In history we see big ancient civilizations alive by arterial connection with the river of that country. The river gives water, fruits to the country; but its biggest contribution is that it gives motion to the country. River branches its relations with afar, with outside – brings running flow of life in the core of immovable.
If the
river of a riverine country dries up, then its soil becomes miserly with
weakened capacity of producing food. Even remaining able to provide sustenance to
the country, the plentitude to connect it with big world outside, impoverishes.
Neither it can give anything, nor it can take. It remains closed within itself,
its stream of unity gets divided, the pathway to meet its relatives become
impassable. It gets separated from outside, within it gets fragmented.
As some
countries are riverine, some people are there whose minds are also riverine. Such
stream of thoughts flow in that mind by which it draws the outside within, its
own differences and disparities float away – the stream fills the field of ideas
with newer successes, provides food to all countries, all times.
Such was
the mind of India once; it had that flowing stream of thought. It could say, ‘ayantu
sarvatah swaha’, let all come from all directions. ‘Shrinwantu vishwe’,
let the people of world listen. It said, ‘vedaham’, I know – I know
something to invite the world and inform. The cosmic world does not accept a
star without light. Ancient India luminated its identity in eternity; it revealed
itself in the world-commune by profuse generosity, by donating itself. During those
days it wasn’t insignificant by its indigence.
Hundreds of
years passed by – the forward-running motion of history fell silent, the great
river of ideas in the mental world of India dried up. The country became
immobile, narrow within itself; the vigor of its lively mind no more radiates
to faraway lands. When water doesn’t flow the unmoving stones of the dry
river-bed blocks the way; they are disjointed, meaningless, obstacles for the
travelers. Thus, when the bad days came in this country, running motion of
knowledge was blocked; intelligence ever-blooming anew became lifeless; arrogantly
appeared the bunch of inert customs, ceremonial meaninglessness, habitual repetitions
of thoughtless social practices. These obstructed the wide highway of the
common people; disrupted the relation of man with man beyond fragmented narrow
borders.
In sleep, when
the windows of mind are all closed, mind is imprisoned. The dreams with which
it pays then, have no connection with the universal truth; their impact revolve
around a center of that sleeping mind only, howsoever strange, unreasonable or
grotesque they be. None can enter this dreamland from the land of reality. This dreamland can be ridiculed but cannot be
judged, because it remains out of rationality.
Such was India
wrapped in the dream-net of customs bereft of meaning, its light was about to extinguish.
Its own real identity was concealed to it. At that time Rammohun Roy appeared
in this country, in that darkness of self-oblivious evening. Its history was
then covered with the gloom of disgrace. India had then lost its voice, it had
no message for this new age of the world, it was chanting the hymns of a dead
age at the corner of its room.
When it was
overwhelmed with its own weakness, in those days of humiliation people from
outside came to its door It had not the preparedness to welcome them along with
saving its own honour – the house-owner could not call them in as guests – they
entered its coffers of gold as bandits by breaking the door.
India’s
mind then was not being able to produce the food for thought anew, its fields
were full with heath of weeds. In those days of famine Rammohun was born with hunger
for truth. Nothing could satisfy him in the lifeless wastes of history,
artificialness of social customs. From somewhere he brought that mind, naturally
enthused with eagerness for knowledge, which came out breaking the bizarre
fences between communities; felt disgust about the things with which people are
fooling themselves with. He craved for that open shelter of disillusioned
intelligence which is the pilgrimage of union of all peoples.
This pursuit
of breaking the fences is the real unveiling of India, the pilgrimage of union.
This pursuit is especially of India since opposition to it is so massive, so strong.
England is bound by the borders of a small island, that’s why its pursuit has
taken the opposite direction of its island-born nature – it has expanded itself
to places afar in the world. The cupped
palms for offering of a country rests in the particular condition of that
country; meaning of those cupped palms lies in the intent of filling of its
void.
Every
nation has its inner meaning, it’s special problem in it; that meaning it must
fulfil by continuous effort. Its character is shaped by that effort, its
innovative power is strengthened. Man must every moment win its humanity. History
of every nation is the history of its campaign for conquests. Its health, its wealth
lies in the way of removing the hard obstacles. That’s why the saying goes, “earth
enjoyed by brave” (Beerbhogya Basundhara). Man has come to make passable
the impassable, make available the scarce. Salvation of a particular nation
exists in going on providing the true answer to the particular problem given to
it by God. Whoever have made mistakes in providing the answer have perished. And
those have faced misfortune who thought that there is nothing to answer,
everything has been solved. Until life is there in man, he has problems, going
on providing answers to the problems is the act of living. Ever lie the hindrances
of inanimate all around, life always proves itself by breaking through those
hindrances. If the knots tangled in history are shown veneration assuming those
to be time-old tradition, then those become knots of death.
