Eternal India Encyclopedia

ETERNAL INDIA encyclopedia

WISDOM OF INDIA

clever; but they are attached to things of this world money, honours,

wants or hopes for; in it he finds all that makes life real to him. To the

pleasure, etc. Being actually in the play it is hard for them to hit upon the right move. Holy men who have given up the world are not attached to it They are like the onlookers at a game of chess. They see things in their true light and can judge better than the men of the world. As a nail cannot be driven into a stone, yet it enters easily into the earth, so the advice of the pious does not affect the soul of a worldly man, while it pierces deep into the heart of a believer. A man woke up at midnight and desired to smoke, he wanted a light, so he went to a neighbour's house and knocked at the door. Some- one opened the door and asked him what he wanted. The man said: "I wish to smoke. Can you give me a light?" The neighbour replied: "Bah!

Occidental he is a dreamer; to the Oriental, the occidental is a dreamers

playing with ephemeral toys, and he laughs to think that grown-up men

and women should make so much of a handful of matter which they will

have to leave sooner or later. Each calls the other a dreamer. But the

Oriental ideal is as necessary for the progress of the human race as is the

Occidental, and I think it is more necessary. Machines never made

mankind happy, and never will make. He who is trying to make us

believe this, will claim that happiness is in the machine, but it is always

in the mind. The man alone who is the lord of his mind can become

happy, and none else. And what, after all, is power of machinery? Why

should a man who can send a current of electricity through a wire be

What is the matter with you? You have taken so much trouble to come

called a very great man, and very intelligent man? Does not Nature do

and [awaken] us at this hour, when in your hand you have a lighted lantern!" What a man wants is already within him; but he still wanders

a million times more than that every moment? Why not then fall down

and worship Nature? What avails it if you have power over the whole

here and there in search of it.

of the world, if you have mastered every atom in the universe? That will

From The Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna

not make you happy unless you have the power of happiness in your-

self, until you have conquered yourself. Man is born to conquer Na-

"Whenever virtue subsides and vice prevails, I come down to help

ture, it is true, but the Occidental means by "Nature" only the physical

mankind," declares Krishna, in the Bhagavad-Gita. Whenever this world of ours, on account of growth, on account of added circum- stances, requires a new adjustment, a wave of power comes, and as man is acting on two planes, the spiritual plane, and the material, waves of adjustment come on both planes. On the one side of the adjustment on the material plane, Europe has mainly been the basis during modern times, and of the adjustment on the other, the spiritual plane, Asia has been the basis throughout the history of the world. Today, man requires one more adjustment on the spiritual plane; today when material ideas are at the height of their glory and power, today when man is likely to forget his divine nature, through his growing dependence on matter, and is likely to be reduced to a mere money-making machine, an adjust- ment is necessary; the voice has spoken, and the power is coming to drive away the clouds of gathering materialism. The power has been set in motion which, at no distant date, will bring unto mankind once more the memory of its real nature, and again the place from which this power will start will be Asia. This world of ours is on the plan of the division of labour. It is vain to say that one man shall possess every- thing. Yet how childish we are! The baby in its ignorance thinks that its doll is the only possession that is to be coveted in this whole universe. So a nation which is great in the possession of material power thinks that is all that is meant by civilisation, and if there are other nations which do not care for possession and do not possess that power, they are not fit to live, their whole existence is useless! On the other hand, another nation may think that mere material civilisation is utterly useless From the Orient came the voice which once told the world, that if a man possesses everything that is under the sun and does not possess spiri- tuality, what avails it? This is the Oriental type; the other is the Occidental type.

or external Nature. It is true that external Nature is majestic, with its

mountains, and oceans, and rivers, and with the infinite powers and

varieties. Yet there is a more majestic internal Nature of man, higher

than the sun, moon, and the stars, higher than this earth of ours, higher

than the physical universe, transcending these little lives of ours; and it

affords another field of study. There the Orientals excel, just as the Oc-

cidentals excel in the other. Therefore it is fitting that, whenever there

is a spiritual adjustment, it should come from the Orient. It is also fitting

that when the Oriental wants to learn about machine-making, he should

sit at the feet of the Occidental and learn from him. When the Occident

wants to learn about the spirit, about God, about the soul, about the

meaning and the mystery of this universe, he must sit at the feet of the

Orient to learn.

From The Complete Works of the Swami Vivekananda

Sri Narayana bless you and yours. Through your Highness' kind help it has been possible for me to come to this country. Since then I have become well-known here, and the hospitable people of this country have supplied all my wants. It is a wonderful country and this is a wonderful nation in many respects. No other nation applies so much machinery in their everyday work as do the people of this country. Everything is machine. Then again, they are only one-twentieth of the whole population of the world. Yet they have fully one-sixth of all the wealth of the world. There is no limit to their wealth and luxuries. Yet everything here is s$ dear. The wages of labour are the highest in the world; yet the fight between labour and capital is constant. Nowhere on earth have women so many privileges as in America. They are slowly taking everything into their hands and, strange to say, the number of cultured women is much greater than that of cultured men. Of course, the higher geniuses are mostly from the rank of males. With all the criticism of the Westerners against our caste, they have a worse one— that of money. The almighty dollar, as the Americans say, can do anything here.

Each of these types has its grandeur, each has its glory. The pres-

ent adjustment will be the harmonising, the coalescing of these two

ideals. To the Oriental, the world of spirit is as real as to the Occidental

is the world of senses. In the spiritual, the Oriental finds everything he