Phir Amrit Ki Boond Padi #4

First of all, is the country even in the twentieth century? Taking it into the twenty-first—fine, I understand—but whom will you take there? People here are living thousands of years in the past. Leaders of this country—even those like Mahatma Gandhi—think that whatever scientific research and invention took place after the spinning wheel should be destroyed. The spinning wheel is the last word in science! Gandhi was against the railway, against the telephone, against the telegraph. If his word were taken—and our leaders have kept walking in his footsteps at least outwardly: at least wearing Gandhi caps, at least draped in Gandhi’s khadi—if his word were taken, this country would go back at least two thousand years. Forget the twenty-first century; if we even reach the first century, it will be a miracle! Those who talk of taking us into the twenty-first century have minds stuffed with such stale, rotten ideas that the world discarded long ago—yet in India they still breathe. It sounds sweet to say, “Let’s march into the twenty-first century, ahead of others!”—but we are seated in a bullock cart. Others have reached the moon. Yes, in our stories we too sometimes reach the moon. But even if we land on the moon, we will still be what we are.

I have heard that when the first American stepped on the moon, he was astonished to see a Hindu sadhu there, sitting by a sacred fire! He said, “Incredible! We worked ourselves to death, spent billions and billions of dollars, and here you are, brother, already sitting with your fire! A spiritual miracle indeed.” So the American bent to touch his feet. As he touched his feet, the sadhu opened his eyes and said, “Got a cigarette? Been a long time since I tasted an American one.” The American said, “Take the cigarette, but at least tell me—how did you get here?” The sadhu said, “What’s the obstacle in that? Do you know our country’s population? When we became independent it was four hundred million; now it’s nine hundred million; by the end of the century it will cross a thousand million. We kept hearing about your phony projects—you’re planning this, planning that. We said, why bother with such nonsense? Just climb on each other’s shoulders—one atop another! Like high-rises in Bombay, we stacked people one over the other. And since we are sadhus, naturally we stood on top! But all these good-for-nothings left me here alone and went back to their jobs and businesses.”

In tales it’s easy to arrive in the twenty-first century. And the simple, naive public—who don’t even know how to count to twenty-one, for whom ten is the end—tell them twenty-first century, or thirty-first; it makes no difference. They think, if you’re saying it, it must be right.

And then there is no trust left in anything you say, because for forty years you have deceived them, time after time. For forty years Indian leaders have piled deception upon deception. Forty years ago the people had a sentiment of respect for these very men and their forebears. Today even the unlettered people of India have no respect for politicians—only contempt. They are counted as louts and thugs—how else to count them? A common thug may pick a pocket or loot a person here or there; these people are destroying the entire country’s possibilities, ruining the nation’s future. But they have to indulge in bombast, because they have nothing else. “The twenty-first century!” And look around you at India’s people!

To bring the twenty-first century means the entire value-structure of life must change.

Even now, Harijans are treated the same way they were five thousand years ago. And the lies have penetrated so deep into our souls that I won’t even speak of the ordinary person—look at Mahatma Gandhi himself. He declared endlessly that India’s first President would be a woman, and a Harijan woman. Dr. Rajendra Prasad was, as far as I know, neither a woman nor a Harijan—and Gandhi himself chose him! What happened to those earlier promises? Where did those lofty words go? What happened to the poison you made the Harijans drink?

It was all politics. Ambedkar was leading the Harijans toward separation; they too wanted their own identity. If Muslims were demanding a separate country—and their demand was being considered justified—and the Hindus wanted their own country, then Harijans, who are a fourth of Hindus and have been oppressed for millennia—no one on earth has been oppressed more than they—if they also asked for a separate country, Gandhi went on a fast-unto-death! Not a single fast ever became “unto death,” because before dying, the orange juice… all that is arranged in advance. Doctors are on hand.

