My lecture arrangements at this moment are like a derelict ship floating without crew or captain. Fortunately for me, the most important part of my programme this time is to come into touch with individuals who are likely to be of help to me. If I am carried away by my engagements too fast and too far from the centres where my friends are working, then that will be a hindrance rather than a help. Things are working well, and I have cause to be sanguine of success—and yet I must not allow the lure of a possible success to dominate my imagination too strongly. I must maintain my utmost faith in the idea itself and the power of truth in our own personality. The gravitation of outward success has such a tremendous pull upon our mind that it is difficult to resist it, especially in an environment where success has the most prominent throne assigned to it; by the amount of whose favour the value of our ideals is judged.
That success may be defilement, and failure may be the fire of purification, through which our aspiration has to reach its goal of truth, is extremely hard to believe where success has built her towers so high that the lights of the sky are obscured.
A friend of mine, who is actively interested in my cause, is a Quaker, and he takes me every Sunday morning to the Quakers’ meetings. There, in the silence of meditation, I am able to find the eternal perspective of truth, where the vision of outward success dwindles away to its infinitesimal minuteness. What is needed of me is sacrifice. Our payment is for success, our sacrifice is for truth. If the spirit of my sacrifice is pure in quality, then its reward will be more than can be counted and proved. And let my gift to my country and to the world be a life of sacrifice.
But my earnest request to you is to keep your minds high above politics. The problem of this new age is to help to build the world anew. Let us accept that great task. Santiniketan is to make accommodation for the workers from all parts of the world. All other works can wait. We must make room for Man, the guest of this age, and let not the Nation obstruct his path. I am afraid lest the cry of our own sufferings and humiliations should drown the announcement of His coming. For His sake we shall set aside our grievances and shall say that, whatever may happen to us, let His cause triumph; for the future is His.