Where lies
the main problem of human history? In the blindness, foolishness of bringing
discord between man and man. Greatest principle of human society is unity of
human being. Only meaning of civilization is practice of being one. Wherever this
principle of unity is weak, the weakness attacks the country from all
directions in the form of various diseases.
In India
this problem is clear. People from many races have come here together. This haven’t
occurred in any other country. Those who have come together must be united,
this is the first problem of India. They are to be united not through external system
but through heart-felt kinship. Greatest incantation of any history is sam
gachchhadhvam sam badadhvam sam bo manamsi jaantaam, – shall move together,
shall speak together, shall know every mind to be one. In no country the
pursuit of this incantation is so difficult as in India. Yet, no other way to
salvation exists except attainment of this pursuit.
When we get
fascinated by the prosperity of some other country, often we avidly gaze at the
matured form of its attainment, the difficult path of its pursuit remains
beyond our view. We see an independent system of state, and think that our
deliverance exists in raising a similar image of that system. We forget that
the system of state is the body only – that body is meaningless without life. That
life is the national unity. In other countries the system of state has been
built by the inner strength of that unity. Even in those countries, the
problems become difficult as much as that unity decomposes. In our country the differences
are between nations, in the western continent the differences are between
classes. If internal accord does not appear in the midst of those class-related
differences, external system won’t prevent the danger.
If we see
plenty of crops in some area, we shall have to keep in mind at the outset that
these crops have grown not on sand but on soil. In deserts we see the plants detached,
at a distance from one another – they are defending themselves in a very
independent way, by thorns. Their mother earth has not suckled them with the
generosity of same juice. The unity of life among them is stingy. Main reason
for it is that the particles of soil are bound together, particles of sand are
separate. When we discuss a prosperous nation we see the brimming crops, we
also pass the examinations learning by rote the description of its agrarian
system. Only thing we do not remember that this splendor of crops would be absolutely
impossible if there were separation at the beginning. We ask for care of our
agriculture, expect crops but we consider the hiatus in the nature of our land
as negligible and remain alert to defend it as perpetual in the name of
religion. We read the front cover of history, leave aside the inside pages,
forget that in no country, independence of national state could be built and preserved
on the hiatus existing in society. Where the subjects are divided the autocracy
of individual ties them with external bonds. That also does not endure for
long, hands go on changing. Where there is separation between man and man, not
only the state-power, intellect also slacken. Not that gifted persons do not
appear time to time, but in the absence of receptacle in the common masses to
hold and nurture, the gifts of their ingenuity get perverted and perish. In the
absence of unity people become savages, in the looseness of unity people fails,
because true religion of human beings is religion of cooperation – the cause of
their excellence.
In no
country, in no scripture, the sermon about the sense of unity has been
explained so specifically as in Upanishad. In India only it has been said, vidvan
iti sarvantarasthah svasamvid rupvid vidvan. He is the scholar who knows
own consciousness by gaining it in everyone. Yet it is India only where we know
one another extremely separated through numerous artificial meaningless rules
and customs, as in no other country on this earth. So, it must be said that in India, an outer
grossness persists which is against the inner-more truth of India, the agonizing
blow of that grossness is manifesting itself since long in various distresses, destitutions
and abuses.
Rammohun in the present age, is the pioneer of all those greats who appeared
in ages to make the eternal voice of India victorious amidst the contradiction
mentioned above. Earlier as well, in the impenetrable darkness, voices of unity
have been heard time to time. Opening the cage of static prejudices of middle-ages,
awake morning-birds came out; they sang songs of salutation for light in the
sky above the lot of social inertness. They brought message of that free life,
addressing which Upanishad has said “bratyastvam prana” – O life, you
are outcast, you are not static, entangled in prejudices. One of those liberators
was Kabir, who have introduced himself to be Pilgrim of India. Another, who
could see this path of India through numerous tangled jungles was Dadu. He says:
Bhai re aisa panth hamara
Dvaipathrahit panth gahi pura abaran ek adhara.
