VEDANTA, THE ONE WAY TO PEACE

Conversion from one religion to another which is one of the key operational principles of proselytizing religions such as Christianity and Islam is the seed of fanaticism and the violence thereof. To believe that one religion is superior to another and, hence, the adherents of such have the divine right to convert affiliates to other religions by allurement or force to their own is the sign of gross spiritual ignorance and the most violent mental attitude towards fellow humans. Spirituality at its highest, as expounded by the Vedanta, upholds the essential oneness of all of phenomena and the divinity of all of sentience irrespective of one's religious or ideological affiliation. Thus, to carry out fanatical programmes of conversion on the basis of such a fractured understanding of life is antithetical to spirituality and provides the bedrock on which stands all religious persecution. The history of the world is a continuous deluge of human blood spilled in the name of a cruel God with a desert heart devoid of any pity for those of His children who choose to stay out of His arbitration. Hundreds of millions down the ages have been sacrificed at the altar of religion, plundered and pillaged, murdered and mutilated, just because they were non-believers in a monotheistic method of the mind masquerading as the sole means to the attainment of the Absolute when all that it has always been was a merciless mechanism crushing out the life of things, and such human barbecue continues to this day on account of scriptural sanction and unholy inducement. The Sanatan Dharma, on the other hand, in trumpet voice declares the divinity of humanity, nay, of all of phenomena, and is a direct counter to the inhuman agenda of these irrational affirmations going by the name of religion. Wherever such a one has spread, it has done so at the point of the bayonet and the sword. If these religions were philosophically sound or scientifically tenable, they would not have had to resort to such a deal of violence to drive their ideological agenda home. But they are weak philosophically, being founded on unique personal revelations, so to say, and thus, these revelations must be forced down the gauntlet of masses of adherents and converts who dare not challenge their validity. The moot point remains that human beings are born into cultures with their specific dominant religions whose doctrines are drilled into them from birth in such a malefic manner that most never recover from such indoctrination and remain captive in their fanatical moulds for life. Irrational assertions of outdated scriptures are so thrust down their systems that they remain intellectually crippled for life with critical faculty surrendered and mind divested of the power to challenge the doctrines in abject submission to such cultural compulsions consequent on them. It is a theocracy all the way and there is no scope for dissent or debate, deliberation or doubt on matters sacred and sacrosanct, neither the sanity of engaging in such an exercise for fear of causing the ultimate offence of blasphemy and so risking personal safety for retribution under religious law is quick and terminating. Conversion into the faith is permissible but not out of it, what a blasphemy itself in terms of natural justice and human rights! There is such a deal of inhumanity involved in the very text of day-to-day living under the auspices of canonical law that one despairs if sanity will ever prevail in large numbers of the followers of the faith for them to be finally able to 'shake off the sterile curse'. As of now the situation seems grim as the movement gathers momentum through conversion and population boom across Africa and Europe. Even in the United States of America its presence is being felt to the consternation of Americans who have not forgotten the horrors of 9/11.

In the United States there is the Bible Belt where theological bigotry prevails to such an extent that Christian missionaries there have their own course of Biblical science which they teach children and debar the dissemination of factual and evidence-based true scientific knowledge. The classic confrontation here is between the myth of creationism and the fact of evolution, or shall we say, between regressive religion and progressive science. The scapegoats are the children who are deprived of a sound scientific education and grow up to be bigots like their predecessors. Elsewhere in Europe, however, the youth are largely losing faith in unscientific Biblical doctrines and are either becoming atheists or they simply are affiliate Christians but do not take their faith seriously. Roman Catholicism is facing a major challenge today as its adherents are no longer attending Church the way they used to earlier. The growth of Islam in Africa and Europe is also a major cause of worry for Christianity. These two world religions, both Semitic in origin and of the proselytizing type, are in a titanic tussle for religious hegemony in the world. The ease of conversion into Islam and the seeming impossibility of conversion out of it on account of the horrific apostasy law that under Sharia decrees death for the offence, perhaps, makes for the rapid increase in the numbers of the Islamic faith. Moreover, the strictures of the faith make for absolute submission of its followers as its cardinal clause and dissent in point of its fundamental doctrine a horrendous blasphemy. This in turn contributes to much private dissent among its disenchanted adherents who dare not profess public dissociation from the faith for fear of violent retribution and social ostracism. But liberal movements are afoot within the Islamic fold. They are gaining ground slowly but surely, especially by women, who are much repressed in a patriarchal set-up of little freedom for them.

