________________ 82 Homage to Vaisali world-consciousness, not through United Nations, nor by arms, nor by press propaganda, but by the sweeping embrace of their universalised consciousness which through the strength of their aspiration burst the bounds of their narrow self. III Twenty-five hundred years have gone, still our vision is just as restricted as ever, narrow, suicidal. The voices of Sri Krsna, Buddha, Mabavira, Christ reach us through the corridor of time, but have we developed the sense of oneness in India, leave aside the world? The castes, the Brahmanas, the Ksatriyas, the Vaisyas, the Sudras, have a different distinct sense of identity, so bave Biharis and Bengalis, Gujratis and Maratbas, Tamilians and Telugus, Hindus and Muslims. We have one government; we have one nationality; we have one basic culture; we have in a way the unity of language inspired by Sanskrit; our ways of life are fundamentally the same; our philosophy of life is dominated by the self-same past. The best amongst us find self-fulfilment only by living up to the idea for which our Masters stood. Our men, cattle and trees form an indissoluble organism of life. And yet the bulk of us have failed to develop that living, burning sense of oneness with all things Indian. And this in spite of our knowledge that if we do not evolve this sense of oneness, all in India and India in all', we will lose freedom. With freedom gone, India will lose her soul. With her soul gone, India will die. In the same way, in spite of incessant appeals to develop world consciousness, have we developed that sense of oneness with the whole world? We talk of the United Nations Organisation; we talk of the One World Movement; we talk of the message of the UNESCO; but in our heart of hearts our narrow selves are parted from one another. We emphasise the frontiers which divide men and men, and nations and nations. The fact is that the fundamental aspiration has been tragically isolated from individual life, and the individual life from the life of the organism. We keep the aspiration alive by worship and prayer and festival; we do not allow it to transform the mind, the body or behaviour; little is done to transform the life of our collective organism. The aspiration of light, freedom, love expressed in a sense of oneness, by the very nature of our outlook, is just smothered; men and nations and classes hate one another in a pursuit of material welfare. Our ordinary vision is woefully restricted; it is arrow, suicidal. Men deny the spirit, and assert material life. Some deny material life