The whole country was thrown into turmoil… “Mahatma Gandhi must not die!”—the issue itself was diverted. The question of the Harijans ended right there. Ambedkar’s life was put at risk; people began pressuring him to beg Gandhi’s pardon and renounce the demand for separation. His demand was just. But who in this country cares what is just and unjust? He thought, “If Gandhi dies… one Ambedkar dying is nothing; across the land, Harijans will be burned to ashes; their huts set ablaze; their women raped; Gandhi’s death will be avenged.” The question of whether he was right or wrong vanished—the whole direction of the issue changed.

It became: Is it appropriate to throw so many Harijans into such upheaval? They’ve suffered so much already—must this be their final suffering? So Ambedkar himself arrived with the orange juice and apologized—knowing full well that this man was deceiving the Harijans, deceiving the country. But the Harijans got neither the right to separate nor even a separate electorate. The small demand was: either give us a separate nation, or at least give us a separate electorate, so that their voice might reach your parliament—so you might at least hear what they suffer, for even news of it doesn’t get printed, doesn’t reach you.

And Gandhi gave assurance: don’t worry, the first President will be a Harijan. And not only a Harijan, but a woman—because women too have been oppressed. In freedom, this will not continue.

Independence came—and there was neither a Harijan nor a woman. Independence came—and millions died and were looted; who knows how many children perished; how many women lost their honor; how many were burned alive. What a freedom arrived!

It could have happened with love. But Gandhi and his disciples did not allow that. They drove it to a point where enmity reached its peak—then violence was the only outcome. The same thing is happening in Punjab, in Assam, in Kashmir. It will happen in every corner of the country. And these petty fellows will take the nation into the twenty-first century!

There is only one trick to take you there—print calendars for the twenty-first century and hang them in your homes. You have reached the twenty-first century! Start counting in the twenty-first. Who has the right to stop you? The calendar is ours; we print it; we don’t want to live in the twentieth century, we want to live in the twenty-first. You can arrive in the calendar—not in life. And those who could take your life there, you are not willing even to listen to them.

I can take you into the twenty-first century, but you are not even ready to hear me. Because reaching the twenty-first century depends on two things. First, you will have to be free of your past, become weightless. You are so tightly bound to the past that you take one step forward and two steps back. In every matter you are tied behind. You will have to cut the ties to your past. Just think, even nature did not put your eyes at the back of your skull. Eyes are given to look ahead: what is gone is gone, what is lost is lost, what is broken is broken. Turn your eyes forward. But no—you are busy watching the Ramleela.

There can be no Ramleela in the twenty-first century. In the twenty-first century there is no place for Ram. Because Ram’s entire conduct is inhuman. He had molten lead poured into a Shudra’s ears because the man had heard verses of the Rig Veda. And this very Ramrajya Gandhi wanted to bring to this country. Such cruelty, such inhumanity—and even after all this, Ram remains an incarnation of God, your object of worship. Now go, chant “Jayarāmjī!”

Look back a bit and see to whom you are bound, and in what ways!

Krishna had sixteen thousand women; among them only one was his wife—Rukmini. Poor thing, even her name barely gets mentioned. Who cares for lawful wives? Who cares for one’s own wife? Of the rest of the sixteen thousand, they were abducted—they belonged to others; they had children, husbands; old in-laws; their homes must have been wrecked. Their only “fault” was that they were beautiful. And if Krishna set eyes on someone’s beauty, there was no concern for consequences—the woman would be seized. Soldiers would forcibly carry her into Krishna’s harem. And yet not a single person in India dares raise a finger against Krishna—this man whom we call the complete incarnation of God! If these are the qualities of God’s full incarnation, then we don’t want God to return here. Let him go elsewhere—there are many stars, many planets, many constellations. Wherever he likes, let him perish—but not here.

I was holding a camp in Gujarat, in a small beautiful place—Tulsi Shyam. Tulsi was Shyam’s abducted wife. In the temple, the idol shows him with the abducted wife—such a pair belongs in prison, and they are installed in a sanctuary! The temple lies in the valley, with a beautiful image of Tulsi Shyam. And up in the brush on the ridge is a tiny shrine with Rukmini’s image—poor thing, hiding up there, watching what her man is up to!

