India’s True Heritage

Dewan Bahadur K. S. Chandrasekhara Aiyar

Every race has a life-spring of its own, which shapes its character and texture, and on the preservation of which depends its continued existence and individuality. An instance of this leaps to the mind. It used to be the fashion not so very long ago to refer to the Turkish Empire as the sick man of Europe, and to predict his early expiry which was eagerly looked forward to by greedy neighbours. With the shedding, through trial and suffering, of the elements of weakness and corruption, the sick man has revived miraculously, and is being borne on the wings of new ideals and aspirations to higher and healthier levels of national existence.

It may not be quite so appropriate to speak of Mother India as a sick person, though some foreigners seem to take delight in bringing together all sorts of evil details, real or imaginary, concerning her condition. Her constitution, built up and sustained by deep reserves of inner vitality, has been too strong to be seriously undermined by a continuous succession of adversities and sufferings such as would have destroyed the existence of any other civilization. She has been for centuries bound in fetters forged by a variety of causes which have helped and re-inforced one another. For one thing, her people have progressively declined in physical energy, partly owing to climatic conditions and unhealthy customs and modes of life, and partly to economic conditions, increasing poverty and the stress of living. Even more serious is the spiritual poverty consequent on the relaxation and weakening of the ancient ideals of duty and mutual helpfulness, and the absence of fresh ones tending towards unity and the true civic spirit amidst modern conditions, to counterbalance the operation of selfish and material motives. This has been aggravated by excessive mental inertia, the product of ignorance and superstition on the part of the masses, and the obsession even of the intelligent classes by custom and tradition without reference to their utility and reasonableness, and blind unthinking obedience to external authority,-an inertia sufficiently indicated by the general inaccessibility to new ideas and a marked lack of enterprise. No wonder that these and other factors have always attracted and facilitated foreign invasions, culminating in the establishment of the rule of the strongest European power within the last hundred and fifty years.

One result of the British connection was that India became indoctrinated with Western ideas and methods. This, of course, was not without its advantage specially in that English education introduced new and valuable cultural elements, and gave impetus and a widened outlook to the Indian mind. But, at the same time, it led to an almost complete neglect of the inherited culture and learning of the land, of its language, literature and religion; the minds of the educated, filled with borrowed ideas, lost the power of originality and became grossly imitative; and the soul of India, which could alone hold the people together, became starved. It is a true saying that we can never be strong through others souls, great though they may be, and that, while life may be roused from without, action must proceed from one’s own vital self. Western civilization was useful in so far as it helped to rouse India from its crust of inertia to new life; it became harmful when it attempted to supplant the civilization and to suppress the soul of India.

As a matter of fact, a marked reaction set in towards the end of the last century, and has been gathering force with the passing of the years. It has been noticed that young Indians educated in Western ideas imbibe a spirit of political freedom from the study of European and especially English history and stirring accounts of how other peoples have achieved their political emancipation. The Indian imagination has been stirred by the example of Japan with her triumphant westernization and her sudden rise to the first rank among the great powers of the world. In recent years, the events of and following the Great War have given a strong stimulus to the natural desire of all peoples for self-government. Simultaneously with these tendencies, there has also been a reaction against the Western bias as such and in the direction of a renascence of ancient Indian thought. India, according to a recent English writer, turned back wistfully to the glories and learning of Her past, and soon the conviction spread that, in Her own resources of philosophy as well as of social and religious institutions, India could find all she needed for her regeneration. And he adds that the question arose whether the right ideal was a reversion to an imagined golden age, or to press forward to a modern State, with the help of science, or organization, and representative government. This, however, does not give a quite accurate idea of the forces at work: it was not simply a question of giving up foreign things and borrowed ideas, and going back to the indigenous things and the ideas of olden times; it was not even merely a revolt of 300 millions against the dominance of a few score thousand foreigners; it was also a spiritual revolt and upheaval, a deep searching of hearts and minds. It began to be borne in more and more upon the thoughtful and the earnest that India must be on Her guard to preserve Her individual uniqueness, unless She was content to be assimilated to others and thus to lose Her own Soul. And where could She gain the strength, the inspiration, to save Herself, except from Her own cultural inheritance? No individual and no race can continue truly to live except by being himself, by being itself, and not as a mere reflection of others. India must therefore, in order to live, be faithful to Herself.

This, however, cannot mean that She should obstinately cling to everything that is old; that is the very course that has crushed the Soul of India under a mass of dead tradition; and it is nearly as bad as to cast aside everything which has come down from the past and to imitate slavishly the ways and ideas of the West. We have to discard without compunction the dead, injurious, valueless part of our heritage; and while retaining all that is good and useful, all that is essential and permanent, make the same once again a living inspiration, and not a fetish to be blindly worshipped and followed. And, undoubtedly, we should at the same time welcome with eagerness new ideas, new truths, new sources of inspiration, whence so ever they may come; we should not simply swallow, but assimilate them, and make of them an integral portion of our life and culture.

This takes us on to the question, what then is our true heritage, the vital, essential and permanent part of our inheritance from the past? The answer, as given by a living Teacher of today, is emphatic. It is none other than that genius for liberation which is at the root of the Indian nature, that profound detachment and sense of Reality which is still strong and living beneath the mass of accretions, and which has, in fact, kept the Soul of India from perishing in spite of darkness and oppression.

