{"id":426,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=426"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:57","slug":"090-advice-to-national-college-students-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/090-advice-to-national-college-students-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-090_Advice to National College Students.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nAdvice to National College Students*<\/b><\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\n          
\n<\/font>
\n<\/SPAN>I<\/font><\/B> HAVE<\/b> been told
\nthat you wish me to speak a few words of advice to you. But in these days I feel
\nthat young men can very often give better advice than we older people can give.
\nNor must you ask me to express the feelings which your actions, the way in which
\nyou have shown your affection towards me, have given rise to in my breast. It is
\nimpossible to express them. You all know that I have resigned my post. In the
\nmeeting you held yesterday I see that you expressed sympathy with me in what you
\ncall my present troubles. I don’t know whether I should call them troubles at
\nall, for the experience that I am going to undergo was long foreseen as
\ninevitable in the discharge of the mission that I have taken up from my
\nchildhood, and I am approaching it without regret. What I want to be assured of
\nis not so much that you feel sympathy for me in my troubles but that you have
\nsympathy for the cause, in serving which I have to undergo what you call my
\ntroubles. If I know that the rising generation has taken up this cause, that
\nwherever I go, I go leaving behind others to carryon my work, I shall go without
\nthe least regret. I take it that whatever respect you have shown to me today was
\nshown not to me, not merely even to the Principal, but to your country, to the
\nMother in me, because what little I have done has been done for her, and the
\nslight suffering that I am going to endure will be endured for her sake. Taking
\nyour sympathy in that light I can feel that if I am incapacitated from carrying
\non my work, there will be so many others left behind me. One other cause of
\nrejoicing for me is to find that practically all my countrymen have the same
\nfellow-feeling for me and for the same reason as yourselves. The unanimity with
\nwhich all classes have expressed their sympathy for me and even offered help at
\nthe moment of<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/P>
\n


\n* <\/font>Sri Aurobindo delivered the above address on
\nthe 23rd August, 1907, before the
\nstudents and teachers of the Bengal
\nNational College, in a meeting assembled to record their deep regret at his
\nresignation of the high office of Principalship of the College.<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-515<\/font><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\nmy trial, is a cause for rejoicing, and for the same
\nreason. For I am nothing, what I have done is nothing. I have earned this
\nfellow-feeling because of serving the cause which all my countrymen have at
\nheart.<\/font><\/P>
\n

           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/SPAN>The only piece of advice that I can give you now is \u2014 carry on the work,
\nthe mission, for which this college was created. I have no doubt that all of you
\nhave realised by this time what this mission means. When we established this
\ncollege and left other occupations, other chances of life, to devote our lives
\nto this institution, we did so because we hoped to see in it the foundation, the
\nnucleus of a nation, of the new India which is to begin its career after this
\nnight of sorrow and trouble, on that day of glory and greatness when India will
\nwork for the world. What we want here is not merely to give you a little
\ninformation, not merely to open to you careers for earning a livelihood, but to
\nbuild up sons for the Motherland to work and to suffer for her. That is why we
\nstarted this college and that is the work to which I want you to devote
\nyourselves in future. What has been insufficiently and imperfectly begun by us,
\nit is for you to complete and lead to perfection. When I come back I wish to see
\nsome of you becoming rich, rich not for yourselves but that you may enrich the
\nMother with your riches. I wish to see some of you becoming great, great not for
\nyour own sakes, not that you may satisfy your own vanity, but great for her, to
\nmake India great, to enable her to stand up with head erect among the nations of
\nthe earth, as she did in days of yore when the world looked up to her for light.
\nEven those who will remain poor and obscure, I want to see their very poverty
\nand obscurity devoted to the Motherland. There are times in a nation’s history
\nwhen Providence places before it one
\nwork, one aim, to which everything else, however high and noble in itself, has
\nto be sacrificed. Such a time has now arrived for our Motherland when nothing is
\ndearer than her service, when everything else is to be directed to that end. If
\nyou will study, study for her sake; train yourselves body and mind and soul for
\nher service. You will earn your living that you may live for her sake. You will
\ngo abroad to foreign lands that you may bring back knowledge with which you may
\ndo service to her. Work that she may prosper. Suffer that she may re-<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-516<\/font><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\njoice. All is contained in that one single advice. My
\nlast word to you is that if you have sympathy for me, I hope to see it not
\nmerely as a personal feeling, but as a sympathy with what I am working for. I
\nwant to see this sympathy translated into work so that when in future I shall
\nlook upon your career of glorious activity, I may have the pride of remembering
\nthat I did something to prepare and begin it.<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n
\nBande Mataram<\/I>,
\nAugust 23, 1907<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-517<\/font><\/P>\n\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advice to National College Students*              I HAVE been told that you wish me to speak a few words of advice to you. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}