The silent power inherent in man to suffer with a dignified poise all the little pin-pricks of life is called “endurance” or “forbearance”—Titeeksha. Everyone in his life manifests some amount of this endurance-power, of course, distorted into an ugly “capacity to suffer”. The average man’s patient endurance is a not-too-well-veiled expression of his cowardice and an inherent fear to act.

When one has not the strength, courage and capa¬city to face a threatening situation, one often ducks under this noble virtue for self-protection and self-glorification. If a mosquito bites a person he will smash the insect and kill it; but if an elephant in rut, running wild, stampeding everything in front of it, approaches, he will run for shelter and blabber the glories of mercy, kindness, and endu¬rance!! He but adds these few feathers to glorify his own cowardice! This is not Titeeksha.

Forbearance is the attitude of poise found only in a superhuman hero. Such a man will have in himself a much greater heroism than the total heroism of all the warriors put together. He is one who can face all happenings, all adversities, peacefully, with understanding and patience, without complaining, without trying to waste his energies either for defense or for offense. He suffers silently, knowing that in all challenges there is always in its depth, a treasure of spiritual blessings secretly hidden. To face all challenges in life, conducive or in conducive, without getting excited by them or dejec¬ted at them, without planning and plotting to outwit them is the right attitude of a spiritual seeker—and this needs supreme personality-courage.

Every experience of the world—gathered from a scheme of relationships with the objects, as experiencer and experienced—can only be in the end a sorrow. Sometimes, some such contacts may appear, to some people, as happiness; and even to these few happy people, these very same apparent joy-experiences become, in time, the tearful springs of their future sorrows. Yet, due to the mood of one’s own mind, at any given time, his present sorrows themselves appeared to him to be his joys in the past! To any intelligent observer of life it cannot be very far and involved a problem to recognize easily that even his joy-moments are also producing some inner ulcers that must bleed painful sorrows for him. Man, at least a vast majority of them, is found unfortu¬nate to have been born into a field of sorrows and priva¬tions. All of us strive to remedy all our unfortunate conditions, physical, mental and intellectual, by our own efforts, exertions, knowledge, might or wealth. This endless and constant “struggle” with unpleasant condi¬tions and environments, we call as our “miserable” life. Each unfortunate one strives as best as he knows to turn and twist, to modify and change, to reshape and beautify the nature and attitude of his outer circumstances, and also the behavior of other people, constituting his personal world around him. Can an individual do this? Even at his best moments of success how little he changes! And those changes, brought out at such an exorbitant price of exhausting personal efforts, how short lived they all become? All biographies and every page of human history scream with the story of man’s failure to stem the tide of sorrows, or even to redirect their tragic might away from him.

Thus when sorrows assail within from unpleasant circumstances around us, why add to our personal tragedy the tiresome sweat of initiating ineffectual weary plans to protest, to strike back, to defend, to circumvent, even to fight out ? Are we not thoughtlessly adding to our own problems? Why whip ourselves and feel and suffer the self-created extra dose of pains?
Action and reaction are equal and opposite. The strength of my resistance adds a fresh vigor to the poignancy of the situation outside. I admit, sir, that there are always endless personal problems and miseries, and each one of us is called upon to face them as best as we know. But is it worthwhile to add to our own problems?
Supposing someone is attacking you…. you may try to give hit for hit. This invites greater and greater efforts on the part of your enemy. Supposing we, rooted in our under¬standing, keep quiet, silently receiving the beating, yet not lifting our hands even to defend, all the while smiling Buddha-like to console the wild and really upset opponent
he must calm down himself. Against the non-violent army of Congress Volunteers even British Tommies sto¬pped swirling their cruel batons! In Vietnam we witnes¬sed how the American boys even refused to fight!!

To stay quiet, watching the immoral tyranny, needs more courage than to enter into the fray. For the Pandava Princes to remain in their chairs while Dussasana insulted Draupadi needed enormous heroism. For the innocent Jesus to carry the Cross and to meet the blind foolishness of his vengeful age and allow Himself to be nailed to the Cross, smiling and forgiving— this is superhuman heroism…THINK.

