LETTERS FROM ABROAD
in me, which is urging me constantly to leave these shores. Yet the organiser in me is claiming the best sacrifice of my life and getting it.
My anxiety is growing stronger every day lest we should lose the least fraction of our independence or naturalness at Santiniketan, lest our responsibility to some dead cash interest, consciously or unconsciously, should lessen our responsibility to the living ideal, All real creations must have freedom for their growth. You can never make truth serve you, fettered like a galley slave. Whenever we receive material help from others, we acknowledge at the same time their expectation. Such expectation is a tyrant, imposing on us a tacit obligation to satisfy it. But all creative Work is jealous of its right of spontaneity; so much so, that the artist himself must not be overconscious of his plan.
Our Shantiniketan has never followed any conscious plan of ours, but has followed its own inner life process. This freedom of vital function is far more valuable than external resources. Truth never condescends to tempt us with allurements. She dwells silent in her majesty of sublime simplicity. It is untruth which tries to decoy us with extravagance of materials. I earnestly wish we had power to create a tapovana, a forest ashram, rather than to build up a University. But unfortunately, money though scarce may be available. But where is tapasya?
