Chapter 1 - The Ideal of Education

Delivered at the Bihar Young Men’s Institute, Patna, on January 27, 1925

Mr. Chairman and Brethren,

It is with great pleasure that I stand before you this evening to speak on the Ideal of Education, as announced by our Chairman. Before going into the subject of this evening, allow me to make a few introductory remarks about my activities in Europe and America. For the last twenty-five years I was preaching India before the American public, as also in England and other parts of Europe. My object was to defend India and her culture against the unjust criticisms of the Christian missionaries and other sectarians, who wanted to convert the Indians into Christianity and to raise funds for that purpose. I had the honour and privilege of representing India or rather the Indian culture in various universities of the United States and Canada, where I met some of the greatest professors and educators of the West. I also had the privilege of talking with Professor Max Müller in Sanskrit and of meeting Professor Paul Deussen, who translated sixty of our Upanishads into German and was the author of System des Vedanta and the Philosophy of the Upanishads. Professor Deussen once came to India, and delivered a lecture in Sanskrit in Bombay. He spoke in Sanskrit to the ekka-drivers who could not understand him. The same venerable Professor Paul Deussen of Kiel University was in London, when I was there, and to him I was introduced by my illustrious predecessor the world-renowned Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda called me over to London in 1896, and after giving me the charge of his work in London, he returned to India, his motherland. I stayed on, and carried on the work which he had entrusted on me. Then I was asked to go over to America, and make my headquarters in New York. Our Chairman has already said that the Vedanta Society of New York was started by Swami Vivekananda in 1894. This Society was in its infancy, when I arrived at New York in 1897. It had only a handful of members at first, but. after a hard struggle I succeeded in making it a well-established society. When I landed at New York, I was penniless, and during my twenty-five years’ stay in the United States, I never drew a pice from India. I was entertained by the American people, who gave me food, clothes, and a house, and took care of me. They also gave me an Ashram, measuring about 320 acres of land in a farm and a home in the city of New York worth nearly two lakhs of rupees. Now there are four Swamis of our Mission who are working in different centres in the United States of America.

The subject of this evening makes me think of the past glory of India, our holy motherland. The civilization and culture of ancient India were grand and glorious. India has contributed her culture to the Western nations in various branches of knowledge. The world owes its first lessons in geometry and algebra (Vijaganita) to India. The 47th proposition of Euclid: A square on the hypotenuse of a rectangular traingle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides was ascribed to Pythagoras, but it was known in India centuries before Pythagoras was born. It is mentioned in the Sulvasutras of the vedic age. Algebra was introduced into Europe from researches we have gathered that Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine of Europe, who lived about 400 b.c., borrowed his Materia Medina from India. In chemistry, as also in surgery, we know from the study of the Sushruta, the Hindus excelled other nations. We know from the accounts that have been left to us by Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador, who lived in the court of Chandragupta in the fourth century before Christ, that Alexander the Great used to keep Hindu physicians in his camp, because he preferred them to Greek physicians. Nearchus and Arrian spoke highly of the wonderful healing power of the Arabs, who learnt it in India, and Leonardo da Pisa introduced it into Italy and several countries of Europe in the thirteenth century. In fact, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, all these were first taught in India. The Arabs learnt these from India and carried them into the West. The world owes decimal notation to India. It was unknown to the Greeks and Romans; and arithmatic as a practical science would have been impossible without decimal notation. The world owes its first lessons of medicine to India. Although there is a general belief that Europe derived her knowledge of medicine from Greece, still she is indebted to the Hindu physicians.

