POINT TO PONDER

Day in and day out when you insult man, you insult God for man is God. Despite your prayers and petitions to the Almighty, you stand bereft of spirituality for your ideas of God are stunted by your myopic vision of man all around. And this is the bane of religion as it is largely practised. Man stands nowhere in the scheme of things despite pious protestations of the devout.

Everyday we see the abuse of religion, everyday we see the abuse of man. Religion is largely politicised to suit the nefarious ends of the so-called spiritual people in power. And at a more commonplace level, we see the divorce of ritualistic religion and doctrinaire creeds from genuine human concern. No one should be so deified for being so-to-say spiritual or for donning the ochre robe that he begins to harbour a false sense of superiority over commoners and rubs it in when the situation arises.

No wonder Swami Vivekananda had forewarned devotees from overdoing their devotions towards monastics so that the latter might maintain their sanity. Of course, it must be said that Swamiji held the ashram of sannyas (monasticism) in the highest esteem and had charged his world-renouncing followers and the lay devotees to dedicate themselves to nation-building and the service of man the world over after having first thrown overboard their ego into the sea.

However, in practice, by the law of averages, the reception of some amount of ill-treatment from so-called spiritual people seems to be the inevitable lot of all and this can be dispensed with as being one of those aberrations that infrequently jar the harmony of an otherwise symphonic whole. The problem sets in, however, when such aberrations become more frequent and it is then that a spiritual movement runs the risk of isolation from the masses. Such isolation spells death to a movement and this was why Swami Shivananda used to say that Sri Ramakrishna  would continue to bless his Mission so long as his devotees remained threaded in mutual love. The direct disciples of the Master used to say that the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission were held together in love.

It, therefore, becomes imperative for the laity and the monastics to see to it that devotees and the people in general do not suffer from rude treatment at their hands for such behaviour is not only spiritually untenable but also socially unacceptable in a free and democratic country. Thakur was an unlettered person and hailed from an economically poor family. Care must therefore be taken that in no way an ordinary person, devoid of academic degree or economic wealth, is shown scant respect on account of his lack of worldly attainments. At the same time the rich and the powerful must not be so very specially attended to that the social discrepancies thereby carry into the Order as well. We should never forget that honour should be given more or less equally to all and not more to a select few who wield power in society by dint of wealth or political clout. If it is argued that such are the ones that help run the social service schemes by their donations and the like, then it must be remembered that good and civil treatment meted out to them as it is to all as opposed to special favours shown to them will enhance the prestige of missionary organisations as being truly spiritual and will help them to strike roots in the democratic consciousness of man which in turn will help flourish the welfare programmes of these missions.

Everything said and done, one more simple thing needs to be attended to. Let devotees and monastics welcome all with a welcome-smile, in no way a counterfeit one but a winning smile based on genuine reverence for all, nay, adoration of the immanent God in all. Let everybody feel that he is special in the eyes of the monks of the Order, even as the devotees felt in the presence of Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi. We are all Mother's children, are we not? Then why hurt someone, cause him to feel inferior and humiliated by superior snobbery and so alienate him when a little love is all he seeks in this storm-tossed world of his?

Let us ponder over these issues and become worthy children of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji. Let us then embrace the world as our own as Holy Mother has exhorted us to do. And, once more, let us reflect for a while. After all, what does it cost us to welcome all with a smile? Let us from this moment have a wonderful change in attitude. Let us warm up to each other with a blissful heart, a merry face and a winning smile and Thakur will be pleased for does he not reside in the hearts of all? Let man for once be the focus of this new spiritual movement and 'let all other vain gods disappear' as Swamiji had thundered in 1897 in his prophetic speech in which he exhorted his countrymen to serve the living mass of humanity in India for the coming 50 years in his bid to awaken the sleeping leviathan to life and freedom. Let us go back to the Master and 'set our watches right' as he was wont to saying.

A major corrective step needs to be taken by us all urgently if we are to survive as a collective force for good and if we are to feel sure in our hearts that we have not let down Thakur who never lets us down. And in this grand spiritual venture, sisters and brothers, all of you join us. Together we shall surely overcome the deficiencies of the day and bring forth a brighter future on the morrow. May Thakur bless us! May Ma protect us ever! May Swamiji guide our faltering steps to fruition! Victory to humanity!

KATHAMRITA

Kathamrita paath korle sarvavidya adhigato hoy. Ami baangmoy Kathamritey, Beenapaanir asrudhaaraa, sahasrapropaat Kathamrita. Ei rahasya-grantha paath kore jeebon-granthi chhedon korun. Atmasamudra manthan kore vedoddhaar korun. Kathamrita rishirachita, bhagabaner mukhonisrita baani. Protiti sabda mantratulya, oishishaktisambhuta. Thakurer Srimandir Kathamrita. Thakur chirabondi er charaney charaney, bhakter premey bnadhaa. Tai toe boli, ashun, ihajanma sharthok kori Tnar baanirup ei vedoddhwanir jhankarey hriday mandrita kore, janmamrityur parey chole jai anantalokey ei mahashaaroswater aasroye.

BABA ALLAUDDIN GHARANA

The gharana founded by Ustad Allauddin Khan is, in the words of his son and disciple Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, called BABA ALLAUDDIN GHARANA. People variously call it also the MAIHAR GHARANA and the MAIHAR-SENIYA GHARANA. But Ustad Ali Akbar Khan has set the seal to it by saying that it is called BABA ALLAUDDIN GHARANA. Baba Allauddin Khan had several music Gurus but the most famous was USTAD WAZIR KHAN of RAMPUR who was the last descendent of MIAN TAAN SEN that carried the musical flame of the SENIYA GHARANA alive. Allauddin Khan in effect inherited from his great Guru Wazir Khan the best musical tradition of the Seniya Gharana  and perpetuated it through his continuing line of disciples like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Ajay Sinha Roy, Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, Pandit Pannalal Ghosh, Ustad Bahadur Khan, Ustad Ashish Khan, Ustad Dhyanesh Khan, Pandit V.G. Jog, Vidushi Sharan Rani and a host of others who have carried the music of the gharana to the remotest corners of the globe. But the one disciple that stood out singularly among this galaxy of musical maestros and who most closely resembled Baba Allauddin in terms of temperament, austerity and whole-souled dedication to music was the one about whom Baba himself was effusive in praise as follows: "She plays the surbahar like Devi Saraswati." She was Annapurna Devi, the truest inheritor of Baba Allauddin's life and legacy, one who spent the major portion of her life within the cloister of her apartment, in self-imposed exile from the world in solitary immersion in the ocean of music as she had inherited from her father. Annapurna Devi was veritably a goddess who shunned name, fame and the paraphernalia and devoted herself to the pursuit of music, pristine pure. She has also, like her father, left behind a galaxy of musical talent among which is the flautist Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia.

The Seniya Gharana perhaps would have died a natural death after the demise of its last exponent Ustad Wazir Khan but for the musical genius of the young Allauddin. The tradition continues as BABA ALLAUDDIN GHARANA keeps flourishing with every passing year. But would Baba have been happy with the decline in sadhana and the growing cult of self-proclaimed Pandits wielding the instruments Baba venerated to further their selfish ends of life and livelihood, men masquerading as musicians whom Baba would not have given any credence to as artistes worth the call? I wonder!

My prostrations at Baba's feet and at the feet of Ramakrishna Paramahamsadev who had blessed Baba at Star Theatre when Baba was employed there as tabla-player by Girish Chandra Ghosh. Who knows, may be Thakur's blessings opened up the springs of musical genius within Baba for good? I wonder!

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ... HIS LIFE AND LEGACY 3

The child was intelligent, restless and abounding in energy. Two nannies had to be appointed to look after him. When he became totally unmanageable, Bhuvaneshwari would warn him that Shiva would not let him into Kailash ever again unless he sobered down and then she would bathe him under a current of cold water which would at once calm him down.

