Intellectual Content
By Karmayogi
Friends World College
in New York was a college with a new ideal started by the Quakers. Some twenty
years ago it was in trouble. Its President was a Quaker and a Vice-President of
the American Management Association. The President invited us to help the
management of the college with some useful ideas. When their brochure arrived
in Pondicherry, friends here
exclaimed that their office and other places needed a good dose of cleaning. Some
Americans took exception to that statement on the plea that American business
premises were always spotlessly clean. They had no idea of our standard of
cleaning. One of our members visited New York and met their
President. He was surprised that we could write so many suggestions just by
seeing the brochure. He particularly asked, ‘‘How could you know
the place was dirty?''
When organisations fail, they move away from their original Ideals. Friends World College moved away from its
founding ideals and ran into financial trouble. A company that runs into
financial trouble cannot be clean, as cleanliness goes with Prosperity. If it
does so, in spite of being clean, its roots in poverty must be deeper than
usual. Usually there will be betrayal of the original values. National and
international movements generally start with an idea. It becomes the Ideal. As
days pass, the practical dominates and the ideal goes to the background. The
Indian National Congress started as an organsation that pleaded for good
government. She espoused complete independence, purna swaraj, very late around
1930. As early as 1904, Sri Aurobindo declared that to be its ideal. But the
organisation took a long time to officially accept it. As soon as independence
arrived, CONGRESS found itself without what can be called intellectual content.
Its absence was filled by careerism and later corruption.
To constantly renew the intellectual content of a movement is to renew its
vigour. Had Congress defined what it meant by Prosperity and how it was going
to achieve it, she would not have deteriorated within thirty or forty years
after Independence. Nehru tried his best. He was the one among the
world leaders who theoretically appreciated what development was. He told IAS
trainees that DEVELOPMENT is
development of consciousness in the people. He was unable to translate it into
a plan of action, as at that time the world had no clear idea of the theory of
development. Even now it is mostly missing. Any movement, national or
international, will do well to fill its life with the needed intellectual
content when it finds itself on a downward turn. That organisation will become
dynamic if that content goes with a plan of action. Anyone who thinks of
filling his life with both will see the SPIRIT moving towards him without his
invoking it.