MY MESSAGE 1 --

MY MESSAGE ... 1

1. God is real. He is Reality itself. And He can be realised.

2. The path to realise Him is called Dharma. 

3. Dharma holds the aspirant in the righteous order.

4. Dharma enfolds the moral code that is mandatory for success in spiritual life.

5. The aim of earthly evolution, the earthly destination, the destiny of life, the endpoint of terrestrial and non-terrestrial existence is liberation, Mukti.

MY MESSAGE ... 2

1. God is love. All earthly love have their source in God who is the ocean of love. 

2. Bhakti is devotion that is love, Premābhakti. It unites the devotee to his divine beloved. 

3. Ritualistic devotion (kriyākarma) and routinised devotion (chanting, kīrtan, pūja, sevā) are Vaidhibhakti which prepares the aspirant for Premābhakti which alone can help him/her attain God.

4. Purity is the precondition to attaining to divine love. All dross must be cleansed, all desirous distractions removed and the mind focussed on the Lord of Love. Then vision follows giving rise to inexpressible bliss.

5. The devotee having tasted of that bliss becomes mad for it more and more. This madness of love is the culmination of the particular bhāva (devotional mood) which the aspirant has and he/she has now obtained the full fruition of his sādhanā.

MY MESSAGE ... 3

1. Karma is any vibration, any thought, any movement, any change. In the phenomenal universe of incessant change karma is inevitable, hence in life unavoidable. 

2. Life is held in karma. Hence, karma is dharma, for dharma is that which holds.

3. That being so, the science of karma must be known, the art of karma mastered.

4. This science of karma is called 'Karma Yoga' which involves the twin principles of attachment and detachment.

5. Attachment is one-pointed focus on an object and detachment is the withdrawal of such attention from it at will. 

MY MESSAGE ... 4

1. Attachment is natural to craving man bound in the everseeking senses. However, detachment is difficult. 

2. Attachment may be increased by natural infatuation at the lower level but requires development of concentration when the object of focus is some subject of study.

3. Detachment, though, requires greater control of the mind so that it can at will be pulled away from that object of focus. This requires the cultivation of dispassion which is the primary practice of yoga.

4. When both attachment and detachment have been like mastered, the yogi is ready for the highest spiritual realisation as also for real welfare work.

5. Detachment does not mean lack of love but freedom in love and in life. The combination of perfect attachment and perfect detachment constitutes the composite that genuine love is.

MY MESSAGE ... 5

1. Chant the Mantra incessantly. God is seated in His Holy Name. Mantrāruŕha Ishta. Therefore, chanting purifies the psychophysical system and draws the devotee nearer to God. The endpoint of this process is God-realisation, inexpressible bliss and freedom from the fetters that bind.

2. The Guru is the living God and the shishya/shishyā the loving devotee. This is the spiritual relation.

3. Chanting the Ishtamantra automatically helps the world as well through the propagation of holy vibrations. The holy soul, the holy mind, the holy word is potent and conduces to world-welfare even without, so to say, dynamic physical activity. Passivity of contemplation of God is most potent in terms of bringing about active changes for the betterment of society. Peace is engendered, peace that is the one thing lacking in a frenzied, feverish world.

4. Who will serve the world if not you? Who will cater to lokasangrahārtham, the gathering in of humanity, if not you? Upon you lies the whole burden---think this way.

5. This life is a golden opportunity to realise God. Do it.

MY MESSAGE ... 6

1. Optimism there must be, never pessimism, for we are divine and headed directly to the Divine which is our Self, the Atman.

2. Never condemn yourself. You are your greatest friend, in fact the only friend who will never leave you. Identify who you are and then see what a wondrous change comes in you.

3. The world at large is the visible body of God but behind it there is a deeper dimension of divinity which must be reached and securely possessed. For this spiritual practice is necessary and absolute faith in the Guru who is God Himself. 

4. Chanting brings the body-mind into harmony with the higher forces operating in Nature and opens up the gateway to the Divine. 