Narendra loved the company of mendicant monks who would come to his door-step and he would give away whatever he could lay his hands on to them. To contain him Bhuvaneshwari would lock him up in an attic but he would manage to throw down his father's clothes through the window to monks passing by.

Often, Narendra would playfully engage in meditation with his mates but would soon be so absorbed in it that he would be totally unconscious of the outer world. Once, a cobra stood with outspread hood in front of the meditative Narendra. His friends fled but he remained motionless, mute in ecstatic bliss of meditation, oblivious of circumstance. The cobra soon slid away without harming the boy.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ... HIS LIFE AND LEGACY 2

The Dattas were an affluent family located at 3, Gourmohan Mukherjee Lane, Simulia in North Calcutta. Rammohan Datta, the ancient patriarch and great grandfather of Vivekananda had built this palatial house and bequeathed it to posterity. Thereafter, his son, Durgacharan, after a lone issue in son, Vishwanath, took to sannyas (monasticism). Vishwanath grew up to be an attorney in the Calcutta High Court and gained eminence as a lawyer. He married Bhuvaneshwari Devi, the only daughter of Nandalal Basu, and the couple had ten children. The seventh child was the first surviving male child, our hero, Narendranath Datta, who became famous as the Swami Vivekananda.

After much prayer, fasts and vigils Narendranath was born to Bhuvaneshwari, in fulfilment of her vision of Lord Shiva who had promised to be born as her son, on the dawn of Makar Sankranti on the 12th of January, 1863. Vishwanath was ecstatic and lavished gifts on all who came to bless the son.

THE CONTROVERSY RAGES ... SWAMI NIRMALANANDA (TULSI MAHARAJ), A DIRECT DISCIPLE OF RAMAKRISHNA OR NOT?

Was Swami Nirmalanandaji a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna? I invite you all to respond by way of comments and make this discussion vibrant for it is very pertinent for Ramakrishna devotees and the world at large to know the truth, the Master Himself being the embodiment of Truth. Let everybody research and uncover the truth and lay to rest forever this controversy. I await your response in the form of well-informed comments and not stray remarks that malign the Movement of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. Cite documentary evidence in favour of your arguments and do take a scientific stand on the issue bound in truth and not mere effusions of emotion.

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA --- HIS LIFE AND LEGACY 1

July 4, 1902, 9:10 p.m., Belur Math. Swami Vivekananda lay in his last sleep. Long ago, Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied that the day his beloved Naren would get to know his real identity, he would give up his body by an act of will. And so he did. The doctor certified his death as having been caused by apoplexy but his brother disciples maintained that the great Swami had willed his own death once he felt his work on Earth was over.

The next day he was cremated on the hallowed ground of Belur Math. Today, a memorial shrine stands over the exact spot where Vivekananda was cremated. A bas-relief of the Swami was inlaid on a wall of the shrine by Betty Sturges, an American devotee of the Swami. Countless pilgrims daily offer their obeisance to Swamiji there even as they did unwittingly on the first day, that hallowed morn of his advent on Earth, January 12, 1863, the day of the Makar Sankranti.

RAMAKRISHNA-ANUGAAMI JAAGO ... BANGLA 1

Thakur tyagmurti, bairagyer jwalanta bigraha. Tnar bhakta-shishya hote hole jeebon tyagputa howa chai. Satyasankalpa ei premikpurusher anugaami hote hole satyabaadi howa aboshyok. Tnar mukhanisrita 'Shibjnaney jeebseba'---ei mahabakyake jugadharmarupey grohon kore sheirup karmaanushthaan korlei prakrita Ramakrishna bhakta howa sambhab. Alosh stuti tey Tnar mon bhorbe na. Jugadharma sthapaner kaajey sahaayota korte hobe. Ashun amra sakoley ei mahabratey nijeder nijukto kori aar sommilito prochestar dwara Thakurer mahan karmayajney nijeder utsorgikrita kori. Jai Ramakrisha! Jai Maa!

APPEAL 5: MOBILE MEDICAL VAN PROJECT, RAMAKRISHNA MISSION SEVASHRAMA, MUZAFFARPUR, BIHAR, INDIA

44 lakh rupees or 4.4 million rupees or INR 44,00,000 are immediately needed to purchase a MOBILE MEDICAL VAN which will cater to the eye and dental treatment of the poorest of the poor of North Bihar. The aim is blindness eradication from North Bihar. The Eye Hospital, Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur is in acute shortage of funds and we thus exhort the generous public to liberally contribute to this noble cause. The Mobile Medical Van is a vital link between the Eye Hospital at Muzaffarpur and the poor people lying up-country in North Bihar. They have neither sufficient health awareness nor access to the necessary means for treatment. Consequently, the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur has taken the initiative to make available the basic health facilities to them by means of this proposed roving medical van. We urge all kind-hearted souls, devotees and friends to help us in this noble cause. Corporate houses are being urged to come forward and take up this hospital project as their project under the CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. We sincerely look forward to everybody's help for little drops of water accumulate to make up an ocean.

http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html (WEBSITE LINK)

Donors are requested to provide the following along with their donation in a COVERING LETTER or EMAIL or BOTH :

NAME OF DONOR :

ADDRESS OF DONOR :

PERMANENT ACCOUNT NUMBER ( PAN ) IN CASE OF DONATION OF INR 10,000 OR MORE :

EMAIL ID :

MOBILE NO.:

DONATION AMOUNT :

MODE OF SENDING DONATION : ONLINE TRANSFER / CHEQUE (CHECK) PAYMENT / BANK DRAFT :

DONATION PURPOSE : PURCHASE OF MOBILE MEDICAL VAN

http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html (WEBSITE LINK)

All these details sent will help make the entire process of donation giving and donation receiving smooth. Kindly comply with the aforesaid request.

With sincere hopes of garnering support for this noblest of causes,
I remain your humble servant,
Ever in the Holy Trinity of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji,
Sugata Bose

P.S.: Kindly go through the following WEBSITE carefully before sending your donation. All relevant details such as the address of the Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Muzaffarpur and their activities are available here.
http://www.rkmmuzaffarpur.org/donations.html(WEBSITE LINK)

MOTHER TERESA, LOVE INCARNATE ... 1

Mother Teresa was the epitome of love for all, especially the poorest of the poor of all races and religions, although her guiding light was the message of her Master Jesus Christ to whom she was spiritually betrothed. Mother served the poor and opened homes for them throughout the world but her love was not confined to the poor alone. She was the mother of the whole world and her love knew no bounds. It flowed in an unbroken stream, nay, a veritable flood, for all whom she came in contact with even if for a brief moment. When asked how she could manage to love so many, she said, "Whenever anybody comes to me, that person becomes the only person in the world for me...Our work is with individuals." And, herein lay the secret of her success, concentration, focus on the one at hand, although it almost pains me to rationalize the love of this supernal soul, a rare visitor to our planet Earth, one that graces this terrestrial realm to fulfil but a special mission of the Lord. This time over it was perhaps to spread the gospel of love that this missionary of the Spirit had adorned the Earth for a few years, a love that cares for all, even the unborn child in the womb of the mother.

Controversies galore have attempted to vitiate this beautiful love of Mother, attaching sectarian and political motivations to it, but they have never been able to dim the effulgence of this supernal maternal love that seeks only to protect and to preserve and never to destroy the seed of love, for what remains in life when the mother crushes the very life she has sprouted in her very self? I know I am stepping into a controversial zone where such world-governing issues as population boom and its concomitant evils are the subject of grave discussion but I do what I do with no malefic design save to highlight what Mother Teresa in her life stood for, albeit the fact that she was an avowed follower of the Catholic Church headquartered at the Vatican City. I personally am vouching neither for nor against this motion, being too insignificant and ignorant a person to pass my pronouncements on momentous issues as these. I follow what Swami Vivekananda had once said: "Society forges its own laws as it forces its way ahead...God is the sum total of all personalities...The will of the totality nothing can resist."