Titiksa is the capacity to endure all sorrows and sufferings without struggling for redress or for revenge, being always free from anxiety or lament over them.
Unless they had a hold on a large vision, a greater ideal, from where else would such noble men discover their superhuman courage outside and their unshakable poise within?

A seeker gains his clear vision of his high goal from the study of his scriptures. The Science of Life, given out in Vedanta, had been so long neglected that today the very children of the Rishis are total foreigners to it. This treasure of wisdom is being now sought by forei¬gners with great urgency and thirst. It is to spread these ideas among our own countrymen that CHINMAYA MISSION is striving. Yagna sessions are mass exposure of the youth to this reviving Truth of Life. Our regular study groups make seekers get involved in the study. Our Postal Lesson Course helps those who have no convenience to attend our regular weekly classes. Books have been prepared to explain the theme of the Upanishads and ideas in our Bhagavad Geeta to the modern-educated, scientifically oriented generation. Gain the true View of Life, and discover the fresh springs of heroism and courage in yourselves I!
Thus, to be vengeful is cowardice: not to be venge¬ful and to live in peaceful equipoise, even when the world around us threatens to deluge us with sorrows, is true heroism: the most attractive spiritual manliness. To meet life as it comes to us, with cheerful appetite, without any complaints, without wasting our energy to avoid sorrow or to punish others who brought our sorrows to us…to maintain our calm equipoise born out of a Higher Vision and deeper understanding, is Godly heroism in life.

One who has not this heroism will be wasting all his energies always in little fields of purposeless preoccupa¬tions. Exhausted and weary, with these endless little frays, there will be no more energy left for the greater battle of self-evolution. To make a deep study of the Science of Life, the Scriptures, to reflect upon their deepest significances, to meditate and realize the larger states of Awareness demands enormous energy and steady self-application. To a seeker, who has not cultiva¬ted forbearance, the ability to meekly suffer the little inconveniences and discomforts of life, it is evident now; there cannot be much progress in his Spiritual unfoldment.

During the organization of the Yagna and during its day-to day running let our Mission members learn to work together, with their vision fixed upon the ideal for which we are all working. Strive to bring in a true spirit of divine dedication. Use every occasion to practice Titeeksha. Forgive all others for everything. Bring selflessness into every action. Keep constant remembrance of Him, who is the vital Essence in your heart. Then every action becomes worship. Only the one with Titeeksha can so perform effectively.

Have you got dynamism? If you have got dynamism, what do you mean by the word dynamism? Is it character, is it intelligence, is it the energetic nature of an individual to get out and get things done in the world outside? What is it? Dynamism (Ojas in Sanskrit) is life that expresses through any organism. All dynamism drains away from an organism when it is dead.

The difference between the living and dead is the presence or absence of this factor called dynamism. By the term dynamism, we are not meaning a mere thought¬less brute force in you. There is dynamism in a living plant; there is dynamism in an animal. When a plant is dead all its vitality and dynamism ebbs away and it becomes inert. But the dynamism in a plant or animal is a natural explosion of life, given a chance. It is only man, because he has got an intelligence, who can intensify this dynamism. He can sustain the dynamism. He can apply dynamism. The poor plant or animal cannot give to it a direction, purposefulness. Plants and animals cannot achieve anything. Man can direct it, develop it, give it a direction, a purpose and thus bring out new factors of achievement in the world around. There is dynamism in all of us. The only thing is it may be more in one individual and less in the other*. If we know the art of stepping up this dynamism that is already in us, we can beam it forth into the era of history in which we live, and not only can we carve out our own achievements, but through the achievements of others we can enrich the society, the community, the country and the world itself. So, dynamism is the expression of life but life in every one of you is not a thing you cultivated.

