BUNCH OF THOUGHTS
M.S. Golwalkar
Part One - The Mission
VIII. VISION OF OUR WORK

The ultimate vision of our work, which has been a living inspiration for all our organisational efforts, is a perfectly organised state of our society wherein each individual has been moulded into a model of ideal Hindu manhood and made into a living limb of the corporate personality of society.

Obviously, this is not a vision which can be realised within a few days or even a few years. It requires the untiring, silent endeavour of hundreds and thousands of dedicated missionaries. It requires stout and steady hearts, which shall remain unshaken amidst adversities and temptations. It is to mould such inspired lives that the Sangh lays utmost stress on day-to-day samskars, day-to-day inculcation of all those qualities of head and heart which go to foster strength and competence in the individual to march on the path of lifelong dedication.

This type of steady, silent and lifelong devotion to work may appear very strange and unusual in the present-day world. It has an originality and a freshness all its own. As such, people will naturally take some time to appreciate and assimilate this approach of ours. For instance, there are many who feel aghast at the idea that our method of work demands daily attendance at a particular hour, at a specified place, year after year, all through their lifetime. Once a young man requested me to guide him how he could develop his powers of concentration. In order to test his tenacity, I asked him to observe a particular practice regularly. Immediately he asked, "For how long am I to do this?" I said. "Well, continue it for all life". He exclaimed, "For all life! How is it possible to continue anything for all life?" I jocularly asked him, "At least will you stick to this principle all your life?"

That is the mentality of the day. People want quick results and short-cuts to success. This human frailty of ‘minimum effort and maximum result’ has encompassed all fields of our national life. The path of honesty, which implies sincere, hard labour has yielded to means, foul or fair, which give quick results. The earning man thinks in terms of such short-cuts to become rich; and if he can become so overnight, he is prepared to descend to any level for that sake. He takes to black-marketing, speculation and gambling. He eagerly catches hold of an astrologer to see if any planet can do something for him! Stealing and robbing are, of course, there – as the right royal short-cuts!

People have also begun to look out for short-cuts in realising God! Who will take all the trouble of undergoing lifelong penance and single-minded pursuit of God? They try to get hold of some saint or sanyasin as an intermediary agent who, they believe, will take over all their sins, give them his merit and leave them clean and pure to face God! No aspect of our social life is free from corrosion by this mean and ignoble attitude.

Because of such an atmosphere all around, people begin to think whether there are such short-cuts in the Sangh work also. They ask, "How long do you intend to carry on like this? When will you be able to bring about the total transformation of society that you visualise? For how many years more will you go on plodding the same path?" Then, they look around and see the mighty Government wielding vast powers and encompassing the whole expanse of national life. They begin to imagine that invested with such resources in administrative personnel, finance and authority, they can, within a short time, change the entire face of the country, and mould the coming generation on the pattern they desire through education and so on. They become enamoured of that short-cut involving less sacrifice and quick result. To a superficial view, this argument, no doubt, appears very attractive. The all-out stress that is being laid on the political and economic aspect of our life by the present Government, the incessant propaganda carried on for their Five Year Plans, and the opening up of ever new fields of government control to suck up the young men of the country, have all added their share to the present-day attitude of our people to look up to political power as the panacea for all our ills.

But let us not be carried away by such a superficial view. Let us educate the people to acquire a deeper understanding of things, though unfortunately shallow thinking has become the order of the day. Once in Nagpur, there was an All India Education Conference. Some of the leading luminaries, who had come there were known to me. They told me about the details of their proceedings and the rules, curriculum, etc. they had decided upon. At last I asked them a simple question, "Can you tell me the real nature and real needs of the ‘individual’ in our country whom you are planning to educate?" One of them confessed straightaway that this question was never posed before them. That is how things go on in our country, as in the story of the blind leading the blind, no one desiring or striving to get at the root of the problem.

Let us open the pages of world history and see if such a superficial view, such a short-cut means of state power will really help to build an immortal national life of a country. There were in the past so many empires pivoted wholly on political power. Persia, for example, entirely depended upon its emperor for all its security and prosperity. The emperor was the supreme head and controlled all aspects of people’s life including their religion. The people were for a time carefree and happy. But their entire national edifice crumbled at the very first shock of the Arab invasion. The same fate overtook the empires of Rome and Greece. It was not as if these empires had no wealth or good administration or armies. But all those things rested on the sandy foundation of the political authority of the king and as soon as that political power was shattered even for a while, all their civilisation, their religion and their nationalism came down along with it in a crash, never to appear on the world stage again. Countries after countries lost their soul to Islam and became Muslim countries for ever in this fashion.

