Page:Report on the Memorial Meeting for Mahatma Gandhi.djvu/8

 New York from New Delhi. We had an hour’s conversation and the content of that conversation comes hack to my memory with a regret which I cannot express in words to you today.

“At the end of that conversation, he asked me, ‘What is it that you have in the forefront of what you are going to do on this mission?’ I told him, ‘I shall he willing all the way that I shall succeed in this mission in bringing about an amicable understanding between India and Pakistan over the particular dispute that divides us today,’ and he said, ‘While you are willing it, I shall be praying for it every moment of my life.’

“I have no doubt that he was doing so. One of the most important characteristics of his life was that he never preached what he did not practice, what he did not want each human being to practice.

“More than half a century ago, a young Hindu in orange robes came to your country and took it almost by storm. His was an aggressive but virtuous personality. He tried to make the lion of Vedanta roar in this country, and one of his great sayings in that connection, if the audience will forgive my repeating it in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, he said (Quotation in Sanskrit).

“That means, ‘Rise, gird up your loins, having found your leaders, go forth and conquer the world.’ That was how he put it. Gandhi in his life translated this great saying with a meaning which perhaps is more poignant to us in these later days than the Swami’s interpretation of the same saying. Gandhi’s interpretation would mean, ‘Maintain high morals. Be always alert against a fall-down from those high standards. Having found your wise men, realize, fulfill yourself.’

“That was the great teaching of his life. I commend that to you.”