Life is a gift; functioning through our equipments, our organisms, our physiological structures, our psychological equipments. There is a dynamism coming out and it is with this dynamism in the human personality that men can achieve great things. In the past they did, in the present they are doing and in the future they shall do. You become the greatest criminal in the world or the greatest saint or sage in the world; it is a matter whether you are scoring in the negative or positive fields of life. All achievements are gained by this dynamism. The entire history of man is this play of dynamism. If an Einstein carved out a niche for himself, if man has been able to land on the moon; all these great feats, achievements, industrial, technological, economic and political revolutions that we have done and achieved, new progress that we have gained, all achievements of culture, art, music are all the expression, stupendous expression of this dynamism. The genius is not the guy who has a large head, or a big belly, horns or a tail. But when we say that Dr. Radhakrishnan is a brilliant scholar, Tagore a great poet, what is that extra brilliance, that extra beauty in them. It is all their extra dynamism, in their chosen field of endeavor. So in each of us there is dynamism. The source of dynamism is a’ gift. We did not ask for it. It has just been given. With this dynamism each one of us achieves great things in the world for himself and for the society. The total dynamism of a generation makes the history of the nation or the world.

Where you will apply this dynamism will be chosen by each one of you. One may use it in economics; the other may use it in art and the third in science, the fourth in cultural or spiritual fields. The dynamic young man Narendra applied it is the spiritual field and out of it came Swami Vivekananda. A stupid guy will not use this dynamism in any field except destroying food and making it filth. This dynamism that is present in you young students today is mighty, and it is the secret path by which you will recreate your world for your future. It is not mine or of our generation. We belong to the old. It is time to plough us into the earth. It belongs to you. And today you know your world. Everything is in a crisis and in order to meet this crisis you need this dynamism. And this dynamism that expresses through you is divine and it is God-given strength and power in you to face life. In life there is always tension. If there were no tensions you would not have been in this plane of consciousness. When it becomes a challenge to your life it adds charm to your existence.

Newspapers today are always full of crises: population crisis, political crisis, food crisis. What is this crisis? There is a challenge around all of us. When I do not find any solution then the challenge itself becomes a crisis. Today the world is full of crises. Therefore, you need as no other generation has ever needed the maximum of this dynamism. This dynamism cannot come to you. The modern economics have no plan to develop this dy¬namism. It is inherent in human beings, the manpower in you. None of the known sciences can ensure or try to solve this problem, or even discuss it. It is only in spiritual science, in religious textbooks that we find this secret lies scattered—the Bible, Koran, Upanishads, Bhagawad Geeta etc. In these sacred textbooks you find the secret and it is now urgently needed because of the thick darkness, dark abyss. In this crisis the world is sinking along with you young students and it is for you to salvage the world, to create a better harmony and better system around you and live comfortably. So this dynamism, which is in all of you, how are we to cultivate it, to generate it. Generation alone is not sufficient; we should also learn to conserve it and apply it intelligently.