But the story of our nation presents an entirely different picture. Our society also had to face innumerable such invasions from the most barbaric races. Even political domination by these hostile forces over our people continued for a time, sometimes for several centuries. Off and on, forces of adharma reigned unleashing all their powers of destruction right from the days of Ravana. In that dark hour when Aurangzeb ruled, even a great martial saint like Samartha Ramadas was constrained to lament that an Incarnation of the Almighty alone could save Hindu Society from total annihilation. Later on, the wily Britishers also tried his hand at subverting our national life. Even today adharmic elements are having their heyday. But our society has survived all these grave crises. Again and again it has risen from the ashes, smashed the stranglehold of the evil forces and established the reign of righteousness. That glorious tradition continues unbroken to this day, charged as ever with the idealism and energy of resurgent nationalism. How did this miracle happen? What is the secret of the immortality, this deathless potency of our society, even after it was infected with the deadliest of poisons?

It is at once clear that the basis of our national existence was not political power. Otherwise, our fate would have been no better than that of those nations, which remain today as only museum exhibits. The political rulers were never the standard-bearers of our society. They were never taken as the props of our national life. Saints and sages, who had risen above the mundane temptations of pelf and power and had dedicated themselves wholly for establishing a happy, virtuous and integrated state of society, were its constant torch-bearers. They presented the dharmasatta. The king was only an ardent follower of that higher moral authority. Many a kingship licked the dust owing to various adverse and aggressive forces. But the dharmasatta continued to hold the people together.

Ravana was a shrewd aggressor. He knew this secret of our social coherence. He was aware that the life-centre of our society throbbed in the forest hermitages of sages and seers. Therefore, he concentrated his attacks on those jungle huts, on the sacrificial rites that were carried on there. But those spiritual heroes braved those onslaughts and stuck to their mission of rousing and integrating the people. The whole of society and, it is said, even gods were groaning under the heels of Ravana. Then the nation roused itself in the personality of Sri Rama. That great saviour was moulded and guided by sages like Vishwamitra, Vasishtha and Agastya. Not only was Sri Rama set up, but intense national consciousness of the whole of society was kept ablaze by these sages through regular discourses, discussions and various dharmic rites. How alert, how diligent were these ‘half-naked faqirs’ in their devotion to the welfare of society! Finally, even the deadly missile with which Sri Rama slew Ravana was given to him by the sage Agastya. It was because of their inspiration and untiring efforts that those lashing tides of adharma which had engulfed the ‘three worlds’ were ultimately laid low. Once again society rose ever more effulgent from the ashes of Lanka, the citadel of those adharmic forces.

The Buddhist Age too has the same message for us. After Buddha, his followers here degenerated. They began to uproot the age-old national traditions of this land. The great cultural virtues fostered in our society were sought to be demolished. The links with the past were hammered away. Dharma was at a sad discount. The whole social fabric was being rent to shreds. Devotion to the nation and its heritage had reached such a low pitch that the Buddhist fanatics invited and helped the foreign aggressors who wore the mask of Buddhism. The Buddhist sect had turned a traitor to the mother society and the mother religion. In such a critical moment, who was it that came up as the redeemer of our dharma and our society?

It was the same tradition of sages and seers that projected its power and vitality in the form of Sri Shankaracharya. He was a sanyasin, an incomparable philosopher and an unique organiser. His eminence lay not in any earthly wealth or power. Half-naked, he roamed on foot from one end of the country to the other. Countless were the dangers he had to encounter including attempts at poisoning him. But he moved from place to place, fearless and conquering, knowing no rest or comfort, and once again rekindled the ebbing flame of our ancient culture. The band of his devoted sanyasin followers cemented with their blood and sweat the past with the present for a glorious future. The true national consciousness and selfless service that they roused, helped society to find its feet once again and throw out the treacherous elements. Buddhism, as a distinct sect, was erased from the mother soil, though of course, Buddha remained as an Incarnation. We worship Lord Shiva, no doubt, but on that account we do not welcome the flock of demons surrounding him.

