Chapter 8
You gain nothing by becoming cowards. Taking a step backward, you do not avoid any misfortune as cowards never win victories. So “making pleasure and misery the same, making success and defeat the same, do thou stand up and fight. If you die, you get to heaven; and if you win, you enjoy the earth.”
Prosperity lives in courage.
I never make plans, they make and work themselves. I do not want to talk without doing. I am not given much to talk about plans; I rather prefer to do and show, and then talk about my plans. I have my plans and mean to work them out if the Lord wills it, if life is given to me.
The greater a man has become, the fiercer ordeals he has had to pass through. Their lives have been tested true on the touchstone of practical life and only then they have been acknowledged great by the world. Those, who are faint-hearted and cowardly, sink their barks near the shore, frightened by the raging waves of the sea.
Even the unfavourableness of time and place can be successfully surmounted by the vigour and firmness of the individual. The strong man, even if he is thrown amidst the worst condition of place or time, overcomes them and affirms his own strength.
There are some who change according to time, but there are some who change the time itself.
Great undertakings are always fraught with many obstacles. It is the obstacles which knock and shape great characters.
In India, today, we suffer from weakness of heart, a sense of defeatism, purposelessness and want of direction. There are insuperable difficulties no doubt on our way but to the spirited and manful, these become no dampers but stimulus of enthusiasm. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
Every youth endowed with a heroic touch of soul will say to himself that this chaotic state of India is the best period for him to live; here is a chance for him to prove himself.
A crisis is the precursor of creation; better the creation if the persons involved are made of stern stuff.
Now we need the spirit of the pioneer which cannot be thwarted by obstacles, which no sea or mountains of difficulties can ever obstruct; the spirit which conquers all difficulties. He is like a sapper and miner in an army, building bridges, constructing roads so that the army can march from behind. This is the time when at least one generation must dedicate itself with the spirit that, “we shall face these difficulties and hardships but we shall see that a better world is left for our children to come”; a generation which will face all obstacles and difficulties, taking life as an adventure, never complaining, ever dedicated. It is such people who can create a new society, a new culture and a new civilization.
How can one who is defeated, give light and lead others to success? How can a flame flickering at every whiff of the breeze, illumine our path? It is only such a life, which stands like a rock, like a towering lighthouse, erect and undimmed, amidst all raging tempests and rains that can dispel the darkness, can guide the ship of our life to the shore of success.
Have you got the will to surmount mountain high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand; would you still dare to do what you think is right? If your wives and children are against you, if all your money goes, your name dies, your wealth vanishes, would you still stick to it? Would you still pursue it and go on steadily towards your goal? Then you are a true leader.
You are a master, a blessing to mankind if you are really sure that you can stand to your ideal even if the world wants to crush you down, if you are sure to perform your duties even if your life is at stake, if you are sure to persevere till your life endures.
Our immediate past generation has done great work for our national growth and development by struggling and sacrificing to create a wealth of ideas and institutions. They have achieved political freedom and given it a strong democratic political structure. Let this generation of ours thank them and strain ourselves to become worthier than them, to receive their cheers and godspeed. We have to go forward and complete the practical realization of the scheme of human progress that has been laid out by our ancestors.
It is against the big tree that the great wind strikes, poking a fire makes it burn better, a snake struck on the head raises its hood. So, more the opposition, the more the demon in me is roused.
Opposition to a righteous work initiated with moral courage will only awaken the moral power of the initiator the more. That which meets with no obstruction, no opposition, only takes man to the path of moral death. Struggle is the sign of life.
If there be real worth in you, the more are the circumstances against you, the more will the inner-power manifest itself.
If there is no substance within, no amount of outside help will avail anything.
The more the opposition, the better it is. The newer and better a thing is, the more opposition it will meet with at the outset. It is opposition which foretells success.
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. Each man who thinks ahead of his time is sure to be misunderstood.
Every work has to pass through these stages – indifference, ridicule, opposition and then acceptance.
If there is truth in any movement, people will sooner or later veer around it, then condemnation will be changed in praise, contempt in love.
Life is a cup of Tantalus, the more nobler is your heart the more must be your share of misery; know for certain. There is no room in this sordid world for you, for can a marble figure ever brook the blow that an iron mass can bear; but blessed it is to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
The accommodating man finds the path of roses, the non-accommodating one of thorns. But whereas the worshippers of ‘vox populi’ go to annihilation in a moment, the children of truth live for ever.