Saint Mira

Author(s): T L Vaswani
Publisher: Saint Miras English Medium School

Page 84

A PILGRIM OF ETERNITY
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"Our
Dadaji urged that a "new education" was necessary. schools and colleges," he said, "are prison-cells. They keep out the sunshine of Indian ideals and Indian culture. This isolation of modern India's brain from the mighty Soul that made Aryavarta a model nation, in the long ago, this is the tragedy of our life today."
Dadaji moved across the length and breadth of India. He went to the cities he visited the villages. He met men and women and children. He looked into their needs. He found that the bodies of many were famished, their souls were impoverished. And he called upon the people of India to organise themselves for the service of humanity. "There is," he said, "an energy in Islamic countries which India lacks. The Hindu society has suffered much. Its one great sin has been the sin of softness. Some call the Hindus cowards. Some call them political fools. I call them tender-minded. Whoever will make men of the modern Hindus will be a saviour of modern India. The world's call has come to India. Europe and America need the inspiration of Hindu humanism. The West needs the message of the Rishis."
Dadaji pleaded for the birth of a new physical culture, a new spirit of adventure, a new love of danger and difficulty. His message to Young India was :-Be simple, be manly, be hard!
Dadaji pleaded for a new peasant renaissance. "The masses form the nation," he said. "Civilisations decay in the measure the quality of their mass-stuff is poor. The worst slavery is the slavery of the poor. How to abolish it ? Land I regard as the one thing needful. Re-distribution of land is essential to my scheme of swaraj. Give land to the poor and teach them scientific methods of intensive agriculture and co-operative organisation."