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Romain Rolland
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Prophets Of The New India: Visionaries Shaping the Future of the Nation [Print Replica] Kindle Edition
by Romain Rolland (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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CONTENTS
page:
Translator’s Note v
Author’s Preface .vii
To My Eastern Readers .xi
To My Western Readers ....... xv
Prelude .xxix
chapter
I. The Gospel of Childhood. 3
II. Kali the Mother. 10
III. The Two Guides to Knowledge; The Bharavi Brahami and Totapuri . ... 24
IV. Identity With the Absolute .44
V. The Return to Man.59
VI. The Builders of Unity.76
VII. Ramakrishna and the King-Shepherds of India.132
VIII. The Call of the Disciples.157
IX. The Master and His Children .... 172
X. Naren, The Beloved Disciple.205
XI. The Swan Song.234
XII. The River Re-enters the Sea .... 244
Epilogue.263
Bibliography.270
Iconography .276
BOOK TWO
Part I
THE LIFE OF VIVEKANANDA
PAGE
Prelude.283
CHAPTER
I. The Parivrajaka: The Call of the
Earth to the Wandering Soul . . . 291
II. The Pilgrim of India.304
III. The Great Journey to the West and the Parliament of Religions.316
IV. America at the Time of the First Journey of Vive kan anda. The Anglo-
Saxons, Forerunners of the Spirit of Asia; Emerson, Thoreau, Walt Whitman .329
V. The Preaching in America .351
VI. The Meeting of India and Europe . . 367
VII. The Return to India.386
VIII. The Founding of the Ramakrishna Mis¬
sion .399
IX. The Second Journey to the West , . 431
X. The Departure.440
Part II THE UNIVERSAL GOSPEL OF VIVEKANANDA
I. Maya and the March to Freedom , . 457
II. The Great Paths (The Yogas) . . . 470
1. Karma-Yoga.476
2. Bhakti-Yoga.489
3. Raja-Yoga.502
4. Jnana-Yoga.518
III. Science, the Universal Religion . . . 542
IV. Civitas Dei: The City of Man .... 567
V. Cave Canem !. 582
Conclusion., , 597
Part III
I. The Ramakrishna Math and Mission . 605
II. The Awakening of India after Vivekan-
anda, Rabindranath Tagore and Aoribindo Ghose.620
Appendices :
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Explore the Minds of Visionaries with "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland
Are you ready to delve into the intellectual and spiritual landscape of India and explore the minds of visionary leaders who shaped the nation's destiny? "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland is a thought-provoking work that will introduce you to the profound philosophies and influences of India's great thinkers.
Prepare to be inspired by the insights and wisdom offered by Rolland as he delves into the lives and philosophies of India's visionary leaders. This work serves as a guide to help you understand the cultural, social, and political transformations brought about by these extraordinary individuals who paved the way for a new India.
What sets this work apart is the valuable hook-point it offers. It's not just about biographies; it's about the enduring impact and enduring relevance of the visionary leaders and their ideas. Rolland's work will leave you both enlightened and appreciative of the profound contributions made by these individuals in the shaping of India's destiny.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to explore the minds of visionaries who shaped India's future. "Prophets Of The New India" is a work that will transport you to the intellectual and spiritual world of India, offering insights into the philosophies and influences that continue to resonate in the country's cultural and political landscape. If you're looking for a valuable and thought-provoking read, this work is a must-have for anyone interested in the visionary leaders who played a pivotal role in India's transformation. Get your copy today and be prepared to be inspired by the profound ideas of "Prophets Of The New India."
Prophets Of The New India by Romain Rolland: Explore the lives and philosophies of visionary leaders with "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland. This enlightening work profiles influential figures who shaped the path of India's future.
Key Aspects of the Book "Prophets Of The New India":
Explore the Minds of Visionaries with "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland
Are you ready to delve into the intellectual and spiritual landscape of India and explore the minds of visionary leaders who shaped the nation's destiny? "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland is a thought-provoking work that will introduce you to the profound philosophies and influences of India's great thinkers.
Prepare to be inspired by the insights and wisdom offered by Rolland as he delves into the lives and philosophies of India's visionary leaders. This work serves as a guide to help you understand the cultural, social, and political transformations brought about by these extraordinary individuals who paved the way for a new India.