The demographic shift of global population towards Islam, as is much touted by Islamic protagonists of conversion and proliferation through population explosion, is a cause of grave concern and is portentous of impending peril for the world in the not-too-distant future. The inevitable clash of cultures between the West and Islam as was prophesied by Samuel P. Huntington two decades ago in his book 'The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order' is an accomplished fact today and the threat of a global war looms large as the rift widens with Islamic cultural infiltration in Europe gaining ground and radicalization of the disoriented youth rising alarmingly. However, the West, Russia and China need to take stock of their perfidious political objectives vis-a-vis the Islamic nations which should neither be taken to be soft soil for State bombardment nor appeased to extract geopolitical advantages. The situation is grim and, with nuclear proliferation a fait accompli, the fate of the world hangs in the balance should there be a polarization of forces on the basis of religious culture culminating in an eventual 'clash of civilizations'. These are not wild imaginings or flights of fancy but are the core issues that are rocking the world today whose degenerate derivative is Islamic terrorism.

The world is in the throes of Islamic terrorism and India is affected by it as well. The 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, the 2008 Delhi serial blasts, the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts---these are but a few of the many devastations that our motherland has been subjected to by her errant children across the border. Hindering India's progress by fostering terrorism here will serve Pakistan no good for "he who liveth by the sword shall perish by it". The recent Easter blast in Lahore that killed 69 and injured more than 341, mostly Christian women and children, is a case in point. And who knows, may be retribution for this innocent carnage will also follow in the fullness of time and Pakistan may have to pay dear for the global menace of terrorism whose hub it has been thus far? Pakistan's policy of hurting India by cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, inciting insurgency in the state and abetting the separatists there, all these are being engineered to fragment India but are in effect boomeranging on its perpetrator threatening the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its possible disintegration and eventual absorption in India. The West is being sporadically hit by terror attacks and is waking up to the full-scale of the threat to its civilization. Islamic terrorist organizations may castigate non-Muslims in any manner they please, may vandalize and oppress whosoever they hold in opposition to their belief-system, plunder, pillage, murder, massacre, destroy and devastate all and sundry just as they fancy, reducing civilization to ruins in the name of religion, but must not be criticized in turn in the domain of the very beliefs they espouse for that will be deemed Islamophobia. What a travesty of natural justice when the oppressor is thus protected by social convention and civic norm to go about injuring the oppressed within the fold and without with impunity! They who dare issue death decrees on hapless authors denying them literary freedom and forcing them to go into hiding or exile, behead infidels to create diplomatic tension between nations, ravage ancient monuments and works of art dubbing them idolatrous to justify their destruction, violate every human right under the sun, they must be safeguarded from feeling touchy about their brutal dogmas when a word of reproach is sounded against them, such is the dichotomy that is plaguing the civilized world when it comes to dealing with radical Islam.

And all these may be summed up in the one malady that afflicts us all, the sense of separateness and the one counter-urge to be together, the essential tending towards integration. The gregariousness of the human species, the formation of clans and tribes, groups and societies, sects and religions, nations and States, all tend to one fundamental end, the finding of oneness in this world of infinite variation, the unity that eludes but which is in the heart of things, secret, yet, sending ever the message that it lies in wait to be discovered, the profound end of evolution, the transcendence of phenomenal life, the infinitude of existence. Man hears this voice of freedom coming from within but mistakes its source as a revelation from without from an omnipotent arbiter inhabiting a higher heaven with a rod to strike the errant one who chooses not to fall in line with the dictum from above. Fear and ignorance and their foster-child arrogance have thus gripped the world for ages, superstition bred in the primitive mind devoid of enlightenment of reason or real inspiration have plunged the world with bloodshed such that we feel the echoes of those ancient clashes even today with technological tentacles holding us in their death-grip like never before. But there is hope as well. Scientific knowledge and the Vedanta are releasing humanity from the insensate culture of its brutal past and the combination of the two will bring forth a renaissance of all that has been highest and noblest in human history with added discoveries of the future ushering in a golden age for all of humankind. There will be resistance, often violent ones, to thwart the progress of man for the conservative element in the organic system is hard to rid of, but victory shall be sealed with fresher generations seeing the light of day and accepting what is true and best in human culture as the future man scales higher peaks en route to the summit of realizations that we are outwardly many, inwardly one. An enforced homogeneity will not work for it is against the basic principle of Nature, the variegation of life built on the foundation of the essential oneness of existence. Unity in diversity will have to be accepted as the one basis for a variegated flowering of the human species. Only on such an enlightened acceptance of each other may we be sure of the promotion of peace and harmony of the peoples of the world, only on such a universal understanding of truth may we be able to truly love our fellow-beings as we move towards a world civilization with a common agenda, the freedom of all, fellowship with all and the well-being of all that inhabit this beautiful home of ours, Planet earth.       

