A century ago Lord Minto, Viceroy of India, remarked, “Bengalees are tall, stout and robust-built like wrestlers. I have not seen such a race anywhere.” Without going into the question of whether or not this remark applies to the rest of Indian Subcontinent, it is pretty safe to say that since Lord Minto’s day we have as a whole lost our health. Some few are healthy, but millions are only diseased skeletons. We are supposed to have a distinguished science, art, politics, culture, but if we be weak and diseased, how can these things be pursued and who will give any credence to them? Health is a sign of well-being.
We have already discussed how to stay healthy, and we feel it is useless to discuss it more. We can write hundreds of theses on health, but who will realize them? We need medicines, diet, life and expansion. These are the essentials-without which all are mere talk.
Individually of course we can do something. We can see that our drinking water is pure. We can eat only what is clean and nourishing. We can sweep out our houses and latrines. We can stay away from those with contagious diseases. And to some extent at least we can keep our minds also clean and balanced. In addition to all these we can make efforts to educate ourselves in science and raise our standard of living. Good health, education and sound economic foundation are interrelated. No one of these can thrive without the other two. A man comes back from the hospital cured, but due to ignorance and poverty he soon falls ill again and has to be readmitted. The government has tried to mend this situation through its departments of health, education, agriculture and industry. If we keep contact with these departments, we can be benefitted and our lives made more happy. But the primary remedy lies in our own personal habits. No one can make us healthy. We must be more active to become healthy, wealthy and wise.
We have mentioned the departments of industry, agriculture and education. Let us add a few words about commerce. The government is trying to build up effective departments in all these fields, including commerce. But that is not enough. We should set up these departments on our own. Many times plans flash in our minds to start a business but then we allow ourselves discouraged by the difficulties ahead. We want to be big all at once. We forget that the biggest trees grow from the smallest seeds. To want success is instinctive with us. One man started the Dhakeswari Cotton Mills and was very successful. Seeing his success, others started mills in Narayanganj. Thus new enterprises sprout. One must have a good plan and program to accomplish anything. An Indo-Pak Development Association should be formed. It should have a parliament and cabinet, and until these are functioning, the president of the Association should direct its activities. The president should have six helpers. He and they will make up the Development Board. Assuming there are two hundred thirty eight districts in Indian Sub-continent, the Board should select eleven districts in which to work the first year. The second year their activities may be extended to eleven more districts. And so on, until all of the subcontinent may come under the Board’s good offices in 21 and half years. The Board should open six departments: education, health, agriculture, commerce, industry and finance. Each of the six members will be responsible for one of the departments. These heads should be experts. The commerce department should look to both buying and selling so that both the tradesman and the consumer may fulfil each other, and the general populace be benefitted. The function of the Finance Department is to collect revenue and extend credit. Before the war it was easy to make a living or start a business, but the situation, has hardened. Everyone has to work might and main to support himself. This is true all the world over, and certainly in Indo-Pak Sub-continent. The natural law is that everyone must grow by his own effort and thus keep himself living. Followed, this principle would make each district self-supporting, if not self sufficient. Attempts may be made to balance out areas of surplus and areas of scarcity in a particular product. And when the country as a whole has a surplus in any product, it can export. Those districts, that come under the Development Board’s program, should be helped financially by the Board with 8 lacs of rupees for the first four years. After spending 32 lacs in the four years, the district should be in a position to run the scheme on its own power the fifth year, and at the end of the fifth year to give back to the Board the first of four instalments of 8 lacs. What the Board collects from a district it should spend on that district-with an eye to its needs and capacities. It should not try to collect where there are insufficient funds. The Development Board must have on hand at least 32 lacs for each district that it means to help. And it should not be allowed to spend one farthing of the money collected in the fifth year on its own office expenses. For the eleven districts of the first year there will be needed 88 lacs on hand. The second year there will be needed 176 lacs, and the third year 264 lacs, and the fourth year, when there will be 44 districts under the scheme, the possible expenditure will amount to 352 lacs. From the fifth year there will be no new heavy investments; for, from that time, though new districts will be added to the Board’s care, the old ones will be financially carrying themselves. From the 4th to the 21st year the Board will have to spend every year 352 lacs. Finally in the 25th year there will be no expenditure. Thus from the yearly income of 5 crores (50 millions) the Board can manage the whole program.
On Christmas Eve 1938 in the editorial column of the Ananda Bazar Patrika there appeared the following: “We boast of human civilization, but we don’t find any good things after 10,000 years of it. There have appeared here so many incarnations of God-Buddha, Christ, Shankar, Mohammad, Sree Chaitanya, See Ramakrishna-who spoke good things. But they could leave no mark on us. Before the dawn of civilization the aborigines fought each other. And during these 10,000 civilized years we have fought each other. The only difference is that aborigines used sticks and stones while civilized man has used rifles, cannons, etc.
What was written there in the Paper was quite true. There was no exaggeration. Incarnations came to lead us to the truth, but we did not follow them. Our minds were not in their gear; our souls were not so finely developed as theirs. The moss dirties the water in the well; our complexes dirty our minds. We shall have to wash our minds clean if we want our souls to expand.
The scientists of the Western World are trying to invent new material marvels. Our Sub-continent is also trying. We bow our heads to these scientists who dedicate their energies to the good of their countries. Still modern scientists have not been able to decipher and expound all of our ancient science. We cannot say the ancients were wrong. In Chhandogya Upanishad it was said, “Brahman is ever present everywhere. He is above, below, and all around us. In the beginning there was only Existence. Is not this material world but an exposition of Him, the Existence?” Nobel Laureate Dr. Compton says, “Modern physics gives place to God.” Researches are even made to establish Him. Scientist Eddington says, “Materialism in its literal sense is long since dead.” Rutherford, who discovered the electron, announced, “There is nothing but radiation.” In Brihadaranyak Upanishad the seer says, “Brahman is radiation. Are not men expositions and condensations of that radiation?
We have emerged from primeval being to living being, then to protoplasm. Step by step we have crossed the stages of Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg, Cro-Magnon, and emerged as men. With the instinct of man in us we have come this far. As men we are bundles of thoughts and activities. These bundles are given to us at birth, and we do a little something with them. If we could wipe out the limited conceptions with which we were born, our minds would be expanded. How can we do it? Strength of mind won’t do it. Impulse impresses in accordance with born instincts, and pushes us on. If our wills are strong enough, we can make use of everything and survive. We request modern man to see how the ancients developed their spiritual life through meditation. If we repeat the holy name of the highest spiritual sphere our brain cells will be sensitized. At the same time conceptions from birth will lose their hold. If we go through the eighteen stages of meditation, we will wipe out impressions of the past including conceptions with which we were born. Those who attain the highest realization, such as Incarnates, can help others to escape their limited selves. Our modern civilization has made us cruel and self-centric. Until we culture the spirit, we shall not escape the effects of the times. We would like to close this discussion with a statement of an American physicist, George R. Harrison,-“Digging for truth has always proved not only more interesting but more profitable than digging for gold. If urged on by the love for digging, one digs deeper than if searching for some particular nugget, much gold is usually produced eventually as a by-product.”