End of Part 1...to be continued.

HIS HOLINESS, THE 14TH DALAI LAMA, AN APOSTLE OF PEACE

His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama's fortitude and courage and, above all, his great forbearance in the teeth of the greatest of odds in the wake of the Chinese occupation of Tibet marks him out as a true Apostle of Peace for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The exemplary way in which he has conducted himself as an honoured refugee in India and the manner in which he has followed the Buddhist path of moderation while raising his voice on behalf of the Tibetans, dispossessed of their home and hearth, has earned him a place in the annals of history as a true humanitarian but for whose presence the world would have, for sure, lost the beautiful Tibetan culture. His Holiness had to tread a tightrope throughout in his non-violent crusade for justice for the Tibetans and exhibited the greatest of restraint in speech, moderation in criticism and a pragmatism in politics, rare in the brightest of statesmen. A Buddhist monk to the core, steeped in the spiritual tradition of his country, His Holiness has yet been ever progressive in his outlook and is a great protagonist of scientific culture which he has tirelessly tried to usher in the Tibetan community. He has even stepped down from his position as the exiled Tibetan community's temporal leader and now continues to be only its spiritual Master. His Holiness advocates democracy and has introduced a democratic form of government for his exiled Tibetan followers. He considers the office of the Dalai Lama also as archaic for today's Tibetans and would like to see the end of it after his demise if the Tibetans so desire. Acutely sensitive to the exigencies of the hour, His Holiness is leading his exiled Tibetan sisters and brothers into the modern world of science, technology and information culture while helping them preserve their cultural roots in Tibetan Buddhism. But for His Holiness the world would have witnessed the annihilation of an entire national culture at the hands of the conquering Chinese who have reduced Tibet to a colony fit to be despoiled of all that is good and grand in it, monasteries, manuscripts, monuments, monks and the masses. But through it all His Holiness has been exemplary in terms of the maturity and statesmanship he has shown as he has guided the destiny of millions of hapless Tibetans overnight rendered destitute by the cruel hand of tyranny.

Such then is our Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama who takes pride in calling himself and fellow monks of his Order as belonging strictly to the Nalanda lineage and himself a 'chela' (disciple) of the Indian spiritual masters and Indian spiritual thought. My prostrations at his holy feet and my heart-felt love for all my Tibetan sisters and brothers who have made their home at McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh a world centre of culture and pilgrimage by their industry, attitude and exemplary living.

An aside about His Holiness. He is extremely witty and spares no means to send his audience the world over into fits of laughter by his incessant jokes but such is his profound spirituality that he can instantly regain his composure and turn the train of thought of his listeners in a trice with the profundity of his expositions. And what a sweet personality overall His Holiness has, child-like, mischievous, and what compassion, love that knows no bounds! Truly, he is no more a Tibetan than a citizen of the world, no more a spiritual saint than a secular one, no more a monk than a human in all his essential glory. My prostrations yet again to His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, the last of a vanishing tribe.

SERVE THE VISIBLE GOD

Wish to realize God? Then drown your ego in service to all. They who are the visible manifestations of the Lord must be served. In it is the highest good and this is Yugadharma, the austerity of the Age, the spirituality of the times.This puny ego must go, this little self, this identification with smallness, all this pettiness must be swept away if beatitude is to be reached. All power is within you and must be brought forth into active play for furtherance of your own good and the good of the world. This is a spiritual imperative today for you devotees, especially those of you who have been blessed with initiation from an advanced soul, for the world is burning and the fire needs to be doused before it consumes all. The Lord has manifested Himself in this Age once more, this time in the guise of a poor Brahman priest and we are but His extensions, we who are the inheritors of His grace, the carriers of His message and spirit, the instruments and agencies of His mission. Must we fail Him who gave His all for us?

It is so cumbersome, this descent of the Divine, so arduous, so painful for the Infinite to bind Itself up in a finite form, for the ever-blissful Lord, free and pure, to enter this dungeon where all is fraught with disease and misery, and yet He, of His own volition---for who can force Him?---, out of His boundless mercy, chooses to be with us, His children, for but a brief hour that we may set our lives right, that the terrestrial conditions may be adjusted to suit the furtherance of life and its great evolutionary purpose. He lived just the other day on the bank of the Ganga at Dakshineswar, preaching His nectarine Gospel, singing and dancing in ecstasy like a soul inebriated and casting out of clay, moulds of men, whereby a new civilization may yet arise to approximate man to God.

Knowing this to be your inheritance, this the legacy of Ramakrishna who you worship, O devotees, cast off this inertia and rightfully take up your cross to further the Cause of the Master through devoted service to Him in the many, the afflicted, the miserable, the lonesome and the diseased, the poor and the destitute, the soulful and the sorrowful. This is true worship of the Divine in this Age, this the real measure of your spirituality. May Ramakrishna make messiahs of men from among you for did not the great Swami Vivekananda say: "Wait not for a prophet to come and save you but be a prophet unto others."?

MEDITATION 2

TEN TIPS TO MEDITATIVE CONCENTRATION

1. Be truthful.
2. Be pure.
3. Read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna daily.
4. Follow your spiritual preceptor's instructions religiously.
5. Meditate at dawn and dusk when Nature is tranquil and the nerve channels are open to higher vibrations.
6. Eat moderately only such food stuff which is not exciting.
7. Sleep well from 10:45 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. Never sleep during daytime for it fractures the memory and induces tamas (ignorance).
8. Avoid arguments over trivial issues for they disturb the finer thought currents.
9. Donate generously but never thoughtlessly towards social causes, especially, the Mission of Ramakrishna which is to bring peace on Earth hereafter.
10. Keep good company, avoid evil company and, on a disciplined basis, seek the company of the sages and saints of the Ramakrishna Order. This will induce sattwa (serenity) so very essential for meditative concentration.

MEDITATION 1

Meditation is coming in contact with one's inner self. The externalised mind is so chaotic with the unceasing stream of sensory impressions setting it into wave-like undulations that its tranquillity is lost and there is a seeming detachment of it from the inner mind which remains serene, beyond the reach of these disturbing sense-influences. But the mind is ever one and integrated however unlike its different phases may seem to be. It is a connected whole, a continuum, a gradation from the gross to the fine. The division is apparent and never real. Meditation brings one into contact with the deeper layers of the mind where abide peace and happiness and bliss supreme.

Meditation is the endeavour of the soul to dive deeper into itself by disconnecting itself from surface attachments which lend it levity. And herein comes renunciation as the precondition to successful meditation. Detachment from material possessions and human affections that bind the soul is the precondition to depth meditation. Else, it is just a plaything in the hands of children seeking relaxation of sorts.

While relaxation therapy advised by many modern physiologists is the preparatory stage of mental concentration where the mind is allowed to run free of any control even as a wild horse is allowed to run for a while before it tires to a modicum of moderation in movement, real meditation lies far beyond these playful exercises and calls for a protracted struggle, at first, to contain the mind within smaller and smaller ambit, and then, to dissolve the mind altogether in the transcendental Self whose incongruous image is the mind.