You will have to change many of your values. It will be painful, because you have been attached to them. You have never looked at their dark side. No one ever criticized them to you. We have forgotten how to critique. We only know blind devotion, blind worship, blind belief. If you want to enter the twenty-first century, you will have to drop this blindness. Machines cannot take you there—you need eyes, clear eyes that can see far. The eyes of the believer are so blind he cannot see even the near, let alone the far. You will have to learn to doubt, because only the sword of doubt can cut your blind beliefs and give you a chance for reflection, contemplation, meditation.

The science that arose in the West came into being only in the last three hundred years, and in those three hundred years it fought Christianity inch by inch. Because the Christians object to the smallest things. The Bible says the earth is flat. Scientific discovery says the earth is round. The Bible says the sun goes around the earth, but science found the opposite—the earth goes around the sun.

And when Galileo first wrote in his book that the earth goes around the sun, that old man, on the verge of death, was dragged into the pope’s court. The pope said, “Alter your book, otherwise you will be burned alive.” Galileo said, “I have no objection; I will alter the book. I have no desire to be burned alive—after death I will be burned anyway; what’s the hurry? As for the book, I will change it. But know this: my changing the book will make no difference; the earth will still go around the sun. Whatever I write, neither the sun reads my book nor the earth does. Why are you so troubled? If one little line goes against the Bible, why such anxiety?”

And the pope’s reply is worth noting. He said, “The trouble is that if even one line of the Bible is proved wrong, people will begin to doubt—who knows, if one thing is wrong, perhaps others are wrong too—who knows! Until now they have believed the Bible is written by God. If God can make mistakes, what is the status of the pope who claims he cannot err? We will not tolerate anything that goes against the Bible.” But the struggle continued. For three hundred years science fought inch by inch.

In this country there has been no such struggle. Here, science is something you studied at school and college—just on the surface. You study science while wearing Hanuman’s amulet on your wrist. You go to sit the science exam only after cracking a coconut at Hanuman’s temple! A scientific outlook has not arisen. Our science is borrowed; we read and we understand, but inside, inside we remain the same. The foundations of our beliefs remain the same.

A friend of mine was a great doctor—who knows how many people he treated; he was renowned far and wide. But when his wife fell ill, he said to me one day, “Everyone is treating her, but she is not improving. My servant says that only if some sadhu-saint blesses her will anything happen.” I said, “You are such a big doctor. You know that if there is a disease, there is a cause. Diagnose it, try to remove the cause. Your wife hasn’t fallen ill because of some saint’s curse that she will be cured by a boon. If she had fallen ill due to a curse, perhaps a boon would cure her.” He said, “Say what you will, but this is the kind of matter in which reason spins. I understand you, but if you know any sadhu-saint, tell me.” I said, “I know many sadhu-saints of that sort. I’ll take you.”

A friend of mine lived about ten or twelve miles away, in the hills. He wasn’t a sadhu-saint; he was a carefree man. He had earned enough to live on; the interest kept him going. Alone in a small hut in the hills, he lived in delight.

I told him, “For one day you’ll have to be a sadhu-saint.” He asked, “Meaning?” I said, “Set up a sacred fire, sit near-naked, smear yourself with ash.” “What nonsense are you talking?” he said. “What for? Is a film shooting happening?”

I said, “There’s a poor doctor; his wife is dying. He needs a sadhu’s blessing. Just give him a pinch of ash, say, ‘Child, everything will be fine. Go.’” He said, “You’re putting me in a fix. Everyone in this village knows me; that doctor knows me too.”

“So he knows you?” I said. “Before we go, I’ll bring the barber and shave your moustache and head—make you a perfect sadhu—so perfect that if a film crew shows up, it won’t matter.” He said, “This isn’t right. And after you leave, I can’t even go to the village. People will ask, ‘What happened? Did your father die? Why is your head shaved? And what happened to your moustache?’ My moustache is my pride!” He truly had a splendid moustache, twirled with great flair. I said, “Whatever it takes, we must save the man’s wife. A moustache will grow again. Where will he get a wife again?”