In various branches of science, philosophy, art, and music, the Hindus were the first teachers. For instance, the Greeks had five notes of music at first, but the Hindus developed seven notes of music and had three octaves long before the Greeks had them. During the vedic period; Sama Veda used to be sung and chanted with those notes. Wagner’s music with its special motifs was indebted to Indian music. Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher, had a conversation with Wagner on this subject, from which we learn that the great German musician Wagner studied the Latin translation of the Sanskrit science of music, and that he learnt from the Sanskrit science of music those principal motifs, which had made his music so original and so wonderful. In other branches of knowledge also, India developed her culture to a great extent, for instance, in astronomy, and in developing the theory of evolution of the world out of Prakriti, the eternal cosmic energy, as described in the Sankhya system of philosophy. All these different branches of study were highly developed in India centuries before Christ, and even today the European scholars admit this fact. I can quote from Sir Monier Monier Williams, who in his book entitled Brahminism and Hinduism, says that “the Hindus were Spinozaites more than 2,000 years before the existence of Spinoza; and Darwinians many centuries before Darwin; and evolutionists many centuries before Darwin; and evolutionists many centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the scientists of our time, and before any word like evolution existed in any language of the world.”^[1] His remarks were correct, because we learn from the philosophy of the Sankhya that whole world was not created by an extra-cosmic personal God, who is sitting on his throne above the clouds, but that there was one eternal cosmic energy which was called by the name of Prakriti (the same as Latin Procreatrix), the creative energy of the universe. This energy is indestructible and uncreatable, yet changeable. It is one and eternal. Today Western science admits that there is only one eternal cosmic energy, the sum total of which neither increases nor decreases. This fact was established by Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya system of philosophy in the seventh century before Christ. We had our Newton in Aryabhatta who lived about 476 a.d., and who declared that the earth was moving upon its own axis round the sun. Long before the Copernican system of astronomy was known to the Europeans, this Aryabhatta’s system was taught in India, and it was Aryabhatta who first declared that the law of gravitation existed; he called it madhyakarshana, i.e., attraction towards the centre. We had our Shakespeare in Kalidasa; we had our philosopher greater than Kant and Hegel in Sankaracharya, greater than Hume and Berkeley in Vashistha; and we had materialistic philosophy in the system of Kanada. The atomic theory of Kanada is a wonder to the Western minds, because in such an early age, i.e. in the pre-Buddhistic period, Kanada proved to the world that this external universe was made up of minute particles of matter—anu (atoms), which were indestructible. Again, we find that these atoms of Kanada were not the final particles of the material world, but particles finer than atoms were discovered by Kapila, and he called them tanmatras which would be similar to the electrons and protons of modern science. The electrons are the force centres of negative electricity and the protons are of positive electricity. Such great advancement was made in different branches of knowledge and science in the pre-Buddhistic age which lasted between 1500 B.C.^[2]

Then in moral and spiritual lines, the Hindus were the first teachers in the world. Centuries before the Christian era, nay, long before Moses gave the Ten Commandments to the nomadic tribes of Israel in that remote antiquity, when the European nations were eating raw animal flesh, living in caves and forests, tattooing their bodies, wearing animal skins, the civilization of India was in its high glory. The dawn of civilization first broke not upon the horizon of Greece, Europe, or Arabia, but upon the horizon of India. India is not a country of today, but she had the sublime teachings of Vedanta long before the time of Moses, when Krishna sang the Bhagavat Gita in the battle-field of Kurukshetra. All those who came in touch with India were benefitted. During the Buddhistic period, as we know from the edicts of Asoka, Buddhist preachers were sent out to different parts of the then civilized world, from Siberia to Ceylon, and from China to Egypt. Buddhist monks travelled and preached the gospel of love for all, and the highest ethics of humanitarianism zin foreign countries. Those teachings of Buddha were afterwards emphasized in the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Christianity can be traced back to the Hindu ideals ‘in many of its doctrines and dogmas. The principal part of Christianity i.e., Baptism was not known among the Jews of that time, but it came from the Ganges as Ernest Renan has said in his Life of Jesus.