Hey brother, our path is like this, it hasn’t two sides, it’s
colourless, it’s one.
He says:
Jako maran jaiye soyi Phiri maray,
Jako taran jaiye soyi Phiri taray.
Whom we strike he strikes us back, whom we save he saves us back.
He has said:
Sab ghat ekai atma, kya hindu musalman.
That day one more saint, who could clearly see the path of India, was
Rajjab. He says:
Bund bund mili rasasindh hai, juda juda maru
bhar.
Meaning, when drop meets drop, it becomes sea of juice, when drops
separate, a desert is revealed.
This Rajjab says:
Haath jodu guru sun houn milay hindu musalman.
I am
folding hands in front of my guru, so that Hindu and Musalman may unite.
The unity which these pilgrims of India were asking for, was in the
pursuit of humanism, pursuit of being free from the egotism of mischievous disunity,
not of national need. In modern period, Rammohun Roy is the pilgrim of that
path. He also saw within him, not from the point of need, but from the point of
eternal ideal of the creed of unity existing in the depth of human soul, the
noble form of man united in Indian history by good sense. He has called
everyone to come on the liberal wide path of India, where Hindu, Muslim,
Christian and everyone can meet without any antagonism. If that’s not to be the
great path of India, if communal dismemberment wrapped by the barbed wire of
customs be the perpetual Indian nature, then we have no way left to live. Lo,
there came the Muslims, lo, there came the Christians:
Saadhan mahi jog nahi jai, kya saadhan parmaan.
If we cannot make them join the pursuit of history, what will be the mark
of pursuit?
If India
does not have the vitality to make them her constituent, if our creed is to
keep them away by being hard fossilized like stone, then who will carry the
terrible weight of the clusters of uninvolved alienness?
Aren’t they
slipping down every day en masse? Isn’t the crack widening at the lower level
of the society? Aren’t we getting the proof of how terrible our own people
become as strangers? Those whom we scorn, we keep them at a distance, those
whom we don’t touch, we can’t hold them. Through the thousand ways we have
widened to make our own the strangers, agents of evil are entering in the
country. If, cautious maintaining of gaps
between the boards of our huge boat of people we count as timeless religion of
India, then why this hollow moan to declare the waves outside as enemies? Rather
it would be preferable to remain passive, believing destruction by getting
drowned in the sea of salty tears to be the final aim of Indian history. How many
days we would be able to row the boat of our worn-out fate by continually baling
out water by scoops?
Rammohun Roy
arrived during the initial stage of the modern period of our history. At that
time none could recognize this age, neither the foreigners nor the countrymen. He
only understood that the call of the age is the call for great and noble unity.
Widening his liberal heart illuminated by the light of knowledge he showed that
there isn’t any shortage of space for Hindu, Muslim, Christian or anyone else. That
heart of his is the heart of India, he expressed the true identity of India in
himself. True identity of India is in that man, in whom there is honour and
acceptance for every man.
In every
country there is a conflict of oppositions. On the one side there is an
opposition to its own excellence, a self-loathing by its own blindness and arrogance;
this side is its negative, its section of loss, portion of its dark part. On the
other side is its light, its inherent meaning, its eternal truth; this side is
the positive, illuminative. If its identity does not get dimmed at this side,
does not get exhausted, then it is exalted in every age.
There was a
time when all the countries in Europe believed in witches. Hundreds of innocent
women were burned then. But this side of blindness wasn’t the only inner self
of Europe. Hence, it will be unjust to know Europe by measuring the extent of spread
of this faith shown in the census. There was a day when religious dimwits burned
Giordano Bruno. But Giordano alone, burning on the pyre, revealed the identity
of the mind of Europe, the mind denied by the communal dimwits en masse yet
which is now accepted with honour by all the peoples. Once we knew the identity
of English people by their literature, their history; we saw its friendship
with people, its hatred against slavery, its compassion for freedom of the
subjugated, its devotion towards justice. If today we see the cruel contradiction
to this nature all over the system of its state in India, even then seeking the
ultimate identity of English from these will not correct. Whatever be the
reason, its negative side has strengthened, these are the ominous signs. Even today,
there are persons in England who are pained by these injustices which are
contrary to English nature. In fact, it would be wrong to assume that all
Englishmen are English. Even if the
number of pure Englishmen be small, even if they be facing humiliation in their
own society, yet they are the representative all English people.
