The swamis

摘要

"Write!" instructed the severe-looking swami, adjusting his spectacles. The Economist put pen to notebook and wrote: "All work is worship." In truth a kind man, the swami, Gokula-nanda, of the Ramakrishna mission in Delhi, was helping The Economist understand the role spirituality plays in Indian society and politics. He went on to talk of the need to strike a balance between contemplation and action, and to unleash the power that lies dormant within every human being, like a coiled serpent. For a newspaper that brandishes its rationality, its faith in human intelligence, "which presses forward", in the small print on its contents page, this was one of a series of disconcerting encounters. Our journalists are not used to writing about the divine. If our work is worship almost all of it is at a secular altar.