Our path is very ancient..
We have achieved independence after years of others domination. Are we free in our thoughts now? Or have we been still following the thoughts and path of others? We have so far followed the path shown to us by others, but are now free to chart out our course and shape our own destiny. We are now free to follow our own path.
– Secret of the vedas
What will be this course?
This is for time alone to tell. It is, however, possible to indicate on the basis of our traditional thought and literature, the path that we had followed and the direction of our movement for thousands of years before we lost our moorings. What is our path?
Our path is our ancient culture.
It is the ancient culture that shows us our path. It is the firm belief of those who are acquainted with the essentials of ancient culture that the welfare of world as well as of mankind at large demands the pursual of the same old path shown to us centuries ago by ancient sages, saints and ancient scriptures. If this is done ancient culture will again become the torch bearer and the crown of the world, as its once was, shining forth in all its radiant and pristine glory. But what was this path? How can we know it? In order to be able to understand the way of this path we shall have to discover the central thought of ancient culture.
Central thought of ancient culture >
Mankind at the beginning of human creation had given birth to a culture which was and still is different from the other cultures of the world.
There was a time when the open air of the forests, the shady trees, and the verdure all around, pregnant with subdued silence, occupied the same pride of place as that which the crowded and the noisy towns studded with skyscrapers hold in the modern age.
The culture which then developed was one of those who were constantly in communion with nature in all its variegated hues and resplendent glory. The talk of the day would be that ‘this ancient sage lives in the ancient forest’ ancient forests were the forest habitations of the ancient sages. There were, no doubt, towns and cities in the ancient age, but the forests were regarded as the centres of cultures from which inspiration radiated in all directions. The cities were encircled by these forests in which the sages or saints lived. They lived in their forest hutments and devoted their time to meditation, in order to search the ancient secret and communion with the spirit supreme.
We shall have occasion to discuss this culture of the forests in the course of the present work, but since there are some who feel diffident in using the term ‘culture’ for a culture evolved by the ancient sages or forestsaints of old, therefore, in the further course we will understand the difference between ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’, because it is but appropriate to clearly understand the difference between ‘Culture’ and ‘Civilization.’