In the same way, the day when Ramohun Roy arrived amidst the intense
blindness, phoniness and communal narrowness prevailing in Bengal, he only
alone carried the perpetual identity of India in this unwilling country. Standing
at an unknown corner of this Bengal, his omnidirectional intelligence and
ubiquitous heart laid the seat for all. The day has come to state openly that, not
the seat forbidden for guests, kept in a closed corner of a miserly home, but
the generous seat on which everyone may get a place freely is the seat created
by eternal India. If millions of ritualists shrink that seat, tear it to
pieces, remonstrate Indian civilization by condemning the homeland in front of
the world, yet I shall say that it is true. Rammohun Roy announced the message
of unity of mankind in the voice of India one day, and his countrymen cursed
him. Standing amidst all adversities he invited the Muslims, Christians, all
the people of India along the same line with the Hindus in the great guesthouse
of India. The India who said:
Yastu sarvani bhutani atmanyebanupashyati
Sorvabhuteshu chatmanam tato na bijugpsate.
He who sees
himself in everyone, sees everyone in himself, he hates none.
Hundred years
have passed after his death. So many things of those days have become old, but
Rammohun Roy has not been veiled by archaic haze. He is modern as always. Because
the time he holds, an end of it is in old India, but it is not bound by the
past – its other end has gone towards distant future of India. He could
liberate his own mind in that mind of India which is open to all human beings
through the path of knowledge. He is staying in that future of India, when the
great history of India would have fructified in its own truth – Hindu, Muslim,
Christian have mingled in one integral great-nationality. When we fly high
above on an airplane, at one end of the expanse of our vision the country is
seen faraway which we have passed, at the other end lies the unseen, many miles
distant in front of us. The time in which Rammohun exists, likewise, pervades
our past and our future, we haven’t yet crossed his time.
I haven’t the strength to speak much today; I have come just to say that
though the heavy weight of ignorance and powerlessness is oppressing the chest
of India, mortified we are in shame, in body and mind we are worn out in grief,
our heads sunken in insult, foreign wayfarers are gathering our stigma to trade
the commodity of slander in countries, yet above all our misfortunes the
highest fact of hope is that Rammohun Roy has born in this country, in him is
the identity of India. Even if the majority sneer at him due to their trivial communal
egotism, do not accept him as own, the India of eternity has surely accepted
him at its inner depth. His impact is still active in shaping the present age,
still his silent speech his calling him in the immortal voice of India:
Ya ekohavarno vahudha shaktiyogaat
Varnaan anekaan nihitartho dadhati
Bichaiti chante vishvamadau sa devah.
Praying:
Sa no
budhya shubhaya sangyunaktu.
29th
December 1933
2
Our life is
rebellious. The giant of lifelessness is sitting with its colossal power and countless
hands spread all around. Every moment, slight life is revealing itself only by stopping
that giant at all the sides. This lifelessness always wants to narrow down the
limits of its efforts by raising walls of exhaustion at all directions. Life can
defend its right only by repeatedly breaking those walls. That’s why, day and
night our heart can never take a moment’s off. Death comes the instant its offensive
against the inactivity of oppressive pile of mass.
As life
reveals itself only through its own perpetual effort, same is with the mind. Mind’s
quest is limitless. Mystery of truth is silent all around. Answers are reached only
by exerting own strength. A bit distraction leads us to wrong answers. Perilous
defeat of mind lies in accepting those wrong answers due to lethargic doubtlessness.
Lassitude in query is inertness of mind. As ill-health is due to slackness in
vigor, breeding all diseases, preparing the conditions of termination, stupor
in mental vitality gives entry to all types of ailments in the field of
knowledge. Misfortune of humanity begins with the acceptance of everything true
or false, good or bad without questioning by a lazy and coward mind. Whenever the
mind of man compromises with the inert idiocy of staticity, man becomes
melancholy in the world, reduced to a pauper by paying taxes to the ruler of
staticity.
In our
country one day, the autonomy of mind was ruined. The handicapped mind did not
have command on self, it lost the strength and conviction to raise questions. It
accepted whatever it heard, repeated whatever was fed to its ears. Facing outrage,
it accepted the same as fate. It did not feel embarrassment of self-humiliation
in accepting that solving present problems of the world by using its
intelligence, in an innovative way, is beyond its rights. The stream of
self-expression of mind was blocked in this country that day. Country then did
not move towards the time forward, continually circumambulated the old time –
whatever strength of thought it had, was used not for investigation but to
follow.