With great difficulty I convinced him. We shaved his head, shaved his moustache—he kept cursing me while I kept shaving; two people held his hands down—somehow we got the moustache out. We took off his clothes. He drew the line at the loincloth. “I won’t leave the loincloth,” he said. I said, “A true sadhu leaves even the loincloth, and I’ve told them you are a true sadhu.”

“What a mess,” he said. “We want nothing to do with this.”

We seated him. It was cold, but the fire gave a little relief. The doctor came and prostrated himself. The “sadhu” didn’t even lift his face to see who it was. The doctor clutched his feet: “Save me now!” My friend thought, “Well, it’s come to this. Now save him.” He said, “Child, don’t panic. Get up. Does your wife have some trouble?” The doctor said, “Exactly—you were the one I was seeking. I’m a doctor too, but first I ask the person what the trouble is. And you, sitting miles away, see that my wife is ill. I’ve tried many treatments.” The saint said, “But nothing works, and nothing will work. The illness is spiritual; you are trapped in the material. Take this ash. First eat it yourself.” The doctor said, “But my wife is ill!” The saint said, “Be quiet. It’s your own misdeeds that made your wife ill. First you eat it, then take the rest for your wife, and share it with the children too. All will be well.”

I had gone along. I stood watching. I saw the doctor eating ash and carrying ash away. Does anyone get cured by ash? She was to die, and she died. In fact, by the time we reached home, she had already passed. The doctor said, “What kind of saint was that! That wretch fed me ash, and my wife died anyway.” I said, “Saints’ miracles are known only to saints—you won’t understand. You do your medicine. Your wife is liberated now.” He said, “What a strange trouble. Who knows what kind of saint you dragged me to! The moment he made me eat ash, I felt something was wrong. My suspicion proved right. And that wretch also said it was my misdeeds that killed my wife.” I said, “Don’t panic. You were the one chasing sadhus and saints. With great difficulty I found one. You have no idea what troubles I went through—first let your second marriage happen, then I’ll tell you.”

Here we have engineers, doctors, architects, scientists—but it all remains only intellectual. Inside them, conditioning of centuries binds them like chains. They even go to the West, study there, and return—but here they get back to the same old tricks! And when they do the same old tricks, people praise them greatly: “See, he has been to the West, studied at Western universities, yet he hasn’t lost his Bharatiyata. He still goes to the temple, still visits the mosque. He still bows to the Bible first thing in the morning and then begins any other work.”

This country can indeed be taken into the twenty-first century. But before that, it must be freed from those millennia-old conditionings. And there is only one way to free it. I keep talking of that one way: somehow learn to meditate; somehow learn to create within you that state where the waves of thought stop—no movement, no turmoil, nothing. Where you are without ripples, calm and silent. In that silence, you break with the past and arrive in the present. And once one is here today, we can take him toward tomorrow. But first he must come into today. A leap into today will land you in tomorrow. But today must come first.

Right now India is not even in the present. Its eyes are on the past; its ideals are in the past; its golden age is in the past. All this must change.

I have heard: on a certain road, a skinny young man was riding his motorcycle fast; the wind was strong and against him. He stopped the bike and put his coat on backwards, so the wind wouldn’t hit his chest so hard—so he wouldn’t catch a cold. He buttoned the coat behind him, wrapped the muffler snugly around his neck, and rode on.

From the other direction came a Sardarji. Seeing him, he said, “He’s killed himself! The man is sitting backward and riding so fast!” In his panic, he collided with him. The man fell and lost consciousness. The Sardarji said, “Now I’m in trouble too! What kind of man is this? Let me somehow set his head straight. There’s no one around to help.” So he gave a big yank—the Sikh’s yank—“Wahe Guruji ki Fateh! Wahe Guruji ka Khalsa!”—and turned the man’s face the other way.

