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Passing Thoughts Volume I – Feb. 26, 1910 – No. 34 Great Consequences
The events that sway the world are often the results of trivial circumstances. When immense changes and irresistible movements are in progress, it is astonishing how a single event, often a chance event, will lead to a train of circumstances that alter the face of a country or the world. At such times a slight turn this way or that produces results out of all proportion to the cause. It is on such occasions that we feel most vividly the reality of a Power which disposes of events and defeats the calculations of men. The end of many things is brought about by the sudden act of a single individual. A world vanishes, another is created almost at a touch. Certainty disappears and we begin to realise what the pralaya of the Hindus, the passage from one age to another, really means and how true is the idea that it is by rapid transitions long-prepared changes are induced. Such a change now impends all over the world, and in almost all countries events are happening, the final results of which the actors do not foresee. Small incidents pass across the surface of great countries and some of them pass and are forgotten, others precipitate the future. In England, in Prussia, in Greece, still more in Turkey, Persia and China a slight movement of one or two men may be sufficient at the present moment to alter the destinies of the country.
The assassination of Boutros Pasha in Egypt has the chance of being one of these momentous events. In itself it is an incident which has happened in many countries without disturbing the march of ordinary events. The lives of rulers are always open to this peril from the fanatic, the personal enemy with a grudge, the
Page – 406 crank or the lunatic. In England itself the lives of ruling men or princes have been taken or attempted. But these are not ordinary times and Egypt is not in a normal condition. Hitherto the Egyptian question has not been acute. There is a strong Nationalist sentiment which grows with time, the Denshawi incident has left wounds behind, but, beyond the mere fact of the presence of the foreigner, there seems to be no specific grievance which could give intensity of feeling or a formidable shape to the vague discontent and the perfectly natural general aspiration. If the virtual ruler of Egypt is well advised, the act of a solitary assassin need not provide anything but a few days’ unhealthy excitement — it need not be the spark in the power magazine. But if Sir Eldon Gorst allows himself to be swayed into providing the Egyptian with specific causes of discontent, he may succeed in adding an Egyptian difficulty to the permanent burdens of England. The mind of rulers at such seasons are moved rather by impulses beyond their control than by that calm thought which would guide them in ordinary times. We know what Lord Cromer would have done; it is to be seen what a higher Power impels Sir Eldon Gorst to do; for on the reception of an event and not on the event itself its consequences depend.
Conversely, at such times great preparations, at least in the initial stages of the change, lead to nothing or very little. Pompous associations, largely attended conferences, earnest and careful deliberations all end in smoke; they vanish, leaving no trace behind. This is largely because these great preparations either take their stand on the chimaera that the past can be restored, or they anchor themselves on the permanency of present conditions. But in these periods things move so rapidly that yesterday’s conditions entirely disappear today and today’s have no surety of being in existence tomorrow. Under such circumstances the rule of the Gita becomes almost a necessity, to do one’s duty according to one’s lights and leave the results to God. For, when we attempt to gaze into the immediate future, the one
Page – 407 comment that suggests itself is in the Homeric phrase,
"These things lie on the knees of the Gods."
Revelation is a thing Religion powerfully asserts, Science as powerfully denies. According to our ideas in this country, man has a faculty, latent in him but easily developed through the various means grouped under the expression Sadhana, by which he is able to see spiritually and get the revelation of things not discernible by the reason. Srijut Krishna Kumar Mitra in relating his spiritual experiences in Agra jail dwelt on the revelation of the omnipresent and merciful God which was continually with him in his imprisonment. He had what we call the pratyaksa darśan. This is a thing the possibility of which our wise men trained in European enlightenment think it a very intellectual thing to deny. On a similar occasion the Indian Social Reformer sneered at the experience, declared that God reveals Himself only in His laws and, if we remember right, scoffed at the idea of such a revelation being given in such an inappropriate, disreputable and uncomfortable place as a jail. It is curious at least that not one but many should have had this experience recently in precisely similar circumstances and that the various experiences should have been expressed in almost exactly the same terms. After all, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. Our own belief is that the motions of the world are travelling towards a signal refutation of the atheistic and agnostic attitudes and that India is the place selected for the revelation. It is for this reason that these experiences are becoming so frequent in men who are rather men of action than what is generally known as purely religious men, that is to say, who seek God in life and the service of men and not merely in the closet and the Ashram. A new religion summing up and correcting the old, a religion based not on dogma but on direct knowledge and experience, is the need of the age, and it is only India that can give it to the world.
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