Quest:— What do you mean by normal diet and mode of living, physical exercise through activity, and elevated engagement— that you said regarding health?
Beloved the Lord:— Normal diet is that which is non-irritative, easily digestive, nutritive and placative; normal mode of living means maintaining the conduct in such a way that no such sudden exertion takes place as a result of which, health may break down; and eating and living should not be in such a unrestrained manner that we become maladroit and depressed; and physical exercise should be such as to keep the health and service unimpaired sublime and in good shape. Elevative engagement is, verily, to become engaged in such affairs which, apart from providing proper nourishment to progress, never bring any deterioration of body or mind.
Quest:— And what do you mean, when you say that service basis, profitable management and continuity shall have to be introduced in the industry?
Beloved the Lord:— If intention to serve others, i.e. how to thoroughly nourish and nurture others, be not there, then how can the emergence of industry take place in man? The very meaning of industry is building up from within. Therefore, the basic principle of industry or enterprise is, to go to people, to show sympathy to them, to look after their comfort and discomfort, and to ponder over how to meet all this, so that they can be properly nourished and nurtured, and be saved from sorrows, sufferings and difficulties; and verily the conflicts in the process of knowing such needs and pain helps to build up from within, to be engaged in that wholeheartedly and to meet them. And from this comes profitable management which tells how and where, by making what type of arrangement the elevation can be maintained perfectly avoiding deterioration.
And to do this, we are to deal with them sweetly and sincerely, and we should stick to this serving attitude and profitable management carefully, actively and continuously. So, these attributes, i.e. characteristics are the real and expedient servants of industry; hence doing industry by a person, in whom these are lacking, is a kind of aerial castle for him. No one can be seen in the world who, has become great but, has not such qualities ingrained in his nature.
Quest:— Well, what is your opinion regarding driving away untouchability?
Beloved the Lord:— We don’t advocate anything such as touchability or untouchability. One does as he wishes,— some eat with Muslims, some don’t. We never say some such thing that one, who doesn’t eat with Muslims, will have to eat; and we don’t have any such idea that by just eating food served by anybody will make us attain salvation, nor do we say that just by not taking food by others we will remain sanctified. We don’t quite believe that much improvement can happen to the nation with either touchability or untouchability. When a brother separates his own brother, and even while eating together when a brother opposes his own brother, then it is not that merely by eating food served by anyone will bring any unity. I think what is first needed is service. Whether we eat food cooked by others or not but, if we can make our efforts for the happiness and well-being of others, then the effect of driving away untouchability will be nothing compared to the effect of our such efforts.
Quest:— Then what do you think of this Harijan movement begun in the country? What would you say about depressed classes?
Beloved the Lord:— I just can’t admit the very idea of depressed. It seems to me that, by repeatedly terming them depressed they are being turned more and more depressed, and they are being segregated into a separate sect. To uplift them, do extend service to them and love them with your heart and soul, bring in the society the development in health, education and industry, and usher them so that they can stay more in contact with the elevated ones. Nothing can be achieved if not done this way. And the compactness within a race is maintained through hypergamous inter-marriage that lets not one race separate from another, yet keeps the grades intact.
Quest:— According to the codified Hindu Law, inter-caste hypergamous marriage is illegal. Then how can the inter-caste marriage, through which upliftment is inevitable as you are speaking about, be possible? And Raghunandan of Bengal ruled out any possibility of inter-caste marriage in Kaliyug.
Beloved the Lord:— Providence is providence, it neither obeys anyone or knows anyone, but keeps its pace in its own way. It recognizes only him who follows it— whether that be laid down in codified law or not, whether Raghunandan certifies that or not. To achieve something that must be done in the way that can be achieved, else nothing will ever be achieved without doing that, and this is the eternal truth, and so also the nature of providence. If the error of those who have compiled these laws of Providence for the welfare of mankind by culling them from Nature, deprives man from some immortal blissful path, then for that they can be held responsible, but Providence does not become responsible even if it is held so. This has never been heard ever anywhere that there remains error in Providence. You can never achieve something or anything without doing in the exact way that can be achieved— this message is perennially unerring and immaculate and will remain so.
Quest:— Well, we Bengalis as a race seem to be a fragmented assembly of these three races— Aryans, Non-Aryans and Muslims. In spite of the fact that they live on the same soil, their ideals and aims are different and, mutual frictions are pretty frequent among them. Despite sharing the same land, could we ever achieve liberty?
Beloved the Lord:— Bengal now has, as if, turned into the kingdom of sorrow and grief, which means, the kingdom of Satan! As much into a kingdom of Satan it will turn, so much will Bengalis turn into a brood of fox, and the end will be in a kingdom of individuals.
Quest:— What is the kingdom of individuals?
Beloved the Lord:— If we don’t follow the aforesaid path, then it will have the same fate at the end as that of the man who has no environment.
Quest:— Why do we suffer so much sorrow, mental anguish, depression at all?
Beloved the Lord:— Sufferings ensue from some unsolved complexes. I may have home complex, I may have money complex also; but to me these two have no correlation,— home doesn’t exist for money, nor money for home, and for this comes sorrows. This sorrow is removed only when those complexes become solved. As for the example—
“Vidyate hridayagranthishchhidyante sarvasamshayāh,
kshīyante chāsya karmāni tasmin drishte parāvare.
In this way, man, instead of doing what he wants, does something else that he doesn’t yearn for any more.
Quest:— Then where lies the end of our sufferings, what’s the solution?
Beloved the Lord:— Everything has become disoriented and disordered. There are no proper father and mother; who is taking whose woman, whose son is being born where,— nothing is confirmed. I think, everything will be settled, only when reforms of that type as I have described comes, and whatever I have said is followed explicitly and perfectly.