What sets this work apart is the valuable hook-point it offers. It's not just about biographies; it's about the enduring impact and enduring relevance of the visionary leaders and their ideas. Rolland's work will leave you both enlightened and appreciative of the profound contributions made by these individuals in the shaping of India's destiny.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to explore the minds of visionaries who shaped India's future. "Prophets Of The New India" is a work that will transport you to the intellectual and spiritual world of India, offering insights into the philosophies and influences that continue to resonate in the country's cultural and political landscape. If you're looking for a valuable and thought-provoking read, this work is a must-have for anyone interested in the visionary leaders who played a pivotal role in India's transformation. Get your copy today and be prepared to be inspired by the profound ideas of "Prophets Of The New India."
Prophets Of The New India by Romain Rolland: Explore the lives and philosophies of visionary leaders with "Prophets Of The New India" by Romain Rolland. This enlightening work profiles influential figures who shaped the path of India's future.
Key Aspects of the Book "Prophets Of The New India":
- Indian Visionaries: Rolland profiles key figures who played pivotal roles in India's social, political, and cultural transformation.
- Social and Political Movements: The book provides insights into the social and political movements led by these visionaries, including their impact on India's history.
- Biographical Exploration: "Prophets Of The New India" offers biographical sketches that shed light on the lives and contributions of these remarkable individuals.
- Romain Rolland was a French author, dramatist, and Nobel laureate known for his interest in Indian culture and philosophy. His book reflects his admiration for the leaders who shaped India's destiny.
TO MY EASTERN READERS 1
"Greeting to the feet of the Jnanin! Greet¬
ing to the feet of the Bhakta! Greeting to the
devout who believe in the formless God! Greet¬
ing to those who believe in a God with form!
Greeting to the men of old who knew Brahman!
Greeting to the modern knowers of Truth. . .
(Ramakrishna, October 28, 1SS2.)
I must beg my Indian readers to view with indul¬
gence the mistakes I may have made. In spite of
all the enthusiasm I have brought to my task, it is im¬
possible for a man of the West to interpret men of
Asia with their thousand years’ experience of thought;
for such an interpretation must often be erroneous.
The only thing to which I can testify is the sincerity
which has led me to make a pious attempt to enter into
all forms of life.
At the same time I must confess that I have not
abdicated one iota of my free judgment as a man of
the West. I respect the faith of all and very often I
love it. But I never subscribe to it. Ramakrishna
lies very near to my heart because I see in him a man
and not an "Incarnation,” as he appears to his disciples.
In accordance with the Vedantists I do not need to
enclose God within the bounds of a privileged man in
order to admit that the Divine dwells within the soul
and that the soul dwells in everything—that Atman is
Braham: although it knows it not; that view is a
1 This book is to appear in India and Europe at the same time.
xHi
xw
PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA
form of nationalism of spirit and I cannot accept it.
I see God in all that exists. I see Him as completely
in the least fragment as in the whole Cosmos. There
is no difference of essence. And power is universally
infinite; that which lies hidden in an atom, if one only
knew it, could blow up a whole world. The only dif¬
ference is that it is more or less concentrated in the
heart of a conscience, in an ego, or in a unit of energy,
an ion. The very greatest of men is only a clearer
reflection of the Sun which gleams in each drop of dew.
That is why I can never make that sacred gulf so
pleasing to the devout, between the heroes of the soul
and the thousands of their obscure companions past
and present. And neither more nor less than I isolate
Christ and Buddha, do I isolate Ramakrishna and Vi-
vekananda from the great army of the Spirit marching
on in their own time. I shall try in the course of this
book to do justice to those personalities of genius, who
during the last century have sprung up in reawakened
India, reviving the ancient energies of their country
and bringing about a springtime of thought within her
borders. The work of each one was creative and each
one collected round him a band of faithful souls who
formed themselves into a church and unconsciously
looked upon that church as a temple of the one or of
the greatest God.
At this distance from their differences I refuse to
see the dust of battle; at this distance the hedges be¬
tween the fields melt into an immense expanse. I can
only see the same river, a majestic “chemin qui marche”
(road which marches) in the words of our Pascal.
And it is because Ramakrishna more fully than any
other man not only conceived, but realized in himself
the total Unity of this river of God, open to all rivers
TO MY EASTERN READERS
XV
and all streams, that I have given him my love; and
I have drawn a little of his sacred water to slake the
great thirst of the world.