How can we generate this dynamism which is already there? It is not a thing you beg from others to give you. You have only to explore and exploit. How can we do it? Look at the life history of all great men in the past. In whatever field of activity you look one common thing you will find in all the biographies or autobiographies of great men who have achieved great things for themselves. In everyone you will find, to begin with they were common ordinary average children. They did not come in the monsoon, directly down and said, “Believe me children, I have got a solution for your problems”. They were born like ordinary babies. Mahatma Gandhi was not a great man till the late 20’s. He went to England to become a barrister-at-law. Anyone could go there to be¬come a barrister-at-law at that time. He would certainly not have been a successful lawyer. He had neither the stature nor the personality. He was a shy guy. But during the 1820’s when he visited Africa and then re¬turned to India he found for himself a goal and an ideal, the freedom of his country, the freedom for the millions in his nation. Once he had an ideal he stuck to it. So was the prince of Kapilavastu. He was so well protected by his family that he did not know till the age of 25 that there is disease and old age in this world. He did not know all this until he went for a spree in the evening drive and he saw things on the road. Then he started understanding them. Once he got to know these great problems he said he was going to find a solution to that, a goal and an ideal was before him. That is how Siddhartha came out as the great Buddha. Any mighty man’s life you read they were all born normal ordinary human beings. Some of them were even below average. But once they got the ideal, a goal, a purpose and an altar, they could draw endless enthusiasm and energy from that ideal and express it in their fields, chosen field of activities and not only have they carved out an altar of greatness in the world but also lifted the entire generation. It is a tragedy that our education does not give us a glimpse of our ideal. Our ideal is not big enough. Our ideal now is a comfortable life after education, i.e. to get a job; it must be a comfortable job, white collared job. A lot of pay and little work, and then marriage, preferably to a rich man’s only daughter. Then they can live comfortably. It is all. No other great vision, vision of your world or your community, your country, the world around. When your ideal is so low, your enthusiasm so low, how can you achieve great things. The higher the tank the greater the pressure. The higher is your ideal the greater is the inflow of the energy and vitality. When we are talking about that ideal, please do not get frightened that the ideal is too big and beyond your reach. If you can find an ideal which you cannot reach your problem is solved. Once you reach the ideal, things end from then onwards, decadence starts. Our entire ideal before independence was political freedom. We got independence in 1947. When we got independence, the goal was over. Everybody sat down, hanging on to chairs. Even now they are hanging on chairs. The glory is not in reaching the ideal; the beauty is in striving to reach the ideal. You may not reach the ideal. It does not matter. Keep up the ideal; that is what the Upanishads say. The ideal is spiritual unfoldment. Not everyone can reach it. Among thousands only some people come to know. It is not the goal which everybody can reach immediately. Do not be afraid by this philosophy that is going on now that realism is more important than idealism. The whole world has gone forward because of idealism. In this century, earlier, Karl Marx wrote his Das Kapital. Imagine yourself in those times when Russia was in the peak of imperialism. There was one man sitting in the libraries of London, writing a thesis on the power of the poor; poor can organize, everything belongs to the poor etc. His close friends never believed that his ideal will be accomplished. None at that time could believe his theory. Yet fifty years after the book is written today much of what has been written in the book has come to be accepted. Non-violence was the ideal of Mahatma Gandhi. He was laughed at by Patel and others. They were against this ideal of non-violence. But when he launched the movement they joined it, because there was that dynamism that was generated in the country and he did achieve his goal, that ideal. The ideal of today becomes the reality of tomorrow. So do not get the wonderful fear, a ghost like fear of being against idealism. To the dynamic and enthusiastic man idealism gives enthusiasm. What that ideal is not for me or anybody else to say. Each one must discover his own ideal. It is for you to make a decision about your ideal. It is for you to make a decision whether to become a painter, or scientist, musician or a glorious historian. You have to choose, you have to discover your inclination from it. Life is not smooth for everyone at any time. In the past it was not, in the present it is not and in the future it shall not. But through ups and downs in life,-we shall continuously discover courage, balance and equipoise to face all to reach our destination. Have faith in God and everything will be smooth. The ideal consoles, gives you extra energy, extra vitality or dynamism necessary to face the problem and you go forward. In Sanskrit there is a verse which says the dullest fool is he who never undertakes anything because even before he undertakes he knows that there will be problems. They will not start because they are expecting problems. Then there are mediocre people who will undertake anything. But the moment they see the first obstacle they return back home. The real men of achievement are people, the more the obstacles they meet the more vigorous they become in meeting them and they reach their destination. Let us have that consistency, self-reliance and enthusiasm and energy and that we generally gain from the goal from which all of us draw our inspiration.
Let us look back to a typical example of the recent past. What a dynamism and energy was generated in recent years in America. Einstein made his greatest discovery in the late 1930s. He was busy in the pursuit of this knowledge. On the other hand was Stalin of Russia who was wiping out a million and a half of his country¬men in the name of discipline, an ideal. It could not have been that such a learned man like Einstein did not know about it or heard about it. He must have read newspapers. At that time he was in Germany in late 1920’s. Disturbed by what he read in the newspapers if he had left the laboratory and took a flag and started doing “Inqualab Zindabad”, he could have easily gathered 20 others from the town and organized a procession registering his protest against Stalin and what he was doing. Had he done it, you and I could not have been justified in condemning him. The theory of relativity that he discovered thereafter, that there is energy in the atom which he discovered mathematically, we would have waited for it for perhaps another century. The world would not have achieved the landing of a man on the moon. The rocket would not have the thrust. Think. What a waste it would have been. In our country many of the potentially might-have-been scientists, artists and authors have become unemployed and are going about as local leaders because they have not discovered the dynamism in them. When we discover this energy, the vitality, this should not be dissipated in dissimilar channels. Our literature says live in tapas. Do not allow this enthusiasm and dyna¬mism to be dissipated through sense gratification. Learn to control it and economize on it. Conserve the vitality and use it for achieving a goal. It need not necessarily be religious and spiritual. It may be a material ideal, political view and economic theory, scientific ambition or cultural glory in itself but the goal is neces¬sary. He who discovers that ideal, he is going to be tomorrow’s man. Set your mind on an ideal, hook on to it, and thus inspired, discover and generate this dynamism.
(A talk delivered by Swamiji to college students at a spiritual camp organized by the Bhagawan Sri Satya Sai Seva Samiti in New Delhi)

