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I thank you for this beautiful welcome. I am very happy to be in the midst of especially of young pupils of the Vidyapith. After this magnificient speech of the Prime Minister, I wonder what I have to add. Perhaps all I have to say is said. But anyhow I have to. Perhaps, the best way of introducing these three lectures would be to make a hint to my own adventure, and why I find myself here, and how I came here to India. Well, I was a long running student. So, I understand you, young students. When I got my degrees, because I could not do without getting them, I wondered how I can introduce myself in this great machine of the world. The world of business, the world of diplomacy, the world of army, the world of all that. What was my place there? I did not know exactly what I wanted, but I knew very well what I did not want. After having had journeys all about the place, all about Europe, well, I converted to my own religion — to Christianity and discovered the gospel; that the gospel made us to be poor which was not very difficult. It was only not to receive any money from home. That is good and I began to do a little work in the city just only enough to live and to go on with my studies and with my friends.

But then poverty in a city has always something artificial. So, I went on a road, and became a vagabond with not a penny in my belt, as it is said in the gospel, and they are on the roads. Well, if you ask for a piece of bread, you always get it or a glass of water, and for some little work or some big work on the farm, you can get it. Those were the most beautiful days of my life. I was free like a bird and I never enjoyed the pure joy of living not mixed with other joys of those times. Well, this beautiful life, this too beautiful life could not last for ever because it was in the year 1930, we felt that the war was coming upon us. And as I am international by education and by nature, I began to wonder about war. Why does it come? Where does it come from? Why this plague created by the hands of men, the hands of men cannot help doing it and suffering from it. I understood already, although I was young, that war does not fall upon us like a stone from heaven. It is not a natural calamity. There is something in our peacethat makes war inevitable. What is it? I understood how childish the explanations about war the people give, hatred or economical necessities of people. However, that is childish and futile. But, as war also brings other plays which accompany all civilizations. I mean misery, slavery and civil war or revolution. All these four plays are bounds together somehow. In what manner? What is the origin of them all? How do they work in each other? And especially, what is the way out of them? Then I began to think that there was only one who had the key, the key to get out of this prison, and that was the Mahatma Gandhi.

I had heard of him and had read something of him in my twenties, when Romain Rolland's works were published. And of course, that moved me, very far away as you read stories of the saints of other times, here it was far away in space. It was too beautiful for us, and I went on with my studies and my pleasures. But then I began to think that he was the only one, and that I had to join him in some way, and learn from him the way out, and so I got to Wardha, to Sevagram that then was called Shegaon. And I found the Dear Old Man sitting out of his hut, and he made me sit near him, and began to ask me who I was, what I had done, where I came from. Only speaking of me, I discovered that I was nothing, that I had done nothing, and that I wanted nothing except to serve at his feet. Well, perhaps, this feeling of nothingness was what pleased Bapu. And so he took me as his son and instructed me. Then I learnt to spin, and I saw that I would stay for ever in this country.

Here, in India, I did as everybody, and I found myself very well having only two dhoties, one to wash and the other on me, and eating with my fingers on the floors, and washing as everybody, and interested in seeing like praying or meditating. So I thought, I would become an Indian. No risk also, and to introduce myself in Indian life, I thought the best would be to go to the Himalayas, and go to to Gangotri, to Jamnotri\footnote{Sources of the Ganges, famous places of pilgrimage.}, and so I took the way.

In those times, there were no roads. You had just to turn with all the stones and you had to climb up there. Well, I went there and, at the beginning of the monsoon, I was coming back, and in Narendranagar, one of the large villages of Himalaya hills, I learnt that I had to prepare for something quite different from what I was dreaming of. In a beautiful night, in the hills, I heard a voice that told me : ``Shantidas, what are you doing here? Go home. And so I turned round, there was nobody but the stars, and I waited for some explanations. I did not know what to do, what to find, why to go back, but anyhow, I had to obey it. And, at the same time, I felt very very weak to begin anything, to do anything, especially in my own country, because I knew what spirits are there in my own self or in my own country.

Well, I wrote to Bapu all about my dreams, of what I had imagined, because nothing is too great for imagination, but of course, I went back to him. And every two days, he gave me two or three hours to explain my great projects. And with great patience, he listened to all that. And he said ``All that is very well, perfect, but I want to know only one thing, how you are called. Because, if you are not called, all your intelligence, all your courage, all your virtues will be of no use. And if you are called, even the virtues that are lacking will be given. Yes, well, that was rather disturbing for me, because, how to know if one is called? Many mad men think that they are called and think that God is calling. Man voice their own vanity that calls them, and they are desired to do great things and to be great people.

