It was more than a year ago that I came here last. When I came I was not
alone; one of the mightiest prophets of Nationalism sat by my side. It was
he who then came out of the seclusion to which God had sent him, so that in the
silence and solitude of his cell he might hear the word that He had to say. It
was he that you came in your hundreds to welcome. Now he is far away, separated
from us by thousands of miles.
Others whom I was accustomed to find working beside me are absent. The storm
that swept over the country has scattered them far and wide. It is I this time
who have spent one year in seclusion, and now that I come out I find all
changed. One who always sat by my side and was associated in my work is a
prisoner in Burma; another is in the north rotting in detention.
I looked round when I came out, I looked round for those to whom I had been
accustomed to look for counsel and inspiration. I did not find them. There was
more than that. When I went to jail the whole country was alive with the cry of
Bande Mataram, alive with the hope of a nation, the hope of millions of men who
had newly risen out of degradation. When I came out of jail I listened for that
cry, but there was instead a silence.
A hush had fallen on the country and men seemed bewildered; for instead of
God's bright heaven full of the vision of the future that had been before us,
there seemed to be overhead a leaden sky from which human thunders and lightning
rained. No man seemed to know which way to move, and from all sides came the
question, "What shall we do next ? What is there that we can do ?"
I too did not know which way to move, I too did not know what was next to be
done. But one thing I knew, that as it was the Almighty Power of God which had
raised that cry, that hope, so it was the same Power which had sent down that
silence. He who was in the shouting and the movement was also in the pause and
the hush. He has sent it upon us, so that the nation might draw back for a
moment and look into itself and know His will. I have not been disheartened by
that silence because I had been made familiar with silence in my prison and
because I knew it was in the pause and the hush that I had myself learned this
lesson through the long year of my detention.
When Bepin Chandra Pal came out of jail, he came with a message, and it was
an inspired message. I remember the speech he made here. It was a speech not so
much political as religious in its bearing and intention. He spoke of his
realisation in jail, of God within us all, of the Lord within the nation, and in
his subsequent speeches also he spoke of a greater than ordinary force in the
movement and a greater than ordinary purpose before it.
Now I also meet you again, I also come out of jail, and again it is you of
Uttarpara who are the first to welcome me, not at a political meeting but at a
meeting of a society for the protection of our religion. That message which
Bepin Chandra Pal received in Buxar jail, God gave to me in Alipore. That
knowledge He gave to me day after day during my twelve months of imprisonment
and it is that which He has commanded me to speak to you now that I have come
out.
I knew I would come out. The year of detention was meant only for a year of
seclusion and of training. How could anyone hold me in jail longer than was
necessary for God's purpose ? He had given me a word to speak and a work to do,
and until that word was spoken I knew that no human power could hush me, until
that work was done no human power could stop God's instrument, however weak that
instrument might be or however small. Now that I have come out, even in these
few minutes, a word has been suggested to me which I had no wish to speak. The
thing I had in my mind He has thrown from it and what I speak is under an
impulse and a compulsion.
When I was arrested and hurried to the Lal Bazar hajat I was shaken in faith
for a while, for I could not look into the heart of His intention. Therefore I
faltered for a moment and cried out in my heart to Him, "What is this that has
happened to me ? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my
country and until that work was done, I should have Thy protection. Why then am
I here and on such a charge ?"
A day passed and a second day and a third, when a voice came to me from
within, "Wait and see." Then I grew calm and waited, I was taken from Lal Bazar
to Alipore and was placed for one month in a solitary cell apart from men. There
I waited day and night for the voice of God within me, to know what He had to
say to me, to learn what I had to do. In this seclusion the earliest
realisation, the first lesson came to me.
I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had come to
me to put aside all activity, to go in seclusion and to look into myself, so
that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not
accept the call. My work was very dear to me and in the pride of my heart I
thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease;
therefore I would not leave it. It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and
said, "The bonds you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you,
because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that should
continue. I have had another thing for you to do and it is for that I have
brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to
train you for my work."
