en older and also more authentic.

After we had attained full brahminhood I became very keen on repeating
the _gayatri_.[23] I would meditate on it with great concentration. It
is hardly a text the full meaning of which I could have grasped at that
age. I well remember what efforts I made to extend the range of my
consciousness with the help of the initial invocation of "Earth,
firmament and heaven." How I felt or thought it is difficult to express
clearly, but this much is certain that to be clear about the meaning of
words is not the most important function of the human understanding.

The main object of teaching is not to explain meanings, but to knock at
the door of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is
awakened in him at such knocking, he will probably say something very
silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what he can express
in words. Those who pin their faith on University examinations as a test
of all educational results take no account of this fact.

I can recollect many things which I did not understand, but which
stirred me deeply. Once, on the roof terrace of our river-side villa, my
eldest brother, at the sudden gathering of clouds, repeated aloud some
stanzas from Kalidas's "Cloud Messenger." I could not, nor had I the
need to, understand a word of the Sanskrit. His ecstatic declamation of
the sonorous rhythm was enough for me.

Then, again, before I could properly understand English, a profusely
illustrated edition of "The Old Curiosity Shop" fell into my hands. I
went through the whole of it, though at least nine-tenths of the words
were unknown to me. Yet, with the vague ideas I conjured up from the
rest, I spun out a variously coloured thread on which to string the
illustrations. Any university examiner would have given me a great big
zero, but the reading of the book had not proved for me quite so empty
as all that.

Another time I had accompanied my father on a trip on the Ganges in his
houseboat. Among the books he had with him was an old Fort William
edition of Jayadeva's _Gita Govinda_. It was in the Bengali character.
The verses were not printed in separate lines, but ran on like prose. I
did not then know anything of Sanskrit, yet because of my knowledge of
Bengali many of the words were familiar. I cannot tell how often I read
that _Gita Govinda_. I can well remember this line:

The night that was passed in the lonely forest cottage.

It spread an