All this may seem a trifle discouraging and beyond the lot of ordinary mortals to achieve but then, which field of excellence is achievable without pursuit of it using the right tools and methods? Yet, there is a ray of hope for all in this grandest of human endeavour, the control of the mind through meditation, for after all, the human species is uniquely capable organically of successful meditation and there is nothing to be so despondent about failure to attain to perfected mental concentration. What has been achieved by the Buddha is achievable by all, for uniformity, despite surface differentiation and diversity, is the rigorous law of Nature and practice and detachment over years will eventually focus the mind in all who sincerely adhere to this science of meditation. Then peacefulness will follow and wisdom and love and all that is good and holy will bless the soul that has persevered through the years in its bid to master the mind.

End of Part 1...to be continued.

FORGET NOT THY SELF 1

The problems we so often face in human relations may be traced to our identification with the puny ego that attaches itself to the body-mind complex. Our real self is vast and ethereal, harmonic and serene without a tinge of pettiness or propensity towards inferior gain. We have lost our bearings in life because we have lost sight of this, our true self. The struggle is on towards regaining the lost empire but through the desert-sand of dead habit, the labyrinth of the labour of ignorance. Hopelessly we are caught in the snares of Maya, primates of primeval ignorance. And we are trying to settle out things, render justice, find solutions to intractable problems of life and the world around, what folly, what a futile endeavour when we are not even conscious of who we are!

This problem of existence was tackled in ancient India by the Rishis of yore who after searching for truth in the external universe understood that truth lay elsewhere and turned their attention inward into the life of things, the very mind of man. Centuries of external investigation led to some brilliant discoveries in the field of science and mathematics but left the ancient seers without a clue as to the solution of the riddle of existence. It is then that some of them ventured to explore the human mind itself in their bid to unravel the mystery of life. And truth was not come by overnight. Ages of investigation, mental recording of facts revealed and held in the memory of successive generations built up an oral tradition unparalleled in human history which culminated in the discovery of the truth of truths (satyasya satyam), the science of the Self. The Vedas graduated to the Vedanta or the Upanishads, the forest retreats became the ancient Indian universities and the students of Nature became the Rishis, venerated even today as some of the best minds that ever trod the face of this beautiful Earth.

Who were these Rishis? What did they discover? How did their discoveries give shape to the destiny of India? But more of that later. For now, adieu!   

WHERE THE OWL HOOTS NOT NOR THE COCK CROWS ... IN THE DEPTH OF THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

When past the mid-night hour, the screen shifts a little, I behold the stillness of a reality behind the facade of unceasing change. Silent, calm, unruffled stillness without a whirl or a bubble, deep conscious existence. Unconnected, parallel background reality that defies description save in tranquil memory. And yet the page opens in the depth of consciousness in the deep of the nocturnal hour. What a silent revelation! What profundity of perception, integrated, total! Seems then I am alone since eternity without possibility of company. Clear perception of an integrated ethereal space where there is not a dot nor mark, plain wholesomeness, how to express in tangible changeable terms that which is the Beyond. This phenomenal universe then melts away revealing that which is the stillness of Truth. When I now try to express, oh, how language deflects the intended meaning and covers it up all! Perhaps, it may only be kindled in sympathetic souls, the purport of this verbal intent of a consciousness and an existence so unlike this manifold world, so separate, as if hanging alone by itself, self-brooding, consciousness turned back upon itself, unsplit, yet fully conscious, unanalytic, yet knowing, a strange unitary understanding, seamless, total. There no thoughts reach for they have been resolved into their integral base and have so lost their very entity. It is a timeless zone or, should I say, a realm where the flow of time is so faint that the ordinary dissolves and the Real is perceived through the fine mist of Maya. But it is a revealing mist, distorting Reality, true, but removing the grotesque facade that external Nature is, moving and mystifying. The revelation is but incomplete, yet, it is a powerful indicator of the deeper status of things till at the deepest there is a strange disconnect, a quantum leap, so to say, in to the realm of the Infinite.

Reality is not what it seems. Reality is fundamentally different from the appearance we call Phenomena. But it is hidden or, should I say, obscured from vision by incessant flow of thoughts which are the derivatives of integral consciousness that transcends this ceaseless fractured flow. Neurobiologists may disagree with these affirmations of mine, dumping them as so many misinterpretations of psychic phenomena capable of neural explanation, hallucinations of the heated brain, the scientifically untrained mind's superstitious averment and I hold their thesis in high regard knowing that they are the product of the best minds over a great period of scientific evolution but I still cannot subscribe to their summary dismissals of these claims of the divine without adequate scrutiny or the right means and methods of doing so. For this is a terrain that lies, as of now, beyond the domain of the physical sciences and therefore demands investigation using the right tools. Even as distant celestial bodies are explored through the telescope, even as miniscule matter is investigated using the microscope, so must these perceptions of the human mind at an altitude be investigated using, if I may coin a term, the 'introscope'. By 'introscope' I mean the introspective analytical mind that sifts the spiritual grain from the material chaff and arrives at spiritual realization. Sages and saints down the ages have vouched for their spiritual experiences and these were men of character whose lives were blemishless and based on truth and who brought about beneficent changes in human society giving civilization purpose and meaning beyond the mundane. But age-old religious affirmations, codified creeds and archaic spiritual myths are all breaking down under the sledgehammer blows of reason and it is right that they should seek their quick cremation in the fire of scientific knowledge. Like the fire of the Inquisition which burnt saint and savant alike, let not, however, this time over, a second such fire be lit which shall consume the best of human culture in the form of its brightest discoveries of the Self of man and the ground of phenomena. Let reason go as far as it can but let reason temper reason and let not wild assertions of over-zealous scientists be misconstrued as the findings of reason for men, scientific or otherwise, are so often perverse in their denunciations and carry personal agenda, preconceptions and prejudices so very delusive that arrogance of material knowledge abrogates sublime realizations of the Spirit even as Church power annulled scientific truths in the Dark Ages.

So it is that while so-called spiritual assertions of the bygone ages may have been in error in many places and, indeed, ancient myths about gods and goddesses are very much so if absorbed literally despite protestations about their so-called historicity and allegorical implications ever shifting in interpretation, though, in the light of the findings of modern science to which these upholders of archaic myths resort to fulfil their bogus philosophy, and in this I am not particularizing any specific religious tradition but am generally reporting about religious tradition down the ages worldwide, it is equally true that much of mythology contains germs of the sublime truths of life and the transcendence beyond and the evolving culture of man which to discard wholesale in the name of surface reason will be as primitive an act as the most heinous crimes of the burning down of the ancient library of Alexandria and the destruction of civilization by tyrants down the ages. Science is an attempt of the human mind to grapple with the puzzle of existence by empirical means while religion is the same endeavour to unravel the mystery of existence by the exploration of the mind itself through introspection. Religion and science are not antagonistic in their mission. Rather, they are the complementary aspects of the unified quest of man to arrive at a fundamental understanding of Reality. As such, mutual respect can foster a more holistic approach towards the comprehension of the riddle of existence than mutual denunciation can. Great truths of the subjective world have been discovered by sages and saints and equally grand truths of objective reality have been discovered by scientists and these truths, though seemingly contradictory often, are but interpretations from two different standpoints of a single Reality that is not partitioned as men have through their divisive modes reduced them to. Nature is whole and integrated, free of the trappings of the human mind in its present state of evolution and sees no conflict between the spiritual and the material for essentially they are the same, the finer and the grosser states of a unified entity. These artificial distinctions of the subjective and the objective world are constructs of the human mind and have no bearing on the functioning of Nature beyond the deflections caused by the conscious mind in the observation of particle behaviour and therefore have their domain strictly confined within the spectrum of consciousness, thereby leaving the vast field of the superconscious and the subconscious as uncharted zones over which presumptuous pronouncements cannot be passed off as rationalization. Since this is the scenario, it stands to reason to have camaraderie of spirit rather than ideological acrimony if humanity is to arrive at comprehension of the core truth which is the harmony of all forces and therefore is to be approached in a harmonious way, if at all.