The education of a nation depends upon its ideal of civilization. The Hindu ideal of civilization from prehistoric times was purely moral and spiritual. Consequently, the civilization of ancient India was based, not upon commercial principles of modern times and not upon the selfish ideal of political gain and power over other nations, but upon the eternal spiritual laws which govern our soul. Intellectual culture was not regarded as the highest ideal, but spiritual realization of the relation that exists between the individual soul and the universal Spirit, was the principal aim of education. “Education”, as Herbert Spencer has said, “is the training for completeness of life”. Education will bring out the perfection of the man, which is already latent in his soul. Education does not mean that a lot of ideas or informations will be poured into the brain of the individual, and they will run riot. But it means the gradual growth and development of the soul from its infancy to maturity. Education should be based upon the spiritual ideal that each individual soul is potentially divine, that it possesses infinite potentiality and infinite possibility, and that knowledge cannot come from outside into inside, but that all knowledge evolves from inside. No one can teach you, but you teach yourself and the teachers only give you suggestions. This should be the principle of education. Today, in our universities, we find just the opposite principle. A student is allowed to study and memorize the notes of his professors and pass the examinations; and then he comes out as a ‘pashakara murkha’—a learned fool. He gets a diploma for his ignorance. That is not the ideal of education. Education does not mean intellectual culture, but it means the development and spiritual unfoldment of the soul in all the various branches of learning.

The ideal of education, in America, is revolutionizing the ideals of the past ages. Today an infant boy or girl of four or five years of age, in America, is allowed to go into the kindergarten school-room, where all kinds of toys, music-boxes, pictures for painting and drawing are kept. The children are allowed to go inside that room, and are asked to choose what they would like, in order to know their natural inclinations. If any one is attracted to the music-box, he would excel in music, and, therefore, such training should be given to him as would make him the best musician of the world. He should, therefore, not be allowed to go into a college and become a graduate in the literary line, which would mean nothing to him. Some one would be a painter, and another would be an athlete. In every branch of learning, one must excel. The stereotyped way of getting a degree like B.A. or M.A. and then becoming a clerk is not the ideal of education. By following this method, we are ruining our young men.^[3]

Education should be according to the natural inclination of the individual soul, with the idea that wisdom cannot be drilled into the brain of the individual, and that all the books give mere suggestions, and, in reaction, we get the knowledge of the book. In order to understand a book, our mind must vibrate or be en rapport with the mind of the author. Then we get knowledge by itself, for it is a process of transmission. Knowledge does not come from outside. We will have to raise the vibration of our mind to the level of the vibration of the mind of the author, and then, like wireless telegraphy, the wisdom of the author’s mind will be communicated to the student’s mind. That is the natural principle of proper education. Are we doing that? No. But we had that system in ancient India. The present university system is going to be out of place, because, in England, the professors are beginning to realize the efficiency of our old Brahmacharya Vidyapitha system. A professor would have a few students around him. He would be their guardian, and would be of pure character, spotless in his ideals. He would be a moral man; and he would not be like a man who gets a large pay and lives an immoral life. Such a man is not going to be the ideal teacher. And this method is going to be taken up in Europe and America in future. In that system, the student will find an example, and the example is better than precept. One living example will change the whole character of the student, and it will mould his career according to the ideal which is before him. Therefore, the present system of education is not a perfect one.

Again the ideal of a nation should be the ideal of education. Our minds are running towards the spiritual ideal. What is the cause of it? Because we have learnt all these different branches of science from religion. In Europe, religion was against scientific culture. Christianity stood against all intellectual development, and against all science and all improvements. Think of the miserable condition of Galileo who said that the earth was moving. The Roman Church put him into a dungeon under torture, and asked him to retract his statement. But Galileo said: “No, you can torture me today, but the earth still moves. I cannot retract it, for it is the truth”. That truth is an established fact of modem astronomy. The warfare between science and religion in Europe was a long-standing one. It has not stopped yet. The fire of inquisition was kindled, and hundreds were burnt alive at the stake, simply because they did not submit their intellect to the dogmas of the Church. Giardano Bruno was burnt alive in the streets of Rome in 1600 a.d., because he was a believer in one supreme Spirit, whose body was matter and mind was the cosmic one. So, my friends, if religion were powerful in Europe today, there would have been no scientific culture, and no improvement or discovery, because their religion says about the creation in six days out of nothing, while modern science teaches evolution with scientific facts. Religion tells them that the earth was created six thousand years ago before our sun came into existence. But modem astronomy teaches that the sun was created before the earth; and geology tells us that our earth is millions of years old, and that the first appearance of man was about one hundred thousand years ago. How can we reconcile these contradictory statements? If we accept one we shall have to reject the other. But in our country, my friends, Sanatana Dharma never stood against science or free thought. You may believe in God, or you may not, but so long as you are a moral and spiritual man, you are worshipped and honoured by the masses as the ideal of the nation. Buddha did not believe in a personal God, yet we regard him as an Avatara. Kapila did not believe in a personal God. In his Sankhya system he says: Isvarasiddheh prmanabhavat, i.e. ‘there is no proof for the existence of a personal God who is Creator of the universe’. Still Kapila was the greatest of all sages.