Just then the police arrived. “What’s the matter?” they asked. The Sardarji said, “What’s the matter? This poor fellow was sitting backward on the motorcycle.” “Is he alive?” they asked. “He was,” the Sardarji said. “Strange fellow—so long as his head was backwards, he was alive. I somehow straightened it—by Guruji’s grace his head did turn—but his breathing stopped. Now you handle the breathing; I’ve got other work.” They looked closely to see what had happened. He was not entirely wrong—the coat buttons were evidence. When they opened the buttons, they saw the case: the man had put his coat on backwards. By then the Sardarji had left. The poor man died for nothing.

India’s condition is much the same. The direction you are traveling in is not where your face is. Your face is still turned toward where you came from. If you keep falling into ditches, don’t be surprised.

Look toward the future. You have been tied to the past long enough and gained nothing. Your hands are empty, your stomachs are empty; poverty grows every day. Look to the future; the situation will begin to change. You lack no talent; but talent has been entangled in the wrong dimension, the wrong direction. Give talent the right direction.

And my experience is: if you can taste even a little meditation each day, bathe in it, be freshened by it, you will come into the present—right where you are. And from here the path leads toward the future, whether it is the twenty-first century or the twenty-second.

But the politicians who tell you “the future… we must bring the twenty-first century”—they themselves are not even here. The twenty-first is far off; they have not even entered the twentieth. Go to Delhi and see—all kinds of astrologers, all kinds of palmists, all kinds of sadhus and saints are firmly camped. Every politician has some saintly guru; some palmist who reads his hand and tells him the auspicious hour to file his nomination—when the stars are favorable and when they are against him.

A friend of mine, a very senior member of parliament, was even called the father of parliament. I would be his guest. Being his guest was a trial. The difficulty was that he was my father’s friend, an elder; he wouldn’t let me leave the house unless his palmist… Now, train timetables aren’t made by reading palms. The train is scheduled for eleven, and he would hustle me to the station at six in the morning. I’d say, “What are you doing?” He’d say, “At six there is an ‘exit’ from the house. Let the train come when it will, but leaving the house at six is auspicious; otherwise it will be inauspicious. What would I tell your father?” I’d say, “What a mess.” And it wasn’t as if he’d drop me and go home—no. He would sit there chewing my head from six in the morning until the train came.

And in this country no train ever arrives on time. Only once did I see a train arrive on time. Though I have traveled by train for thirty years, to every corner of the country—just once. I went to thank the driver: “It’s the good fortune of my life that at least once you brought the train minute by minute…” The driver said, “Before you thank me, hear me out. This is actually yesterday’s train—twenty-four hours late.” I said, “I thought I would have one such experience; even that did not happen.” I said to him, “Then why print the timetable at all—if trains come whenever they come?”

The station master was standing nearby. He said, “Don’t talk against timetables.” “Why?” I asked. He said, “Without timetables how will we know how late a train is? You’ll create another mess. What is the meaning of a timetable? Only this: that it lets you know whether a train is twelve hours late, or fourteen hours late, or twenty-four hours late. Otherwise no one will know which train came when, or whether it came at all. The timetable will be printed.” I said, “All right, brother—let the timetable be printed.”

This member was seventy years old, cherishing the thought of solving great problems. He took me to meet Jugal Kishore Birla, in the hope that if Birla found any taste in my words, my work would never lack money—that whatever I did, Birla would fund. Jugal Kishore Birla said, “Only two causes are worthy. One is cow protection.” I said, “We’re finished.” “I will not do cow protection. Keep your money.” Here man is on the verge of death, but those whose eyes are fixed on the past say, “Cow protection!” “And second, propagate Hinduism—then take however much money you want, I’ll give you a blank checkbook.” I said, “Keep that checkbook to yourself. I can speak on religion, but not on Hinduism. Because the moment religion becomes Hindu, it is no longer religion; if it becomes Muslim, it is no longer religion; if it becomes Christian, it is no longer religion.

“Religion is religion only so long as it carries no adjective. Then it is the fragrance of the open sky, the light of the open stars.