When drowsiness
overwhelms, that is the time for theft. When there is numbness inside, external
dangers strengthen. He cannot be externally free who is not free in his mind. He
who accepts everything within him without dispute, has no power to deny unjust
dominance outside. That intelligence which resists untruth in mind, resists
evil in the outer world. Insipid mind can resist no attack, either internal or external.
That’s why in India that day repeatedly
it was seen that India accepted appalling defeats and with those, accepted thousands
of things unacceptable. These heaps of misery gathered outside added up to its
heaps of ignorance inside.
When our economic,
mental and spiritual powers were weakest, when our strength of vision was
blurred with illusion and creativity stiffened, when we had no voice to provide
new answer to any of the questions of modern age, even the sense to be ashamed
of the feebleness of our mind was weak, in those days of misery Rammohun Roy
arrived in this country. With immense power he struck at the roots of that
misery which doubted the most precious treasure of mankind, his free will. But we
then, were habituated to worship the cause of that misery, hence we raised the clubs
accusing him to be our enemy. Doctors say, even if the disease produces documents
to prove its long-standing right on the body, it remains an outsider; elements
of health only are the inherent perennial truth of the body. In the same way,
Rammohun Roy said that though we claim our ignorance, our blindness to be
eternal by the measure of time, but they are the unrelated strangers to us from
the side of truth. He showed us where is the ever-old ever-new foundation of
pure knowledge within the inner-self of our country itself. To make forceful,
to brighten the health of the mind, the power of the soul he opened the door of
that treasure-store of means which is India’s own. People those days declared
him to be enemy.
Can we today
still disrespect Rammohun as enemy? Do we have many persons, on whose glory the
country can introduce itself to the world with pride? Taking pride in the names
of real greats of the country means hoping for the future of the country. If the
pride is provincial, temporary, then it can’t be depended upon. The pride
should be one supported by the whole world. The mind and the heart of Rammohun
was not bound by the limits of time and space. If it had been that way, the
commoners of the country would have easily felicitated him. Because the criteria
well-known to us by our daily use is of specific space and time, not universal
and eternal. But the country will not be able to raise its head by the strength
of that limited pride measured by that criterion, that pride won’t let it express
itself to all the people of all times and everywhere. Its greatness must rise
much above the ideals of the people of low lands. That may hit brutally the
contemporary tastes, beliefs and customs of the present, but the blow to
eternal ideal is bigger than that. Blow of the coarse hands of the all-knowing acharya
is the blow of the moment which itself will decay immediately, but the blow of
the subtle hint of India is for eternity. The contemporary shrill cheers for those
who have gone extinct by that blow, haven’t left faintest pulsation in the firmament
of eternity.
Rammohun
Roy is not that type of a man whose names get lost in a gust of momentary
disrespect. Even if his memory remains concealed by the haze of oblivion or
neglect for a period, that concealment will surely be lifted. When the wind of
new awakening is blowing in the country, when the cover of haze is receding,
then first of all the great and tall figure of Rammohun will be seen. He was
the person who brought the message of inauguration of the new age. That message
was unseen in the ancient hymn of this country. Through that hymn he said, “apabrinu”,
O truth, remove your veil! This message of India is not only for the native-land,
but of all the countries and for all times. For this reason, who would reveal
the truth of India would be expressing it universally. Rammohun Roy is that man
of all times. We can take pride with our local and temporal big persons of
small measure, but those with whom we can glorify ourselves are, “purvaparau
toyanidhee bagahya sthitah prithibya ib manadandah”, their greatness is
touching the eastern and western seas.
Those who
were predecessors to Rammohun Roy in India, Kabir, the foremost among them had
said himself to be the pilgrim of India. he could see India as a great path of
pilgrimage. The stream of mankind on the move is flowing on this since the
beginning of History. Those who came on this path in the times immemorial,
their marks are in the bowels of the earth. On this way came the Aryan race
carrying the sacrificial fire. On this way once came the pilgrims of China hoping
to get the theory of liberation. Again, some came with the greed of empire,
some came to earn money. Every one of them have been shown hospitality. In this
India the pursuit of the path is the relations of visits and return visits,
give and take with all the countries of the world. To solve remains the problem
of mixing with everyone. There is no end to our unhappiness till we solve this
problem. This truth of concord is the ultimate truth for all human beings, this
truth shall have to be made fundamental to our history. Rammohun Roy came with
the best of what India has to offer and stood at the crossing of this path of India.
his heart was the symbol of the heart of India – there the Hindu, the Muslim,
the Christian, all associated in their best entities, the seat of that
association was the great principle of unity of India, “ekamevadvitiyam”.