Revelations abound in millions of lives in greater or smaller degree and this keeps the cycle of life turning. Discoveries are not the domain solely of scientists but each soul is a conduit of the divine and may perceive truth in whatever miniscule form even in the thoroughfare of life and much more so if one is devoted to the pursuit of truth. All these are cultural enhancements and conglomerate to build civilization. Harmony is the key and is ever the basis for advancement of humanity towards final fruition in the discovery of the underlying oneness of things, be it be approached from the material scientific standpoint or from the spiritual standpoint for it is oneness that all are seeking however unconsciously they may do so. When Einstein explored the universe, he did so to find out the ultimate basis of phenomena, The Unified Field Theory that would explain it all. Today's cosmologists are attempting to find The Theory of Everything in their bid to unravel the cosmic mystery and harmonize the apparently contradictory theories of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The concept of the 'singularity' in astrophysics, the black hole, the Big Bang and the Big Crunch are all portentous of human knowledge steadily advancing towards the discovery of the oneness of existence, a fact which the Vedic Rishis ages ago had discovered through their introspective vision, the Self which is the ground of all that exists. Atman = Brahman was the equation they discovered and in trumpet voice declared before the wide world. The forests retreats of the Rishis and their Himalayan caves resonated to the celestial vibration of Om which is the first manifestation of the unmanifest Reality. The waters of the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati carried along their current the sublime message of the Upanishads, the symphony of the soul. The One had dispersed into the many and the many were rushing on to oneness. The dewdrops had split up the sun rays into the rainbow colours and the colours were conspiring to resolve into their unitary solar status.

All through Nature this game is on, the One manifesting as the many and the manifold tending to resolve into the One. This contrary phenomenon in Nature, the disintegrating mode and the integrating mode, the tendency to fly apart and the reverse tendency to gravitate inward keeps the universe oscillating from cycle to cycle. These contrary modes work in opposition to each other and thereby bring about the grand interplay of cosmic forces and create the ripple we call life. So let science and religion co-exist as comrades-in-arms as humans battle to demystify creation and discover the basis of life.

And yet in the dark deep of the cosmos a voice beckons us ushering us on to some unknown end. Whither do we rush on? Wherefrom the voice comes? Is it from deep within us? And yet, the screen shifts, the curtain lifts a little revealing a stillness that is tranquil, a silence that is conscious. Who are we? I wonder, I wonder.

       

INDIA, THE SECOND-MOST POPULOUS COUNTRY --- A RECTIFICATION

Thanks a lot Samir Krishnamurti for the information furnished by you regarding India's status as the second-most populous country in the world today. I humbly stand rectified and have accordingly made adjustments to the opening reference in my essay. I Google-searched it before doing so and this I ought to have done beforehand itself. I was aware of this fact but had thought that China having frozen her population over sometime now and the Indian census having been conducted sometime back and the alarming rate of population growth persisting in India, she must have by now overtaken China well and soundly. But it was a terrible misjudgment and an unverified assertion for which I have made the necessary adjustment to my post. Thank you again for bringing this mistake to my notice and thereby helping the essay on to freedom from statistical error. May God be with you ever is the prayer of this servant of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda!

LIVE FOR OTHERS

What is yours and what is mine? Everything is God's. This very body that I wear, I cannot hold on to it for long. It will pass with my physical death. This very mind which I think to be mine, I cannot possess well enough nor can I control it. It is ever being influenced by others, fashioned and refashioned by them even as it tries to exert its influence over others. The body is changing and so is the mind. Masses of material particles every moment add to and subtract from the existing mass which is the body, inconstant and ceaselessly changeable as it is for its very survival. And this I identify with as myself and mine, what folly! The ceaseless current of thought whirling in and out of my perception system, uncontrolled and chaotic, fashions my mind and, rationalized and socialized, gives me a seeming personality which is ever adrift on the vast universal current and so, shifting and shimmering, makes a mirage of myself evanescent as a distant dream. And this I call as being myself, what fantasy, what inconsistent affirmation! Then who am I?

I seem to be there somewhere or do I not exist? It is such a powerful feeling, this sense of my existence and yet, I may or may not be actually existing. And through all this I keep attaching 'myself' to ephemeral earthly dreams here and hereafter bearing no consequence to me beyond this brief flicker of terrestrial life. Ignorant I came into this world and ignorant have I remained as to my identity despite tall pretentious claims of being educated and cultured. Whither knowledge of the Self? Through the haze of life, through the maze of Maya, I remain as rustic an individual as my great predecessors who rambled the fields in search of the fruit of the Earth. Where have I in any way evolved save in outer embellishments of life and in superficial knowledge of the principles of Nature which may be as far removed from Truth as the knowledge of the pastoral people was in days of yore from the technological know-how we now possess. We have barely scratched the surface of the mine of knowledge that Nature holds in store for us but we vaunt like one who seemingly is the monarch of all he surveys.

Attachment is fundamentally ruinous to the cause of self-identification as it covers up Truth with superimposition of things that are the non-self. Consequently, we suffer from mistaken notions of our self and labour in ignorance to acquire earthly possessions which set in the nefarious chain of competition and conflict. All earthly ambition is fraught with ignorance, all human labour the product of blind necessities where the propelling force is as much human need as human greed. As mind is more fluid than matter, it necessarily follows that human desires should far outnumber the material means to satiate them. From this follows the golden economic principle of 'limited means and unlimited ends'. Thus, with a burgeoning population, competition followed by conflict is inevitable over the possession of the Earth's resources. It is puerile to believe that at the present level of human evolution resources will be shared by men as per their respective needs for survival and decent living. Human society, for all its pretensions of organization and conjoined enterprise for the purpose of the well-being of all, remains a predatory entity where cannibalism continues in a variant form, that of brutal life-sucking exploitation of men by fellow men. And this has been the story through the ages despite religion and its morals, despite the grandest discoveries of science and despite the fact that such exploitation has reduced the masses from time immemorial to beasts of burden whose only vocation in life has been to toil for their exploitative masters. And why so? Because Nature assigns powers unequally to people and this advantage that some have over others in terms of intelligence, talent or simply brutal collective might when coupled with avarice serves to create inequities in human society which even the gods cannot redress. Divisive ideas of individuality, caste, creed, race and nationality fraught with ignorant modes and methods have ruined the possibilities of the flourishing of human civilization for ages and deluged the world with the tears of the masses silently suffering their terrestrial lot which the privileged delight as life. It is a very unequal distribution of the amenities of life, the Earth's resources which are the common inheritance of all and cannot be shut up within the confines of clusters of individuals, families and the like if social justice is to obtain in the name of civilization. Only then may we call ourselves humans and not until then. So long as this inequitable distribution of terrestrial wealth continues we are hardly removed from the savage we once were with the only difference that now we are more merciless than ever before with all our refinements of the mode of exploitation.

Capitalism like feudalism which preceded it is rotten to the core and the next stage of socio-political evolution, socialism, does not seem to be any better either if one is to adhere to its present Marxist model of State-control of enterprise and property with all its concomitant stifling of social opinion and democratic norms. A robotic civilization can scarce bring about social justice and it will be a reverting to the old feudalistic system, only a far more virulent variety in that the single Party with its omnipotence vested in the Central Committee, the Politburo and the General Secretary rules with despotic impunity playing with the lives of millions of men held in captivity in a Police State where the slightest demur from any spells doom for the one. The 20th century has seen these social experiments succeed and fail in the Soviet Union, China and the whole of Eastern Europe and I doubt if sane-thinking people would like to hand over their liberty to dictators like Stalin and Mao in the name of the furtherance of the human cause through revolution. It is a well-known fact of psychology that enforcement in a culturally cramped environment devoid of human freedom is a worse motivator of human creative endeavour than encouragement in a free society where diversity of opinion and expression abounds. Consequently, democracy seems a better alternative on the surface to dictatorial socialism in terms of its power to unleash human potential and reap its benefits thereof for the collective good of all. But the question arises, does democracy raise the masses or does it subject them to the free reign of capitalistic exploitation masquerading as social democracy? I leave it to my readers to dwell on it for the while even as I exhort all to come to each other's help in this unequal battle of life so that the wheels of this vast social machinery may be lubricated a little for the collective good.