In all religions of the world, we hear a lot about the necessity for the control of the mind. This seems to be the chorus in all the scriptures. Mind is its own thought-flow. Just as “water flowing continuously in a given direction” is a river, so too thought-flow is the mind. Just as the continuous flow of gallons of water gives us the magnitude of the river, thought flowing conti¬nuously from an individual towards the world-of-objects is the mind. Naturally, as the character of the river is the character of its waters, so, too, the mind is also conditioned by its own thoughts. If the water is clean, the river is clean. If the water’s flow is fast, the river is fast. The similarity is so complete that the same can be applied to the mind. The nature and behavior of thought in an individual bosom, at a given moment, must condition and define the type of mind the individual possesses at that time. Thus, if the thoughts are good, the mind is good. If the thoughts are agitated, the mind is agitated.

In short, in the makeup of an individual, we can say that “as the thought, so the mind; and, as the mind, so the man”.

Therefore, in case a seeker is demanding a total trans¬formation of his personality, and strives himself to become a god-man, it is necessary that he must tackle his mind and bring it under his control. To tame a river is to tame the flow of waters in it. Similarly, taming the mind constitutes a scheme with three definite programs. We have to change (a) the quality, (b) the quantity and (c) the direction of the thought-flow in us in order to fulfill the total transformation of our present personality composition and structure. This is the secret of our inner resurrection.

The quality of thought gushing in our mind will depend upon the type of objects that initiate or sustain the nature of thoughts within. Company of good books, noble men, dynamic aspiration, inspiring ideals should necessarily change the color of the thought-pattern entertained by the Sadhak in his bosom. In short, by surrendering himself to the Lord of his heart, by un¬broken remembrance of Him and His absolute virtues, supreme love, divine sense of justice, endless goodness, etc., the “quality of thought” in the devotee by associa¬tion becomes improved. In a word, devotion to the Lord, Bhakti, as the means by which the quality of thoughts gets improved.

A river that is flooded and flowing brimful at terrific velocity is not a phenomenon that can easily be con¬trolled, directed or ordered. In front of the irresistible flood it will sweep down all the human efforts to arrest it. For doing any work, in trimming or taming the river, we will have to wait until the flood subsides, similarly, the human mind will sweep down with its own flooded might all the individual’s insignificant attempts at con¬trolling or modifying it. The mind that is quietened alone is available for remolding.