WHEN TO TRADE IS TO TREAD ON THE SOUL OF MAN

Capitalism is ruining the world and communism is no solution. What is needed is humanism, capitalism with a human face, but that is not possible for the gluttonous capitalist will not allow that. Often it is said that capitalism is at fault and not the capitalist. But that is a flawed argument for lack of scruples in business cannot be condoned and that is an inseparable part of business, this collusion of the capitalist with the State, what is termed crony capitalism. What goes on in the name of legitimate profit-making is essentially profiteering and the moneyed man does not care about the consequences of his profit-making at the expense of the hapless common customer who is drained off his means of basic subsistence thereby and gradually sinks to the level of a debased destitute shorn of all that makes life worth living. To facilitate the luxury of a few the masses must suffer, what kind of legitimacy of profit-making is this and what kind of economics perpetrates this in the name of social development? Would the rich like to subscribe to such penury? Would they agree to accept such an abysmal standard of living that makes life worse that an honourable death? Would they love to have the luxury of seeing their dear ones perish to malnourishment, undernourishment, lack of health-care and education? Would they be happy to spend the rest of their lives in the slums where their sisters and brothers live, in the huts and the hovels where their countrymen are forced to live thanks to their exploitation? This drainage of wealth is not natural but man-made, this system of upward suction of the world's resources by the privileged an engineered one whereby the elite enjoy the fruits of the labour of the lost children of God while the latter languish in the mire of material misery thrust upon them by the protagonists of the new-age prosperity. The accumulation of capital at the top and the trickle-effect of money downwards is a brutal idea, its practice and actualization a barbarous one and is a grave insult to the dignity of the billions that labour to fill the coffers of the rich but remain in their 'purified poverty' for good to the delight of the donors and the do-gooders who may now 'legitimately' justify their coarse collection of copper and even feel the heightened ecstasy of saving the poor and the penniless from their perilous state by dishing out a dole or two by way of dubious donation. The water of the Ganga being fed into the Ganga, ah, what a charity the rich man doeth while all the while man sinks in the soggy sand of sub-normal living!        

HINDUS, HOLD ON TO HINDUISM, DO NOT CONVERT

It is a pity that despite Hinduism being such a glorious religion, so many Hindus, who marry Christians but do not themselves convert, allow their children, nonetheless, to be baptised into Christianity instead of allowing them to grow up and choose for themselves, if they so wish, whether to opt for Hinduism or Christianity. Hindus marrying Muslims but not under the Special Marriage Act, 1954, have to themselves undergo conversion into Islam which is an even worse case scenario and the question of their children being converted does not even arise for they are born Muslims. And this is the case whether the Hindu boy marries into the other fold or the Hindu girl does so. What a tragedy it is for this noblest of religions, that accepts all religions as valid paths towards godhead, that its adherents are ever under threat of conversion from marriage situations when Hinduism neither allures others into its fold through conversion nor imposes such conversion conditions on cross-religious marriage! Hinduism is such an enlightened religion that it does not even believe in the principle of religious conversion. Growing in numerical strength certainly is not on the agenda of Hinduism for it is an impossibility considering the fact that the Hindu holds the whole of humanity as a single spiritual family and, as such, has no political compulsion to multiply in any nefarious manner such as bringing members of other faith traditions to its fold. The Hindu does not believe that conversion does any good to a human being, especially spiritually, which is after all what it is supposed to be bringing about as per the pretentious claims of proselytizing religions. The Hindu believes only in transformation of the spiritual state of man and this can never be effected through conversion but must be brought about by the practice of spiritual sadhana (austerity and purified practice). Thus, to convert a Hindu to the Christian fold or the Islamic one, through marriage or otherwise, is causing the greatest injury to this glorious spiritual tradition and is an act of the gravest violence to humanity. The United Nations must denounce this practice the world over as a most barbarous act of medieval violence, a cultural sacrilege for it sure injures local culture and often, as we know from historical experience, eliminates an indigenous culture wholesale, supplanting a foreign culture there, which is a gross violation of human rights and a threat to the flourishing of natural human diversity of life and living. So far as Hinduism is concerned, conversion into Islam through marriage is the most common one, for Islam does not recognize so-called idolatrous Hinduism as a valid religion at all and does not allow marriage of a Muslim with a Hindu infidel but does allow it once the hapless Hindu boy or girl converts to Islam. This is a very fine way of reducing the strength of the Hindu population while bolstering that of Islam and is merely a political agenda having no place in spirituality whatsoever, but then who cares for spirituality after all in this world? These proselytizing faiths are only intent on world domination through increase of numbers but alas! that is never to be. The days of singular ideological expansionism are gone forever and whosoever tries to bring back the evil days of old is indulging in an exercise in futility. The liberal Hindu is foolish enough to fall prey to the exigencies of emotion and unsuspectingly loses both religion and culture for the sake of earthly love which trades at the outset by robbing the innocent one of habitat. It is a diabolical practice, this conversion, and to see helpless Hindu girls being cut off their cultural roots thus to bear the fruits of those that hold Hinduism as false, is the most painful experience especially for those that know the glory of the Sanatan Dharma which is the mother of all religions. If to enforce payment of dowry to allow marriage to take place is deemed illegal in this country and is punishable under law, then why is the conversion condition imposed on all Hindus wishing to marry Muslims not likewise a punishable offence? My fervent plea goes out to all Hindus, especially our daughters, "Do not in the name of your forefathers ever convert to Islam or Christianity or any other religion but stay grounded in your own spiritual tradition to live this life and to conquer it, to overcome death and attain to immortality, for it is the highest purpose of your life, the supreme end of your earthly evolution. May you all be blessed, my beloved sisters and brothers, with the vision of the one God that resides in the core of your consciousness, in the depth of your spiritual heart, the one God who is the essence of your being, your Self (Atman), He who appears in diverse forms to fulfil the aspirations of His devotees but who never seeks propitiation through puerile passage to putrid paths." Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Hind!