“You see a bird flying in the sky—your heart thrills at the beauty. Put that same bird in a golden cage and hang it in your home. You may think it is the same bird—then you are mistaken. That bird had the whole sky; this bird has nothing but chains. That bird was alive; this bird is alive only in name—merely breathing. What sort of life is it if a bird’s wings are not free?”

Religion is free like a bird flying in the sky.

So I told Jugal Kishore, “I will speak of religion all my life—until my last breath—but I will not allow any adjective to be attached to it. The moment an adjective arrives, the thing is dead. The adjective comes, and the bird is caged.” He said, “I have no interest in ‘religion’—Hindu religion, Sanatan religion…” I said, “Keep your Sanatan religion to yourself, and your checkbook safe.”

The things this country has grown attached to over centuries—anyone who tries to break that attachment is taken as an enemy. That is why, unknowingly, people consider me an enemy. I have set out to pull them out of their cages—and they bloody my hands. They are not willing to step outside the cage.

Who will take this country into the twenty-first century? Politicians? No. But they are good at selling you dreams. They sell you dreams and take cash—your votes. The dreams are never fulfilled. In five years you forget, and new dream-merchants arise. Then you hope that what didn’t happen yesterday may happen now.

But politics has never allowed man to develop. Politics does not want man to develop. Because the more developed a human being is, the harder he is to enslave; the harder he is to prevent from being free; the harder he is to keep obedient.

Freedom is revolution.

And only revolution can take you into the future. A spiritual revolution—and the key to that revolution is meditation.

Craze is craze—whether foreign or Indian. Across the world different sports drive people mad, but the function is the same. Last year the University of California studied what happens there whenever football matches are played: people go absolutely crazy. And for seven days after the match ends, crimes rise by fourteen percent—more violence, more suicides, more rapes. And still the government will let those games go on!

Those games can’t be stopped. Nor would I say stop them—because the madness that gets an outlet through sports, if it doesn’t find a way out, will turn into even more rape and even more violence. Whatever the sport—cricket, football, volleyball, hockey—it is a cultured way of releasing the violence inside you. And as long as man carries violence and anger within, there’s no harm in that. I don’t mind if cricketers are placed at worshipful heights like leaders and film stars. My only objection is that politicians should rank at the very bottom.

Film actors help ventilate people’s suppressed love and emotions; they should be respected. Unfortunately, just recently actors have gotten drunk on the idea of entering politics. That is a fall, not a rise in their dignity. When they were film actors, they were artists; now there is no art left in their lives. They should come back. Send to politics those who can’t do anything else—because there is nothing to be done there anyway. As for cricket players, footballers, and other athletes—they too provide you with a catharsis; watching them play releases many of your inner impulses.

As for Indian games, there isn’t a single one that can stand up to cricket, football, or hockey. It’s nobody’s fault. You can chant “kabaddi, kabaddi” all you like; nobody finds much joy in it. People are already playing kabaddi every day at home—husband and wife playing kabaddi. The whole country has become a kabaddi ring. What new kabaddi will you stage here now? Who will relish it? “We’re already doing this at home—why go out to watch it?” Or gilli-danda! Indian games don’t have punch. That’s the reality—what can we do? And there’s a reason why Indian games don’t have punch. There’s a reason behind everything.

Indian games were children’s games. In India, youth hardly ever got a chance to arrive because we married people off so early. My mother is present here; she was married at seven. My father would have been about twelve. If you marry at twelve, are you going to worry about running a household—or play football and cricket?

Indian games are children’s games.
Western games are youth’s games.

Youth arrived in the West as the marriage age kept rising. Now people marry at twenty-five, twenty-six, thirty. At fourteen a boy becomes marriageable—energy descends into him; he can beget children. At thirteen a girl is already capable of becoming a mother. But they have to wait—another fifteen years. That fifteen-year stretch of youth needs an outlet. Hence Western games are for the young, and their flavor is different.

India’s games are tepid. If you insist on carrying tepid things on your head just because they’re Indian, that’s your choice. Indians simply don’t have games of youth.

