SHAKE OFF THE DELUSION AND STAND FREE, O YOUTH OF MY MOTHERLAND

Let our men manifest a modicum of manliness in manner and strength in the stance adopted in life. Let them not turn into bad copies of women. Ill doth it befit men to behave like sentimental sissies at a time when the nation is on the move and a manifestation of masculinity is the dire need of the hour instead of weeping over poetic lines of romance or ruminating lilting lullabies. The Upanishads speak of superior valour and virtue whereby the senses may be subdued and such thunderous roar of the Vedanta must send forth a current of strength through the populace instead of silly sentimental pseudo-poetic propensities ruining the fibre of the youth in their early years of superior efflorescence when conquest of the lower elements ought to be their prime priority and not indulgence in the attributes that foster weakness of the mind and lead to debilitation of character.

                                   

The elements conspire to keep our youth enmeshed in Maya and to this effect great writers and poets, artists and musicians, all play their respective roles. Themselves bound, these performers of the finer arts, these wizards with the word, bind their audience, their readers, fast unto this death-trap called life and will not release them easy, for such is the structure of the field of tamas and rajas. The network of Maya is so laid that the intoxication holds the victim till he lies stretched on the pyre for his final consigning to the flames of desire whence he shall spring to freshen his venture on earth and pursue his terrestrial dreams. It is here that the Upanishads strike the deathblow to death and go about destroying the least vestige of Maya that hinders the progress of the soul.

The geniuses who we follow, be they in the field of art or literature or music, all have been bound souls who themselves could not extricate themselves in their lifetimes, yet, in attempting to teach others led the nation to the ruin of ultra-hypnotism from which it is yet to recover. To counter this the divine incarnation and his apostolic entourage spread vibrations of sattva whereby the latent consciousness of man is quickened. These two tendencies are at work in society today as India rises to her feet. It is for the youth to take up this latter illumined current of thought instead of succumbing to the paralysing thoughts of soft romance preached in however poetic a manner it may be.

The youth must also be wary of the false Gurus who for decades have spread out their web of pseudo-spiritual weakness which has only cast their followers into deeper pitfalls of Maya than where they would otherwise have found themselves in were they not to be so duped by these charlatans, brilliant and downright roguish, both. Spirituality is not easily come by and to be led by escapists and runaways, poets and politicians, downright charlatans and rogues, into the discipline of the yogic sciences is harakiri of a horrendous kind. Mere frothy talk is not religion nor is pseudo-intellectualism the progenitor of some fantastic holistic philosophy which can deliver the blind from the corridor of darkness to the illumined realm of eventual sunshine. The blind may only lead the blind into darkness, so say the Upanishds. The true Guru is one who is devoid of all such pretence of superior knowledge and, armed in Self-knowledge, is the only one who can lead the disciple from darkness unto light. Such a one does not put on pretensions nor does he live in ultra-secrecy or in fear of captivity nor does he desert his duty to flee his country and seek refuge elsewhere to preach in peaceful seclusion after having ignited the flame of revolution in others and lent them to the gallows to die. Such a deserter can never hope to realise God nor guide any ever beyond confusing minds with fantastic philosophies inconsonant with reality. The youth must be wary of all such as they wend their way through the thoroughfare of life toward the end of character-formation and Self-realisation.

The stage is then set for the battle royal. On one side are lined up the forces of freedom and on the other are gathered the elements with their fetters, ready to hold the soul captive in his moment of least laxity. Maya's machinations are subtle and deceive the ordinary man. It is well-bedecked as it dupes, nobly attired as it attracts one to one's eventual doom and works unobtrusively in the most modest manner to molest the victim unawares. The poison these poets and politicians, artists and musicians, dancers and 'deliverers' inject into the bloodstream of the masses i worse than the most grotesque sensuality which degrades but for a while but then releases the victim of its thraldom. Not these mahatmas and gurudevs, these rishis and babas, these pandits and poets who infuse their toxins into the nervous system in a manner that generations pass before humanity is able to throw off the foul influence and once more set out on the bold path of spiritual freedom. It is the work of the real incarnation of God as opposed to pretenders to such altitude that finally delivers these hapless souls from their hypnosis and awakens in them the strength to counter similar hypnosis in others. The age-old tussle is, thus, between the seers of truth and the pretenders to such vision and their consequent influence on the people. The youth must heed this well and only follow the genuine illumined soul and not any poet or politician or self-proclaimed godman, nor should they emulate sense-slaves such as film-stars and their kinsmen in the line of entertainment and extravaganza. 

And yet this tendency towards effeminacy, this exhibition of linguistic weakness, this ultra-sensitivity to personal hurt so very characteristic of the ultra-selfish person, this slavish aping of all that is degenerate in western culture and the inability to absorb the brightest and the robust elements of world culture, this love of ease and clinging to sense pleasure, this inability to keep the spine straight in the reading of prose or the recitation of poetry, this mass mediocrity masquerading as marvel, this ever seeking the limelight to promote one’s own self, all these must go if this nation is to stand erect on the shoulders of men and women worth the salt. To that distant aspiration --- for it is doubtful whether the mahatmas and the gurudevs and the rishis and the babas will deliver a quick release of these young men and women from their clutches --- I send these lines tonight. They will waft through the starry skies, O youth of today and the morrow, to welcome you with the light.