When we suffer the rigours of life and almost lose hope that things will ever be better again, let us remember that all of phenomenon is but a dual dream of two days phased in time which will pass after its course is run. Pain will ease and so will pleasure cease as knowledge dawns in our awakened Self as to the transitory nature of things. This world is but a delusion of desire and can never be harmonized with the Truth within us. The tussle between the internal and the external world about us will necessarily create tension in our souls and will never leave us in the peace we aspire for. This world has to be transcended, this life sublimated, this form transfigured before we may reach the haven of peace that passeth understanding. It is a tall order no doubt but not beyond attainment for man in the past has achieved it and, since uniformity is the rigorous law of Nature, it stands to reason to say that all may with due preparation and in the fullness of time arrive at this Promised Land where discordant notes have been quelled into a grand harmony that is the secret sense in all but is the haunting melody that neither will give rest to the struggling soul of man nor will be stifled and silenced for good. This is the central truth of life that we are caught in a turbulent sea of delusive dreams and the reality lies beyond the waters of ignorance but well within the reach of our awakened Self. This core consciousness, this central theme, this existence within, this paradise perennial lies beyond the senses, beyond the interplay of the modes of Nature but is essential to our being and fundamental to us. It is subtle, nay, causal, the root of the cosmos, its shoot and branches, leaves and tendrils, its nourishment and growth, its vigour and life. From alpha to omega is its domain as it stretches from the vibrating string to the cosmos, from the      

OH! AT WHAT A COST! AT WHAT A COST! AT WHAT A COST!

