SEVENTH SUNDAY SESSION, 12 APRIL, 2015, 5-8 P.M.

The Seventh Sunday Session was held on 12 April when only two of us met, Dwaipayan Bhattacharya and myself but it was a most exhilarating session with the discussion gravitating onto BHAKTI YOGA or the devotional path to God-realization. It was a deliberation in detail about the ways and means of bhakti and its final fruition. Physics, philosophy, neurology and religion were all the subject-matter of our deliberations as we attempted to theoretically unravel the possibilities and potentialities of the human nervous system in the attainment of bhakti. Vaidhi/Gauni Bhakti and Prema/Raag Bhakti were discussed and the pronouncements of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda on the same were recalled. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the capricious behaviour of Maya were likened as were Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence and the apparent embodiment of the disembodied Self correlated in a variant way though. Also, the spiral motion of a celestial body in a gravitational field ending in a seeming vertical free fall which is but the terminal phase of the inward spiral of the falling body was drawn upon as an analogy for the experiential evolution of the soul where the impelling force is the repulsion of experience and the massive attraction of the Self that leaves no room for permanent retrogression on account of inharmonious karma. This is the great hope the Vedanta infuses in the heart of humankind and thus promises to be the religion of intelligent humanity in the future.

The scheduled programme had to be sidelined on account of the poor presence of members and will have to wait till brighter days dawn on the SUNDAY SESSIONS. Overall, it was very encouraging to see this alumnus of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Purulia so eagerly participate in the proceedings and this augurs well for the future of SUNDAY SESSIONS. With that note of hope I urge members to once more commit themselves to the Cause we have undertaken and to abide by the CARDINAL PRINCIPLES OF SUNDAY SESSIONS.

Thanking you,
With expectation of a better turn-out at the next Sunday Session,
Yours faithfully,
Sugata Bose