Friday, 12 December 2025
SWĀMI SRIDHARĀNANDA IS NO MORE, NAY, IS EVERMORE WITH US
SWĀMI SRIDHARĀNANDA IS NO MORE, NAY, IS EVERMORE WITH US
Swāmi Sridharānanda, disciple and personal attendant of Swāmi Virajānanda, has passed away. So I hear and feel sad about. A luminous being. A monk of remarkable eruption, jovial, humorous, affectionate and of harmonic, musical disposition. His reminiscence of his Guru is one of the best reminiscences that I have ever heard, an experience that instantly endeared him to me. Such seminal souls are becoming scarcer by the day, the lights dimming one by one as we enter into the phase of puerile pastimes, theirs being the epoch of historic churning when 'a nation, long suppressed', was finding its footing with uncertain steps in the comity of nations. To that aspirational end Swāmi Sridharānanda had contributed his mite with his engaging ministration, his final one at Sydney.
As the Swāmi departs for his heavenly abode, I pay my last respects to him by sending from afar my humble prostration at his earthly form, now lying in state and awaiting the final rites, I believe.
Swāmi Sridharānanda was disciple dedicated, attendant alert to his spiritual preceptor, Swāmi Virajānanda, and to the great Swāmi Shāntānanda as well when the latter was suffering from tuberculosis, a dreadful, killing, infectious disease then in the 1950s. These great sages had showered their love and benediction on the young novice and later monk which later fructified in his long life of distinguished monastic ministration.
Sridharānandaji was frank, articulate, possessed of great diction and keen intellect, learned, rational and insightful. He had a massive frame, a sizeable head and great bearing. Overall, a formidable figure, a mighty man but of gentle, genial disposition. I dare say, such a monk is rare indeed in our world of modest means and mediocre mettle and to have lost one such truly means a loss to all who knew him personally and to countless others who had been in communion with him through the viewing of his speeches and discourses delivered online. We will miss you, Maharaj. Never, perhaps, in our lives it will be that such a one as you shall grace our lives with that lovely smile of yours full of boyish mischief writ large on your face and in that characteristic glint in your eyes. Farewell and fare you well in your onward journey en route perhaps once more to us to bless us again. Else, linger in our fondest memory freshened each day by the fragrance of your spiritual self, so true, so rare, so emblematic of the Holy Trinity who had consumed your life even as they blessed you with eternal life in return. Hari 🕉 Tat Sat!
Written by Sugata Bose
Thursday, 11 December 2025
PURSUE THE PRINCIPLE AND NOT PERSONALITY
PURSUE THE PRINCIPLE AND NOT PERSONALITY
It is the principle that counts, not the personality. The personality merely illustrates the principle in so far as is humanly possible. The ideal is ever approached and never reached in flesh and form. But deep within where the boundaries blur, where flesh leads to spirit, form to formlessness and scattered thoughts, now concentrated and brought to focus, integrate and coalesce unto superconsciousness, there the physical melts and transmutes into the supraphysical, and personality dissolves to become pure principle. The mundane material becomes the abstract immaterial, the Spirit which is existence-consciousness-bliss absolute. It is this abstract ideal that is the goal, not the intermediary stages of quasi-reality. This principle is to be sought in essence and not in compromised corruption that attempts to fit the infinite into the commonplace finite order of earthly living. Personalities are ever embodying the principle imperfectly and cannot satisfy the sincere seeking soul. The principle alone fulfils. Seek, therefore, the principle and run not after ruinous personalities or organisations that profit from spirituality. 🕉
Written by Sugata Bose
POESY: GIVE CHILDREN A CHANCE
GIVE CHILDREN A CHANCE
Give children a chance
To rule the world.
Then the flag of peace
You'll see unfurled
And the world of war
Shall in joyous dance
And Mother Earth
In blissful trance
Shall flower again,
With singing birds
In dewy dawn's
Crimson robes,
Sovereign free,
In love romance.