And note this: sports too have their ages. In countries where people live longer, other kinds of games become important. Chess, for example—these are old men’s games, not for the young; games for those who have nothing left to do. They’ve done everything; now one more foolishness remains—do that and then you can be done with the world. In moksha there is neither kabaddi nor chess. Sports have their ages. Where the average lifespan is low, such games don’t get much acclaim or spread.

I would say this: if people confer respect for sports, acting, or music—like the Beatles were honored worldwide… The music wasn’t great; it was youthful. It wasn’t classical—classical music demands age. You need years, a long ripening, to understand classical music. The Beatles and those who followed were jumping about—it was neither dance nor music in the traditional sense, but the young needed it. Through that jumping their inner impulses were released; otherwise those same impulses would become crime.

Every school should have arrangements for letting impulses flow out. In our country the problem is that boys go on strike, throw stones, harass teachers, burn schools. We are responsible. We give them no proper means to discharge their drives. Before they throw stones—the same hands that throw stones and feel a kind of peace afterward—those very hands can play volleyball. And with volleyball they will get the same peace. The school windows will be saved, the walls saved, the teachers saved.

There is a psychology to sports.
And the psychology is simply this: our repressed impulses flow through them, and we become a little lighter within.

Western sports are not stunting Indian sports. India simply has no sports of youth—because youth has only just arrived here, and that too came via the West, via their educational system; so it repeats their games. India has only children’s games. Those cannot be magnified to such a scale that you make a man a star because he’s a master of gilli-danda. People would only laugh: “Brother, can’t you think of anything else to do? Gilli-danda! Little kids play that—let them play; you do something else.” This is not a matter of India versus the West; it’s a matter of age, of different generations.

For centuries we never allowed youth to arrive in India. Therefore many of youth’s expressions never arose here. We married children off so young that the question of love marriage never even came up. It can only arise if we don’t marry children off, let them become young, let the energy of love awaken, and give them opportunities for men and women to meet. Then the question of love marriage will arise; then love will arise. Here we married so early that husband and wife grew up almost like brother and sister. There is an old Sanskrit word, bhagini; it carries both meanings—wife and sister. It’s a lovely word, indicating how early marriages happened—there wasn’t even awareness yet of what husband and wife might mean. At most, brother and sister. Just as there were other brothers and sisters, one more “sister” entered the house. They grew up together, came of age together. There was no chance of wandering off to Chowpatty and the like, because this “sister” would be right there beside you. Other “brothers” would be there too, but their “sisters” would also be there.

For thousands of years we didn’t let youth arrive. And along with that, as soon as a child turned six or seven or eight, he’d be put to work with his parents—go to the fields, do carpentry, cobble shoes, sit at the shop. He’d help his parents. He never even realized whether the days of youth ever came and went. Between his childhood and his old age there was no space left for youth at all.

Modern education—good that it came from the West—has created a new class: the young; and new colors and forms of youth. Sports will be of the young; literature will be of the young; films will be of the young; songs will be of the young. A whole new dimension has opened. And since it came from the West and we had nothing to match it, don’t think it has suppressed anything. It hasn’t suppressed a thing; it has simply created an empty space—and into that space came what could come from the West.

Similarly, we never did scientific research in this country. Whatever science is coming is coming from the West. Along with that science, whatever good arrives and whatever bad arrives will also come from the West. Don’t say it’s suppressing our something… We had nothing; in the name of science we were empty and barren. Science is coming from the West.

Everything has facets—good and bad. Take birth control, for instance: it came from the West, giving a person the choice to have children or not. Its good result could be that we reduce population and raise prosperity. Its bad result could be that we fill the country with prostitution and destroy the whole moral edifice—because now your wife may have relations with the neighbor and you can’t tell; you can’t be sure the child is yours. That is in our hands. Science is neutral; how we use it depends on us.

These sports are neutral too. How we use them also depends on us. We should cultivate the vision to use everything rightly. Everything can be used in such a way that the innermost being of this country—buried under the garbage of thousands of years—can be given a purifying Ganges bath.

Thank you.