5. Meditation tranquilises the mind and cuts off contact with the sensory world for the while.

THY ENEMY, MY FRIEND

THY ENEMY, MY FRIEND 

It is laziness that is at the root of much of this slow progress of an individual in both spiritual and intellectual life. Insufficient exertion, absence of enterprise, and plain indolence, the careless, casual frittering away of time and energy that keep a person bound in karmic chains when freedom is all the while at hand, yet goes unheeded, uncared for, unseized. Inertia thus persists---no growth, no gain, no progress, just stagnation and a slow sinking in the quicksand of Māyā till the time to deal death the deathblow has expired. Then the inevitable follows in sad sequential order.

Written by Sugata Bose

COMMENTS GALORE ... 118

COMMENTS GALORE ... 118

Sugata Bose @Swamiji's sayings : These are glorious words of the Sage of the Age.

The volcanic words of the cyclonic Swami. Description paradoxical? So, let it be. Common link is in terms of the force and the fire involved.

The glorious thing about Swamiji was that he was so positive despite the seemingly overwhelming odds he had to encounter and overcome throughout his adult life when he had to battle for his impoverished family and chose to fight for the resurrection of the world sinking in the mire of ignorance and misery.

Today the nation celebrates Swamiji's birthday as the National Youth Day. Directed by the dying Indira Gandhi and instituted by her visionary son Rajiv, this day perennially marks the celebration of eternal youth rising up and refashioning the world for the sustenance of humanity. Now let us bring Vivekananda victorious before the youth of the hopeful morrow.

If the individual is the universal, the moment is eternity and a point encapsulates the endless stretches of space, what fear then, friend, of the mighty and the menacing, your own Self riding over it all as the charioteer does his chariot?

Strength, Swamiji said, is the watchword of the Upanishads.

It is bounden on each one of us to nourish the child-body with nutritious food and the child-mind with fertile thought. And what better than to bring Vivekananda home to them like many a mother does to her would be brave children? Blessed are such children who have received such mothers' grace!

Even if one gazes at this leonine form of Swamiji standing before the world audience in Chicago and delivering his momentous speeches, one is bound to be transported in space and time to an ethereal realm.

The central theme of Swamiji's words seems to be that undying manhood what Swamiji himself has dubbed 'the (roaring) Lion of the Vedanta'.

This nation will live if it heeds Swamiji.

Read, read Swamiji till his words vibrate in your brain and your whole being becomes consonant with his life-giving message.

Sugata Bose @YouTube [The Vedic Student] : Prabhupāda is sectarian and narrow in his spiritual outlook.

Sugata Bose @Swami Shuddhidānanda : Maharaj, here you speak trying to awaken the Hindus about the dangers of Islamic jihad and there your entire Sangha is perpetuating the myth of all religions being true and valid paths to God-realisation when faiths like Islam are expressly intent on attaining to a sensory pleasurable heaven without any idea of liberation in unitary consciousness which is blasphemous in their dualistic conception of truth. Your Sangha does not speak a word against conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity when they hold interfaith meets. This is not expected of the Sangha whose Avatār-anointed express purpose ought to be destruction of the evildoers, the saving of the virtuous and the establishment of the Sanātan Dharma as it truly is and not as it is conveniently manufactured into to suit whatever purpose you know best.

Sugata Bose @Debabrata Das Barman : You do nothing but give expert comments. Do something positive for spreading the message of Swamiji instead. Your supercilious advice is not solicited.

Sugata Bose @Chandan Bhattacharjee : Fiery masculine monks are needed with tremendous zeal and penetrative preaching power, not effeminate derivatives of divinity full of worldly propensity and spiritual pretension that was detested by Swamiji who embodied its antithesis and was duly dubbed 'the lion of the Vedanta'.

Sugata Bose @Chandan Bhattacharjee : Read the Qur'an and find out more about Islam and its tenets. Hindus fancy that Islam is similar to Hinduism in its understanding of God and ethics. But it is fancy after all founded as usual on lack of information, misinformation and plain imagination as opposed to factual truth which may only be ascertained through reading the Islamic scripture, the Qur'an.

Sugata Bose @Randeep Bhattacharya : Paul Dirac's Abrahamic idea of God with scientific derivative.

Sugata Bose @Arunangshu Mandal : Unfortunate but inevitable, given the character of opportunists that are galore in our community today.