Ordinarily, in almost all of us, the mind is in a constant state of dangerous floods. Thoughts gurgle down, thundering and roaring in their sweep into the world of objects, feelings and ideas. This state of flood is contri¬buted by three main streams which are the main sources of the river of thoughts. They are (a) shackling memories of the past-(b) benumbing fears of the future and (c) the freezing anxieties with the present changes taking place around. The past, the future and the present are the eternal peaks from which gurgle forth regrets, fears and anxieties which cause the flood in the mind. To control the three sources will be the secret process by which the dimension, velocity, force and the sweep of the flood in the mind are controlled.

Selfless dedicated activities undertaken as an offering at the altar of our ideals, in a spirit of surrender to the Lord of our heart, is the only available method by which we can save our mind from these disastrous floods. When there is an ideal then at its altar, we can surrender all our regrets of the past, all our fears of the future and our anxieties in the present, and when we work in the world, in a spirit of “dedication and surrender to Narayana”, the mind becomes peaceful and serene. And when this has become the habit of a Karma Yogin the personality of the selfless worker becomes tamed enough for remolding.

Thus, if the “quality of thoughts” is changed by follow¬ing the path of Devotion (Bhakti) and the “quantity of thoughts” is controlled by pursuing the Path of Dedi¬cated Action (Karma Yoga), then the “direction of thoughts” is changed by the pursuit of Knowledge (Gyana Yoga). To lift ourselves from our abject identification with our body, mind and intellect, and to end our individuality concept of ourselves, that we are mere perceivers, feelers, and thinkers, we seek to redirect our thoughts in the quest of the Infinite Self that expresses itself through these vehicles. Extrovertedness of the mind brings to it agitations, chaos and the thoughts gather a momentum at once furious and ferocious, in front of which the individual is swept clean and floated down in the direction of devolution, sorrow and animalism. The quest of the Source of all activities, the Presence of the Divinity in the bosom, is the changing of the direction of the thoughts, and in this state of introvertedness of the mind, the thoughts become quiet, peaceful and divinized.

From the above, a true seeker should not jump to the conclusion that these three processes are mutually excluding factors. Each is not separate from the others. To every one of them, the other two are complementary. In fact, quality cannot be changed without consciously or unconsciously changing the quantity and the direction of the thought flow. In fact, one in whom the quantity of thoughts has diminished, both the quality and direction of his thoughts are also changed. And unless the quality and quantity are modified, the direction of thought flow cannot be changed at all.

In short, the paths of Devotion (Bhakti), Action (Karma) and the Knowledge (Gyana) are to be practiced in syn¬thesis, although each student may take in one or the other of them as his main path, according to his subjective mental temperament. However, each intelligent student shall discover from himself that whatever be his main path, the other two cannot be totally eliminated from his program of self-evolution.

Since the triple program of changing the quality, quantity and direction is each so intrinsically inter-related with the other two, that the accomplishment of one is at once the fulfilment of the other two.

Apart from giving a glow of beauty to the individual performance in life, culture has a great purpose to fulfill in any community. It is culture which, in its loving embrace, holds the community into an intrinsic whole, lending to it a distinct identity, both in its thoughts and actions. Where this binding force is not, there the community has no strength or vitality. The individuals may be intelligent, rich, successful and morally good, but the community will have no purposeful strength, or a distinct personality of its own. In the dire competitive world if this united strength is not in a people, their day-to-day community is living away from its native soil, striving to make their career abroad on alien soil.

This becomes all the more imperative and urgent when community lacks guiding teachers, or consoling advisers from a trained team of priests to serve individuals as Counselors.

At this moment, the Indian Government is very much pre¬occupied with our endless national problems: political, economic and social. We should not expect them to provide any active vigilance over us to secure for us our rights and to protect us when we are threatened by the selfish desires of the nationals. Our Government cannot, as the foreign embassy of all other developed nations would, jump up to uphold our cause or to protest vigorously against ignoring our rights. We have to look after ourselves.

The problem becomes more acute when the members of the community, before they left their homeland, had not any thorough orientation in the cultural duties and spiri¬tual values, which are our heritage. A false, education generated in us a misguided reverence for science and technology and the material prosperity of the suffocat¬ing restless West, and we learnt to ignore the peaceful cheer and joy, mutual, concern and family integrity, which are the distinct beauties of the Hindu Culture.