We have hundreds of such cases, because free-thought was the watchword of the Hindus in ancient times. They had no bigotry and sectarianism; they did not mean by the Vedas a set of books which must be accepted as true in every letter, but they were meant by Veda, wisdom. God is the ocean of wisdom, which is eternal and indestructible. There is only one source of wisdom which occasionally reveals itself to mortal minds, and through them the world learns something about the eternal Truth. Who could have known anything about God, if he did not reveal himself to mortal minds? We know from the life of Mohammed that when he was praying on Mount Heerah, he had a revelation. He was living in a cave in that desert, and his heart was longing for a knowledge of the divine Being, and Truth was revealed to him. Truth is not confined to any particular individual or nation, but it is for everybody. As the sun rises and shines equally upon the heads of all nations, even so does the sun of eternal Truth shine and reveal itself among all nations. Whoever will long for such realization will find a way to the attainment of Truth. This conception has made the Hindu mind broad and tolerant. It does not condemn anybody. The Hindu embraces a Mohammedan, because Mohammedanism is a path to the realization of Truth. He accepts Christianity, because Christ revealed the universal Truth among the Jews who had sectarian ideals. Christ said: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”^[4] Our Vedas say the same thing. Where is then the difference?

The essentials of all religions are one and the same, and that is self-mastery, God-consciousness, self-control and purity. These are the ideals. He is regarded as a civilized man by the Hindus who lives a pure and unselfish life, who is loving, kind and compassionate to all, and he conquers avarice by generosity and hatred by love. But a man, who robs others to promote his self-interest, is not a civilized man according to the Hindu ideal, and I do not believe that he is regarded as a civilized man according to the Mohammedan ideal either. The ideals are the same. A man must not be judged by his outside, but by his inner nature and character. The outward garb, dress, clothes, formality, and etiquette do not amount to anything. The Lord sees the purity of the heart: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”^[5]. Purity of heart is the sine qua non of God-vision. We must be pure in heart and loving to all, irrespective of caste, creed and nationality. Any education that separates mortals from mortals, and disunites brothers from brothers, is not uplifting and should not be the ideal. Therefore, my brethren, I consider that the aim of education should not be mere intellectual culture with commercial ideals, to gain our livelihood in the struggle of competition, but that the ideal of education should be such as will elevate man from his ordinary selfish state into the unselfish universal ideal of Godhood. Anything that makes us kneel down before that grand ideal, is uplifting.

A Hindu philosopher went to Greece, and asked Socrates what he was studying. Socrates answered: “My study is the study of man”. The Hindu philosopher smiled and replied: “How can you know anything about man when you do not know God?” This is an answer that could come from a Hindu alone and not from any other philosopher, because the Hindu alone, from ancient times, has regarded the individual soul as a part and parcel of the divine Being. The divine spark dwells within us, but we must recognize that divine spark is in all methods of education. We must regard the child who is born as a living God; and not that it was created out of nothing and a soul was breathed into its body from outside, but that the soul of the child is the maker of its physical body. The soul is eternal, and it could never be created. It is the body that could be created. This highest wisdom is given only in the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta, and the Western world today recognize this fact. When Christ said: “The kingdom of Heaven is within you”, he perhaps meant the same thing, but the Occidentals do not understand this meaning. We Orientals understand Christ better than the Occidentals do. The other day I was talking with an Englishman in Calcutta, and he said that he had a theory that the Hindu mind could understand Christ better than the Occidentals. I said: “I share that belief, because I know that the Occidental mind takes everything too literally, while Christ himself spoke in metaphors and parables which should be understood in the same way as that of the parables ond metaphors of Buddha and Krishna”. He replied: “I believe you are right”. So, my friends, we Hindus can give a new interpretation to the doctrines of Christianity, and perhaps, a neW interpretation to the ideals of other religions from the highest standpoint of our Vedanta.

