Lelki üzemanyag 26

Gentlemen,

We love to read a book which we have never read before. We are anxious to gather whatever information is contained in it, and with such acquirement, our curiosity stops. This mode of study prevails amongst a great number of readers, who are great men in their own estimation as well as in the estimation of those who are of their own stamp. In fact, most readers are mere repositories of facts and statements made by other people. But this is not study. The student is to read facts with a view to create and not with the object of fruitless retention. Students, like satellites, should reflect whatever light they receive from authors and not imprison facts and thoughts just as the magistrates imprison convicts in the jail. Thought is progressive. The author’s thought must have progress in the reader in the shape of correction or development. He is the best critic who can show the further development of an old thought, but a mere denouncer is the enemy of progress and consequently of nature. “Begin anew”, says the critic, “because the old masonry does not answer at present. Let the old author be buried because his time is gone.” These are shallow expressions. Progress certainly is the law of nature, and there must be corrections and developments with the progress of time. But progress means going further or rising higher. Now, if we are to follow our foolish critic, we are to go back to our former terminus and make a new race, and when we have run half the race, another critic of his stamp will cry out: “Begin anew, because the wrong road has been taken!” In this way our stupid critics will never allow us to go over the whole road and see what is in the other terminus. Thus the shallow critic and the fruitless reader are the two greatest enemies of progress. We must shun them.

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(Śrīla Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur: The Bhagavat Speech - Introduction)

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