Rabindranath Tagore

I have been fortunate in coming to Japan just at a time when she is struggling with a great problem which is very near to my heart. I need not tell you what that problem is—but that you are feeling a conflict between your love of your own past and the insistent needs of the present. You know your nation is now at the door of the modern world, which is mostly represented by Europe, and you are thinking of choosing from it what is best for your own future. I hope you will solve this question in a way which will be best not only for yourself but for the rest of Asia as well—in fact, for humanity at large.

Japan has felt, in her world, the touch of some presence, which has evoked in her soul a feeling of reverent adoration. She does not boast of her mastery of nature, but to her she brings, with infinite care and joy, her offerings of love. She knows, intuitively, that there is a universal spirit in nature who loves all, and she is conscious of her own loving soul finding everywhere in nature symbols of beauty and her own creative joy in these symbols.

But the ideal of the West is control. It is science, not communion. It is power over nature, not union with it. Through its greed it loses the harvest of the true happiness of life. It brings apology for its brutalities, and bases them upon gigantic untruths that appear true. It has been sending its missionaries over the world, like its armies and its lines of railways—not for the soul, but for a certain standard of efficiency.

Those whose habit it has been to be very near to nature, who have acquired the simplicity of their lifestyle from her teaching, have a sort of hesitation in their acceptance of this ideal of modern efficiency. They somehow feel that its cost is too great.

What is dangerous for Japan is not the new, but that the new may come from the outside, from the West of Europe, and she may carelessly cut asunder the continuity of her past and the present. This want of continuity makes a people helpless like a transplanted tree. What Japan needs is not to adopt a new culture, but to infuse new life into her culture, and for that she must get life, and not machinery.

It fills me with a great joy and hope to see that the true genius of Japan is coming out from the shackles of imitation. I have seen in your arts, your music, your customs, that deep reverence for nature and humanity which is your national heritage. Do not be ashamed of it, do not be led astray by those who would have you discard it as something belonging to a bygone age.

The danger lies in adopting the aggressive nationalism of the West and believing that political and commercial power can solve the problems of existence. The real problem before you is how to harmonize the spirit of the modern age with your own spirit. It is not a question of mere imitation or rejection, but of transformation from within.

The West has come with its gift and its danger. You must discriminate, you must be strong enough to reject and to accept, not from weakness but from strength. If you merely imitate, you will lose your soul. The gift that your nation has to offer must not be lost in mere political aggressiveness.

You have been taught never to waste—and what a lesson for humanity, to which the whole Western world is blind! For it has made waste into a virtue, it has made greed into the very foundation of its civilization. Your instinct of beauty, which is the instinct of restraint, has saved you from this evil. You have naturally small dwellings and simple furniture, not because you are poor, but because you are not vulgar. You have that sense of proportion which beautifies life and gives it dignity.

Let me warn you against adopting that system which is based upon the exploitation of individuals and nations for the sake of the glory of the nation. The modern world is being ruined by this system of exploitation which has no moral foundation. Do not sell your soul for it.

Remember that your nation is great, not in what she has got from others, but in what she is—in her spiritual life which has blossomed through centuries, in her sense of beauty, in her love of simplicity, in her recognition of moral obligations.

My friends, I have not come to your country to advise you or to criticize, but to learn and to love. But because I love Japan, I cannot help warning her against the danger of losing her own soul in order to gain the world.

The modern age has brought the message of cooperation, and the spirit of cooperation is not the same as that of competition. It is the spirit which respects personality, which does not believe in force but in mutual understanding and love. This is the message of the new age, though the West itself has not yet learned it.

Japan must lead Asia in this new age—not through her adoption of Western militarism, but through her understanding of the true meaning of modernization, which is the liberation of the human spirit from all that cramps and confines it. Your mission is not to compete with the West in its own game, but to offer something which the world needs—the spirit of beauty, of simplicity, of harmony with nature, which you have preserved through centuries.

In conclusion, let me say that I have faith in Japan, faith in her spiritual strength, faith in her power to solve this problem in a way that will be of service not only to herself but to humanity. The world needs what you have to give, but it must come from your own soul, not as an imitation of others.

May Japan find the true path of modernization, which is not the path of aggressive self-assertion but of creative self-expression. May she remember that true strength lies not in political and commercial power but in spiritual freedom and love.