Vedanta means the highest wisdom, and it does not mean any book. Veda means’wisdom’, while anta means ‘end’. The word wisdom is derived from the same Sanskrit root vid—to know, and ‘end’ is derived from anta. You will be surprised to know that most of the English words that we use now in our colloquial conversation had their origin in Sanskrit words. The world father, in Latin pater, in Greek pat-er, is in Sanskrit pitar; the word mother in Latin mater, is in Sanskrit matar; the word brother is in Sanskrit bhratar; the word daughter is in Sanskrit duhitar; the word name is in Sanskrit naman; the word serpant is in Sanskrit sarpa; the word path is in Sanskrit patha; the word soup is in Sanskrit supa; the word bond is in Sanskrit bandha; the word punch is in Sanskrit pancha which means five; and the punch which the Europeans drink, is called so, because it is made up of five ingredients. Therefore, my friends, you can trace most of these English words into Sanskrit roots. Aesop’s fables and Pilpay’s stories were based upon the stories from the Hitopadesha. All these animal stories originated in India, and travelled westward into Europe. Thus you see that the culture of the ancient Hindu people was great, and during the Buddhistic age that culture was improved in various lines. Here you had the Nalanda University. Do you know what that University was like? Ten thousand students used to live there. We read a description of that Nalanda University in the writings of the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, who lived there for many years. He said that from one hundred pulpits instructions were given everyday to different classes of students, and that no student disobeyed the orders of the University or its rules and regulations during the seven hundred years of its existence. Think of the discipline which the Nalanda University had. I went to see the ruins of Taxila University. There also several thousand students used to live. The Chinese scholars used to come and study various branches of science and philosophy from the Hindu teachers. The principal of the Nalanda University was Shilabhadra, the teacher of Hiuen Tsang, who was a Bengalee from Gauda, the then capital of Bengal. Dipankara, whose birthplace was Vajrayogini in Vikrampur in East Bengal, was a great philosopher who went to Tibet to preach the gospel of Buddha. Buddhist preachers also went to Egypt, China, and Japan. At one time the inhabitants of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa were all Buddhists and Biharis and Bengalees were brothers who had one Magadhi language. The Jagannath temple in Orissa was a temple of the Buddhists. There was no caste distinction, and all were brothers. That brotherliness should be revived once more. At that time, of course, Islam had not risen, and Christianity was not there.

But still the ideal of universal brotherhood was preached by Buddha; and even Krishna, who ante-dated Buddha, declared in a trumpet voice before the world:

Vidya-vinasampanne brahmane gavi hastini,
Shuni chaiva shvapake cha panditah samadarshinah.^[6]

“He is a pandit, a true philosopher and a scholar, who can see the same universal Spirit in a well-cultured Brahmin, in a cow, in an elephant, in a dog, and in a pariah.”

That has been our ideal, but the people have forgotten it, and selfishness has crept in, where unselfishness and brotherly feeling should prevail.

We learn in our Sanskrit primer:

Ayam nija paro veti ganana laghuchetasam,
Udaracharitanantu vasudhaiva kutumbakam.

“This is mine, or this is yours, such distinction is made by low-minded people, but those who are broad and liberal should consider the whole world as their relative”.