Exiled thus from both the Western and Eastern values we have become a pseudo-group with no nationality to claim, no land to own, no tradition to respect, no culture to bind us. Certainly we are individually successful, pros¬perous and could command all the luxuries of life, but as a Community we are weak, disjointed, scattered and poor in vitality and power.

I am not of the opinion that we must insist upon having our food or our clothing or our language in the foreign lands. Certainly, we must learn to play their games in their fields—but not at the expense of our identity and proud individuality. Let us imitate, but not become; we cannot, and even if we do, they will not accept us fully—never. Let us be ourselves. We shall certainly command their respects. Let us live our values of intense family identity, foster our love for our children, develop their respect and reverence for their parents. Without excesses we must learn to live in self-control and family happiness. Let us learn our scriptures, understand some¬thing of our Hindu way-of-life, not so much for ourselves, but at least for the benefit of our children. Had they been in India they would have picked it all up from the very atmosphere around them—just as you had done it yourself. Here, in the country the air is so saturated with the perennial values of Vedanta that a person need not be taught, but an intelligent growing child can pick up the tradition by watching around. At the altar of personal profit and success we have every right to seek our fields of work and seek our fulfillment and achieve¬ment. But what right have we to create a bastard .generation out of our children, who are innocent. At best they may pick up all the vulgar tastes of an alien culture and grow up in a foreign land. Do you really believe that the American will accept you as an Ameri¬can? I am sure you are not such a foolish dreamer. And no intelligent man would expect the American to accept your children as their own.
Let us be honest. Today they need us, and so they res¬pect us. The day they no longer need us, will they have any hesitation to ask us to quit, or to make it impos¬sible for us to continue living there in self-respect? Remember, whatever is your achievement, and whatever is your contribution to that nation, or to the world of science, art or literature, you can be a full citizen only in your own country. Everywhere else you are but a third-rate citizen.

If the above has been well digested it becomes clear that we must have some methods by which we could impart our cultural touch to our growing children. How are we going to do it? The only method that is now available for us is to open up Halls of Prayers, where once a week you and your family can come round and meet other members of the community, in one common place, not for the purpose of mere socialization, but in an atmosphere of prayerful dedication to the Lord. For this we need an altar and an inspiring shelter, wherein our children can be taught to pray and to invoke. These Temples abroad must have more duties to perform than the Temples in India. Each Temple has to serve as a total schooling for the growing children to be Indian at heart. I am extremely glad that during my last year’s visit I had occasions to meet, discuss and intimately get involved myself in the plans and schemes that are being put forth in more than three centers in America where inspired men and women have felt the need, collected the funds and have decided to start a decent and beauti¬ful Temple-complex. Good. I congratulate all of them. But nowhere does the work proceed ahead—not because of the lack of enthusiasm, but only due to the absence of a guiding respectful Guru.
I am not using the word in its cheapest sense into which it has sunk today, in the American atmosphere of excesses. Even in India, mind you, Temples are built by the members of the Community, through a Temple-building Committee. But every such Temple Committee is fulfilling the wishes of a Guru or of an Acharya. The Guru accepts the plan, sanctions the administrative set up, decides upon the altar to be raised, and generally lays down the tradition to be followed by that DEVAS-THANA. He watches over its conduct and appoints one or two of his people into the Executive Committee to be his eyes and ears in the day-to-day affairs and conduct of the Temple.

If there is no such Preceptor to guide and give final decision in all points of controversy, an organization like a Temple, can never be successfully run. After all we are frail human beings. Our vanities may get tickled, our ego bruised, our honor questioned, or our prejudices excited! All these things must have happened, not necessarily because of any deliberate action from others, but we could misunderstand the intentions and motives of others, and build up tensions in our mind, which can burst to spill out horrible filth and ugly indecencies. It has happened everywhere, and don’t tell me it has not happened in U.S.A. It is not anybody’s fault. It is but human nature. The antidote for this calamitous commu¬nal problem is to have, for every one of such institutions a reverential personality, who has no personal interest in the individual institutions as such, and in whose bona-fides nobody has any doubt or suspicion.

