Correspondence with
Charlotte Goodall

It was very nice to get your letter, but really I didn't mean to put you to the trouble to write. That is the trouble with receiving letters; to be bon ton one has to answer. Now let me whisper in your ear, you need never feel called upon to write to me because you are always in my heart. An inhibition (physical) does not give an alibi for rest, but it is also (and primarily) also an opportunity for more intensive inner activity.

Not long ago you raised a question about India. I am sending you Diogenes Number 13 because it contains an article by Louis Renon which concretely answers your question.¹ I agree with Toynbee basically² but of course there are some differences of aspect; just as all tree leaves differ, so all human viewpoints must differ according to the character of the individual.

I am convinced that the Hindu caste system, more rigid even than ours, had its origin in the high fact of universality, that all men are members of one body. But, as the apostle says, all cells of the body differ in function. Unfortunately in their practical life the Hindus laid emphasis on this differentiation, leaving the basic principle to theory, what they call spirituality. This laid them open to the successive waves of invasion. In union there is strength. The cells must work together, and spirituality and actual life must go hand in hand. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

¹ Diogenes is an interdisciplinary academic journal. The scholar Louis Renon was the author of Vedic India. Transl. by Philip Sprath. Calcutta, 1957. As best the site proprietor can determine, he should not be confused with Louis Renou, a well-known Parisian authority on the Vedas from the same period.

² This discussion may have been prompted by Arnold J. Toynbee, One World and India. Calcutta: Indian Council for Cultural Relations; sole distributors: Orient Longmans, 1960. In this work Toynbee predicts that India will become a dominant power in the twenty-first century, at which time the nation will revivify its spiritual heritage.