# Letters — 1947

### Letter to Aska Distillery

**Date:** October 21st 1947 — **Location:** Calcutta

> The Proprietor,
> Aska Distillery,
> Aska

Dear Sir,

We have decided to open a branch manufactory of our above laboratory in a suitable locality of Berhampur. We are arranging to approach the local excise authorities to grant us permit for possessing and using rectified spirit for medicinal purposes. But before we do anything finally as would like to enquire from your good self whether it is possible to get sufficient quantity of rectified spirit from your distillery.
The bearer of this letter is a messenger on our behalf and we shall be thankful if you will kindly let us know the following points per bearer.
1. Whether rectified spirit is obtainable from you at the rate of 100 gallons per month.
2. Whether you distill rectified spirit throughout the whole year.
3. Your usual strength of rectified spirit.
Yours faithfully,
For Vimaltone Laboratories Ltd.
Abhay Charan De
Director in chief.

### Letter to Mahatma Gandhi

**Date:** July 12th 1947 — **Location:** Cawnpore

> Mahatma Gandhijee
> Bhangi Colony
> New Delhi

Dear Friend Mahatmajee,

Please accept my respectful Namaskar. I am your unknown friend but I had to write to you at times and again although you never cared to reply them. I sent you my papers "Back to Godhead" but your secretaries told me that you have very little time to read the letters and much less for reading the magazines. I asked for an interview with you but your busy secretaries never cared to reply this. Anyway as I am your very old friend although unknown to you I am again writing to you in order to bring you to the rightful position deserved by you. As a sincere friend I must not deviate from my duty towards a friend like your good self.
I tell you as a sincere friend that you must immediately retire from active politics if you do not desire to die an inglorious death. You have 125 years to live as you have desired to live but you if you die an inglorious death it is no worth. The honour and prestige that you have obtained during the course of you present life time, were not possible to be obtained by any one else within the living memory. But you must know that all these honours and prestiges were false in as much as they were created by the Illusory Energy of Godhead called the
maya.
By this falsity I do not mean to say that your so many friends were false to you nor you were false to them. By this falsity I mean illusion or in other words the false friendship and honours obtained thereby were but creation of
maya
and therefore they are always temporary or false as you may call it. But none of you neither your friends nor yourself knew this truth.
Now by the Grace of God that illusion is going to be cleared and thus your faithful friends like Acarya Kripalini and others are accusing you for your inability at the present moment to give them any practical programme of work as you happened to give them during your glorious days of non-co-operation movement. So you are also in a plight to find out a proper solution for the present political tangle created by your opponents. You should therefore take a note of warning from your insignificant friend like me, that unless you retire timely from politics and engage yourself cent per cent in the preaching work of
Bhagavad-gita,
which is the real function of the Mahatmas, you shall have to meet with such inglorious deaths as Mussolini, Hitlers, Tojos, Churchills or Lloyd Georges met with.
You can very easily understand as to how some of your political enemies in the garb of friends (both Indian and English) have deliberately cheated you and have broken your heart by doing the same mischief for which you have struggled so hard for so many years. You wanted chiefly Hindu-Moslem unity in India and they have tactfully managed to undo your work, by creation of the Pakistan and India separately. You wanted freedom for India but they have given permanent dependence of India. You wanted to do something for the upliftment of the position of the
bhangis
but they are still rotting as
bhangis
even though you are living in the
bhangi
colony. They are all therefore illusions and when these things will be presented to you as they are, you must consider them as God-sent. God has favored you by dissipating the illusion you were hovering in, and by the same illusion you were, nursing those ideas as Truth(?).
You must know that you are in the relative world which is called by the sages as
Dvaita
i.e. dual- and nothing is absolute here. Your
Ahimsa
is always followed by
Himsa
as the light is followed by darkness or the father is followed by the son. Nothing is absolute truth in this dual world. You did not know this neither you ever cared to know this from the right sources and therefore all your attempts to create unity were followed by disunity and Ahimsa.
Ahimsa
was followed by
Himsa.
But it is better late than never. You must know now something about the Absolute Truth. The Truth with which you have been experimenting so long is relative. The relative truths are creations of the
daivi maya
qualified by the three modes of Nature. They are all insurmountable as is explained in the
Bhagavad-gita
(7.14)
. The Absolute Truth is the Absolute Godhead.
In the
Katha Upanisad
it is ordered that one must approach the bona fide
Guru
who is not only well versed in all the scriptures of the world but is also the realized soul in Brahman the Absolute—in order to learn the science of Absolute Truth. So also it is instructed in the
Bhagavad-gita
as follows:—
tad viddhi pranipatena
pariprasnena sevaya
upadeksyanti tad jnanam
jnaninas tattvadarsinah
(
Bg. 4.34
)
But I know that you never underwent such transcendental training except some severe penances which you invented for your purpose as you have invented so many things in the course of experimenting with the relative truths. You might have easily avoided them if you had approached the Guru as abovementioned. But your sincere efforts to attain some Godly qualities by austerities etc surely have raised you to some higher position which you can better utilize for the purpose of the Absolute Truth. If you, however, remain satisfied with such temporary position only and do not try to know the Absolute Truth, then surely you are to fall down from the artificially exalted position under the laws of Nature. But if you really want to approach the Absolute Truth and want to do some real good to the people in general all over the world, which shall include your ideas of unity, peace and non-violence, then you must give up the rotten politics immediately and rise up for the preaching work of the philosophy and religion of "Bhagavad-gita" without offering unnecessary and dogmatic interpretations on them. I had occasionally discussed this subject in my paper "Back to Godhead" and a leaf from the same is enclosed herewith for your reference.
I would only request you to retire from politics at least
for a month only
and let us have discussion on the Bhagavad-gita. I am sure, thereby, that you shall get a new light from the result of such discussions not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the world at large—as I know that you are sincere, honest and moralist.
Awaiting your early reply with interest.
Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De.
Enclosure—one leaf from Back to Godhead

