… Let me now say just a word or two about India’s Spiritual Destiny: Its Inevitability and Potentiality by Mangesh Nadkarni. Nadkarni had presented with his autograph a copy of this book to me on 19 August 2006. The book has been published a year and a half ago by Sri Aurobindo Society in collaboration with UBS Publishers and Distributors. The book is dedicated to Nirodbaran and Amal Kiran, the two grand centenarians of the Age of Sri Aurobindo, and it carries the frontispiece statement from Sri Aurobindo that, if India is to fulfil her true destiny, there must first be attained inner as well as outer liberation and change. It is on this basis is built Nadkarni’s thesis while examining “the issues currently being debated in the media and seminars and conferences at various places in the country.” Nadkarni’s concern is for us to have faith in our own destiny which in the present commercial age is getting lost, that we are becoming copyists of other modes of life, alien to us, hurting in the process our own psyche. He boldly asserts that “religion is one of the most attractive masks of the collective ego and it may be the last hurdle the human mind has to transcend…” What is necessary is to remain committed to spiritual goals while “discarding the religious packaging in which religion has come to us.” A free and liberated mind, with the intuition to transcend itself is a possibility and it is that which must be nourished assiduously by us. While we have to have a modern India, she should not negate the ancient values that saw her through the difficult ages. This synthesis, this new discovery of her soul, is the only assurance of her destiny in overcoming the difficulties and in making authentic progress. To quote Nadkarni: “Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind. But it is a mistake to think spirituality is only about the supra-sensible... Spirituality must flourish on earth and touch every aspect of human life and transform it with its vast creative possibilities.” That is the Aurobindonian message and Nadkarni carried it wherever he lectured, within India or abroad. On one occasion he perorated: “If the traditional Church and Marxism haven’t delivered, a spirituality which is sufficiently secular may be the answer.” I’ll only add that there are no grades of secularism in true spirituality. The discovery of the truth of the individual and the truth of the cosmic working, of collective life, based on foundational principles of Existence and Awareness and Love and Happiness is the secret urge in us and it’s that which must be promoted.

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