Then He placed the
Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the
sadhana of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise
what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to
do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without
the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful
instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and
opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negligently.
I realised what the
Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatan
Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are
preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatan Dharma is
life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived.
This is the Dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the
seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India
is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is
strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light
entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not
for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great.
Therefore this was the next thing He pointed out to me. He made me realise
the central truth of the Hindu religion. He turned the hearts of my jailors to
me and they spoke to the Englishman in charge of the jail, "He is suffering in
his confinement; let him at least walk outside his cell for half an hour in the
morning and in the evening." So it was arranged, and it was while I was walking
that His strength again entered into me. I looked the jail that secluded me from
men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was
Vasudeva who surrounded me.
I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not
the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there
and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating
that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was
guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were
given me for a couch and felt the arms of Sri Krishna around me, the arms of my
Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me.
I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the
swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I
found in these darkened souls and misused bodies. Amongst these thieves and
dacoits there were many who put me to shame by their sympathy, their
kindness, the humanity triumphant over such adverse circumstances.
One I saw among them especially, who seemed to me a saint, a peasant of my
nation who did not know how to read and write, an alleged dacoit sentenced to
ten years' rigorous imprisonment, one of those whom we look down upon in our
Pharisaical pride of class as Chhotalok. Once more He spoke to me and said,
"Behold the people among whom I have sent you to do a little of my work. This is
the nature of the nation I am raising up and the reason why I raise them."
When the case opened in the lower court and we were brought before the
Magistrate I was followed by the same insight. He said to me, "When you were
cast into jail, did not your heart fail and did you not cry out to me, where is
Thy protection ? Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting
Counsel."
I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was
Narayana who was sitting there on the bench. I looked at the Prosecuting Counsel
and it was not the Counsel for the prosecution that I saw; it was Sri Krishna
who sat there, it was my Lover and Friend who sat there and smiled. "Now do you
fear ?" He said, "I am in all men and I overrule their actions and their words.
My protection is still with you and you shall not fear. This case which is
brought against you, leave it in my hand. It is not for you. It was not for the
trial that I brought you here but for something else. The case itself is only a
means for my work and nothing more."
Afterwards when the trial opened in the Sessions Court, I began to write many
instructions for my Counsel as to what was false in the evidence against me and
on what points the witnesses might be cross-examined. Then something happened
which I had not expected.
The arrangements which had been made for my defence were suddenly changed and
another Counsel stood there to defend me. He came unexpectedly, a friend of
mine, but I did not know he was coming. You have all heard the name of the man
who put away from him all other thoughts and abandoned all his practice, who sat
up half the night day after day for months and broke his health to save me,
Srijut Chittaranjan Das.
When I saw him, I was satisfied, but I still thought it necessary to write
instructions. Then all that was put away from me and I had the message from
within, "This is the man who will save you from the snares put around your feet.
Put aside those papers. It is not you who will instruct him. I will instruct
him."
From that time I did not of myself speak a word to my Counsel about the case
or give a single instruction, and if ever I was asked a question, I always found
that my answer did not help the case. I had left it to him and he took it
entirely into his hands, with what result you know. I knew all along what He
meant for me, for I heard it again and again, always I listened to the voice
within; "I am guiding, therefore fear not. Turn to your own work for which I
have brought you to jail and when you come out, remember never to fear, never to
hesitate. Remember that it is I who am doing this, not you nor any other.
Therefore whatever clouds may come, whatever dangers and sufferings, whatever
difficulties, whatever impossibilities, there is nothing impossible, nothing
difficult. I am in the nation and its uprising and I am Vasudeva, I am Narayana,
and what I will, shall be, not what others will. What I choose to bring about,
no human power can stay."
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 something of
pain.
