When I sent my appeal for an International Institution to the western people I made use of the word ‘University’ for the sake of convenience. But that word has not only an inner meaning, but also an outer association in the minds of those who use it; and that fact tortures my idea into its own rigid shape. It is unfortunate.
I should not allow my idea to be pinned to a word for a foreign museum, like a dead butterfly. It must be known, not by a deposition, but by its own life growth.
I saved my Santiniketan School from being trampled into smoothness by the steam roller of the Education Department. My school is poor in resources and equipment, but it has the wealth of truth in it, which no money can ever buy; and I am proud of the fact that it is not a machine-made article perfectly modelled in a work-shop—it is our very own.
If we must have a University, it should spring from our own life and be maintained by our own life. Someone may say that such freedom is dangerous, and that a machine will help to lessen our personal responsibility and make things easy for us. Yes! Life has its risks, and freedom has its responsibility; and yet they are preferable on account of their own immense value, and not for any other ulterior results.
So long I have been able to retain my perfect independence and self-respect because I had faith in my own resources and proudly worked within their sovereign limits. My bird must still retain its freedom of wings and not be tamed into a sumptuous nonentity by any controlling agency outside its own living organism. I know that the idea of an International University is complex, but I must make it simple in my own way. I shall be content if it attracts round it men who have neither name nor fame nor worldly means, but who have the mind and the faith; who are to create a great future with their dreams.
Very likely, I shall never be able to work with a Board of Trustees, influential and highly respectable—for I am vagabond at heart. But the powerful people of the world, the lords of the earth, make it difficult for me to carry out my work. I know it, and I have had experience of it in connexion with Santiniketan. But I am not afraid of failure. I am only afraid of being tempted away from truth, in pursuit of success. The temptation assaults me occasionally; but it comes from the outside atmosphere. My own abiding faith is in life and light and freedom. And my prayer is: “Lead me from the unreal to Truth.”
This letter of mine is to let you know that I free myself from the bondage of help, and go back to join the great ‘Brotherhood of the Tramps,’ who seem helpless, but are recruited by God for His own army. *