This famous quotation from the German poet and
Philosopher Goethe. Contains a valuable idea. Life is not just a reverie, a
dream. It is much more than that. It is action. Endeavour great and heroic
deeds. Without energetic action, life would stagnate. Without true deeds, life
would become static and would lose much of its charm. A life of thought and
reflection would he quite futile if thought never emerges to issue in practical
AC any.
This does not, however, mean that contemplation has
no place in life. Contemplation induces peace of mind, tranquillity and
contentment. Great ideals are usually a product of contemplation. Practically
all the germinal ideas of the world have come from thinkers and Philosophers
with whom contemplation was a habit. Without mature reflection and cool
deliberation nothing should be done. Meditation and silent prayer are purifying
agents: the soul and a sedative for the nerves But contemplation should never
he regale as the aim or reason diet of human life. If great idea offered to the
world by Philosophers had not been translated into action h practical men, the
would have been lost. If the teaching thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire had
not been given a concrete shape in the form of position, there would have been
no revolution and no political progress in France.
The march of civilization has largely depended upon
men of action, men for whom the desire to do brave deeds was supreme. How much
does the world owe to its great explorers navigators and mountain -- climbers
who faced the wrath of nature and fury of the elements in order to satisfy
their inner urge for action.
Think of the large number of men who ha e in one
way or other contributed to the progress and prosperity of mankind or who have
been responsible for the realization of the great ideals of the world. George
Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Paster John Brown, Florence nightingale, Bartholomew
Lenin--- all these were those persons whose capacity’ for action was
exceptional. It is indeed, interesting to imagine what would have happened if
all these and similar men and women of action had passed their lives in contemplation.
Would not human life have still been primitive? The attitude of mind expressed
by Tennyson is certainly not to be envied or encouraged. Life would come to a
standstill if we were all to spend our existence in dreamland ease. We would
therefore say with Ulysses that” to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield,
is the sum of life. We ought not to pause, to make an end, to cut unfurnished.”
As Carlyle says, “Work while it is called today for the night cometh where in
no man can work”. Merely to brood and muse over life would be a poor way of
spending time. If we were all to act upon Stevenson’s advice and turn idlers
(even in his sense of the word). Life would become exceedingly dull. There is a
keen pleasure in achievement and a great joy in creation compared with which
the satisfaction born of mere contemplation is nothing.
Besides the desire for action is something
irrepressible except in morbid, lazy people. Nature has endowed us with
inexhaustible reserves of energy and we must utilize them in action. War
itself, which is so destructive, may be looked upon as a necessity since it
serves as an outlet for superabundant energy that accumulates in human beings.
In short it is not desirable to retire into jungles. Like Pakistani saints or
go to monasteries like medieval Christian monks and spend life in meditation.
The prophets moved about among men and made energetic efforts to teach mankind
the ideal way of life.