21 July 2004: ICPR: Gandhism and Vedic Rita

Dr. Vashishitaji, you have opened a chapter which is extremely important for modern India and you started with a critique of Gandhism and I personally believe that India needs that criticism. No dogma, a free quest of the Truth for its own self, without any boundaries. I think this was also an important element in Gandhism—the pursuit of the truth. And if you follow that very idea then I personally find that you arrive at the Vedic concept of Satyam-Ritam-Brihat. If Gandhism is defined only in terms that he has defined himself, it is not proper and appropriate. We have to expand ourselves in the vastness of rita as understood in the Indian tradition in the realisation of the rita and this is what I find to be the most important element in Indian ethics and the transcendence of ethics in Indian spiritual experience. So even ethicism can be dogma, even ethicism has to be transcended. And that is the true foundation of what I call the philosophy of value oriented education. When we have time we shall discuss this question further. But I thank you very much for the moment.