A perfect social system is yet to evolve and in its absence the rule of the jungle continues to hold the masses captive. They who produce the wealth of the world are despoiled of it all and the crafty manipulators of men run away with the booty and all this with the sanction of the law. No wonder Lenin had called the State the organ of class rule. Although I am no protagonist of the Marxist ideology of 'the rule of the proletariat' for history has provided ample testimony as to its horrendous consequences in terms of mass genocide in the name of revolution and the utter destitution of the human spirit, I yet stand for the rights of the masses to a fair share of the fruits of their labour as the means of ending their economic plight. And why should they not have their fair share when they are the backbone of world civilization, when their labour runs the vast social machinery of the world? But to bring about this stupendous change in human society it will take much more than revolutions. It requires a complete overhauling of the human psyche, its thorough transformation. Given the diversities that exist in human society at present in terms of cultural divergences it seems highly unlikely that any advance will be possible in the near future. The world will war and suffer for ages yet till the bulk of its population will be rationalized, its thinking sanitized and humanistic impulses become the possession of the majority. Only then will any grand theory, religious or socio-political make any tangible difference to the lot of the multitude. Till then the misery of the masses will continue, be it at the hands of the industrialists or the politicians or religious bigots.

I had begun this essay by asking the question as to what is yours and what is mine? I shall now answer it. Yes, I am yours and you are mine and we all are God's. If we remember this simple formula then in our individual lives we can make a difference and with it some difference for the better in our collective social life. I understand that all this will be achieved in the exploitative society where all the forces of economic coercion will still be silently operating, crushing the life out of millions by the hour. But then brother, what can you or I or even an Avatar like a Ramakrishna do in the present scenario? The accumulated karma has to run out before a change may be effected. But will such foul play ever stop? One wonders. Till then remember that you and your brother man are one, so says the Vedanta. Therefore, love all, care for all, share your wealth with all and bring about some sanity to human life. Jai Ramakrishna!.

TRUTHFULNESS, THE ABIDING PRINCIPLE

Truthfulness means truth of statement, purpose and intent, truth of motivation, aspiration and endeavour, truth of action and enterprise, above all, truth of principle and realization all pervasive, all embracing where 'exclusion' is a word excluded and doctrinaire dogmatism a falsity shunned. Such truthfulness ever ascending over a period of 12 years or so, it is said, opens up the Medha Nadi (the nerve of creative intelligence) through which flows divine knowledge setting the soul free.

A grosser truthfulness for 12 years is easier attained but is insufficient to attain to Truth which is perceivable only by flow of the subtlest of nerve currents through nerves as yet dormant but which will wake up in the fullness of time under the force of subtle thinking backed up by absolute purity and truthfulness. 12 years of truthfulness and 12 years of Brahmacharya (continence) go hand in hand without which spiritual realization remains a distant dream. Ordinarily, attempts to scale the heights of spiritual perception end in the folly of the soul being deluded into stumbled realizations far adrift from the essence of it all and this leads to so much of chaos in the world of religion where sect battles against sect and world religions go shallower by the day as they grow in numbers. It is all due to the fault-lines that have remained in the original message of the founding fathers of these fanatical faiths who had but partial access to the highest citadels of Truth and thereby came to but a fractional apprehension of it which by fanatical affirmation they pronounced as the alpha and the omega of Truth. And all this because they stumbled onto Truth owing to lack of sufficient spiritual preparation following yogic discipline, to quote Swami Vivekananda, and because they were not continent enough to refine their nervous system sufficiently to gain complete comprehension of transcendental Truth in its non-dual aspect which would have dispelled the residual dark in the corridors of their souls and set them free of dualistic pitfalls which have since inception plagued the religions founded by them.

Such then are the spiritual imperatives, absolute adherence to truth and perfect purity in thought, word and deed. Now look around and find one who is the embodiment of these and you will have known the Prophet of the hour and of all time to come. Friend, may I suggest one? He is standing by the bank of the Ganga near the Panchavati Tree expectantly to enfold you in his spiritual grace. Tarry no more, rush on lest the hour passes by. He is the sage of Dakshineswar, God in the guise of a Brahman priest, Ramakrishna.

BHASKAR SEN SHARMA, A FRIEND IN DELIGHT 2

That's the spirit Bhaskar. Hit it right where it ought to be hit. Ever vigilant, dear friend and friend of our beloved Motherland, you truly can separate the grain from the chaff. God bless you glorious one for your articulate honesty.

Be it pseudo-glorification of Sardar Patel to gain electoral mileage or sycophancy of the Gandhi-Nehru familial tradition or pseudo-devotional servitude to a venerable monastic order, dear friend, your resolute pen never shirks from uttering the truth enshrined in your heart and which finds resonance in many a kindred spirit but whose voices are muted by inhibition and ideas marred by muddled thinking. It is here that you, great protagonist, come forth with your shining light and dispel the dark of ignorance and arrogance thereof with a sublimity of expression and a profundity of thought that defies the mundane and lifts friend and foe alike to ethereal heights where the babble of dissension gives way to peaceful acquiescence where all is music and all is harmony. It is a rare trait in an individual to speak poetry, to pen music and to ever articulate truth. Such a harmonic combination you are my friend where the forces have so met that disparateness dares not stoop so low as to obstruct the fundamental function of Nature to uphold unity in diversity.

Long back Swami Vivekananda had foreseen and prophesied the advent of the future man who would be the perfect combination of the four-fold aspects of Jnana (Knowledge), Bhakti (Devotion), Yoga (Mind-control) and Karma (Work) and the Lion of Vedanta had made no distinction in his pronouncement between man and monk. When I behold your talents which are so very obvious to anyone with a modicum of knowledge or a stray bit of musical perception, I wonder why such a plethora of powers should lie in rust in diverse pages and not see the sunshine of concentrated exposure in a single focus which will blaze humanity. I am an ardent devotee of your principled personality, my friend, and your filial adherence to truth irrespective of social opinion or institutional standing where a lesser soul shirks from expressing heart-felt urges fearing social chastisement and institutional retribution. But you, my friend, loyal as you are to the Cause of Truth and to those that bled for it with their hearts' blood never step back from your advancing stride following the dictum of the Vedic Rishis, 'Charaiveti' (Advance). And herein lies the glory that is Bhaskar Sen Sharma, pure pristine child of Mother, free and fair, buoyant, blissful, sublime, true.

PAUSE A MOMENT 1

Remove poverty to remove disease. Ebola spreads in congested conditions. Stop exploiting the masses if you want your own redemption. Help, there is no other way.

THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD

The mother is preeminent in the Hindu culture. The Hindus have exalted the woman to the highest level of the motherhood of God. 'Ya Devi sarvabhuteshu matrirupena sangsthita / Namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namao namaha' (O Goddess that dwelleth in every element of the universe as the Mother of all, I venerate Thee, I venerate Thee, I venerate Thee again and again).

From Vedic times this motherhood of God has dominated the Hindu mind and has occupied its pristine position in the Hindu conception of godhead. The worship of Adya Shakti (primeval cosmic energy or force) as embodied in a female form and as a disembodied being has been at the root of the Hindu devotional exercise. The cosmic being has always been venerated as the Divine Mother more than as the Divine Father and this has been the characteristic departure of the Hindu way of spiritual thinking from the Semitic religions, Judaism and Christianity, where God is worshipped as the Divine Father.

