Issue 8.5 - Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

India has just emerged from the crisis brought about
in the name of religion. For some years, we have seen
religious emotions being exploited to suit political
ends, just as in the medieval times. We passed
through terrific times. We saw orgies of brutality
unknown in the darkest of ages; millions wandering
in search of safety. If religion is not to perish, it must
be completely isolated from power politics. I wish to
affirm two facts of the greatest moment in the
modern world which is going to pieces under the
influence of a materialistic interpretation of life.
First: Religion is the only means to save the human
race from moral and material destruction and when
due to fascistic control of life, moral values are
crumbling. It alone can preserve the dignity of human
personality by asserting its kinship with the Divine; it
alone can restore the framework of Moral Order
without which man has proved to be no better than a
brute why, much worse, much more dangerous
because of the power that science has placed in his
hands to achieve the collective murder of his race.
Second: The heart of all religions is one in spite of
difference of race, belief and origin of its founders
or followers; for, it lies in the fundamental
aspiration of men to outgrow all human limitations
till personality reaches out to perfection, which is
God. “Our heart is restless until it rests in thee”, did
St. Augustine embody, in beautiful words.
We are fallen on evil times. The worship of machines
has dimmed the vision of ages. Westernism, the
church of modern materialism, which Europe has
founded during the last century and a half has
undermined the faith of man in God and the Moral
Order Modern intellectual development,
emancipated from tradition and superstition, has
been drifting away from all forms of religion.
Old orthodox cults which upheld some form of
supernaturalism, have been losing their holds on
men. The old moral code based upon the belief in the
supernatural is breaking down. Our urban and
industrial civilisation, like an octopus, has spread its
tentacles in all spheres of life, and has been diverting
interest to secular pursuits unleavened by idealism.
Culture becoming secular has been foundering on
the problems of urban industrialism. We are denying
36 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Faith alone can
save the Human Race
ourselves the dynamic and constructive influence of
religion as an essential of social progress.
The lack of faith induced by the denial has brought
about the collapse of moral values. It has left an
emotional vacuum, dried up the reservoir from
which the strength essential to the growth of the
human personality was drawn for ages.
Our technical skill has no doubt developed
immensely but without the religious outlook we are
unable to struggle against the mass emotional
movements of which both Fascism and
Communism are sinister manifestations.
Such of us as have been carried away by the rush
of westernism all the world over, have become a
mad crowd breathlessly rushing forward to satisfy
an insatiate craving for lust and power.
In consequence the struggle for existence has become
bitter and intolerant. Deprived of religion, misery and
still more misery, wars and more devastating wars
appear to be the only prospect before us.
I am not a student of comparative religion; nor a
thorough student of the religion in which I believe.
But I know this: it is a conviction burnt into me; if
religion is not to perish it must be purified or
rituals and supernaturalism and become a vigorous
force for self-realisation in this life.
This it cannot achieve so long as it is identified with
a selfish yearning for a better Hereafter; till feeding
Brahmans, bathing in rivers’ and meaningless
prayers are believed to be passports for securing
comforts in heaven or in the next birth.
“I possess no supernatural powers and I want
none” said Gandhiji; and he was the most Godminded
among moderns.
Religion, as I conceive it, is the way by which man
can be more and more of himself every day he
follows it—here and now—in the hourly battles
which he has to wage in the world.
Shri Krishna did not ask Arjuna to attain selfrealisation
in the retirement of the forest or seek
heavenly reward by a life of privation. He told him to