Let me end this praise of Rammohun by quoting the song of the path of India,
which the modern poet of India has sung, inspired by the man who caried the
message of human-unity in the modern age –
16th
Pousha 1340
3
In our
country, communally antagonistic public opinions often appear very intensely – being
entwined with personal abuse, one feels very constrained to express one’s view
confronting those intensity. Those days to feel constrained have gone for me. Sometime
earlier, I went deep inside death, even now I am walking unsteadily on its
rough shore. I do not feel the intensity of public opinions any more – the boundless
time is present in front of me.
People of
the country has not accepted the truth on which the celebration of 11th
Magha was founded. What they do not accept they smear. He who is most respectable, such as the great soul
Rammohun Roy, heat of opposition against him has not subdued yet. This is
natural and hence inevitable, so it is meaningless to humiliate one another on
this count. Overlooking this noise of conflicts, we shall remember him quietly
and offer our devotion to him, whose great strength of character forms the
basis of today’s celebration. I can expect that everyone in this country will
accept the cause of our respect to be true in spite of difference of opinions. Because
showing this honour would be honour for our homeland.
When we
judge other nationals on their religious conduct, especially when our relations
with them gives us sorrow and insult, naturally we exaggerate. But there is no
doubt that in personal life, their religion reveals many nobleness. In our
country as well, many great persons have appeared, breaking away so many social
impediments, but we have demeaned them because of our filthy prejudices; we
could not realize their true nature. This distortion in our impoverished
national mind is being evident every day in our history.
Christian religion
has respected man because the venerable in this religion had accepted the fate
of man in the form of man. For this reason, we have known the real Christians
whose humanitarianism genuinely unfolds itself in home and abroad. Even if we
feel some incompleteness in their creed, we shall have to accept that at one
place this religion has related itself with mankind through self-sacrifice,
that is the greatest sign of religiosity. Wherever we have seen greatness in
their literature and customs, humanity shines bright. There isn’t any misery, a
liberal civilization has developed burying the clashes of self-interests. In our
country religion has torn apart the mutual relations between people; instead of
being the vehicle of spiritual realization, religious ceremonies of modern India
have created discriminatory feelings all over the country.
Where the
rites are not found on communal creeds, they do not cause disunity among
people. As it is in China. In Chinese civilization there is no antagonism
between peoples of various communities in spite of differences in faiths. They have
not outraged the society in the area of rites and customs by the name of
religion. Christian religion oppressed
the followers of other religion only when it tried to spread its domination by
force under the excuse of god’s fury, and that was because their religion then
accepted the sacraments instead of good sense. The intelligent role of popular
belief didn’t appear there except the canon of the scriptures. Today there are
many defects in European civilization, but there aren’t blind attacks of
religion; if there is any Buddhist or Muslim among them, he is not tortured in
the name of religion. One reason of
their strength is that their society has not been polluted by the mix of
customs and religion. One of the major reasons of loss of strength in our
country is the dominance of many meaningless prejudices in our daily life in
the name of religion. It expresses the corruption of religion and outrageous unjust
form of customs. One happening of South Malabar can be mentioned here as an
instance. One brahmin householder called home a doctor of non-brahmin caste for
medical treatment. The pathway through which the doctor went was by the side of
a pond. This made a case for the court that all the water of the pond has been
polluted; law must be made and enforced on the offender householder to get the
water purified. Here we see the collective silly onslaught of the chastiser law
and the customs, it has nothing to do with ageless religion. Yet, such
inhumanity does get respect in our country in the name of religion. Great men
have taken birth among us by providence, who have stood against this
unrighteous religious faith and irrational customs. In spite of that replication of meaningless
rituals have taken the stature of religion among the people of the country and
society is insulting man even today by the burden of irreligious inhumanity.