I went back anyhow. I went back in 1938 and all the world was full of war, preparing for war. Well, I was very well received by my brothers and my friends, and they loved to hear my Indian adventure because India is far away legendary. There are the jungles, there are tigers, there are monkeys, there are the wise men and all that. But when I was speaking of peace, non-violence, etc., well, that passed with the rest. Everybody was smiling. If they had opposed, furious oppositions, I would have smashed with my arguments, but how to do with something soft, so soft. It was impossible to get understood. Well, I thought, my called Lord gave me a sign ``uncalled and what sign will you give me. This, that I will speak only to people who ask me to speak, and ask me what they have to do. Well, I was silent, I kept silent on this thing for seven years. Nobody asked me anything and I went on thinking of what could be done in those countries. I went to Holy Land, on foot of course, and just to pass one year more. And when I came back, the war began, and that is night when nothing can be done.

Well, in the last year of the war, an editor asked me to write down about my journey to India. So I wrote the ``Return to the Source — pilgrimage to the source, and the book had an enormous success. It was the time of occupation, of misery, of humiliation. People were imprisoned in camps. My book went there. Many afterward came and told me ``You have saved my life. ``I took to the est of life again reading your book, speaking of non-violence, of palm trees, of great horizons, of the things of God. Yes, ever since people gathered around me, and I could say what have we to do, we will do this and that, and that and that, and I began to teach there in Paris where I was in the middle of the great city. We put up some workshops, the charkha first, the loom, the handloom and no shed out of the city, some pottery and some wood work. We began and people came in. And I began to give a teaching, a spiritual teaching, on knowledge of oneself, possession of oneself and the gift of oneself, the three aspects of any teaching of course. And after four years of this, I married, and, as soon as we were married, we went and founded the first Gandhian rural community with all that is in Gandhian ashram: meditation, yoga, work of the hands for everybody, decisions with consensus of everybody; rule of life, the charkha, all the aspects of Gandhi's teaching.

Now many in those times, nobody spoke of nonviolence, nobody knew of Gandhi except by literature and some admirers. [There were of course.] And later on, when we began the Satyagraha movements during the Algerian war, for instance in France, they began only then to speak of non-violence. In paper the word did not even exist and were imitated. Many other groups grew and began to live themselves upto in Europe. But none, neither in Europe nor in America, none have taken up all the Gandhian teachings and I think, even here in India, many that go for non-violence with great sincerity and courage, do not always take all of Gandhi's teachings.

Now, what stuck me in Gandhi and why I found in him all that I was searching for and much more what stuck me first was this: unity of life. From the work of the hands give you the bread, to prayer, there be only one sense and that is what I wanted to bring home. That we should not have many lives, you know, a family life and a sentimental life which has nothing to do with family [of course]. And then the intellectual life with books, the life which is not ours, and then the professional life, and the political life, and the religious life for Sundays mornings, all those lifes that put us each one with a world of its own. And we change life as we change our clothes. When we enter the office, we put another face on and when we go home, we put on another face. And when we go to Church, we still have another face. Have only one face and only one life and go to unity. Well, thirty years ago, we have founded [that there were] communities who have been growing very slowly through infinite difficulties, of course, and here we are after so many years. Well, exactly forty years ago, I was in the hut of Gandhi, speaking of my great projects, exactly day by day in this month of October. It is a real grace that I find myself here, giving back to you, dear friends, dear Indians, something of what I have received from you through him, and through you also. [] Yes, but it was not the subject that I was supposed to treat and let us go to the subject and try to treat it seriously.

Science and Non-violence, yes. But what science? That is what we ought to examine with very much care. Naturally, truth is God, and the search of truth is service of God. Intelligence and knowledge, and conscience and wisdom, those are the great privileges of man, the very reason of being a man. The Bible says, the law of God [said] says: ``Now, let us create a man at our image and likeness. And in a second time, when He created the man to His image and likeness, and the third, He created him man and woman. So it is said three times, when it is said before, it should have been done which is not said of any other creature. To create light, he had only to say that light be and light was. But it seems to indicate the triple, three natures of man, and the special — not only the species of animal are different from others, but the sort of kingdom with the advent of man.\footnote{Probably the speaker intended to say: ``Not only is man a different species from other animals, but he belongs to a different kingdom altogether.} The reason to be is the image and likeness. The image, of course all creatures bear it. The whole universe sings the praise of God. It is the image of God in his beauty, but it is not saud likeness. All creatures receive the image of God, but only man can give it back, can send back the ray of divine light. Receives the ray, receives the image and gives back the likeness, and gives it back with admiration, with adoration, and with love. And this is the only truth.

