What Life has Taught Me

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WHAT HAS LIFE TAUGHT ME

Some eminent personalities of the present-day, leaders of thought and action, speak in this book about the lessons they have learnt from their eventful lives. Each one of them, who has attained success and celebrity in a particular field, looks back reflectively on the course of his life, on his failures and achievements. It will be seen from their accounts that their lives were marked by an interplay of fate and circumstance and that a kind Providence gave them the wisdom and the opportunity to surmount obstacles in their way. The lessons that they have learnt from their lives are only amplifications of the central maxim that "where there is Dharma, there is Victory," that there are no short -cuts to success and that it cannot be achieved bypassing the etemal laws of morality.

The contributors, who are from various sections of contemporary life, write with a revealing candour and, in not a few cases, are unsparing in the criticism of themselves. High-lighting the situation and events, rather than projecting themselves, they take care to keep their personalities in the background thereby sustaining the interest of the reader throughout.

THE Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-that Institute of Indian culture in Bombay-needed a Book University. a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis. however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first step. it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once.

It is our intention to publish the books We select not only in English, but also in the following Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil. Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

This scheme involving the publication of 900 volumes, requires ample funds and an all-India organisation. The Bhavan is exerting itself to the utmost to supply them. The 'objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of Indian culture in the light of modern know- ledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resuscitation of its fundamental 'Values in their pristine vigour. Let me make our goal more explicit:

We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions that allow him freedom to evolve along the lines of his own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony of individual efforts and socia; relations. not in any makeshift way, but within the framework of the Moral Order; we seek the creative an of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations are progressively transmuted, so that man may become the instrument of God, and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.

The world. we feel. is too much with us. No' would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and aspiration which such books can teach:

In this series, therefore, the literature of India, ancient and modem. will be published in a form easily accessible to all. Books in other literatures of the world, if illustrate the principles we stand for, will also be included.

This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader eastern or western, to understand and appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of Indian mind, which, though they flow through different linguistic channels, have a common urge and aspiration.

Fittingly. the Book University's first Venture is Mahabharata, summarized by one of the greatest living Indians, C. Rajagopalachari; the second work is is on a section of it, the Gila, by H. V. Divatia, an eminent jurist and a student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." twenty-five centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beuty and grandeur of life.

The Mahabharata is not a mere epic; It is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and some were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival; but, above all it bas for its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the climax is reached in the wonderous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.

Through such books alone, the harmonies underlying true culture. I am convinced, will one day reconcile the disorders of modern life.

I thank: all those who have helped to make this new branch of the Bhavan's activity successful.

**Book's Contents and Sample Pages**