How Hindu thought stultifies itself!we hear the
horrified.iticexlaim. How। can sucha nation live and
prosper? he.
e asks. Alas for the critic, the ways of life and
reality are mysterious. Life works its ways through
contradiction. The greatest generalization of relative
reality is perhaps that it is self-contradictory. That is
why we said that life progresses by continual affirma-
tion and negation. It is because the Hindu is so intent
on forgetting life that life is eternal in India. Which race
on the face of the earth is so enigmatically permanent
as the Hindu? It rises revivified, phoenix-like from
every foreign invasion. Every period of depression has
been followed by a period of ever greater prosperity.
What is the secret source of its perpetual life? The
Hindu's denial of life. God is not attached to the creation; therefore the cycle of creation is never-ending.
This is the blessed contradiction. Let us be the Eternal;
life's rich creation will never know any end.
So today we want to forget everything-our
domestic problems, our social and economic troubles,
our political distresses, our national degradation, and
international vagaries. These are all vanity. What is the
reality behind them? Nothing. The world itself is false,
how can its goings on be true? They weary the soul. No
doubt from our present limited viewpoint, the universe
is tremendously real. Today our life is beset with
problems. The nation is crying in agony. There is no
end of suffering. But all these are true only to a certain
point. Beyond that, they do not exist. And it is the call
of the Beyond that is insistent today.
We have so often inflicted the thoughts of the
passing world on our readers that we hope we shall be
excused if for once we call them to the Beyond. Yes, we
must also have the power and the heart to look uncon-
cerned on the suffering world. 'Let the dead bury their
dead. Do thou follow Me.' This contradiction is the
sustenance of our existence. Were we to exhaust oursel-
ves on the surface of being, our life would be hollow
and disconsolate. Fortunately, we can withdraw our-
selves from the ramifications of the surface and dive
deep. So let this thought be uppermost in our mind
always-to dive deep, to deny relative existence, and to
be absorbed in the Absolute. It is natural for us at
present to lose ourselves in the multifarious thoughts
and activities of relative life. We do not require to make
efforts to plunge into them. We are always in them. We
are continually being dragged on by them. What we
require is to be disengaged from their tentacles, and for
that we require to make Herculean efforts. For lives
and lives, for millions of births, we have been
babituated to live on the surface, so much so that the
changing aspects of being now appear to us as the
essence of Being itself. We are hypnotized. This deep-
rooted habit cannot be overcome in a day. Tremendous
struggle is needed to overcome the lures of relative life,
and they cannot be overcome once for all. They rise
powerful again and again from their defeat. An alert
eye has to be kept on them. Eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty. What should we do? Is it not clear that
the greatest part of our energy is to be devoted to the
denial of relative life and being, so that our mind may
learn to abide for ever in the Eternal? It is for this that
we must make real efforts.
Let a weariness seize our soul. Let us be weary of
the distractions of life. But that weariness should be
genuine; that is to say, it must not be negative, it must
be at the same time re-creation. A new, deeper and
larger aspect of being must appear in the quiet of that
weariness. This weariness is vairāgya. Let the
relativities blow away like a passing storm and the
Eternal shine clear before our vision. Let us create a
storm in our life that it may blow away all the dust and
cobwebs which at present blur our vision of the reality
