Your letters are like weekly wages to me, which I rightly earn by what I am doing here for your sake. But you must know that the idea which has drawn us round Santiniketan is not a static one. It is growing, and we must keep up with it. When I left you to start for Europe, I was labouring under the delusion that my mission was to build an Indian University in which Indian cultures would be represented in all their variety. But when I came to continental Europe and fully realised that I had been accepted by the Western people, as one of themselves, I realised that my mission was the mission of the present age. It was to make the meeting of the East and West fruitful in truth. I felt that the call of Santiniketan was the invitation of India to the rest of the world. A picture needs its background for its meaning. The idea is great. I accept it. I fully believe in it; it is leading me on in an unknown path.
Yet how ludicrously small we are! The petty complications of our daily life, how insignificant and yet how obstructive! We have our path across the mountains, but rubbish heaps made of daily refuse of life, lying scattered on our path, cause trouble and delay and produce fatigue.
But the sun is shining overhead, and God’s blessing is in my heart; the call is clear and help is waiting by the roadside.