endeavour if we are to gain Swaraj. In the very next sentence he asks us “not to cherish the dream that Swaraj can be ours by some extraneous happening.” “It can be ours” the Poet adds “in so far as we succeed in permeating our consciousness throughout the country by service”.
He tells us also how to attain unity. “We could attain unity only through work.” That is what the inmates of the Abhoy Ashram are actually doing. For through their spinning they are helping Hindus, Mussalmans, in fact everybody, who needs help through that source. They are teaching untouchable boys and girls through their school and through it teach them to spin also. Through their Dispensary they are giving relief to the ailing irrespective of race or religion. They need to preach no sermon on unity. They live it. This work inspires the Poet and he therefore proceeds to say:
“Life is an organic whole. It is the spirit that after all matters. It is not a fact that there is lack of strength in our arms. The fact is that our mind has not been awakened. Our greatest fight here therefore is that against mental lethargy. The village is a living entity. You cannot neglect any one department of its life without injuring the other. We are to realise today the soul of our country as a great indivisible whole and likewise all our disabilities and miseries as one inter-related whole.”
Referring to our failure, the Poet truly says: “Man’s creation can be beautiful in so far as he has given himself to his work. The reason why our enterprises in this country fail so often is that we give only a portion of ourselves to the cause dear to our heart. We give with the right hand to steal back with the left.”