We should, after careful analysis and investigation, accept only what is brightest in the scriptures and not give in to each and every statement enshrined there simply out of reverence, suspending our reason and the faculty for critical thinking. Past revelation is great but present reasoning ought to be no less important in determining our course of action and choice if we are to lead meaningful lives. Mere adherence to ancient prescriptions, blindly and without discrimination, does not make a person a sage but rather it is clearly stated in the Hindu scriptures that we should first hear, then reflect and finally meditate on the principles we have accepted as true and worthy of higher pursuit. Rationality is not be abandoned at any stage of the process of enquiry and this is the crowning glory of Hindu traditional thinking. Which is why, of course, the ancient Hindus had made such significant progress even in the material sciences before changing course to specialize in the discovery of the laws of the inner world. Even then, the spiritual laws discovered by the Hindus were based on a strict adherence to rational rigour, experimentation, investigation and analysis, not by one sage but by generations of sages who independently carried out their research to confirm or reject past results, and the common mass of verified and verifiable truths were accepted as valid before they were recorded as laws of the spiritual world in ancient texts with a clause appended that future generations were welcome to test these affirmations before accepting them as true. No other scripture of the world of any religion other than the Vedas of the Hindus states thus that the sannyasi (realized renunciate) stands on the head of the Vedas. This is a supreme affirmation of the glory of man and the upholding of the fact that the book is secondary, that realization is primary and that revelation is not a dated institution unique to any specific person chosen by an arbitrary God but is in the very organic capacity of man embedded as his highest state of being. This decentralization of realization has in essence democratized the Hindu culture and raised it above petty sectarianism and bigotry as many of the other world religions are plagued by where dogma holds unassailable status and historically unique personal revelations are held indisputably sacrosanct. The result is that these religions with world-wide following are stagnating in a world of rapid forward movement and are dragging vast sections of humanity backward with their concomitant consequences. In a world dominated by science and reason, these archaic articles of faith are doing more harm than good by their rigid insistence on adherence to outdated principles, submission of man's most prized possession of the critical faculty to scriptural absolutes and reposing faith in what a privileged personality has been, so-to-say, privy to by his own admission into the secret mansions of divine revelation. Such blind acceptance of dogmatic assertions, however noble, cannot conduce to human well-being as it limits human freedom to challenge and reject age-old superstition and reduces a religious movement to a political one where empire-building in the name of nefarious conversion degenerates the human species to a regressive outfit fit for the forest and not the highway of civilized life. Thus, cultivation of the scientific temper is critical, the honing of the critical faculty vital and the right to scepticism an inviolable aspect of human dignity to be assuredly given to the citizen by law if our future is to be secured as an evolving species inching towards higher realizations. We must be allowed the privilege to challenge any concept or principle, however sacrosanct, put them to the test of reason, scientific scrutiny, debate, deliberation and disputation without being held culpable to any blasphemy law, for in so ensuring freedom of expression and enquiry may we advance through the portal of higher knowledge.

Billions are held hostage today to terrible traditional binds of irrational, dogmatic religions, generations are being systematically brainwashed into acceptance of archaic articles of faith having no basis in reason or sanity and billions are being set up in opposition to the progressive culture of the human species whereby we may emerge enlightened citizenry of futurity. A great tussle is on between the progressive powers of the world seeking to liberate humanity from the bondage of dogma through scientific enlightenment and the guaranteeing of human rights, and the regressive forces trying to hold humanity down with force, cultural brainwashing and unverifiable assurances of eternal beatitude in a heaven post-death when life on earth they have made into a veritable hell for their adherents through sectarian violence, scriptural impositions and denial of essential human rights. But the soul of man grows and in the fullness of time throws off the yoke of ages but, to quote Vivekananda,"Oh! At what a cost! At what a cost! At what a cost!"
      

