A country under foreign domination seeks escape from the present in dreams of a vanished age and finds consolation in visions about the greatness of past generations. That is a foolish and dangerous pastime in which many of us indulge. An equally questionable practice for us in India is to imagine that we are still spiritually great, though we have come down in the world in other respects.

Spiritual or any other such greatness cannot be found on lack of freedom and opportunity or on starvation and misery. Many western writers have encouraged the notion that Indians are other worldly. I suppose that the poor and unfortunate in every country become other worldly to some extent, unless they become revolutionaries, for this world is evidently not meant for them.

So are the subjected people. As a man grows to maturity, he is not entirely engrossed in or satisfied with the external objective world. He also seeks some inner meaning and some psychological and physical satisfaction.

Therefore, along with people, civilizations too mature and grow as adults. Every civilization and every person exhibits these parallel streams of external and internal lives. Where they meet or keep close to each other there is an equilibrium and stability, and when they diverge, conflicts and crises arise that torture the mind and the spirit.