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“ We cannot get rid of the conviction that we can safely cheat our inner self of its claims, if we can but bribe some outside agency. This reliance on outward help is a symptom of slavishness, for no habit can more easily destroy all reliance on self. Only to such a country can come the charka as the emblem of her deliverance and the people dazed into obedience by some specious temptation go on turning their charka in the seclusion of their corners, dreaming all the while that the car of Swaraj of itself rolls onward in triumphal progress at every turn of their wheel. ”

“ One thing is certain, that the all-embracing poverty which has overwhelmed our country cannot be removed by working with our hands to the neglect of science. Nothing can be more undignified drudgery than that man’s knowing should stop dead and his doing go on for ever.
It was a great day for man when he discovered the wheel. The facility of motion thus given to inert matter enabled it to bear much of man’s burden. This was but right, for Matter is the true Sudra; while, with his dual existence in body and mind, Man is a Dwija. Man has to maintain both his inner and outer life. ”

“ Only those who feel that they have become inwardly small can be belittled by others, and the numbers of the higher castes have ever dominated over those of the lower, not because they have any accidental advantage of power, but because the latter are themselves humbly conscious of their dwarfed humanity. If the cultivation of science by Europe has any moral significance, it is in its rescue of man from outrage by nature, — not its use of man as a machine but its use of the machine to harness the forces of nature in man’s service. ”

“ For what could be a greater joy than to join hands in the field of work with one for whom one has such love and reverence? Nothing is more wonderful to me than Mahatmaji’s great moral personality, In him divine providence has given us a burning thunderbolt of shakti. May this shakti give power to India — not overwhelm her — that is my prayer! ”

“ It is God’s purpose that in the societies of man the various should be strung together into a garland of unity; while often the mortal providence of our public life, greedy for particular results, seeks to knead them all into a lump of uniformity. That is why we see in the concerns of this world so many identically-liveried, machine-made workers, so many marionettes pulled by the same string: and on the other hand, wherever the human spirit has not been reduced to the coldness of collapse, we also see perpetual rebelliousness against this mechanical mortar-pounded homogeneity. ”

“ If any true devotee of our motherland should be able to eradicate the poverty of only one of her villages, he will have given permanent wealth to the thirty-three crores of his countrymen. Those who are wont to measure truth by its size get only an outside view and fail to realise that each seed, in its tiny vital spark, brings divine authority to conquer the whole world. ”

“ From age to age, they have been assaulted by the strong, defrauded by the cunning and deluded by the gurus to whom their conscience was surrendered. Such a state of abject passivity has become easy because of the teaching that through an immutable decree of providence, they have been set adrift on the sea of Time, upon the raft of monotonous living death, burdened with a vocation that makes no allowance for variation in human nature. ”

“ Again, just as the present day politics is a manifestation of extreme individualism in nations, so is the process of gaining a livelihood an expression of the extreme selfishness of individuals. That is why man has descended to such depths of deceit and cruelty in his indiscriminate competition. And yet, since man is man, even in his business he ought to have cultivated his humanity rather than the powers of exploitation. In working for his livelihood he ought to have earned not only his daily bread, but also his eternal truth. ”

“ This imitation of the social scheme of ant-life makes very easy the performance of petty routine duties, but specially difficult the attainment of manhood’s estate. It imparts skill to the limbs of the man who is a bondsman, whose labour is drudgery; but it kills the mind of a man who is a doer, whose work is creation. So in India, during long ages past, we have the spectacle of only a repetition of that which has gone before. ”

“ As I am writing this, a friend objects that even though I may be right in thinking that the charka is not competent to bring us Swaraj, or remove the whole of our poverty, why ignore such virtues as it admittedly possesses? Every farmer, every householder, has a great deal of leisure left over after his ordinary work is done; so that if everyone would utilise such spare time in productive work much could be done towards the alleviation of our poverty. Why not glorify the charka as one of the instruments of such a desirable consummation? ”

“ The one is the complete ideal of perfection, the other is the process of movement, the ever-active power seeking fulfillment. When man attained touch with this moving shakti of Vishnu, he was liberated from that inertia which is the origin of all poverty. All divine power is infinite. Man has not yet come to the end of the power of the revolving wheel. So, if we are taught that in the pristine charka we have exhausted all the means of spinning thread, we shall not gain the full favour of Vishnu. ”

“ Can it then be today — when we have not one or two kings — but a veritable flood of them sweeping away our life-stuffs across the seas away from our motherland, causing it to lose both its fruits and its fertility, — can it be, I say, that the lack of sufficient thread prevents our stemming this current? Is it not rather our lack of vitality, our lack of union? ”

“ It leads us into no blind alley; for at every step it communes with our spirit. And so, it seemed to me, in its wake would come, not merely food, but the goddess of plenty herself, in whom all kinds of material food are established in an essential moral oneness. ”

“ Thus, whether in the shape of the spinning wheel, or the potter’s wheel, or the wheel of a vehicle, the wheel has rescued innumerable men from the Shudra’s estate and lightened their burdens. No wealth is greater than this lightening of man’s material burdens. This fact man has realised ever more and more, since the time when he turned his first wheel; for his wealth has thereupon gone on compounding itself in ever-increasing rotation, refusing to be confined to the limited advantage of the original charka. ”

“ The universal application of Pasteur’s law in the production of pickle has some similarity to the application of the principle of a co-operation method of livelihood in turning the spinning-wheel. It may produce enormous quantity of yarn, but the blind suppression of intellect which guards our poverty in its dark dungeon will remain inviolate. This narrow activity will shed light only upon one detached piece of fact keeping its great background of truth densely dark. ”