Even during the days of Muslim domination great saints and sanyasins rose to continue that tradition. All those stalwarts – Chaitanya, Tulsidas, Surdas, Jnaneshwar, Ramananda, Tukaram, Ramanuja, Madhwa, Nanak and a host of such others – flooded the land from one end to the other with religious devotion. Samartha Ramadas converted that religious fervour into a dynamo of national power. They recited stories of Sri Rama and Sri Krishna, sang the divine ballads of their heroism, roused the people’s faith in their gods and goddesses and kept up their moral calibre unimpaired amidst all the political oppression. The great national renaissance under Chhatrapati Shivaji was the direct outcome of those years of intense spiritual and cultural awakening. Prior to that also, the glorious Hindu power of Vijayanagar rose on the spiritual-cum-national awakening set in by Swami Vidyaranya. The great religious Guru Nanak and his successors laid the foundation of the Hindu upheaval exhibiting itself in the warlike Sikhs under Guru Govind Singh and Banda Bairagi. Thus, once again, the great national consolidation centered round dharma and the vicious, anti-national forces were put to rout and the flag of national victory flown triumphantly from Attok to Cuttack and from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

We see the same spiritual content present in the national resurgence against the foreign yoke of the British also. The spiritual sun broke forth in all its glory in Bengal as the Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda order, in the Punjab in the form of Swami Dayananda and Ramatirtha, in the South Maharshi Ramana and Yogi Aurobindo – all of whom infused the spiritual content of nationalism in to the people’s mind.

This is the unmistakable evidence of history before us. We have to take a lesson from that and decide to build the organised life of our people imbued with pure character and unflinching devotion to cultural and spiritual values, which shall stand unshaken for thousands of years to come. The power of the organised life of the people imbued with the spiritual urge of our ancient heritage – well, that has been the secret of our immortality down these ages. That is verily our Rashtradharma and we stand committed to rejuvenating it in its full potency.

Here it is necessary to clear a misconception that has clouded our thinking these days. When words like dharma and spirituality are uttered, pat comes the remark : "Why do you bring religion into politics?" This question stems from a misunderstanding of our concept of dharma and confusing it with the Western concept of religion. The Western countries suffered for centuries because of their dogmatic concept of religion and the control of state by the church. Our concept of dharma is as different from that as cheese is from chalk. Dharma or spirituality is not a dogma but a view of life in its totality. It is not a separate sphere of national life just as political or economic spheres Spirituality is, in our view, a comprehensive vision of life that should inform and elevate and correlate all fields of society for the fulfilment of human life in all its facets. It is the sap of our national tree, the life-breath of our national entity.

Even after understanding all this, there are some who feel that political power is essential even to spread our dharmic ideology . In the past, Christianity and Islam, they say, spread far and wide because of the political power they wielded. But on a closer study, we will find that ultimately political power will never solve the problem. For instance, the Government and most of the people were ranged against that single individual, Jesus Christ. After he was crucified on the cross, his disciples had no one to guide them. But their hearts were charged with idealism. Fired with the spirit of Christ, with the faith and zeal of their new realisation, they spread far and wide in the world. And the world bowed at their feet. Then they had no political power. But when, in course of time, their successors fell a prey to the lure of political power, corruption and degradation entered their ranks. The present plight of Christianity, rendered powerless to mould the life of it own Christian countries and even made a tool in the hands of imperialistic political powers, is the direct outcome of the pollution of their ranks with political ambition. The perversion of Islam at the hands of its power-drunk followers – miscalled the spread of Islam – is too well known. It had nothing to do with the awakening of the spiritual values of life.

Why go so far? The present leaders of Congress were at one time men of great sacrifice and patriotism. The people also were inspired to follow the path of virtue because of their glowing examples. But what is their fate today? Corruption, nepotism and lust for power have become rampant in their ranks. That is why Gandhiji had advised Congress on the advent of swaraj either to disband itself or strictly keep itself aloof from power. But his wholesome advice was too bitter a pill to swallow for his followers who had tasted the spoils of power. And today we see its dire result, not only for Congress but for the whole country as well.

