When ignorance shrouds us in darkness and we stray from your path, O God—when the learned sink into falsehood and the common folk immerse themselves in emptiness and worldly pursuits—even then, grant us the strength to hold fast in faith to you! Teach us then to destroy our pride and arrogance, to show patience and fortitude. By your power and grace, may we keep the light of our faith luminous even within the darkness of those hard days, and may this faith, like a bright beacon through the tempestuous voyage of the world, stand firm and guide the vessel of our life at last to its own shore—this is the teaching we ask of you.
Grant us the strength to fulfill our daily tasks. Give us the patience to bear suffering and sorrow, and the sudden calamities that befall us. And grant us that faith which, when tested and tempted, fights against sin and wrong and emerges victorious, establishing peace and joy in the heart.
Restraint in all things is the foremost mark of devotion. Through this, all the limbs and members of a person's body remain healthy and strong; harmony is maintained among them, and an intimate connection is established between mind and body. Then a person can worship the God dwelling within with great ease. If the senses are held in check, this process requires no great hardship. The relation that moderation bears to the body, knowledge bears to the intellect in precisely the same way. Knowledge is intellectual devotion. Through knowledge, discipline is established in a person's intellect according to law; harmony is maintained among the various faculties of the mind, and their proper relationships with one another and with the whole are created. This knowledge itself is merely another name for intellectual power. Whatever subject this power is applied to and whatever process guides it, everywhere it is known by the name of knowledge.
Writers are learned in writing; philosophers, politicians, merchants—each is learned in their own field. Thus we may say that knowledge is merely the common faculty of the human mind. We often speak of the infinite power of learning. But the word "vidya"—learning—is truly used as a synonym for that general intellectual capacity by which a person seeks truth and can apply the truth thus gained to life itself.
Knowledge signifies two things: first, a selfless love for truth, which is also called intellectual devotion; second, the power to possess and use that truth. Truth is pursued in two ways—the particular and the general. Philosophers, writers, politicians, merchants, all manner of those engaged in work—each pursues particular truths in their own field in particular ways. And yet there are some who pursue what truth means in the general sense—truth that may or may not lie within the domain of their work.
The path to truth unfolds in two ways: first, through direct perception, truth may be grasped immediately with the aid of simple knowledge. Second, through the practice of reasoning, logic, and rational inquiry, truth may be apprehended with authentic authority. In both processes—perception and deliberation—there dwells a faculty for grasping truth in its particular and universal forms, and an disinterested attraction toward the truths so obtained. This is what is fundamentally meant by knowledge: these two capacities together.
Truth stands established in the world as the proper domain of human intellect. As the eye possesses the power of sight, and the objects we see are the objects of the eye, so too is truth—in its manifold forms—the object of human intellect. When one lives as a moderate being, adopting temperate ways and maintaining the body in good health, one gains three things: health, vigor, and beauty. Generally, by following bodily discipline and regimen, these three things are obtained; though in exceptional cases such favorable results may not come to pass. Yet these are but rare deviations from the common law itself.
If the people of any society or nation were to follow specific rules for physical development over a hundred years, and thereby keep their bodies sound, they would certainly gain renown throughout the world in matters of health, vigor, and beauty. Japan offers us an example: the average lifespan of its people exceeds that of many other nations. For this reason, the entire world has recognized the lifestyle of the Japanese as an exemplary model.
If a person follows certain fixed principles of intellect and adopts those natural means by which the mind unfolds and grows, then too can he become wise. At the same time, it becomes easy for him to acquire mental health, strength, and beauty. In exceptional cases this process may bear no fruit, but such instances are merely eternal exceptions to the general rule. In ancient times, the people of Greece were known as the finest in the world for intellectual excellence. Should any nation or community today follow the natural laws of intellectual development over a hundred years and adhere to the established disciplines of mind, they would surely be capable of attaining even greater mental health, power, and beauty than the Greeks possessed. Though the quality of their knowledge would not differ from that of the Greeks, yet people of the present age could draw ever closer to truth through the brilliance, strength, and beauty of intellect combined, and gain greater power to employ that truth. This is because, in the two thousand years since the death of Greece's greatest minds, humanity's civilization has undergone unprecedented advancement. The people of Israel are well known throughout the world as gifted and wise. The very process by which their children are reared—from birth through maturity, within family and society—has become an ideal model followed in many nations of the world.
The law by which mental development unfolds in individual or national life is as fixed and immutable as any other law of nature, and through its observance, certain definite results must inevitably be produced—whether in a particular person, a nation, or humanity as a whole. Though excellence may wear different faces across the ages, the path to excellence remains fundamentally constant through all times. What has been practiced through successive generations across the centuries never perishes. Only one way exists to destroy this journey toward excellence: the complete annihilation of the people themselves. History teaches us that when a superior nation comes into contact with an inferior one, the former's accumulated knowledge, customs, and values gradually fade and eventually vanish altogether. Then the common people of that nation begin to grow up in inferior habits of mind, and eventually, according to the law of heredity, nearly all come to possess that inferior character. The same truth holds for individuals. This is why it is far better to dwell alone than to spend time in inferior company.
Mental genius does not remain confined to any single family for long; we observe that two men of extraordinary talent bearing the same surname are exceedingly rare in history. Not multiple Buddhas were born in the Shakya clan, nor multiple Chaitanyas in the Misra family; Shakespeare, Einstein, Picasso, and other incomparable geniuses scarcely appeared in the same family, clan, or community. Yet a handful of exceptions exist—the Curies, the Braggs and Bohrs across father and son, or the lineage of Upendrakishore, Sukumar, and Satyajit Ray. Though the intellectual brilliance that once developed in these extraordinary individuals may vanish from their own families, clans, or communities, it does not vanish from human society. Though none of Tagore's sons, grandsons, or descendants became another Tagore, his genius nevertheless inspired and enriched countless other families. Similarly, the creative power of great minds rekindles and flowers anew in other families and lineages, even when absent from their own. Talent and soul never truly die.
Whatever talent unfolds in this world and whatever power and wealth are earned through it becomes, for all eternity, the inheritance not of any single family, but of all humankind. This truth holds across all ages. The knowledge that great souls gain today, even if it does not spread within their own family or lineage, will not perish when that family or line disappears; rather, it will grow more developed, enlarged, and mature when it takes root in other families in ages to come.
The knowledge of this present age, once added to humanity's spiritual treasury, will remain stored for the endless future—there for generations to come to draw upon and benefit from. This wealth of knowledge is precious; with the passage of time it will suffer no diminishment, and through various means of application and use, it will ever grow and flourish. And yet, most likely, no person of talent in our present age will be able to leave behind even a single child possessed of genius equal to their own. Still, after death, each great soul's greatness continues to serve and uplift future descendants and generations, becoming the common property of society—even though none of that lineage may possess comparable talent.