Ideal of Patriotism

-
         They talk of patriotism. I believe in patriotism, and I also have my own ideal of patriotism. Three things are necessary for great achievements. First, feel from the heart. What is in the intellect or reason? It goes a few steps and there it stops. But through the heart comes inspiration. Love opens the most impossible gates; love is the gate to all the secrets of the universe. Feel, therefore, my would-be reformers, my would-be patriots! Do you feel? Do you feel that millions and millions of the descendants of gods and of sages have become next-door neighbours to brutes? Do you feel that millions are starving today, and millions have been starving for ages? Do you feel that ignorance has come over the land as a dark cloud? Does it make you restless? Does it make you sleepless? Has it gone into your blood, coursing through your veins, becoming consonant with your heartbeats? Has it made you almost mad? Are you seized with that one idea of the misery of ruin, and have you forgotten all about your name, your fame, your wives, your children, your property, even your own bodies? Have you done that? That is the first step to become a patriot, the very first step.....


          You may feel, then; but instead of spending your energies in frothy talk, have you found any way out, any practical solution, some help instead of condemnation, some sweet words to soothe their miseries, to bring them out of this living death?


Yet that is not all. Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right? If your wives and children are against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and go on steadily towards your own goal? As the great King Bhartrihari says (Niti - shataka, verse 74): 


Nindantu nitinpunah yadi va stuvantu
Laksmih samavisatu gacchatu va yathestam;
Adyaiva va maranamastu yugantare va
Nyayyat pathat pravicalanti padam na dhirah-
 "Let the sages blame or let them praise; let the goddess of fortune come or let her go wherever she likes; let death come today, or let it come in hundreds of years; he indeed is the steady man who does not move one inch from the way of truth." 



Have you got that steadfastness? If you have these three things, each one of you will work miracles.


- excerpt from a lecture delivered at Victoria Hall, Madras
(on his triumphant return from USA)
Date: around 1897


























































Popular posts from this blog









Power of the begging bowl






-















   India will be raised, not with the power of the flesh, but with the power of the spirit; not with the flag of destruction, but with the flag of peace and love, the garb of the Sannyâsin; not by the power of wealth, but by the power of the begging bowl. Say not that you are weak. The spirit is omnipotent. Look at that handful of young men called into existence by the divine touch of Ramakrishna's feet. They have preached the message from Assam to Sindh, from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. They have crossed the Himalayas at a height of twenty thousand feet, over snow and ice on foot, and penetrated into the mysteries of Tibet. They have begged their bread, covered themselves with rags; they have been persecuted, followed by the police, kept in prison, and at last set free when the Government was convinced of their innocence.          They are now twenty. Make them two thousand tomorrow. Young men of India, your country requires it. The world requires it. Call up the divinity withi








Read more










Boys with the faith of Nachiketa






-















 Swamiji: Well, this body is in such a pitiable condition, but none of  you are stepping forward to help in my work! What shall I do single -  handed? This time the body has come out of the soil of Bengal, so can it  bear the strain of much work? You who come here are pure souls; and if  you do not become my helpers in this work, what shall I do alone?   Disciple: Sir, these self - sacrificing Brahmacharins and Sannyasins  are standing behind you, and I think that each one of them can devote  his life to your work -- still why do you speak in this way?   Swamiji: Well, I want a band of young Bengal -- who alone are the  hope of this country. My hope of the future lies in the youths of  character -- intelligent, renouncing all for the service of others, and  obedient -- who can sacrifice their lives in working out my ideas and  thereby do good to themselves and the country at large. Otherwise, boys  of the common run are coming in groups and will come. Dullness is  written on their face








Read more










Weakness to Strength 






-















 In spite of the greatness of the Upanishads, in spite of our boasted ancestry of sages, compared to many other races, I must tell you that we are weak, very weak. First of all is our physical weakness. That physical weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries. We are lazy, we cannot work; we cannot combine, we do not love each other; we are intensely selfish, not three of us can come together without hating each other, without being jealous of each other. That is the state in which we are — hopelessly disorganised mobs, immensely selfish, fighting each other for centuries as to whether a certain mark is to be put on our forehead this way or that way, writing volumes and volumes upon such momentous questions as to whether the look of a man spoils my food or not! This we have been doing for the past few centuries.   We cannot expect anything high from a race whose whole brain energy has been occupied in such wonderfully beautiful problems and researches! And are we not a








Read more