I should like to develop this point in some little detail. Those who have really made a study of India’s wonderful religious and metaphysical system, have been the first to recognize her unique genius for grasping and expounding the realities behind the phenomenal world and the innermost meanings of life. India has ever been famed for her deep introspection and Indian thought for its wonderful quality of touching the root of things. Indian religion, as expounded in the Vedas and Upanishads and that crest-gem of philosophic literature, the Bhagavad-Gita, is a religion of eternity. Resting on principles which harmonize the World and God in one, it balances the claims of the life of the world and of the spirit in a manner which no other religion has done so fully and logically.

Now what are these basic principles? Essentially they are few and simple; and like the seed which has in it the potentialities of the mighty tree, they contain within a nutshell all that is necessary to develop and sustain a whole philosophy of life.

Thus they declare–not as speculation but as positive knowledge to be reached by all seers of the Wisdom, - that there is One Supreme Being, the Source of All. Hinduism teaches as a fact the unity of all things in the One Absolute Self, which is the only ultimate Reality. The material universe and all things and beings therein are expressions of this Eternal Spirit in time and space; they are finite forms or manifestations of the One Infinite Being.

Next, the inner Self of Man, though one in essence with the Supreme, has involved itself for necessary purposes of growth in matter; and thereby has become limited in nature and bound by personal interests and fleeting attractions. It thinks itself separate from its Divine Source, and separate from all other forms of life derived from the same Source. It puts itself forth into all manner of experiences in the search for happiness, but does not find anywhere real satisfying permanent happiness as distinguished from fleeting pleasures, until it learns to overcome selfishness and to merge the personal interests of the separate self in the common interests of the whole. It is when it conquers selfish desire and identifies itself with the Self of All, that it enters into the eternal Bliss which is its birthright, because it is of the very nature of the Supreme. The end of existence for man is therefore Self-Realisation, which is the same thing as liberation from the world of forms, from the bondage of matter, and conscious re-incorporation with the Divinity from which man has come.

The purpose behind the Divine manifestation, of which man’s experiences are only a fragmentary part, may be stated as continuous evolution towards perfection, a process carried on in accordance with laws which are themselves the organized expression of the Divine Nature in time, space and matter. These laws, which embody the spirit of Divine Justice, and which directly subserve the evolutionary scheme, work themselves out in countless ways. The most important forms, so far as human progress is concerned, are those associated with Karma and Reincarnation: When a man realises that he is not a perishable personality of a few years, but an immortal fragment of the Divine Self, with an eternity of time and opportunity before him within which to achieve perfection, he sees that no other teaching than this can account so fully and satisfactorily for life’s apparent inequalities, for the otherwise baffling mysteries of sorrow, suffering and frustration of effort. Far from being the play thing of blind forces or of a capricious deity, man is in truth the master of his own destiny; for just as he has fashioned the conditions and environments of his present incarnation by the thoughts and aspirations, the actions and emotions, of the past, so may he now, by conscious effort, change them for the better by the same means.

Morality is that aspect of the Divine Law which concerns human conduct. Shortly stated, that which promotes individual and general progress, which develops the sense of unity, and conduces to liberation from the bonds of matter and the attainment of lasting happiness as distinguished from evanescent pleasures, is moral; on the other hand, that is un-moral which retards progress, fosters selfishness and separatism, and leads to sorrow and suffering. The ultimate sanction of morality is thus the happiness which follows from harmony with the world-order, and the suffering which follows on opposition to it.

Universal brotherhood again, is a fact in nature, based on the identity of all separate lives with the One Life; and the realisation of it in intellect and in conduct is both an essential part of morality and a sure help to the realisation of one’s own unity with the Self of All and hence to liberation. The principle of brotherhood, if earnestly accepted and logically carried out, will also prove to be the most helpful and efficient basis of social and national life, the most powerful solvent of international difficulties. The sincere recognition of the fact that the interests of all humanity are bound ,up with one another will, indeed, completely change the aspect of life all over the world, and materially help to establish the reign of peace and happiness on earth.

There is, I may say, much confusion of thought among people with regard to the duty of renunciation. What the great Teachers of the world have enjoined is not the renunciation of action as such, but that of the desire for the fruit of action, which is a very different thing. Desire for fruit binds the doer to the world of results where alone the fruit can be obtained, and is thus a hindrance to liberation. But when man realises the Supreme Consciousness in all things, and regards himself as a channel, or instrument, of that Consciousness, the desire for personal benefit is utterly burnt out. We should not, therefore, flee the world of action, nor ignore the supreme value of life both as the expression, however finite, of the Infinite Source from which it comes, and as affording the opportunity (the only one available to us) through which we may reach the goal. We may make the world itself the seat of liberation, and may in ourselves harmonize the Ultimate Reality and Its appearance. To feel for and help one fellow-men, to serve one’s country and race to the best of one’s power, this is indeed real worship of God, perfect devotion to the Eternal Self in whom all of us live and move and have our being.

True progress and emancipation is thus seen to depend on inner freedom; not merely material and political freedom, though that too is important, but freedom of the soul to pursue its chosen, its appointed, end. It implies a free and independent spirit which looks to itself to do its own work, and does it with courage, vigour and adherence to the great ideals of the race. As has been well said, a complete and free manhood is itself a part of true morality, and those who are politically and culturally dependent, by that very fact, show themselves devoid of it. It is this inner freedom for which we in India should strive, and attaining which we shall as a matter of course win political autonomy and all other external freedom, for it will mean complete ‘Swarajya’ both at the source and in the onward current of the national life. And the way to attain such inner freedom is to rescue India’s true heritage from the mass of accretions under which it lies buried, to give the deeper Soul of India freedom to express itself in all departments of national life.

Reprinted from Vol. II No.3, May-June 1929, 373-379

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