The latest experiment in Russia to achieve social good through the sole agency of state power has also given the same verdict. The statement "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" has become true to a letter there. Once power is acquired, the desire to retain it at all costs takes hold of the persons who wield that power. Their attitude towards the people will then be one of "I am the master, and you are my slaves". That is what has happened in Russia. Revolutionary zeal, wealth and power and its resultant intoxication, have all combined to make it a ruthless dictatorship, enslaving and dehumanising a whole nation.

Considered from this other aspect also, we come to the same conclusion that the type of organisation that we are building – keeping ourselves aloof from lures and tentacles of political power, but at the same time alert and powerful enough to check the erring powers that be – can alone give a healthy and permanent order in which our society can live and prosper. After all, political power is an external appliance, which cannot by itself mould the ‘inner man’ after an ideal. Mere governmental legislation cannot mould the minds of men on the lines of virtue. If a person in authority legislates, say, against drinking and if he himself is given to drinking, he will only show greater cleverness in circumventing that very law.

Thus it is very clear that mere political authority becomes powerless when it has to play the role of rejuvenating the cultural values and social solidarity; and much worse, if left to itself, it corrupts those high standards. The secret of immortality of a nation conserving the noblest of its traditional qualities has to be sought elsewhere; and the functions of the state would have to be specified and its powers restrained within certain limits.

It is with such a deep understanding of the various factors of social life that our ancient lawgivers confined the function of the state to the protection of the people against foreign invasions and internal strifes caused by jealousy, hatred, aggrandisement, etc. A state, which transgresses these limits, they said, cannot be the friend of the people. It becomes their enemy. For, it will not allow the free growth of the eternal potentialities of the people. That would also degrade them by making them relegate to the background the higher values of life, in a bid to please the powers that be.

Today our Government, calling itself a ‘Welfare State’, is trying to centralise all power and authority and secure undivided control of education, medical aid, social reforms, production, distribution and many other spheres of life. If the state were thus to dominate the whole range of human activity, the individual will exist only as a slave bereft of all initiative. It is well known that power tends to make its wielder oppressive and tyrannical. Men in authority, therefore, strive to suppress their potential opponents through violence, thereby rendering themselves incapable of securing the peaceful progress and welfare of the people. Our lawgivers, therefore, though it is necessary to impose strong checks on the men in power. They ordained that governmental power, which is only a means, should not become the end. The state could do good to society only so long as it remained as the upholder of dharma – the higher law of the good life – and not as an end in itself. They, therefore, placed our rulers under the guidance and control of the dharmic authority in the form of selfless and disinterested persons-the sages and seers living in hermitages.

One more unique feature incorporated in our ancient national set-up was the precaution taken to keep political power aloof from the production of wealth. Money is a form of power. It does not need much intelligence to imagine the havoc the state can create once it becomes inflated by a combination of political and economic powers. Concentration of both these powers in the hands of the same individual or group must either degrade and enslave society or provoke the people to revolt when their suffering becomes unbearable. Whatever the outcome, the loss of social stability, progress and prosperity becomes inevitable.

The example of European countries is revealing. Prior to the French Revolution, the king was the repository of all political and economic powers in those countries. The people were groaning under the despotic kingship, squeezed out of all liberty, initiative and happiness. The French Revolution erupted with the trumpet cry of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ as a violent revolt against that tyranny. By about the same time, the Industrial Revolution had also set in. Under the slogan ‘equality of opportunity’, persons with greater intelligence, capacity and money monopolised the industries, amassed enormous wealth, and on that strength controlled political power as well. They became the new tyrants in place of the old. The combination of political and economic powers once again bred despotism and the common man was reduced to conditions of indescribable misery and slavery, though under the new and enchanting garb of democracy. As Bernard Shaw observed, democracy was born as a result of the absence of a benevolent despot.

This imbalance in social set-up and the consequent popular unrest caused another outburst in the form of Communist revolution. The bloody revolutions that took place in Russia and China have probably no parallel in the history of the world for their sheer magnitude of massacres, purges, transportations, slave camps and such other inhuman measures. Again, the same tragedy of the combination of political and economic powers has overtaken the Communist countries landing the general mass of people in inhuman slavery. Countries, which have forestalled the Communist revolution and remained democratic could do so by weaning away to some extent at least the political power from the clutches of economic power. However, even in these democratic countries, a beneficial balance between the two has not been achieved so far.