Sugata Bose @Sulekha Basu : I am delighted to see you spread the message of Swamiji.

Sugata Bose @Joyanta Karmoker : I have responded. Now you respond. Forget the heartless intellectuals. They are of no consequence. Cowardice must be shed and the demon faced head on.

Sugata Bose @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Do not waste time over confirmed atheists who constantly make posts against the Sanātan Dharma from their deep-seated bias and superficial reasoning, puerile and perverse. They have their set agenda that has roots in their limited conception of the Vedānta, of God, Ātman, Brahman and like spiritual principles. Attempting to convince them is futile, even responding to their repeated negation of the Vedānta sheer waste of time and energy. They should be left alone to pursue their line of thinking and gathering kindred souls similarly disposed. You should propagate Swamiji as you have been doing, only a trifle more vigorously and in hearty combination with comrades in arms who are doing a like job.

Yours in the Kurukshetra Shree Krishna,

Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose @YouTube [Back to Godhead] : Prabhupāda's words are puerile, intellectually sterile. And he needs to speak in more civil language. Calling scientists rascals is improper.

Sugata Bose @Sulekha Basu : আপনি খুব ভাল লেখেন | স্বামীজী পড়ুন আর তাঁর বিষয়ে লিখুন | আমরা পড়ব |

Sugata Bose @Md Yousuf Ali : আপনিও থাকুন সমস্ত হিন্দু সমাজের সাথে কারণ ভারতীয় উপমহাদেশের ধর্মান্তরিত সমস্ত হিন্দুই, অর্থাৎ, মুসলমান ও খ্রীষ্টধর্মাবলম্বী, তো আদিতে হিন্দু | 🕉 হিন্দু !

Sugata Bose @Chandan Bhattacharjee : It is inglorious of the Islamic Bangladesh Government to hold him in captivity on fabricated charges at the behest of jihadi organisations which are galore in the converted country which was once completely Sanātani and will, I prophesy, become so once more when the degenerate lot of current Hindus are in future replaced by a more valorous breed of their descendants. Chinmoy Krishna Das will be released with honour. Otherwise, doom will befall his captors and their cronies and the ideology that impels them unto their treacherous action. 🕉 Hindu!

Sugata Bose @Ujjal Kumar Ghosh : Headless though, hence heedless with pocket full of penny lending the missing mass for a gravitational free fall.

Sugata Bose @

Sugata Bose @

Sugata Bose @

Sugata Bose @

Sugata Bose @

Sugata Bose @

FLYING ON THE WINGS OF FACT, FANCY, FICTION

FLYING ON THE WINGS OF FACT, FANCY, FICTION 

A spiritual movement spreads rapidly if it can bring to its followers an unearthly sense full of sublime suggestions. Naturally, mythology and archaic ideas can creep in as well into the mass of distributed literature which will fire up the minds of the masses with strange notions and fancies, irrational hopes and dreams, but will keep the movement going if it is well fuelled by daily ritualistic discipline and austere observances, spiritual practices that nourish the psychophysical person, making him happier and peaceful. At any rate cherishing beautiful dreams is no worse than being beaten with rude realities of the mundane world. The flights of fancy that mythology releases in the prone mind makes for even spiritual growth when activity is restrained by ethical observances and spiritual exercises. To top it all, if the devotees are made to understand that their chosen path is the best path, the perfect path and the only path to ultimate perfection and proximity to the Lord, you have hit the bull's eye. The movement will then take to wings and spread like cyclone.

Written by Sugata Bose 

POESY: SECULAR KIRTAN

SECULAR KIRTAN

Chnoare Gobindo amar, 

Gokhro saap er phul.

Nekrer mastuto bhai,

Dui kaane te dul.

Bob cut teri kete

Dichhe birir taan

Aar choudike te ghaagra nachon,

Bishtu abhijaan,

Bolo Bishtu abhijaan,

Bolo Bishtu abhijaan.

Aha ki gaan! 