But I shall not remain leaning at the edge of the
river. X shall continue my march with the stream
right to the sea. Leaving behind at each winding of
the river where death has cried "Halt l” to one of our
leaders the kneeling company of the faithful, I shall
go with the stream and pay homage to it from the
source to the estuary. Holy is the source, holy is the
course, holy is the estuary. And we shall embrace
within the river and its tributaries small and great and
in the Ocean itself—the whole moving mass of the
living God.
R. R,
TO MY WESTERN READERS
I have dedicated my whole life to the reconciliation
of mankind. I have striven to bring it about among
the peoples of Europe, especially between those two
great Western peoples, who are brethren and yet ene¬
mies. For the last ten years I have been attempting
the same task for the West and the East. I also desire
to reconcile, if it is possible, the two antithetical forms
of spirit for which the West and the East are wrongly
supposed to stand—reason and faith—or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say, the diverse forms of
reason and of faith; for the West and the East share
them both almost equally although few suspect it.
In our days an absurd separation has been made be¬
tween these two halves of the soul, and it is presumed
that they are incompatible. The only incompatibility
lies in the narrowness of view, which those who erro¬
neously claim to be their representatives, share in
common.
On the one hand, those who call themselves religious
shut themselves up within the four walls of their chapel
and not only refuse to come out (as they have a right
to do) but they would deny to all outside those four
walls the right to live, if they could. On the other
hand, the freethinkers, who are for the.most part with¬
out any religious sense at all (as they have a right to
be) too often consider it their mission in life to fight
against religious souls and in turn deny their right
to exist The result is the futile spectacle of a svste-
xvn
xviii PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA
matic attempt to destroy religion on the part of men
who do not perceive that they are attacking some¬
thing which they do not understand. A discussion
of religion based solely on historical or pseudo-
historical texts, rendered sterile by time and covered
v'ith lichen, is of no avail. As well explain the fact
of inner psychological life by the dissection of the
physical organs through which it flows. The con¬
fusion created by our rationalists between the out¬
ward expression and the power of thought seems
to me as illusory as the confusion common to the
religions of past ages of identifying magic powers
with the words, the syllables or the letters whereby
they are expressed.
The first qualification for knowing, judging, and
if desirable condemning a religion or religions, is
to have made experiments for oneself in the fact of
religious consciousness. Even those who have fol¬
lowed a religious vocation are not all qualified to
speak on the subject; for, if they are sincere, they
will recognise that the fact of religious conscious¬
ness and the profession of religion are two different
things. Many very honourable priests are believers
by obedience or from interested or indolent motives,
and have either never felt the need of religious ex¬
perience or have shrunk from gaining it because
they lack sufficient strength of character. As against
these may be set many souls who are or who believe
they are free from all religious belief, but who in
reality live immersed in a state of super-rational con¬
sciousness, which they term—-Socialism, Communism,
Humanitarianism, Nationalism and even Rationalism.
It is the quality of thought and not its object which
determines its source and allows us to decide whether
XIX
TO MY WESTERN READERS
or not it emanates from religion. If it turns fearlessly
towards the search for truth at all costs with single-
minded sincerity prepared for any sacrifice, I should
call it religious; for it presupposes faith in an end to
human effort higher than the life of the individual, at
times higher than the life of existing society, and even
higher than the life of humanity as a whole. Scepti¬
cism itself when it proceeds from vigorous natures
true to the core, when it is an expression of strength
and not of weakness, joins in the march of the Grand
Army of the religious Soul.
On the other hand, thousands of cowardly believers,
clerical and lay, within the churches have no right to
wear the colours of religion. They do not believe be¬
cause they choose to believe, but wallow in the stable
where they were born in front of mangers full of the
grain of comfortable beliefs upon which all they have
to do is to ruminate.
The tragic words used of Christ—that He will be
in agony to the end of the world 1 —are well known.
I myself do not believe in one personal God, least of
all in a God of Sorrow only. But I believe that in all
that exists, including joy and sorrow and with them
all forms of life, in mankind, and in men and in the
Universe, the only God is He who is a perpetual birth.
The Creation takes place anew every instant. Religion
is never accomplished. It is a ceaseless action and the
will to strive—the outpouring of a spring, never a
stagnant pond.
I belong to a land of rivers. I love them as if they
were living creatures, and I understand why my ances-
1 Pascal: Pensces; Le mystkre de Jesus; “Jesus sera en agonie
jusqira la fiirdu monde: il ne faut pas dorroir pendant ce temps-
la”
xxii PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA
moral and social, with its message for modern hu¬
manity from the depths of India’s past.