Hit by such
false religious beliefs, society fragmented in hundreds of pieces – most of the
countrymen were made objects of disdain, they were said to be impure and
outcaste. The weakness and foolishness of those majority of people whom we have
put at a distance by weaving the fence of customs, their self-abasement have pressed
the country as a whole and made it vain for a fairly long time. Though what is
pure in us, our everlasting spiritual wealth, it has profusely accepted the
value of human and all living beings. Atmavat sarvabhuteshu ya pashyati sa
pashyati – no other scripture contains such a profound saying. We have lost
this vision of totality and confession of relation of the soul in everyone. Blinded
by the fascination of ceremonies we have spread the futility of customs and
disunity in homes. Severe fragmentation of national entity has brought today
the extreme misery for us. One day a brahmin-child – Rammohun Roy – was born in
this miserable society. At every step he denied all the blindness of society,
stood without fear against foolish prejudices. For that he was denounced and
that denunciation has not stopped yet. Time has come to remember his message
again in these days of misery. We shall have to understand where lies the basic
pursuit of his great life.
There is a
hymn in Upanishad – satyang gyanam anantang brahma. God has a form which
is just truth, meaning there is no other message. Next word is gyanang –
i.e., truth is not only to be. perception of knowledge on the sense of truth
realizes the big title of humanity. Where that knowledge has been shown
contempt, where we have denied humanity by not using the multiple power of
disillusioned intelligence, there lies our futility. We reach the supreme spirit
through the stairs of knowledge, not through artificial practices. All humans merge
in his proximity. To realize brahma in the message given in Upanishad, one shall
have to reach the spiritual truth through knowledge, accepting the truth of the
universe.
By connecting
themselves with the all-invasive spirit, sages satiated in knowledge enter in
all. According to our scripture, this is the ultimate consummation of man. This
message was brought back by the great Rammohun Roy. He induced the society imprisoned
in ceremonial practices from apostasy to the pursuit for perception of self. He
made India listen the hymn of unity, so that gracious relation along with truth
and knowledge may be established among men through the perception of ultimate
human truth. Perversion of religion is terrible; religiosity has done much more
deadly harm than done by worldly jealousy and clashes. With astounding
intellect, Rammohun stood past the mist of national religiosity; engaged his incomparable
strength of character to reveal unabashedly the truth. In this perseverance he
was the one, he faced the denunciation. May we bless ourselves and our country
by taking his pursuit within us in this festival today.
Magha 1347
4
There is a
unity in the geo-resources of India. At its north is the Himalaya, sea
surrounds the south, deep forest is there in the east, only in the west is the
path through inaccessible canyons. Its geographical shape makes it integral,
but human habitations make it torn and separated. India is fragmented at every
step by customs, manners, religions and languages. Those who live here side by
side, do not want to mingle. India is burdened by this weakness, unable to
defend itself.
One more
misery has worn out this country by being permanent. As the peepul tree pierces
through the old temple and clutches it by the roots, the silly mesh of
prejudices has detached the mind of the country and has kept it in its grip. Blind
prejudices have a forte like weeds; they need not be cultivated. they grow on their
own, refuse to die. But continued pursuit is needed for excellence of pure knowledge
and religion. In our ill-fated country, where fruits would have appeared if the
land had been liberal, an unhealthy dense forest of all the hindrances to
liberation has grown high. Even the minds of those who have received scientific
education in this country is secretly overwhelmed by grossness like the
intoxication of opium. To fight against it is difficult.
The nature
of those defeated by the Aryans, have emerged victorious finally. It has caused
fatal self-alienation all over the country. The misbehavior of mutual disdain
and avoiding one another has hit all the nations of this country since the
ages.
When we are
determined to achieve the unity of our state, we must clearly understand that losing
the internal unity, no country has achieved multinational consummation by the
sense of universal oneness only through unity of external rules. United states
of America is a huge state based on the cooperation of many sub-states – as if
a big railway train in which, many different cars connected with one another,
running on a definite track. It has become possible only because everyone there
has become one nation by mingling thickly through education and upbringing. In general,
the build of people’s mind is captured there by one nervous system of worry and
pain. They are never a hindrance to one
another to move on the same path, they are support for one another. This is the
main reason of their strength and success.