THE SPIRIT OF CRICKET

THE SPIRIT OF CRICKET 

Dennis Lillee for all his boorish behaviour would have fared rather badly with, say, hypothetical skipper Bradman. Foul-mouthing opponents (Gavaskar), physically fighting them (Lillee-Miandad case⁵), kicking at the stumps¹ (after dismissing Viv Richards in a provincial one-day match after bouncing him four times in succession), aluminum bat², all this and so much more certainly made the greatest fast bowler of all time a spectacle but like John Snow⁴ purposefully colliding with Gavaskar, would have landed Lillee in deep trouble with the Don of old school cricketing ethics, what in cricketing parlance is called 'the spirit of the game'. 

The 1981 Adelaide Test Match³ memory of Lillee/Aussie rude behaviour against Gavaskar and company rankles still. Lillee's general demeanour aided by the Chappell brothers allowing him undue latitude created on-field unpleasantness that has permanently in the minds of many tarnished his image. Rude boy Lillee will live in memory as a great fast bowler who did his country proud with his incredible cricketing achievements but shamed her with his uncricketing attributes as well for good and set in a dangerous precedent to check which the Rule Book had to be rewritten by the ICC. What a far cry from Bill Woodfull's impeccable ethical response to Jardine's and the MCC's 'unsportsmanlike' attitude in their bid to browbeat Bradman in the Bodyline Series! The Don in his interview⁶ 'Don Bradman: 87 not out' categorically denounced the use of what has been euphemistically called 'gamesmanship', what Steve Waugh notoriously called 'mental disintegration' tactics, and said that were he the captain of Australia when any player so transgressed, he would have warned him once and, should he have repeated the selfsame offense, would never have picked him again. 

That, gentlemen, is Sir Donald George Bradman speaking the final word on the disrepute to which the Lillees, the Chappells, the Steve Waughs and the Ricky Pontings, mentioning here by way of a larger representative illustration only a handful of significant Australian cricketers who he could as captain and administrator have hypothetically restrained the way the spirit of cricket deems it best for the game. And there's Lillee for you.

Written by Sugata Bose

3.https://youtu.be/hsqMTgqW4v0?si=pC3aaKfezwDMwYAZ

6.https://youtu.be/w9NRYOYiHIs?si=z00dK2PWi4Fdy-U8

4.https://youtu.be/zAtltGArRq4?si=kNAuZEhiwCWiSASU

5.https://youtu.be/UhG4mgcCuSM?si=UOYNoGkld-wWa3U_

5.https://youtu.be/FBNNrLxd4xM?si=8U6RbXl7_OHx7_Ee

1.https://youtu.be/QP1v2J2BKWA?si=RG8zym4AdQdHTKp0

2.https://youtu.be/8vyhJYCS8bE?si=_IvTgQ1xKBOWFdlD 

FORGET NOT, THERE ALSO IS A DEPTH TO IT

FORGET NOT, THERE ALSO IS A DEPTH TO IT

There is a depth to voice that comes through deep concentration and sustained practice which shows up in rendition of classical vocal music, even in conversation, something that transports the audience to a higher realm, transcending the existent surroundings and reaching an altered order of existence altogether. So hard to express it in words but felt so easily by perceptive ones when men of experience speak, recollecting memories that lie in the depths of their hearts but, recalled, stir afresh reflections of events of the past in live colours that secondary sources can scarce reveal. This depth-diffeence is so apparent in interviews when the interviewee sinks into depth-memory while the interviewer belonging to distracted breed of the modern kind casually interrupts his reminiscence and reflection by shifting his focus to more commonplace things of lesser consequence. This indeed is felt by great actors, by film directors when they try to level depth-differences in personality of players to arrive at a seamless presentation of performance. In everyday life this is hidden in commonplace talk based in the same frame of time and place but in reminiscence becomes apparent when individuals are mind-located differently. This, perhaps, is also the reason why communication is so rare in this world of easy misunderstanding, egotistical personalised interpretation based on insufficient sympathy that fails to connect and huge differences in historical positioning and perspective. But above all, to return to roots, it is this difference in depth of personality that creates this communication gap, this unbridged difference in feeling, as in love, as in conversation, as in going down memory lane in interviews of men steeped in the past. Bridging differences is good, but must it come at the cost of loss of the real that lives in the silent chambers of the heart where chamber music is still on?

Written by Sugata Bose