Although (as you will see for yourselves) the pa¬
thetic interest, the charming poetry, the grace and
Homeric grandeur of these two lives are sufficient to
explain why I have spent two years of my own in ex¬
ploring and tracing their course in order to show them
to you, it was not the curiosity of an explorer that
prompted me to undertake the journey.
I am no dilettante and I do not bring to jaded read¬
ers the opportunity to lose themselves, but rather to
find themselves—to find their true selves, naked and
without the mask of falsehood. My companions have
ever been men with just that object in view, whether
living or dead, and the limits of centuries or of races
mean little to me. There is neither East nor West
for the naked soul; such things are merely its trappings.
The whole world is its home. And as its home is each
one of us, it belongs to all of us.
Perhaps I may be excused if I put myself for a brief
space upon the stage in order to explain the source of
inner thought that has given birth to this work. I do
this only by way of example, for I am not an excep¬
tional man. I am one of the people of France. I know
that I represent thousands of Westerners, who have
neither the means nor the time to express themselves.
Whenever one of us speaks from the depths of his
heart in order to free his own self, his voice liberates
at the same time thousands of silent voices. Then listen,
not to my voice, but to the echo of theirs.
I was born and spent the first fourteen years of my
life in a part of central France, where my family had
been established for centuries. Our line is purely
French and Catholic without any foreign admixture.
TO MY WESTERN READERS xxiii
And the early environment wherein I was sealed until
my arrival in Paris about 1880 was an old district of
the Nivernais where nothing from the outside world
was allowed to penetrate within its charmed circle.
So in this closed vase modelled from the clay of
Gaul with its flaxen blue sky and its rivers I discovered
all the colours of the universe during my childhood.
When staff in hand in later years I scoured the roads
of thought, I found nothing that was strange in any
country. All the aspects of mind that I found or felt
were in their origin the same as mine. Outside ex¬
perience merely brought me the realisation of my own
mind, the states of which I had noted but to which I
had no key. Neither Shakespeare nor Beethoven nor
Tolstoy nor Rome, the master that nurtured me, ever
revealed anything to me except the “Open Sesame'’
of my subterranean city, my Herculaneum, sleeping un¬
der its lava. And I am convinced that it sleeps in the
depths of many of those around us. But they are ig¬
norant of its existence just as I was. Few venture be¬
yond the first stage of excavation, which their own
practical common sense has shown them to be necessary
for their daily use and they economise their needs like
those masters who forged first the royal and then the
Jacobin unity of France. I admire the structure. A his¬
torian by profession, I see in it one of the masterpieces
of human effort enlightened by the spirit, “Acre per-
renius . . 4 But according to the old legend which
demanded that if a work was to endure a living body
should be immured in the walls, our master architects
have entombed in their mortar thousands of warm
human souls. They can no longer be seen beneath the
4 Horace: “More lasting than brass.”
xxxv PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA
marble facing and the Roman cement. But I can bear
them! And whoever listens will hear them as I do
under the noble liturgy of “classic’' thought. The Mass
celebrated on the High Altar takes no heed of them.
But the faithful, the docile and inattentive crowd kneel¬
ing and standing at the given signal, ruminate in their
dreams upon quite different herbs of St. John. 5 France
is rich in souls. But she hides them as an old peasant
woman hides her money.
I have just rediscovered the key of the lost staircase
leading to some of these proscribed souls. The stair¬
case in the wall, spiral like the coils of a serpent, winds
from the subterranean depths of the Ego to the high
terraces crowned by the stars. But nothing that I saw
there was unknown country. I had seen it all before
and I knew it well—but I did not know where I had
seen it before. More than once I had recited from
memory, though imperfectly, the lesson of thought
learned at some former time (but from whom? One
of my very ancient selves. . . .) Now I reread it,
every word clear and complete, in the book of life held
out to me by the illiterate genius who knew all its pages
by heart—Ramakrishna.
In my turn I present him to you, not as a new book
but as a very old one, which you have all tried to spell
out (though many stopped short at the alphabet).
Eventually it is always the same book but the writing
varies. The eye usually remains fixed on the cover and
does not pierce to the kernel.
It is always the same Book. It is always the same
Man—the Son of Man, the Eternal, Our Son, Our God
di e Ee^st of St. John all kinds of herbs are sold hi the
fairs, having so-called magic properties.
TO MY WESTERN READERS xxv
reborn. With each return he reveals himself a little
more fully, and more enriched by the universe.