From the
beginning of history, we have come being routed continuously with disjointed
mind and conduct. And, can we cherish the
inordinate ambition that we shall be victorious today in spite of all
disjointedness? We understand through arguments that we need unity to save
ourselves from the insult by the foreigners, but never realize it in our inner
self where the venom of disunion is spread over. We know the people of Behar, Madras
or Marwar not as our own, mainly because the customs which divide our mind, not
only refuse to accept intelligence, rather go against intelligence. The lines
of our division are drawn by blood. No cleft is more impassable than the rings
of stupidity.
I do not
know about other barbarities existing on the earth like the perversity of mind
lying at the basis of Harijan-problem and Hindu-Muslim-problem of our country. We
cannot believe one another, yet cheat ourselves by denying that. We think that
as England has earned independence following the norms of parliament, we shall
also follow that path. We forget that parliament is not something imported from
outside in that country, it has come there into being through favorable conditions.
Once there was in England, intense hostility between protestants and roman Catholics,
but it has withered away under the impact of scientific intelligence and learning.
Differences in religion have not created differences among human beings.
Main problem
is the severalty of humanity. That is why the dedicated thinkers who appeared
among us from time to time they have felt that way to India is the way to union.
When in the Middle Ages, alienation between Hindus and Muslims became a big
problem, Dadu, Kabir and other devotees tried to lay bridges of spiritual unity
amidst that alienation.
But they
also didn’t think about one thing. The differences among the provinces, mutual detachment
within the province, divisiveness within a community, such misery had not
become then an issue of their concern. Segregation between Hindus and Muslims
is paining us. When this pain would be extremely intolerable for both, a
resolution may be arrived at by efforts from both sides. But much more difficult
is the problem of the Hindus themselves, who perpetually invoke insensible,
humiliating and meaningless partitions, segregations against people even within
a community.
Hence, it
seems that birth of Rammohun Roy in our country in thick darkness of nightfall
was an amazing event. Much before his western education he was educated in learnings
of the East. Yet he had a big mind to find unity amidst intense alienation. At least
in Bengal, he was the first messenger of Indian culture in present times. He had
expertise in Veda, Vedanta and Upanishads. Equally competent he was in Arabi and
Farsi – not only linguistic competence, he also had the sympathy of heart for
those. In the light of that intelligence and knowledge which cross the bounds
of time and space, Hindus, Muslims and Christians had met in his mind. With extraordinary
farsightedness he adopted universal morals and culture. Not only in the areas
of religion and spirituality, his intelligence was pervasive in the field of
work as well. in this country he was the first to show statesmanship. And everyone
knows his compassion for women. Insult of religion in the name of a cruel
custom of burning Suttee appeared to him as intolerably unworthy of respect. We
cannot even clearly perceive today how much virility was needed to strike a
blow to this filth.
Different communities
could come and meet in the mind of Rammohun mainly because he could adopt the
greatest teaching of Indian culture. The place where everyone can meet in
Indian learning and religion was the field of his pursuit, he collected the message
from there. That was his viaticum. The light seen by the sage of India from
beyond the darkness, Rammohun took for the path of his own journey of life.
Even to
imagine how his arrival in our country could be possible by that time, amazes
us. Then a group of people in our country was bitterly against English
education; they were afraid that by being overwhelmed by alien learning we
shall fall from our religion. No one can say that Rammohun got dazed by western
learning. His knowledge of ancient Sanskrit scriptures was deep, yet with
courage he could say – expansion of science-based western education is needed
in the country. He wanted real synthetization of eastern and western learning. In
the field of intelligence, knowledge and spiritual wealth, this his message of
unification was a surprising event in the history of India.
It is our
weakness if we cannot properly accept him today. During his life we have put
hindrances to stop him in every step of his work. If today even we feel joy in labors
to degrade him, that also reveals the suicidal characteristic of our Bengali temperament.
It is the real
proof of his glory that no particular community based on rites and customs
could tolerate him. He could easily have received huzzas if he kept himself
limited in conventional small circles. But instead, he involved every one and
campaigned for his message all over the country. This was not an easy task. That
is why we bow to him today.
We neither
have liberty in our heart, nor we have it in our home. Foreigners, one after
one, have [bp1] tried to steal our independence. Because
in our inner core we failed to accept independence, we could not receive
everyone. We shall have to keep in our mind that a big heart is also needed to
receive everyone where the distress, poverty and the defeat is so big. Great Rammohun
Roy had such a big heart. We have come here to bow to him.
10th
Ashwin 1343
No comments:
Post a Comment