### Letter to Raja Mohendra Pratap

**Date:** July 13th 1947 — **Location:** Cawnpore

> Raja Mohendra Pratap
> World Federation
> Prem Moha Vidyalaya
> P.O. Vrindaban

Dear Raja Sahib,

In continuation of my last post card, I beg to inform you that I have finished the reading of your book
Religion of Love.
In my opinion the whole thesis is based on the philosophy of pantheism and the approach is made by the services of mankind. Religion of love is the true religious idea but if the approach is made through the service of mankind only, then the process is made imperfect, partial and unscientific.
As you say the waves of the creations are the different aspects, why a particular type of waves namely the mankind should be partially selected and offered services and why other types of waves such as the beasts or birds, the plants and the stone shall not be offered a similar type of services? In that case how can you say that the worship of a stone is sinful while a man who is more than a stone shall be considered as the object of love? These are some of the questions that arise out of a critical study of your book.
If you so desire I can enter into discussions about it and my opinion is that your approach is partial and unscientific. There is no hesitation to accept the principle of the
Religion of Love
because the Absolute Truth is, as we have known, Godhead Who is
sat,
cit
and
ananda.
Without
ananda
there cannot be any love that is an accepted fact. Your delineation of society, friendship and love among the human beings is based on this
ananda
portion only but you have avoided the other portions of eternity and cognition of God the Whole Soul. Thus the approach is partial and unscientific. The true religion of love is perfectly inculcated in the
Bhagavad-gita.
When we speak of love there must be the object of love and the lover too. Here in this world we find that the object of love and the lover both are the cheater and the cheated in their reciprocal dealings. That is our experience. But the ultimate end being one Whole Soul, the dual existence of the object of lover and the loved loses identity. In that case the eternity and cognizibility of the loved and lover vanish at once. In this way there arises many questions which may be put forward to you for further discussions to adjust your ideas of religion.
Besides you have not quoted any authority for all your statements. So it is more or less dogmatic. If different men put different dogmatic views about religion and its essentials who is to be accepted and who is not be? Therefore the approach shall be and must be authoritative, scientific and universal. Your delineations do not conform to all these necessary things. That is my main contention. If you have time to discuss on it, I shall be glad to substantiate my contentions as far as possible. My basis of arguments will be
Bhagavad-gita
which is the most authoritative, scientific and universal. To summarise the conclusions of
Bhagavad-gita
it may be said that,
1) God is one and everything is in Him and He is in everything.
2) To render transcendental service unto God is to serve everything that be, just like to water the root of the tree is to water the different branches and numerous leaves of the tree or to supply food to the stomach is to vitalize all the senses and the sense organs of the body.
3) The parts are automatically served when the Whole is served but when the parts are served the whole may not be served or not served at all.
4) The parts and the Whole being eternally related, it is the eternal duty of the parts to render service unto the Whole.
5) A recipient of the services of the parts, God's
sat-cit-ananda vigraha
i.e. the all-attractive Cognizant and all-blissful Personality eternal. He can reveal Himself by His own potency without any help of the external potency called
maya
in order to be cognizable by the limited potency of the parts and as such He is not only the greatest of all but he is the smallest of all. That is His prerogative.
6) He is better realized when He by His causeless mercy agrees to descend in this mortal world but he He is never realized by the partial speculations of the empiric philosophers however systematic and long-termed it may be.
7) Sri Krishna is the Personality of Godhead and is the Summum Bonum Cause of all Causes proved by fact and figures in the statement of Bhagavad-gita, but He reserves the right of not being exposed to the sensual speculations of the empiric philosophers.
8) One should therefore surrender unto Him if one wants to know Him as He is and that is the real process to approach the Infinite by the infinitesimals.
9) Sri Krishna is easily available by the religion of love i.e. by love and service as conceived by the damsels of Vraja who had practically no education whatsoever and much less any claim for high class birth right.
10) The highest service that can be rendered to the mankind is, therefore, to preach the philosophy and religion of Bhagavad-gita for all the times, all the places and all the people.
I hope you may agree with me and thus make a combined effort in this direction for the benefit of the mankind.
Yours sincerely,
Abhay Charan De