For I know my weakness, I am a prey to my own faults and
backslidings. I was not blind to them before and when they all rose up against
me in seclusion, I felt them utterly. I knew them that I the man was a man of
weakness, a faulty and imperfect instrument, strong only when a higher strength
entered into me. Then I found myself among these young men and in many of them I
discovered a mighty courage, a power of self-effacement 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 I prided myself.
He said to me, "This is the young generation, the new and mighty
nation that is arising at my command. They are greater than yourself. What have
you to fear ? If you stood aside or slept, 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 mightily than you have ever done. You have only got some strength
from me to speak a word to this nation which will help to raise 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 cell. What happened to me during that period I am not
impelled to say, but only that day after day, He showed me His wonders and made
me realise the utter truth of the Hindu religion. I had many doubts before. I
was brought up in England amongst foreign ideas and an atmosphere entirely
foreign.
About many things in Hinduism I had once been inclined to believe that they
were imaginations, that there was much of dream in it, much that was delusion
and Maya. But now day after day I realised in the mind, I realised in the heart,
I 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
Jnani. 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 God 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 His 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 religion based on the Vedanta.
So when I turned to the Yoga and resolved to practise it and find 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, I 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 I 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 what work to do or how to do it. Give me a message." In the
communion of Yoga two messages came.
The first message said, "I 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 Adesh 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 I have perfected and developed through the Rishis, saints
and Avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am
raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatan Dharma, this
is the eternal religion which you did not really know before, but which I have
now revealed to you.
The agnostic and the sceptic in you have been answered, for I have given you
proofs within and without you, physical and subjective, which have satisfied
you. When you go forth, speak to your nation always this word, that it is for
the Sanatan Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves
that they arise. I am giving them freedom for the service of the world. When
therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall
be great.
When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan
Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma
and by the Dharma that India exists. To magnify the religion means to magnify
the country. I have shown you that I am everywhere and in all men and in all
things, that I am in this movement and I am not only working in those who are
striving for the country but I am working also in those who oppose them and
stand in their path. I am working in everybody and whatever men may think or do,
they can do nothing but help in my purpose.
They also are doing my work, they are not my enemies but my instruments. In
all your actions you are moving forward without knowing which way you move. You
mean to do one thing and you do another. You aim at a result and your efforts
subserve one that is different or contrary. It is Shakti that has gone forth and
entered into the people. Since long ago I 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 is "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 Sanatan, eternal ? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation
has kept it, because in this Peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea
and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it was given as a
charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages.
But it is not circumscribed 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, an exclusive
religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one
religion that can triumph over materialism 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 means by which man can approach
God. It is the one religion which insists every moment on the truth which all
religions acknowledge that He is in all men and all things and that in Him we
move and have our being. It is the one religion which enables us not only to
understand and believe this truth but to realise it with every part of our
being. It is the one religion which shows the world what the world is, that it
is the Lila of Vasudeva. It is the one religion which shows us how we can best
play our part in that Lila, its subtlest laws and its noblest rules. It is the
one religion which does not separate life in any smallest detail from religion,
which knows what immortality is and has utterly removed from us the reality of
death.
This is the word that has been put into my mouth to speak to you today. What
I intended to speak has been put away from me, and beyond what is given to me I
have nothing to say. It is only the word that is put into me that I can speak to
you. That word is now finished. I spoke once before with this force in me and I
said then that this movement is not a political movement and that nationalism is
not politics but a religion, a creed, a faith. I say it again today, but I put
it in another way. I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a
faith; I say that it is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This
Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it it moves and with it it
grows. When the Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the
Sanatan Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatan Dharma it would
perish.
The Sanatan Dharma, that is nationalism. This is the message that I have to
speak to you.
When
I was asked to speak to you at the annual meeting of your Sabha, it was my
intention to say a few words about the subject chosen for today, the subject of
the Hindu religion. I do not know now whether I shall fulfill that intention;
for as I sat here, there came into my mind a word that I have to speak to you, a
word that I have to speak to the whole of the Indian Nation. It was spoken first
to myself in jail and I have come out of jail to speak it to my people. 