Therefore in order to avoid slavery or bloody revolution and provide enduring peace and freedom to society, our ancient Hindu thought and practice had kept economic power away from the hands of the state. It deprived the people producing wealth of all political power. The two powers were thus kept interdependent and mutually corrective. And above all, these two powers were subjected to the supervision of such selfless men as had no axe to grind. It was the continuous tradition of such persons, holding the sceptre of spiritual authority, who were ever on the alert to undo any injustice perpetrated by any of these two powers, while they themselves remained above all temptations of power or riches, that formed the real breath of the glory and immortality of our ancient nation.

It is after realising this key-note of our national tradition that we have taken upon ourselves the none-to-easy path of moulding men imbued with an uncompromising spirit of dedication to the nation and its spiritual values, who, on the strength of their all-embracing love and spotless character, will be able to wield the integrated strength of the society to such an intense degree that the political powers that be shall not dare to transgress their limits and use power for ends other than social welfare. An organisation of such men alone can form the true basis of eternal social power-an organisation which can rise above the flux of circumstances, which is not inspired by the aim of serving petty interests or capturing political power, an organisation which is identified with the whole of society, sustaining by its very existence the entire social edifice and providing spontaneous impulse and energy for its full self-development.

Having, as we do, this sublime vision engraved in our hearts, why should we run after the mirage of political power? Once in the Dakshineshwar temple there was a theft.. Some of the ornaments of the idol of Radhakanta were stolen. When some one made the remark "What is this God who cannot protect His own ornaments?" Sri Ramakrishna rebuked him saying that it was shameful to entertain such absurd views for, what value can He attach to such worthless pieces of stone and metal Who has Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, as his handmaid? Similarly, why should we, who have the integrated vision of the entire national life, run after a fleeting thing like political power?

Political power shall only reflect the radiance of culture, integrity and power of the organised society that we want to build up-just as the moon reflects the radiance of the sun. We aspire to become the radiating centre of all the age-old cherished ideals of our society-just as the indescribable power, which radiates through the sun. Then, the political power, which draws its life from that source of society, will have no other go but to reflect the same radiance.

There is a story in the Upanishads, which beautifully expresses this idea. Once, it appears, the gods became swollen-headed owing to their victory over the demons. The Almighty thought it time to subdue their inflated ego. He assumed a colossal body and suddenly appeared before them. The gods were taken aback to see that strange apparition. The god of wind, Vayu, was sent to find out who that figure was. That figure calling himself Yaksha, placed a blade of grass in front of Vayu and challenged him to move it. Vayu with all his world-shaking powers failed to move it even by a hair-breadth. He returned exasperated. Then the god of fire, Agni, went. He also returned humiliated having failed to brun that little blade of grass. Finally, the king of gods, Indra, himself went to see him, but that strange figure disappeared all of a sudden. Indra also returned feeling ashamed at his inability to unravel that mystery. Then it was brought home to his mind that the Yaksha was the Almighty Himself through Whose grace each of them received a spark of His power.

That is the grand ideal we have envisaged-the building up of the omnipotent power of the people which shall eternally sustain the society amidst all the vicissitudes of external factors and vivify and irradiate all fields of our national life.

Remember that the ancient spirit is not dead. That race spirit, which has survived all the shocks of centuries of aggression and has time and again thrown up great spiritual and national heroes, is bound to reassert itself. Let us fashion our life on the pattern on those ancient torch-bearers, those cultural luminaries of our land. Let us revive that glorious tradition which produced a Vasishtha, a Vishwamitra, a Chanakya, a Vidyaranya and a Samartha, that blossomed forth in a Sri Rama, a Chandragupta, a Krishnadevaraya and a Shivaji.

Let us stand like a rock on this conviction amidst all the tempo of outside propaganda for short-cuts and distractions of political lures. Let us remain true to our dream of reinstating our Bharat Mata as the Cultural Guide of the world, by making our people once again take to the path of our national genius. It is only when we stand up to this conviction unshaken like the great Himalayas that holy streams like Ganga and Yamuna of true national resurgence and cultural values will flow from us. Let that sublime vision continue to stir our hearts forever and let us prepare ourselves for that historic mission, regardless of the time and energy that we may be required to dedicate.