Even in the case of the immaculate conception of a divine incarnation such as Christ or Buddha or Ramakrishna, the earthly father has no role to play, so to say, in the procreation. He is, thus, the caretaker father and not the biological one. Here also the mother's position is preeminent as she is the one that rears the baby in her womb before giving it birth. As such she remains the biological mother and in a sense the only biological earthly parent of the immaculately-born divine child. No biological father but, sure enough,  the Avatar has his biological mother. And herein lies the supreme significance of motherhood as the gateway to terrestrial life. Herein does motherhood gain ascendancy over fatherhood and this principle was noted as being of cosmic significance by the Hindu rishis who forthwith raised the status of womanhood to that of universal motherhood and the highest dualistic principle of godhead to the universal motherhood of God.

The cosmic delusive manifesting principle or the primordial power is conceived of as feminine by the Hindu mind. Mahamaya or Adya Shakti is a feminine principle and is the creator, preserver and destroyer of phenomena. All power is invested in Her and She dispenses with the universe as She wills. Further, all power is derived from Her and She has to be propitiated for all achievement or, in the ultimate analysis, for renunciation of life and its ephemeral pleasures. Finally, She is the one that guards the gate to freedom and none can escape into freedom without Her grace. Thus, Hinduism lays supreme importance to the worship of the Divine Mother as the means to all good and eventual liberation from the shackles of Maya. The dynamic aspect of Nature being feminine in the Hindu conception, all action deriving from it is also feminine and the supreme custodian of all action is feminine as well. And this supreme principle is the Universal Mother whose earthly embodiment each woman is and it therefore becomes spiritually mandatory to venerate womanhood as divine, else spirituality remains a distant dream in this terrestrial plane where the pitfalls of Maya are many and the delight of delusion binds man to this repetitive cycle of terrestrial transmigration.

Our earthly mother is the gateway to this world and the Divine Mother is the final exit-point of phenomena. From the alpha to the omega it is Mother and Mother alone, creating us, preserving us and eventually guiding us to liberation. She is Nature and She is the controller of Nature. She is the confluence of the three gunas, sattwa, rajas and tamas and She is every combination of these. Propellor She is, propelled She is, She is all that is. Hers is the omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence. Perceiver, perceived and perception She is and She is the transcendental unity that enfolds the trinity.

The Hindu rishis were wise people and not ignorant pastoral people or foolish farmers with antiquated notions about God and man. They full well understood the significance of the motherhood of God and in glowing terms recited hymns in Her praise. From time immemorial, where history dares not peep, this living principle of the motherhood of God has rolled down to the plains of India from its mountainous habitat like the waters of the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati to fertilise the vast moving mass of humanity that has trodden the soil of India. This spiritual conception, this philosophical idea has over time gripped the psyche of the Hindus and impregnated their very consciousness till it has undergone a transition to its corresponding human phase where the Hindu mother is venerated as the earthly representation of the Universal Mother. This transformation has been so complete that the mother is the pivotal link in every Hindu family and the very cornerstone of familial life. And, in this way, the idea of the divinity of the earthly mother, nay, of all women has so diffused through the national psyche that the venerable Hindu law-giver, Manu, pronounced 'Yatra naryastu pujyantey, ramantey tatra devata' (Where women are worshipped, there the gods dwell).

No country on earth has conceived of womanhood in loftier terms than India. Alas, through conquest and the consequent degeneration of civilisation, the state of woman in India is no more what it used to be in her days of political and cultural freedom. Now the time has come at last to reverse this evil cycle of history and raise woman to her natural elevated state as envisaged by the rishis of yore and as it obtained in ancient India of supreme spiritual excellence. Only then may we as a nation hope to rise and occupy our true place in the comity of nations. Else, nation-building will remain a distant dream for, to quote Swami Vivekananda, 'a one-winged bird cannot fly.' And, this emancipation of woman must begin with the identification of the divine focus within woman, that of the motherhood of God. The Divine Mother, the earthly mother and the earthly wife are all manifestations of the same feminine cosmic principle.

To sum up the story, so to say, let me take you all to Dakshineswar in the 1870s when Ramakrishna reigned as the spiritual monarch of all he surveyed and his young wife Sarada came over from Joyrambati to Dakshineswar to test the truth of the rumour that was then doing the rounds that her husband had lost his sanity of mind. Suddenly confronted by the spiritual altitude of her husband, the young Sarada, somewhat perplexed and, so, unsure of her status in her husband's altered state of consciousness, hazarded the question while massaging his feet, "Tell me, who am I to you?" The husband promptly answered, "She who is the Mother in the temple (the Kali Temple), She who is my earthly mother now residing at the Nahabat (the Concert House) is the very mother who is now massaging my feet here." The young wife understood and never broached the topic again. She had set up her relation with her divine husband that very instant and never for an instant changed again to lay any special claim (to which she had ample right) on him. When in later years, decades after the demise of the Master, Holy Mother was queried as to her relation with her husband, she startled the questioner by saying that she was Thakur's mother. And when Ramakrishna passed away on that fateful day of 16 August, 1886, at Cossipore Garden House, Holy Mother broke down into tears lamenting thus, "O Mother Kali, where have you gone away?"

Such was the divine conjugal relation of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi, each envisioning in the other the Divine Mother. And this is India's legacy to the world, worship of God as Mother and, reversing the scale, worship of the earthly mother as the Divine Mother. Jai Ma!

THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... LEAFLET 1

Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied that he would return to this terrestrial plane after residing in his subtle body in the hearts of his devotees for a hundred years. Now, we cannot for sure ascertain the exact date of his prophetic statement and, hence, cannot for sure know exactly when the period of his hundred-year stay in his devotees' hearts has ended. If it be assumed that even at the latest it is from the date of his demise, then he ought to have returned amongst us in 1986. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi has said that the Master would return after a hundred years when a lot of white-skinned devotees of his would visit this land. Is it possible then that Thakur was reborn in the year 1986, the year of the 500th birth anniversary of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when in point of fact thousands of white-skinned Western devotees had flocked to Kolkata and Mayapur in connection with the anniversary celebrations. True it is that in 1986 Kolkata and Mayapur were literally inundated with Western devotees, Vaishnavs ordained in the Iskcon Movement. It is phenomenal that Holy Mother had spoken of the fact that at this time many white-skinned devotees of Thakur would flock even as the like of Nivedita, Christine and MacLeod were then assembling in Thakur's name. But, surely, Holy Mother could have had no inkling about Mahaprabhu's 500th birth anniversary as coinciding with Sri Ramakrishna's 100th year from his great disappearance. And herein lies the significance of her remarkable statement.

Holy Mother described Thakur in his new incarnation as one dressed in the garb of a Baul with a broken stone-pot in his hand and a hubble-bubble and walking along the path leading to Burdwan, oblivious of surroundings. On the way there would be a boy excreting by the wayside. Clad in the ochre robe and sporting a long beard, Thakur would be walking seemingly endlessly and eating likewise as he trudged along. He would be born once more a Bengali and would appear in the direction of Bali and Uttarpara, two districts to the north-west of Dakshineswar. When Holy Mother had remonstrated that she would under no circumstance come to this Earth again, Thakur had laughingly retorted that she had no way to escape for the eternal companions of Thakur were all inextricably bound to him even as the stalks of the Kalmi creeper and a single tug by him would bring them all to the terrestrial plane with Thakur in his next incarnation. Even Laksmi Didi, Thakur's niece said that she would not come even if she were cut to shreds like tobacco leaves but met with a similar response.