Did not Christ teach: “Love thy neighbour as thyself?” If your neighbour be a pariah or a Chandala or a Brahmin, or of any other religion, Christian, or Mohammedan, him you should regard as your own self, and him you should love as you love your own self. This is our religion. Abandoning this ideal of universal religion, if we simply cultivate our intellect for commercial purposes, will that be the ideal of proper education? It is degrading the humanity to instal commercialism in the place of universal religion in educational lines. Therefore, my friends, our national ideal should be brought forward and should be emphasized in every branch of our teaching. I do not mean any sectarian religion, and I do not mean the worship of idols or iconoclastic ideas, but I mean the universal religion which underlies all sectarian religions, whether it be Islam, or Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism. Among all special religions there is an undercurrent of true religion which is nameless and formless, and that nameless religion should be brought forward.

The non-essential parts of every religion, that is, doctrines and dogmas, rituals and ceremonials, must vary according to the needs of the people. In dress, for instance, I may wear a turban, and you may wear some other thing, a cap or a hat, but that does not change your soul or its nature which is a part and parcel of the divine Being. For that reason education should be based upon universal principles and not upon sectarian religious ideals. It would otherwise be degrading the humanity. The object of education should be the attainment of perfection. That is the highest aim of education. In the Vedas, we read of two kinds of vidya: para vidya and apara vidya. Apara vidya is that which explains the laws of nature and describes the cause of various phenomena; but para vidya is that by which one attains to God-consciousness, and that should be the aim of apara vidya. That is why you are studying all things. Why do you go to a chemical laboratory? You go to study the fundamental elements of all phenomena. Why do you study physics and all the different branches of science? You study to know how this world has come into existence. Why do you study anatomy and physiology? You study to understand how the organs of your system are working and co-ordinating in harmonious development and how the body grows from a minute cell. Sir J. C. Bose has been studying the plant-life. You have heard him speak of the wonderful truths which he has discovered. One of them is that in the whole world there is one life and not many. The life that is beating in us is pulsating in the plants and even in a blade of grass. As we eat, so the grass eats, and as we sleep, so the plants sleep. There is a gradual manifestation of life from (he lower to the higher, in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom; and we should study them all so that our knowledge should be complete.

Physically we should develop and train our bodies, so that we can have muscles of iron and nerves of steel, and then we should educate our minds, so that we may be able to acquire self-mastery, and not remain slaves of passions, desires and selfishness. Self-conquest should be our ideal in training our minds. In the West, there is psychology without a psyche which means the soul. There, in the study of psychology, the existence of a psyche is not admitted, but Hindu psychology is far better. We should educate our intellect, so that we can see the all-pervading Spirit, and reason that although there are various manifestations, yet there is an underlying unity of existence. Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and that plan we should discover by training our intellect. Furthermore, we should realize what is eternal and what is non-etemal, what is unchangeable and what is changeable. That would be the function of the intellect which is trained and has reached its ideal education.

Proper education should include moral training. The whole of ethics depends upon love, which means not selfish love, but the expression of oneness in spirit. If you love somebody, you become one with the beloved; otherwise there is no love. Love means the attraction of two souls, which would vibrate in the same degree, and which would be tuned in the same key. Just as in a room if two musical instruments are kept tuned in the same key and when one is struck the other responds, so is the case with two lovers. When the thoughts and ideas, which rise in the mind of the lover, will vibrate in the mind of the beloved and produce similar response, then there is love, and that means oneness in thought and in spirit.^[7] Again, where there is true love, there cannot be any selfishness. If you love anyone, you should be ready to give him all that you possess, because you would say: “O my brother 1 Thy necessity is greater than mine. Whatever is mine is thine”. We must learn to merge our small personality into the bigger personality of humanity. That should be the ideal of moral education; and spiritual education would reach its climax, when the student would realize the truth of the saying: “I and my father are one”; not physically one, not mentally, and not intellectually, but spiritually we are one, because there is only one Spirit in the universe. Therefore each soul is a potential Christ, each soul is potentially divine, and each soul is Brahman, and any system of education which is based upon this fundamental principle of potential Divinity in the soul of the individual, would be considered as the highest.