Composed by Sugata Bose
Monday, 8 December 2025
HE WHOSE WORDS AND DEEDS WERE ONE
HE WHOSE WORDS AND DEEDS WERE ONE
Rise above circumstance and assert your independence. To affirm oneself as the Atman and then to avoid temporal trouble in the name of being apolitical is the height of hypocrisy. Dive deep into the feverish complexities of the world and help disentangle befuddled man caught in the snares of ignorance. Not by convenience or compromise can you achieve your end but by sincere effort in establishing dharma. Perfidious politicians cannot be pandered to but must be duly censured for disabling national and regional growth, much the way Swami Vivekananda did while remaining above politics, yet never failing to upbraid erring souls, organisations, institutions and systems for being antithetical to human progress. He never compromised with the wicked and has warned his followers to desist from such acts. Swamiji would have none of the comfortable compromise that makes life easy for an organisation but chose to traverse the thorny path of renunciation in every sense, never compromising with untruth or the wickedness of the deliberate wicked. Alas, we need a Swamiji today to uphold those pristine principles enshrined in valorous terms in our scriptures whose aberration alone we see in execution today! We await his arrival, nay his descent into mortal clay again.
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday, 7 December 2025
COMMENTS GALORE ... 99
COMMENTS GALORE ... 99
Sugata Bose @YouTube [@IdeasHaveConsequences] : Nonetheless, Western imperialism is bad. It is brutal and is going scotfree despite killing millions of innocents. Islam must be countered but not by shielding Western geopolitical evil nor must Islam be excused or apologised for on account of historical Western colonialism. Further, attacking Islam to further Christian proselytism is equally deplorable and is a dead case at that. 🕉
Sugata Bose @ Everybody has work, dear friend. Even I have. But where people wish to communicate, they do. Where they do not, they do not. Selective communication is what suits most. Self-interest rules relations. And, yet, the best relations are maintained by absence of the petty self in them.
Sugata Bose @Prasenjit K. Basu : Planning to buy it ('India Reborn'). I have your other great book, 'Asia Reborn'. How wonderful it would have been to have got both signed by you!
Sugata Bose @Julie Binder Maitra : Not just a priest of Mā Kāli. That is selling Sri Ramakrishna short. He was God Himself, Pūrnāvatār. Hope Mr. Frawley has communicated matters right to you.
Sugata Bose @Prasenjit K. Basu : Only such a mother could have given birth to such a son. My reverence goes out to her who has lived such a glorious life and has ignited another life so luminous that we through him cherish her earthly presence once, perennial to her son, though, despite her inevitably perishing form. Mā, pranām! 🕉
Sugata Bose @Ujjal Kumar Ghosh : Unlimited is your erudition. Grand. Keep it up and enhance your learning further for you to delight in and for us to profit by as you like lavish king dish out delicacies for us to savour. Knowledge is power and knowledge indeed can as yet save us from barbaric hands, provided we read the right texts.
Sugata Bose @Facebook friend : He is a gold box which needs delicate handling. Else, the box will break and spill the contents. His nerves are too soft and refined which is why he shies away from the world. This tough outer cover of his that you see conceals a flower-like soft personality in the dewy dawn of the awakening sun. He is recovering but is badly traumatised because of his punctiliousness and perhaps because of childhood and young adulthood trauma continuing into adult life. Life has been harsh for his soft self till he has hardened into the tough nut that he seems to be. But beneath is his fragile self that seeks only the dewy dawn and the crimson dusk. Such souls can die out of sheer neglect.
Sugata Bose @Kerala School Cricket : Why always say 'one of the finest left-handed batsmen ever'? You never call someone 'one of the finest right-handed batsmen ever'. Is it not so? Why not say that Graeme Pollock was one of the finest batsmen ever?
Sugata Bose @Rajendra Kundu : Better so that by following the non-violent principles of Jainisn, Islam should lose its violent identity, character, intent and practice. But it is a poor disciple and will fail to absorb its preceptor's pristine teachings and abide by the same. Hence, it is a wish borne by the winds of fancy to a point of no return.
Sugata Bose @Gireeshan Pandan : The final floral offering in memoriam? [Reference: Image of flowers offered by Gireeshan Pandan at my post on Islam, Christianity and Communism.]
Sugata Bose @
Sugata Bose @
Sugata Bose @
Sugata Bose @
Sugata Bose @
Sugata Bose @
ISHVAR, ALLAH TERO NĀM
ISHVAR, ALLAH TERO NĀM
Hindus, following the Vedic mantra 'Ekam sadviprā bahudhā vadanti'(Truth is one; sages speak of it in many ways), like to believe and even preach that Ishvar and Allah are the same God. But Allah in the Qur'an prohibits 'shirk' (partnering Him with any other deity), damning it as the most grievous and unforgivable offence. May pious proponents of this prohibited partnering of Providence among the Hindus take note of this and desist from further perverting our pristine spiritual principles to suit puerile predilection and perfidious political ends! 🕉
Written by Sugata Bose
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