Allowing for differences of country and of time
Ramakrishna is the younger brother of our Christ.
We can show, if we choose, and as freethinking exe-
gesists are trying to do today, that the whole doctrine
of Christ was current before him in the Oriental soul
seeded by the thinkers of Chaldea, Egypt, Athens
and Ionia. But we can never stop the person of Christ,
whether real or legendary (they are merely two orders
of the same reality 0 ) from prevailing, and rightly so,
in the history of mankind over the personality of a
Plato. It is a monumental and necessary creation of
the Soul of humanity. It is its most beautiful fruit be¬
longing to one of its autumns. The same tree has pro¬
duced, according to the same law of nature, the life and
the legend. They are both made of the same living body
and are the emanation of Its look, its breadth and its
moisture.
8 The attitude of religious Indians with regard to legend is a
curious and critical one akin to faith. It is very remarkable that
the historic existence of the personalities they worship as Gods is
almost a matter of indifference—at all events quite secondary. So
long as they are spiritually true their objective reality matters
little. Ramakrishna, the greatest of believers said: “Those who
have been able to conceive of such ideas ought to be able to be
those ideas themselves.” And Vivekananda who doubted the ob¬
jective existence of Krishna and also of Christ (that of Krishna
more than that of Christ), declared: Jf
“But today Krishna is the most perfect of the Avatars.
And he worshipped him. (Of. Sister Nivedita: Notes of some
Wanderings with the Swcttni Vivekananda.)
Truly religious souls recognise the living God just as much in
the stamp with which He has marked the brains of a people as m
the reality of an Incarnation. They are two equal realities in the
eyes of a great believer, for whom everything that is real is Ooc..
And he can never quite make up his mind which of the two is the
more imposing—the creation of a people or the creation ot an age.
xxvi PROPHETS OF THE NEW INDIA
I am bringing to Europe, as yet unaware of it, the
fruit of a new' autumn, a new message of the Soul,
the symphony of India, bearing the name of Rama-
krishna. It can be shown (and we shall not fail to
point out) that this symphony, like those of our classi¬
cal masters, is built up of a hundred different musical
elements emanating from the past. But the sovereign
personality concentrating in himself the diversity of
these elements and fashioning them into a royal har¬
mony is always the one who gives his name to the work,
though it contain within itself the labour of genera¬
tions. And with his victorious sign he marks a new
era.
The man whose image I here evoke was the consum¬
mation of two thousand years of the spiritual life of
three hundred million people. Although he has been
dead forty years 7 his soul animates modern India, He
was no hero of action like Gandhi, no genius in art or
thought like Goethe or Tagore. He was a little village
Brahmin of Bengal, whose outer life was set in a lim¬
ited frame without striking incident, outside the politi¬
cal and social activities of his time. 8 But his inner life
embraced the whole multiplicity of men and Gods. It
was a part of the very source of Energy, the divine
Sakti, of whom Vidyapati, 0 the old poet of Mithila,
and Ramprasad of Bengal sing.
7 In 1886. He was fifty years old. His great disciple, Vive-
kananda, died in 1902 at the age of thirty-nine. It should never
be forgotten how recently they lived. We have seen the same
suns, and the same raft of time has borne ns.
8 The life of Vivekananda was quite different, for he traversed
the Old and the New Worlds.
B “Show Thyself, O goddess with the thick tresses! . . . Thon
art one and many. Thou containest the thousands and Thou fillest
the field of battle with the enemy! . . .” (Hymn to the Goddess
of Energy, Sakti,)
TO MY WESTERN READERS xxvii
Very few go back to the source. The little peasant
of Bengal by listening to the message of his heart found
his way to the inner Sea. And there he was wedded
to it, thus bearing out the words of the Upanishads: 10
“I am more ancient than the radiant Gods. I am
the first-born of the Being. I am the artery of Immor¬
tality.”
It is my desire to bring the sound of the beating of
that artery to the ears of fever-stricken Europe, which
has murdered sleep. I wish to wet its lips with the
blood of Immortality.
R. R.
Christmas, 1928.
10 Taittiriya Upanishhad,
According to the Vedanta, when Brahman the Absolute be¬
came endowed with qualities and began to evolve the living uni¬
verse, He became Himself the first evolution, the first-born of Be¬
ing, which is the Essence of all things visible and invisible. He
who speaks thus is supposed to have attained complete identity
with Him.
EOOK ONE
PRELUDE
