana Dharma, this Him we move and have our being. It is the is the eternal religion which you did not one religion which enables us not only to really know before, but which I have now understand and believe this truth but to reveled to you. The agnostic and the sceptic realise it with every part of our being. It in you have been answered, for I have given in the one religion which shows the world you proofs within and without you, physical what the world in, that it is the lila of Vasudeva. and subjective, which have satisfied you. It is the one religion which shows us how When you go forth, speak to your nation always we can best play our part in that lila, its this word that it is for the "Sanatana Dharma" subtlest law and its noblest rules. It is the that they arise, it is for the world and not one religion which does not separate life in religion, which for themselves that they arise. I am giving any smallest details from them freedom for the service of the world. knows what inmortality is and has utterly when therefore is said that India shall rise, removed from us the r us the reality of death. t is the This is Sanatana Dharma" that shall rise. the word that has been put into When it is said that India shall be great, it my mouth to speak to you to-day. What I is the " Sanatana Dharma " that shall be great. intended to speak, has been put away from me, Blokk When it is said that the India shall expand and beyond what i t is given to me I have nothing and extend herself, it is the " Sanatana Dharma" to say. It is only the word that is put into that shall expand and extend itself over the ine that I can speak to you. That word is world. It is for the dharma and by the now finished. I spoke once before with dharma that India exists. To magnify the this force in me and I said thon that this religion means to magnify the country. I movement is not a political movement and have shown you that I am everywhere and in that nationalism is not politics but a religion, all men and in all things, that I am in this a creed, a faith I say it again to-day, but movement and I am not only working in put it in another way. I any longer that those who are striving for the country but I nationalism is a creed, a religion, faith; I say an working also in those who oppose. them that it is the " Sanatana Dharma" which for ns is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born and stand in their path. I am working in with it it moves with the "Sanatana Dharma every body and whatever men may think or do they can do nothing but help on my and with it it grows. When the "Sanatanapurpose. They also are doing my work; they Dharma declines, then the nation declines, are not my enemies but my instruments. In and if the "Sanatana Dharma were capable all your actions you are moving forward of perishing, with the "Sanatana Dharma it would Perish. The "Sanataps Dharma" that without knowing which way you Biova You mean to do one thing and you do is nationalism. This is the message that I another. You aim at a result and your have to speak to you. afforts subserve 0 that is different or
the
II
forth
contrary. It is Shakti that has gone and entered into the people. Long ago 1 have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come and it is I who will lead it to its fulfilment.",
This then is what I have to say to you.
The name of your society "society for the protection of religion." Well. the protection of the religion, the protection and upraising before the world of the Hindu religion, that is the work before us. But what is the Hindu religion? What is this religion which we call Sanatana eternal ? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this Peninsula it grow up in the seclusion of the Sea and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it