I have often been asked by my Western friends how to cope with this
evil, which has attained such sinister strength and vast dimensions.
In fact, I have often been blamed for merely giving warning, and
offering no alternative. When we suffer as a result of a particular
system, we believe that some other system would bring us better luck.
We are apt to forget that all systems produce evil sooner or later,
when the psychology which is at the root of them is wrong. The system
which is national to-day may assume the shape of the international
to-morrow; but so long as men have not forsaken their idolatry of
primitive instincts and collective passions, the new system will only
become a new instrument of suffering. And because we are trained to
confound efficient system with moral goodness itself, every ruined
system makes us more and more distrustful of moral law.
Therefore I do not put my faith in any new institution, but in the
individuals all over the world who think clearly, feel nobly, and act
rightly, thus becoming the channels of moral truth. Our moral ideals
do not work with chisels and hammers. Like trees, they spread their
roots in the soil and their branches in the sky, without consulting
any architect for their plans.
WOMAN AND HOME
Creative expressions attain their perfect form through emotions
modulated. Woman has that expression natural to her—a cadence of
restraint in her behaviour, producing poetry of life. She has been an
inspiration to man, guiding, most often unconsciously, his restless
energy into an immense variety of creations in literature, art, music
and religion. This is why, in India, woman has been described as the
symbol of Shakti, the creative power.
But if woman begins to believe that, though biologically her function
is different from that of man, psychologically she is identical with
him; if the human world in its mentality becomes exclusively male,
then before long it will be reduced to utter inanity. For life finds
its truth and beauty, not in any exaggeration of sameness, but in
harmony.
If woman's nature were identical with man's, if Eve were a mere
tautology of Adam, it would only give rise to a monotonous
superfluity. But that she was not so was proved by the banishment she
secured from a ready-made Paradise. She had the instinctive wisdom to
realise that it was her mission to help her mate in creating a
Paradise of their own on earth, whose ideal she was to supply with her
life, whose materials were to be produced and gathered by her comrade.
However, it is evident that an increasing number of women in the West
are ready to assert that their difference from men is unimportant. The
reason for the vehement utterance of such a paradox cannot be ignored.
It is a rebellion against a necessity, which is not equal for both the
partners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account