Swami Saradananda has however claimed to have heard that Thakur would return after the lapse of 200 years and this piece of information he has recorded in his magnum opus biography of the Master, 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Leela Prasanga' (Sri Ramakrishna and his Divine Play). Thus, there is a confusion as to the lapse of time from the last incarnation when the Master will reincarnate himself.

In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna the Master boldly announces that he will be reincarnated in the Vayu-Kon, a specific direction among the ten directions of the Hindu astronomical system. He says that he has not imparted total knowledge to his disciples as then they will refuse to come with him when he reincarnates. Those of his inner circle of devotees will not be liberated as they will have to accompany him when he is embodied again in the Vayu-Kon.

In America one afternoon Swami Vivekananda suddenly brought up this subject and said that he would have to once more come to planet Earth with the Master after a lapse of 200 years. When queried  as to why he would have to come just because Sri Ramakrishna had so determined it, Swamiji said,"You do not know the power of these souls madam. When the Master comes, he brings his entourage along."

Swami Vijnanananda has said that the Master will reincarnate after 100 years and then and not until then will his movement rapidly spread. This he said in response to a devotee's query as to why there was such a paucity of spiritual awareness in the world and so much of material meanness despite the fact that the Master had just the other day conducted his terrestrial play.

So from all these accounts it seems that there are two plausible timelines of the the Master's reincarnation---100 years and 200 years. Well, 100 years have passed since his death in 1886 and if he has been born in 1986 then he is now 28 years of age and in all probability in the midst of his spiritual austerities. It is for us then to wait for his emergence on the human stage sooner or later to bring to it the fruit of his realizations. We anxiously wait on.

HAPPY DEEPAVALI

Dear devotees,

Festive time it is. But let us not, in our moment of merriment, forget those whose lives are a perennial misery, those that suffer the pangs of hunger, squalor, ignorance and disease. This is the opportune moment to do something for them, to help them survive in this unequal battle of life where all the odds are pitted against them, where the inequities of life make their very existence on earth perilous. Deepavali is the festival of light. So, let us light up the lives of these, our hapless brethren, fast sinking in the mire of material misery with no hope of redemption from or redress of their appalling human situation. Billions will be spent now to light up the night sky and to bring colour to the hearts of all. Let us not leave these millions of our very own flesh and blood as we run a riot of colours and light in the coming days. May we all spend a little less on our own delight and give the rest to bringing succour to the lives of our poor sisters and brothers. Then, and then alone, will our Deepavali be a festival of light for it will be a festival of love as well.

Happy Deepavali to all!

Yours in the Divine Mother,
Sugata Bose.

HARMONY OF RELIGIONS

Your catholicity of writing, Bhaskar, is redolent of the universality of the message of the sages of yore who had discovered these truths in their Himalayan caves, in their forest retreats and on the banks of the great Indian rivers, the Ganga, the Sindhu and the Saraswati. 'Ekam sad vipra vahudha vadanti' (Truth is One but sages have given utterance to it variously) was the clarion call of the Vedas. 'Yo ekovarno vahudha shakti yogat' (That is of a single colour but has assumed multiplicity through the enjoining of the Primordial Power) is another great aphorism that has rolled down the ages with the waters of the Ganga and has permeated the psyche of the Indian people. These and countless other aphorisms are literally littered across the holy books of the Hindus and have impregnated the very being of the Hindu people and rendered the religion of this ancient land Bharatvarsha sublimely synthetic with its spirit tending to the oneness of all existence amidst the rich natural diversity of this phenomenal universe. This is the music of India, the marvellous melody of moods, the sublime symphony of the soul.

The Sanatan Dharma (The Eternal Religion/The Perennial Philosophy) is the vast body of spiritual laws that governs phenomena. Natural Law holds the physical universe together. In a like manner Spiritual Law holds the spiritual universe together and the Veda is the aggregate or the universal set of such spiritual laws. The Veda is not a book but the cumulative body of spiritual vibrations which associate and dissociate in varying patterns to give rise to phenomena, sustain phenomena and eventually dissolve phenomena into its potential state whence a fresh cycle of cosmic manifestation begins. And thus, the eternal play of forces goes on in manifesting space-time through cosmic cycle after cycle, beginningless, endless manifestation in alternating mode, perennial oscillation of the cosmos within limits. This is Vedic cosmology, completely in tune with the findings of modern astrophysics. And this is the vast basis of the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) so far as its explanation of cosmic phenomena goes. Thus, the religion of the Hindus, profoundly spiritual as it is, nonetheless has a strong rational basis and is founded on the realizations of thousands of sages down the ages and not some special messenger of God whose articulations are thrust down on all to be accepted as Gospel Truth without scientific scrutiny or rational enquiry. It is heresy to challenge the message of such messiahs of men for theirs is the inviolable truth of God after all and a pious submission to it is all that goes by in the name of truth-seeking which may never be in contra-disposition to the so-called 'revealed truth' and should it be perchance so, then, which ought to be discarded into the cosmic bin whence it had arisen as so much material garbage while the 'original' or 'final revealed truth' ought to be worshipped in the sanctum sanctorum of the human heart. It is outright degrading for humanity to continue to subject itself to such baneful irrationality and to the will of an archaic personality or principle that has outlived its time. Time it is to live like 21st century people with a clear head and a compassionate heart with a rational truth-seeking mind guiding us on to higher human aspirations where a vision uncluttered by superstition and dogma is the guardian angel and not arbitrary assumptions of apostles of God and their scriptural injunctions, unverified, unalterable, inviolable, archaic and flawed conception of truth relative and absolute. And to supplant this age-old tyranny of a vast unreason that has cast a hypnotic spell over the masses and is the primary force of fanaticism that has spelled the doom of civilization, a vaster network of liberal scientific education for children must be established so that future generations may be spared the inheritance of superstition masquerading as truth and may stand in the clear sunshine of truth, reasoned, experimented and verified through instruments external and the inner eye of introspection, intuition and inspiration, never exclusive or peculiar to a particular person but common to all humanity and well-founded on reason though transcending it where relativity breaks down and thoughts and words may not reach (Avaangmanasogocharam/Yato vacho nivartantey aprapya manasa saha).

If this world has to rise, it will have to adopt scientific principles as its guiding light, liberalism of thought as its creed if there be one and investigative rationalism as the method of enquiry into truth, be they secular or spiritual. But mere external observation of phenomena, arrangement of data and arrival at scientific principles will not suffice for knowing the subtle truths of the spiritual world. Meditation, introspection, purity and charity must all go hand in hand as well for spiritual knowledge comes from the study of the mind by the mind and the culture of the heart comes from practising charity, the humble service of humanity and the world around. And all this must be founded on a spontaneous chastity of living, ever free and never forced by doctrine or dogma for purity is the basis of concentration of the mind which must focus itself on itself to reveal the truths embedded deep inside its recesses culminating in the discovery of the supreme Self of man which is his trans-organic reality irrespective of his religious affiliation or any ideological associations whatsoever. But the entire process of spiritual investigation must follow strict scientific rigour adjusted to the demands of subjective enquiry to avoid the age-old pitfalls of superstition, assertions of ignorance, consequent on 'stumbling upon truth' without adequate organic and cerebral preparation, as inviolable truth and to allow the evolution of human spiritual thinking through the rationalization process called philosophy. Only when a vast section of humanity practises this liberal scientific spiritual philosophy which may today sound like a contradiction in terms but which has been the age-old Vedantic practice in India can humanity hope to extricate itself from religious and ideological fanaticism and a harmony of forces of the human mind have its full play. Then and then alone will peace reign and all faiths co-exist complementing each other in this panoramic drama of human life.

Jai Ramakrishna, the embodiment of the harmony of religions!
Jai Vivekananda, the incarnation of the harmony of all human forces!