What is in our hands?

 

A group of students were asked to write an essay on the incident of Jesus turning water into wine.

While all others were busy filling up their papers, one student was just enjoying himself without writing anything. Just as the invigilator was taking back the papers, he scribbled just one line and gave it to him. That paper was adjudged as the best.

He had written, “The water met its Master, and blushed”.

The student was Byron.

#SwamiRamaTirtha, cites the above instance, in a lecture delivered on 20th December 1902 at San Francisco.

 

I was instantaneously reminded about the following poem of #Tagore (in #Fruitgathering):

    “No: it is not yours to open buds into blossoms.
    Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom.
    Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust.
    But no colours appear, and no perfume.
    Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into a blossom.
    He who can open the bud does it so simply.
    He gives it a glance, and the life-sap stirs through its veins.
    At his breath the flower spreads its wings and flutters in the wind.
    Colours flush out like heart-longings, the perfume betrays a sweet secret.
    He who can open the bud does it so simply.”

 

#Jesus himself had said, “Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.” Matthew 5:36)

 

Dr. B.R. #Ambedkar, discusses the above problem with regard to Social requirements, in his lecture on #Ranade, #Gandhi and #Jinnah, delivered on 18th January 1943.

He says: 

    “There are those who assert that however great a man may be, he is a creature of Time-Time called him forth. Time did everything, he did nothing. Those who hold this view, in my judgment, wrongly interpret history. There have been three different views on the causes of historical changes. We have had the Augustinian theory of history, according to which history is only an unfolding of a divine plan in which mankind is to continue through war and suffering until that divine plan is completed at the day of judgment. There is the view of Buckle who held that history was made by Geography and Physics. Karl Marx propounded a third view. According to him history was the result of economic forces. None of these three would admit that history is the biography of great men. Indeed they deny man any place in the making of history. No one except theologians accepts the Augustinian theory of history. As to Buckle and Marx, while there is truth in what they say, their views do not represent the whole truth. They are quite wrong in holding that impersonal forces are everything and that man is no factor in the making of history. That impersonal forces are a determining factor cannot be denied. But that the effect of impersonal forces depends on man must also be admitted. Flint may not exist everywhere. But where it does exist, it needs man to strike flint against flint to make fire. Seeds may not be found everywhere. But where they do exist, it needs man to ground it to powder and make it a delectable and nutritious paste and thereby lay the foundation of agriculture. There are many areas devoid of metals. But where they do exist, it needs a man to make instruments and machines which are the basis of civilization and culture. 

    Take the case of social forces. Various tragic situations arise. One such situation is of the type described by Thayer in his biography of Theodore Roosevelt when he says : 

    “There comes a time in every sect, party or institution when it stops growing, its arteries harden, its         young men see no visions, its old men dream no dreams ; it lives on the past and desperately tries to       perpetuate the past. In politics when this process of petrifaction is reached we call it Bourbonism         and the sure sign of the Bourbon is that, being unconscious that he is the victim of sclerosis, he sees     no reason for seeking a cure. Unable to adjust himself to changed and new conditions he falls back i       into the past as an old man drops into his worm-out arm-chair.” 

    The other kind of situation is not one of decay but of destruction. The possibilities of it are always present whenever there is a crisis. The old ways, old habits and old thoughts fail to lift society and lead it on. Unless new ones are found there is no possibility of survival. No society has a smooth sailing. There are periods of decay and possibilities of destruction through which every society has to pass. Some survive, some are destroyed, and some undergo stagnation and decay. Why does this happen? What is the reason that some survive ? Carlyle has furnished an answer. He puts in his characteristic way: 

    “No time need have gone to ruin, could it have found a great enough, a man wise and good enough;     Wisdom to discern truly what the Time wanted, valour to lead it on to the right road thither, these are     the salvation of any Time.” 

    This seems to me to be quite a conclusive answer to those who deny man any place in the making of history. The crisis can be met by the discovery of a new way. Where there is no new way found, society goes under. Time may suggest possible new ways. But to step on the right one is not the work of Time. It is the work of man. Man therefore is a factor in the making of history and that environmental forces whether impersonal or social if they are the first are not the last things."


The question that arises is that, though it is essential that a seed that is sown has to be watered, which is it that decides which of the seeds would be watered and even if so watered, which of them would survive, how long and bear fruits.

The eternal question of challenge and response propounded by #ArnoldToynbee remains.  It is like Dr. Ambedkar said, for Man to respond.