Now the question may arise how should we apply this to our social life? That is very easy. We should not be narrow, but we should carry that ideal of unity in variety in all the different stages of our social life. Just as two faces are not alike, so no two minds are alike. Your path is chalked out for you by the Lord himself, and I must be tolerant, and I must allow you to grow in your own way. Just as in a garden there are different kinds of trees, and you do not try to make two trees look alike. Do you try to make two trees bear the same fruit? You would be destroying all the trees. So, my friends, this world is a garden and each individual is just like a plant. Let him grow and bear his own fruit. Allow him to grow. That should be your ideal. Why should you hinder his growth and progress? Take your hands off. Take all the limitations off; and let him grow free; and he will bear the best fruit. But before he can bear the best fruit, you must give him proper environments. Just as a plant cannot give its best fruit, unless you give it proper light and heat, and the nourishment of the earth, air and water, which are the environments under which a plant will bear its best fruit, so you make him manifest the highest ideal of his life by giving him proper conditions. That is your duty. Why should you hate a Chandala? Why is he a Chandala? Because you have made him so. You can make him a Brahmin tomorrow, if you allow him all the proper environments of a Brahmin. Do not blame him, because he lives in filth and dirt, and is unclean. Why is he so? Because you have made him like that, and now after putting him down in the lowest rank and giving him all the conditions that would be degrading to him, you blame him, condemn him, and hate him. It is not the Chandala who should be blamed, but you, the leaders of the society. You have made him so. Therefore, take the blame upon your own shoulders, and correct it and make him a saint. Give him proper training, grant him proper education, love him, and give him a chance to stand on his own feet. Do you do that? No, you do not. Abraham Lincoln, who was the President of the United States some years ago and who liberated the slaves, was once walking in the streets of Washington with a friend, and found a beetle on the road. It was turned on its back, its legs were up in the air, and it was struggling to stand on its feet. Abraham Lincoln stoopped down and picked up that beetle and put it on its legs. His friend asked him what he was doing. He said: “I made that poor fellow stand on its own feet.” That was his nature. So, my friends, I wish everyone of you would become an Abraham Lincoln. If you see a poor man, make him stand on his own legs, give him the proper opportunity, do not tyrannize over him, do not call him names, and do not condemn him; but love him as you love your own self. Do you give such instruction in your schools and colleges? If you do, you are worthy of the place you are occupying. If you try to bring that out in your system of education, the world will bow down to you, and the Lord will be pleased that you have worshipped Him in spirit and also in the form of human beings. Where shall we find God, if we leave all men out? God is not sitting above the clouds.

He is here; Him I see in your faces. He is the Virat-purusha,

Sahasrashirsha purushah
  sahasraksha sahasrapat.

“The Lord is with infinite eyes, with infinite number of ears with infinite hands and infinite feet”. He sees through all eyes, hears through all ears, works through all hands, and

thinks through all minds. The collective spiritual Being is the Lord, and so long as you separate individuals from the whole, you destroy the relation between the individual and the universe, between man and God. Therefore, my friends, we should learn to see God in man and woman, and love them, worship them, feed them, and educate them. Women should have equal rights and privileges with men. That should be the ideal; and then the highest perfection which is latent in each soul, and which is described in all the scriptures of the world, will be realized; and such is the object of ideal education. Education should not degrade man or woman, and it should not be for money-making; but it should be the culture of the soul for the good of all; and that soul-culture will bring in perfection as its ideal, and the whole world will be benefitted by such education. I wish to see that day, when India will have the privilege of imparting such ideal education in and through all colleges and schools, both high and primary. Then the plan of the Lord of the universe will be fulfilled, and then we shall enjoy peace and happiness in this world and hereafter.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Sir Monier Monier Williams: Hinduism and Brahminism [Brahmanism?], p. 12.

[2]:

Vide Swami Abhedananda: India and Her People, pp. 18-20.

[3]:

The contention of the Swami is that proper education makes a man perfect, and his spiritual consciousness is awakened.

[4]:

St. John, VIII, 32.

[5]:

St. Matthew, V. 8.

[6]:

Bhagavad Gita, V, 18

[7]:

Vide Swami Abhedananda: Human Affection and Divine Love.