Versatile Genius

Kapali Sastry as a Counsellor

(By Prof. H. L. Auluck)

(A senior professor in languages, Sri Auluck has wide interests. Nothing is outside the range of his scholarship.)

One of the weakest links in the Indian education is the complete lack of any counselling in our schools and colleges. Leave aside, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kharagpur, Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur and Madras and the Central Universities at Benares, Aligarh and Bangalore and a few Public Schools, there is nobody to guide the students in their day to day personal difficulties. So the student's life is at the mercy of the drifting winds and whatever occupation comes to the lot of the students is considered by them as their luck and destiny. Many are thus just square pegs in round holes—complete misfits in life. Kapali Sastry's Letters to M. P. Pandit are now a public property and can be very useful for guiding the students in their twenties.

Like Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his son, like the letters of Keats, Shelley and Byron, like the letters of Chekhov and Tolstoy, like the letters to Sri Aurobindo, Tagore and Nehru they have a tremendous potential for our education. Here are some of the gems of Kapali Sastry's wisdom.

SIN

Sin is nothing but weakness; it is a big falsehood, a huge joke, a cruel joke, of the Puranas. No man even the worst scoundrel among us goes back to animal state. Every soul is a portion of God; Certain souls choose low births for certain experiences, to call them punishments for past wickedness given by God is a childish notion and a religious dogma taught by the priest craft and blindly accepted by the unthinking society; this is monstrous and stupid. The sin Idea is a cancer I repeat, a colossal sham, Madhav must learn to be more cheerful, let him not brood. God never punishes.

ATMOSPHERE

Atmosphere is something essentially internal, occult, psychic and spiritual. It is not primarily physical or anything outer. That is why a spiritual man carrying his personal atmosphere about him can establish himself anywhere and make the place a centre of spiritual force which place can be helpful to those who are spiritually open and not to all. So even when a physical place is said to be a centre of spiritual atmosphere it is not essentially physical (oxygen, nitrogen, watery vapour); but it is physical, useful only to him who cares for it; but a spiritual aspirant shall not always depend on outer atmosphere. He must manage to establish his own personal (spiritual) atmosphere wherever he goes.

MORALITY

Morality is relative; there is no absolute rule. Morality is not spirituality. There are no stereotyped moral rules for all men, under all conditions, at all times. Remember also: Responsibilities go with rights and interests are often hidden in duties.

EVOLUTION

If you believe in the principle of evolution, then you can see that the rational man has had at some stage of the Earth's evolution an infra-rational stage of these infra-rational brute elements, animal instincts, which though not always dominant, are to be found in the rational man as a heritage of the past. Similarly when the rational being in course of evolution gets at a supra-rational state the 'rational' element can as well remain, only as subordinate to the 'supra-rational' (which is certainly not irrational) even as the infra-rational is retained now by the rational being, subordinating it to the possible extent to moral force and mental control.

ON BLOSSOMING

Budding orator, blossom well, open to the light emanating the fragrance of the enchanting quality of the soul, as petal opens after petal, quietly without agitation, for the pride and joy and smile of those to whom you belong by your natural environment.

Don't say 'I am not this body but say' 'I am this body, not this body alone, but much more than this body.' So, see to the body first.

ON SUCCESS

Have a happy confidence that you will succeed; that is the right attitude in all endeavours; a happy confidence in your capacity including a controlled, unfading enthusiasm, a conquering fervour, without excitement.

Through successes and joys as well as failures and miseries, the Divine helps and guides the devoted soul—not through successes and joys only. The Divine gives its help not always in the way we dictate to the Divine. The Divine is more wise than the human child and knows what is ultimately best for the child.

ON DESIRE

No, it is not a crime; the desire to be loved and admired is no crime; it is natural and is indeed the parent generating the motive-force for ambition which also is no crime, but is natural for those in whom there is the fire, the will of the spirit within to express itself and dominate wherever possible.

COMMON SENSE

Common Sense is not a common commodity, it is something that is woven into the very texture of certain minds grown and growing robust by proper contacts, favourable opportunities and healthy environments.

RATIONALISM

How can I consider myself competent to judge men and women in this realm of highly aesthetic and ultra-moral idealisms of free-thinkers (you may take it to mean no-thinkers!) singing their hallelujah to the beast in man—cupid—these fashionable youths are barren of true critical (discriminative) intelligence, not to talk of their bankruptcy in an intellectual and moral life of a creative type. Those who disapprove of their movements and unthinking activities they would treat as fossils who understand a great deal less than nothing, and either understand nothing or misunderstand everything about the mystic bliss of secret love, including its antecedents and accompaniments and consummation—wooing, courtship, abduction—no elopement, yes, romance, companionate marriage, love—marriage, registered marriage, and many other sublime and unheard of marriages or no-marriage in time to come.

SIMPLICITY

Simplicity is an expression of sincerity which is the fulcrum of the soul manifesting in nature, enthusiasm is the vital push which is the power of the spirit within," while wisdom is the light of the soul which is a portion of the Divine Himself.