“ The cooperative principle tells us, in the field of man’s livelihood, that only when he arrives at his truth can he get rid of his poverty, — not by any external means. And the manhood of man is at length honoured by the enunciation of this principle. Co-operation is an ideal, not a mere system, and therefore it can give rise to innumerable methods of its application. ”

“ When we forget that science is spreading the domain of Vishnu’s chakra, those who have honoured the Discus-Bearer to better purpose will spread their dominion over us. If we are wilfully blind to the grand vision of whirling forces, which science has revealed, the charka will cease to have any message for us. ”

“ The burden of competitive armaments has been increasing apace, with no end to it in sight, no peace for the world in prospect.
When it becomes clear to man that in the co-operation of nations lies the true interest of each, — for man is established in mutuality — then only can politics become a field for true endeavour. ”

“ And therefore I am afraid of a blind faith on a very large scale in the charka, in the country, which is so liable to succumb to the lure of short cuts when pointed out by a personality about whose moral earnestness they can have no doubt.
Anyhow what I say is this. If, today, poverty has come upon our country, we should know that the root cause is complexly ramified and it dwells within ourselves. For the whole country to fall upon only one of its external symptoms with the application of one and the same remedy will not serve to fight the demon away. ”

“ If in any country we find no symptom of such rebellion, if we find its people submissively or contentedly prone on the dust, in dumb terror of some master’s bludgeon, or blind acceptance of some guru’s injunction, then indeed should we know that for such a country, in extremis, it is high time to mourn. ”

“ But is it a likely policy to reassure grown-up people by telling them that they will get their Swaraj, — that is to say, get rid of all poverty, in spite of their social habits that are a perpetual impediment and mental habits producing inertia of intellect and will — by simply twirling away with their hands? No. If we have to get rid of this poverty which is visible outside, it can only be done by rousing our inward forces of wisdom of fellowship and mutual trust which make for co-operation. ”

“ Then indeed it would have been difficult to withstand the extortions of its touts, despite the inner conviction of the travelers, that though the shore opposite may be one, its landing places are many and diversely situate.
Our shastras tell us that the divine shakti is many-sided so that a host of different factors operate in the work of creation. In death these merge into sameness; for chaos alone is uniform. God has given to man the same many-sided shakti for which reason the civilisation of his creation have their divine wealth of diversity. ”

“ But to call upon man to make the easiest of offerings to the smallest of gods is the greatest of insults to his manhood. To ask all the millions of our people to spin the charka is as bad as offering the tomato to Jagannath. I do hope and trust there are not thirty-three crores of Gopees in India. When man receives the call of the great to make some sacrifice, he is indeed exalted ”

“ As is livelihood for the individual, so is politics for a particular people, — a field for the exercise of their business instincts of patriotism. All this time, just as business has implied antagonism so has politics been concerned with the self-interest of a pugnacious nationalism. ”

“ I could understand how great the concrete truth was in any plane of life, the truth that in separation is bondage, in union is liberation. It has been said in the Upanishad that Brahma is reason, Brahma is spirit but Anna also is Brahma, which means that food also represents an eternal truth, and therefore through it we may arrive at a great realisation, if we travel along the true path. ”

“ This may be counted by many as sheer presumption on my part, they may even wax abusive; for swearing is a much needed relief for the feelings when even one stray fish happens to elude the all-embracing net. Still, I cannot help doing that there are others who are in the same plight as myself, — though it is difficult to find them all out. For even where hands are reluctant to work the spindle, mouths are all the more busy spinning its praises. ”

“ If a preacher should repeatedly and insistently urge that the drinking of water from any and every well is the cause of the degeneracy of our religion, then the chief objection to his teaching would be its tendency to debase the value of moral action as a factor in religion. No doubt there is the chance of some well or other containing impure water; impure water destroys health; a diseased body begets a diseased mind ”

“ It is certainly the largest field available to us; for here high and low, learned and ignorant, and all have their scope. If this field cease to be one of warfare, if there we can prove, that not competition, but cooperation is the real truth, then indeed we can reclaim from the hands of the Evil One an immense territory for the reign of peace and goodwill. It is important to remember, moreover, that this is the ground whereon our village communities had actually practised unity in the past. What if the thread of the old union has snapped? ”

“ And so it becomes necessary to restate afresh the old truth that the foundation of Swaraj cannot be based on any external conformity, but only on the internal union of hearts. If a great union is to be achieved, its field must be great likewise. But if, out of the whole field of economic endeavour, only one fractional portion be selected for special concentration thereon, then we may get home-spun thread, and even genuine khaddar, but we shall not have united, in the pursuit of one great complete purpose, the lives of our countrymen. ”

“ If the idea of the impurity of foreign textiles should effect a lodgement in our mind along with the numerous fixed ideas already there, in regard to the impurity of certain food and waters, the Id riots, to which we are accustomed, might pale before the sanguinary strife that may eventually be set ablaze between the so-called unclean lot who may use foreign cloth and those politically pure souls who do not. ”

“ And so we find that there are numbers of Hindus who would not hesitate even to kill a Mohammedan if he came to draw water from their own well. If the small be put on an equal footing with the big, it is not content to rest there, but needs must push its way higher up. That is how the injunction: “Thou shalt not drink dubious water” gets the better of the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”. There is no end to the perversions of value which have become habituated to their facile intrusion that no one is surprised to see the charka stalk the land, with uplifted club, in the garb of Swaraj itself. ”

“ But whatever our shastras may or may not have said, this popular conception of the Creator’s doing is the very opposite of what he really did do to man at the moment of his creation. Instead of furnishing him with an automatically revolving grindstone — God slipped into his constitution that most lively sprightly thing called Mind. ”