If the New York Temple has come up, they respected and obeyed the wishes of Sri Shankaracharya. At Pittsburgh they respected and obeyed the advice and suggestions of Venkateswara Samsthana. I am quoting these only to show you that it is a general principle, which cannot be hastily ignored. Even in India a dozen or more Temples have been opened up during the last three years by either me or by Swami Dayananda. In all of them they had their respect and reverence for the Swamis and all of them are beautifully running at this moment.

Money, enthusiasm and spirit of service are needed for organizing such communal harbors, where the members of the community can come together and unwind them¬selves. When properly organized, I undertake that the Chinmaya Mission will be able to send each one of you a trained Brahmachari, who can take up classes in the Hindu Scriptures, for your little children (6-12) and young boys and girls (12-18). You will have to see that they get their Green Card for “religious work” (as Priests), and look after them, and perhaps, initially prepare for them, for a year or two, comfortable fields for their discourses.

As I said, money, enthusiasm and spirit of service are the limbs. But the very breath in the Temple Commit¬tees is to be their unequivocal and unanimous respect and reverence for the Acharya and their willingness to obey implicitly his wishes. Without this, Temples can¬not be built. Even if you build it, it will become, at best, only a Club run for holy purposes and unholy practices.

The pressure of demand, from the 12 million Indians, who are now successfully living outside India, has com¬pelled me to start a 10 acre Residential Campus in the salubrious climate of Coimbatore, South India, nestling at the foot of the Nilgiris, opposite to the University Campus there we have already started building the institution. In this Chinmaya Vidyalaya we propose ‘”to bring in American1 Teachers in sufficient numbers, to procure accreditation for our School with the American Educational system, so that, the Indian students both boys and girls, can be transferred from age 12 to 18 for their continued education in India. The parents will pay in dollars, the same fees that they pay for the children there, and the students will be with us these 6 years; at age 18, they will return to U.S. to join colleges there. During these 6 years we will allow them to go to America only twice (once in 3 years). In between, the parents can visit the children here. The School will be run for all the 12 months of the year, in as much as in the vacation time the students will be taken on Study Tours round the country, each year with a special theme ; Geography, History, Art, Architecture, Pilgrim Centers, etc. During every vacation, for 10 or 15 days, they will be made to live as guests in a lower-middle-class-family so that they will get a feel of the Hindu family traditions —the endless love that parents bear for their children, the extra-ordinary concern of all other members in the family, relatively poor but extremely cheerful people, the inordinate respect that the youngsters have towards the elders and the love that the children bear towards their parents, religious festivals, etc. Our foreign-born children will have a chance to experience all these.

It has not been very easy for me to organize this Cam¬pus. But I am doing it in order to avoid seeing a mongrel generation of Hindus being spawn all over the world as a by-product of intelligent Indians! In our youth we may think in terms of “International relation¬ships”, and allow our boys to marry foreign girls, and condone our girls marrying foreign men. We may appreciate such parents and their large heartedness, but we must condemn their lack of foresight to see what would happen to their children or your grandchildren.

I have been rather open hearted. Generally these are thoughts we never express so loudly, but only whisper among ourselves and secretly worry over them! I have spelt them out shamelessly, because the disease is growing rampant, and the diagnosis will have to be elaborate. It must be openly discussed and the remedy to be discovered—urgently, quickly. I have done my best. If you all co-operate I see clear possibilities of complete cure and a healthier future. Our children with a Western education and a touch of Indian culture can grow as ideal men and women, in that country, materi¬ally successful outside and spiritually peaceful within. You are welcome to think: “the Swamiji is wrong”; but I am sure; “the Swamiji is right”.