This is the reason to be a man. And it is said that when man was created, God put around him a beautiful garden, a place of joy, and, well, you know what happened to our forefather, be him called Adam or Manu. You know what Christians call original sin, and perhaps you call ignorance (avidya). Shall I recite you the story? You know all about Adam and the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Well, what was this sin which we call original sin? Of course, the key to this mystery is the name of the tree. And the species of this tree is of course symbolical tree. And apart from this symbol, the story has no sense. Well it is the tree of the Knowledge, the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And he could eat up any fruit, any fruit was given even with no work, with no pains, in abundance. But that he could not touch. Why? And why especially did he touch it? And what is that tree? And what evil did he make?

Well, let us formulate the evil, the evil of having eaten [] from the fruit of the tree of Good and Evil. You see my sentence begins by evil and finishes by evil. It is like an algebric formula. [] It is equal and than you find it mixed with all sorts of operations. So, let us figure out these operations. What is eating? Well it means to kill, it means to grasp, it means to chew and destroy, and it means to incorporate, and it means to enjoy the destruction of what you are eating. Eating knowledge, oh! eating knowledge. And there is a common opinion as that is sin. Man acquired knwoledge, but that is a bad reading of the scriptures. The contrary is, social knowledge he had. Man was created with knowledge and with conscience. We see in paradise, Adam speaking familiarly with God, he saw Him and he spoke to Him, he listened to Him. But God did not go with the stones, nor with the lions, [although] because they were not vegetarian lions, non-violent lions. [But] He did not go and speak with them because they could not answer. But man could, so he had the knowledge and what did he do? Well, he robbed, he robbed the day as a gift.

Do you know what means robbing a gift? I give you something with all my heart. You snatch it from me and you look at me and you say, well now go it is mine. But I know you so you say it is mine. So, intelligence, it is ours? Have we invented it? No. And if it is mine, I can profit by it. No. Fruit, what means fruit? Well, if you do not like symbolical speculations, go and ask your banker what means fruit. Well, it means enjoyment and profit. Then now, the explanation is there. The sin of man has been to turn away intelligence from truth towards fruit. Instead of using your intelligence to remain in touch with God, to reflect God's wisdom, God's will, God's beauty, you use, we use, Adam used his intelligence to get fruit, and the enjoyment. You follow me? Now, if police came down in my house and took me prisoner, and I protest and say ``But why? What am I accused of? I have done nothing. No, no, you have done nothing, but your forefather was a great criminal so you have to atone for him. I would be indignant and you all would be indignant of that sort of justice. What justice is that? Now, Adam is my forefather, but very far away, and how have I to have the consequences of the only crime that, I am sure, I have not done? Are you so sure? And who is Adam? But dear friends, Adam is us, all of us, and what is Adam's sin is the sin that we all do and do and do and go on doing everyday since the origin. Nearly all the intentions behind our intelligence goes to think what profit shall I have from this? I think, if I do that, what good will come to me? What profit? That is enough, that is the sin of the world. Not my personal sin, because it is your sin. It is the sin of everybody, and also mine, of course. Now, it is a sin which is different from any other sin, of course nothing to do with morals. It is a metaphysical sin, not a moral sin.

Go to profit, lead business, earn money, earn power, these are the morals. If you can do that very honestly, and for your good, and for the good of others — nothing wrong in that, it is allowed. And the good ones and the bad ones are equally in the world in original sin, and pay for it is a whole. I shall develop this sin, showing what is the distortion of intelligence as a fundamental sin, and what is the way out of it. And now if we consider the science, science as physical science, as Occidentals have developed it, and as it has come here, science which is not \emph{vidya}, which is not wisdom. The observations of nature and the use that you do of it. If you observe this, what shall you notice? How shall we define this science? The most tremendous renewal of original sin, all the genious which is God given to man, going towards profit, towards the fruit. With all our intelligence, we are going to get rich, to pass before our neighbour, to take power, to profit. That is what we, in Occident, call science. And the punishment: no, not the punishment, God never sends any punishment. Only good things come through the Almighty and all good and loving Father Lord. And it comes to the good ones and to the wicked ones, on everybody the rain and graces fall, and the wicked ones also have the grace of force of life and intelligence, and so on. No, not the punishment, but the simple consequence of sin is death; death, which is separation. We are separated from God, by science not led to God, through science separated, we know, that we enjoy the fruit. And you see, the fruit of this tree, it is not a good tree which gives a bad fruit, and a good fruit means a good tree.

What is the fruit of modern science and technology, the most beautiful fruit, the most significant fruit? It is the bomb, the atomic bomb, the death for everybody and those who invented, who shall be forced to use it, who prepared it for the neighbours as the neighbours are preparing for them. They are not bad and wicked, they are not mad nor robbers. They are simply involved in original sin as we are. And we are all complacent of that unless we find the way out. Well, tomorrow, I shall wpeak of the way out.

Thank you, dear friends, for your attention.