A LENGHTY ANSWER TO NILANJANA CHAKRABORTY

A LENGHTY ANSWER TO NILANJANA CHAKRABORTY

Nilanjana Chakraborty : Sir, is there any country which is spiritually strong?

Sugata Bose

: China is. It is lifting its population out of erstwhile chaos through the consistent pursuance of a robust policy of national reconstruction. Spirituality in absolute terms it may not be but in terms of manifested human strength where the best of an earlier impoverished and devastated state is being brought out through effective action, it deserves the epithet of a broader spirituality. That China in the process denies freedom to its citizens and forcefully occupies Tibet and parts of India is regrettable and not quite spiritual but, as I said earlier, in a world of imperfection China has shown the world what manifestation of human strength, the activation of the human will, its coordination and coursing to a desired end can achieve, and this must be deemed spiritual, if even in not so definitive terms, philosophically speaking, but in evolutionary terms for humanity for sure.

One more thing. China's sense of national honour is definitely the finest feature of its spirituality. China has not forgotten the colonial repression and depredation it underwent at the hands of the European powers, especially the British, and it has not forgiven the oppressor for it. In China it is an integral element of their academic curriculum to study this oppression and students are drilled in with nationalistic self-respect and an abhorrence of the Western powers for their dastardly deeds against the motherland. China neither forgets nor does she forgive. And this sense of self-respect, an awaking to one's survival interests and a rising to one's defence and, if possible, settling the score even, if even in the long run, is definitely to be deemed spiritual in terms of manifested strength, for all strength ultimately powers out of the Atman which is the repository of all power.

Swamiji had prophesied the rise of China long back and China remembers Bian Xifashi (Swami Vivekananda in Chinese) with gratitude for it. Swamiji had said that he saw China as an elephant giving birth to a lion cub, and the cub would grow in time and gain in strength. This prophesy of Swamiji has endeared him to the Chinese and they eagerly study his works in their respective departments in their universities. Swamiji's works have been partially translated into the Chinese language.

You see, Nilanjana, we have a very constricted idea of spirituality owing to our cultural decadence where the martial spirit that China exhibits -- in fractured and flawed terms no doubt and, therefore in refracted aberration -- is not deemed spiritual, and, yet, we keep on verbally upholding the idea that manifestation of kshatriya valour is spiritual. Well, China in its recent history post revolution may not exactly have been in the mould of the classical spiritual culture but that is only a surface vision of the subterranean features of the grand civilisation brewing within which at no distant date will burst forth to its spiritual fruition no doubt. And to that effect China will take the leading from spiritual India. I mean spiritual India and not its decadent common aberration in vogue among the urban elite and the middle classes. Perhaps, rural India, as yet, has something in tangible terms to offer to China. Godspeed unto that day of glorious spiritual fraternity between India and China, the two arms of a united Asia in continental self-assurance and rise ! May Japan join in, too, to complete the trinity of this Asiatic resurgence !

Written by

Sugata Bose