Quest:— But there is a saying that, birth, marriage and death— these three are predestined by Providence, then how can anyone take another’s woman?
Beloved the Lord:— That is to say, one has been out of hand. What is happening is not in the laws of Providence.
Quest:— Well, suppose we become reformed, but what is to come out of it either? There are many such reformed races in the world who claim that they are independent, but what good are they doing? Igniting hostility and warfare they are doing no better than augmenting sufferings, afflictions and miseries of the world. Shall we do that? Is that man’s ultimate is deal?
Beloved the Lord:— These people have no definite Ideal before them, by fulfilling whom each of them may achieve meaningfulness. So, with the democratic form of egoistic ambition, they, motivated by that very purpose, are moving gradually in development. Also due to the motivation for that purpose invention too has not been thrived less among them. But this development and invention, owing to the lacking of a definite fulfilling Ideal, often brings war, losing the progressive balance of being and becoming. And if there is no Ideal, then war alone becomes the demolishing agent on the path of man’s life. Again, verily the ruthless catastrophic havoc of war, creating grief-stricken mourning in every heart, generates an indomitable eager yearning for the Ideal, culminating an attachment for Beloved the Ideal, as a result of which comes a world of peace and love and life.
I’m speaking of life because, man does not want to deteriorate, and this is his inner tendency. There is enjoyment in love and, existence in life. Hence, to live and to enjoy harmlessly— herein lies the meaningfulness of man. If some reformer moves with the inclination to fulfill some definite ideal, that is one thing, and to move or do just with the intention to reform the ensuing problems is quite another thing; although those who bring such reformation also happen to be believers in godhead.
Quest:— What is the difference between the two then? Both are reformers, aren’t they?
Beloved the Lord:— One makes the use of Providence to fulfill oneself while the other engages himself to fulfill the ideal.
Quest:— I’ve read in Bible, ‘Beware of false prophets’. Henry Ford too said, ‘The false prophet is usually an honest gentleman whose main error is in posing as a prophet. In fact, it is really difficult to recognize a true prophet, isn’t it?
Beloved the Lord:— The great man is he who has an Ideal, and to serve that Ideal who has become active, and that activity has become meaningful in his conduct speech and service.
Quest:— Does ‘has become meaningful’ suggest ‘has become successful’?
Beloved the Lord:— Yes.
Quest:— You talk of Ideal but, every leader has the ideal of serving the nation, hasn’t he?
Beloved the Lord:— To approach them whose ideal is abstract is bit difficult. I feel the same as Bernard Shaw has said, ‘Beware of the man whose God is in the skies’, because, conflicts from ideal is less in their lives, so also they have less perception; intensity of love, i.e. love for the Ideal is not so much that they can overcome the conflicts against Ideal, so perceptions too are less, and so it is difficult to understand them. And this is an absurd idea that a person who has no some embodied ideal, analyzes, because, the very existence of man depends upon others. Where there is no such thing as ‘you’, there is no ‘I’ either; to remain conscious there has to be ‘you’ or some other.
Quest:— Where is the solution to the problems of industrialism, politics, militarism etc. that are becoming seriously critical in the present world? D Valera, Hitler, Mussolini, Kamal Pasha, Stalin like leaders of different nations have stirred up such a dangerous conflicts of interests that only the clanking of weapons, aeroplane, navy and arms and ammunitions are on the increase throughout the countries of the world; where is its solution?
Beloved the Lord:— If industry stands on the basis of service, if the purpose be to serve others, and if invention fulfills nothing but that, then that manufactures comfort, happiness and life, and then things like that happen no more.
Quest:— But it is seen that initially man moves with the ideal of service, but then eventually he becomes aggressive, as in the case of England, Germany, Japan. Why does this happen? Instead of serving others then it wants to devour them.
Beloved the Lord:— That means, as a single person has an environment around him, similarly a group of people have a bigger environment around them. So the environment of the people of a country is the people of the nearest neighbouring countries. Whenever one country refuses to accept border countries or other countries as its environment and instead of extending service to them oppresses them, then this misery begins.
Life means nothing but me and my environment— the co-ordination of myself and my environment. If a man be kept in a place where there is no such environment as excites him, he can hardly survive. Where my duty towards my environment will verily be my interest and to serve the environment so that it grows, then the duty of my environment will also be to sustain me and let me grow. As my interest depends on my environment, so the interest of my environment too depends on me. Then what remain are love, life and service,— and so devouring others or war becomes quite impossible.
Quest:— How has, then, impossible been possible for such a long time?
Beloved the Lord:— Our knowledge is so little that we don’t understand where our interest lies— that is why the road to destruction is so broad.
Quest:— But in the animal kingdom we see that, without committing violence to others no animal can survive; without this attitude even man cannot live or grow, can he? Apart from this, we don’t find that kind of ideal anywhere, do we?
Beloved the Lord:— But that is the ideal of only one side. Man has two motions to choose from— running towards annihilation, and running towards elevation. When we eat by killing, we eat only pangs of death or deterioration, and when we sustain ourselves by auto-excretion then, what we take is the bliss of life.
Quest:— What is auto-excretion?
Beloved the Lord:— Milk for example, when it accumulates in the udder of the cow, it wants to discharge it, wants to feed with it,— like the seers of ancient time who would eat fruits fallen off the stalk.
Quest:— But you say everything has life, in that case killing is perpetrated always by eating, isn’t it? Also it is not that killing is not done by taking milk or vegetables.
Beloved the Lord:— When we become so much sensitive, then so much finer world will open up before our senses, and then we shall be able to discover new kinds of food also, but now, this much.
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