PRINCIPLES OF RAMAKRISHNA --- TAKA MATI, MATI TAKA (MONEY IS MUD, MUD MONEY) 1

This unique aphorism of Ramakrishna was the seer's uncluttered response to the material culture of the day and of the age to come, a spontaneous utterance as he came to even terms with matter, spirit that he was. This equivalence of mud and money sought by the sage of Dakshineshwar in his discriminating mind on the bank of the Ganga during his days of spiritual practice is a classic illustration of the poet soul's articulate austerity when handling a few coins and a bit of mud and interchanging their location in his two palms repeatedly before casting them into the waters of the Ganga, he lost all sense of their distinctive value and attained to supreme sameness of perception. And with it he attained to supreme sanity as well, going beyond the duality of material evaluation and so crossing the threshold into the domain of pure spirit where core and crust are one, the circumference is the centre and the substance of matter the soul of its essence. Ramakrishna's experimentation led him to experience the surface hollowness of things and their depth-substantiveness. A stranger and perhaps more mystifying behaviour in the sage was to ensue subsequent to the interplay of mud and money in the manner aforesaid and this is unique in the spiritual annals of the world. From now on Ramakrishna developed such an abhorrence for money that his inner nature veritably recoiled from even the faintest touch of a metal coin or anything metallic for that matter. He felt excruciating pain in his body if even accidentally he had touched anything metallic, much less a coin. His fingers would get bent and his breathing would stop as he passed out of physical consciousness into the realm of the spirit. Such renunciation of money was unheard of in his days and in the days to come and is quite simply a phenomenal happening in the history of the world. Ramakrishna had formally renounced wealth, not merely psychologically but even physiologically, a fact of supreme importance in the movement he lived on to initiate through his direct disciples in the years ahead.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Humanity stands today on the very edge of the shoreless sea of radiance, yet seeking self-annihilation through the terrible abuse of knowledge, a diabolic end to its term on earth either through a nuclear holocaust or an environmental doom. Such a thing may, hopefully, never come to pass though in the ultimate analysis, for it is in the very fabric of the evolutionary principle to set itself up in the reverse mode of conservation, preservation of all that is vital for the furtherance of evolution and the progressive manifestation of the divine consciousness through the animal body of man till it firmly establishes itself in his transformed being. Religions of the world, save the Vedanta, have all missed their mark in assigning to God the pre-eminent position in the cosmic order of things that legitimately and rightfully is man's. It is man who has created the concept of the objectified God outside of himself as the creator and arbiter of the universe, and it is he who has then gone on to refine the principles of theology to a degree that has reduced his own self to a debased slave of a despot who dispenses diabolical justice on his terrestrial bondmen by casting them into eternal hell-fire for the flimsiest of offences while rewarding his servile subjects with the bliss of perennial Paradise simply because they choose, not out of knowledge and light but out of ignorance and fear, convenience and comfort, to follow archaic superstitious articles of faith having no basis in reason or in inspiration of a higher order save what by force has been handed down to them by generations of impious impostors masquerading as messiahs of men. Humanity has for ages been held hostage to the diabolic designs of evil men mesmerizing the masses through bogus claims of personalized revelations, unique and unverifiable, holy and sacrosanct, beyond doubt or deliberation, scrutiny or test, such that billions are in the terrible grip of irrationality with its concomitant evils. The scientific revolution is on but is meeting with tremendous opposition as malicious counter-propaganda of religious cults across the globe seeks to nullify scientific progress and establish in the hearts of men the citadel of untruth based on so-called revelations of holy books and holy men whose character and career have, however, many an element that needs a fresh appraisal in the light of modern understanding, universal values and historical consequences that have been and that are being now experienced, sadly, to the despair of suffering humanity on whom, so-to-say, these divine dictators thrust the burden of their labour as diktats to be perennially followed without deliberation or demur. Such then is the state of the world, a battle-ground of terrible forces sustained by ancient animosity of the 'selfish gene' and vying for violent victory of one exclusively over all the others for that is the bane of the world even in the modern age that medieval murderous cults yet hold sway over vast masses of men and modern science merely cloaks ancient animality of the human species behind the technological sophistication of warfare but can scarce conceal the catastrophic consequences thereof.

As had been mentioned at the onset, humanity stands at the edge of the shoreless sea of radiance, the ocean of immortality, and humanity stands at the edge of an abyss too, a void of self-annihilation whence there is no return. Civilization is at its crossroads. A choice will have to be made now, a path adopted which will shape the future history of the world. Destiny hangs in the balance as mankind precipitously scales the slopes of this evolutionary range through the avalanches and the blizzards en route to the summit of realization of the oneness of sentience, the solidarity of the universe and the divinity of all that exists. May our election be enlightened by a brighter wisdom that is enshrined in our timeless scriptures, by the fullness of our illumined intellect and not by the fractured vision of our temporal gains, by the harmony that inwardly binds us all in a common human family!

Om! Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
(Om! Peace! Peace! Peace!)              









           

ESCAPE TO ENGLAND, BARON IN BONDAGE, CITIZENS AWAKE

It is reprehensible to see big businessmen in connivance with corrupt politicians fraudulently plunder and pillage the people's money and so reduce millions to destitution. Time it is to bring these dastardly characters to book and teach them a few elementary lessons in a reformatory (jail) so that they may emerge reformed citizens on completion of their term to relocate in human society as decent and honest citizens. A recent case everyone knows of where a business baron has fled the country to UK with a rich booty of public money kept in safe custody with a bank. How such an escape took place in broad daylight is a question the Government ought to answer but which we know from past experience the Government will only dodge. For public memory is faint and politicians bank on that . And the escaped criminal banks on his political patron even as the latter seeks patronage from the former during election-time. And where does the money come from? Why man, from the pocket of the public, from their sweat and toil, their daily grind at subsistence. Now consider this my countrymen. The option is before you. It is for you to choose either the plundering, pillaging politician and the bullying barbarous businessman who loots your wealth, sucks your life-blood without you getting to know about it or the radiant Rishis of hoary India and the modern-day sages like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda as you leaders in life and your guides in self-governance. May God grant you judgement in life and in death and may you ever seek inspiration from all that is good and great in our spiritual tradition and never sway from the path of virtue and righteousness as these mercenaries among men have! Let us then unite our wills and resolve to do away with the vice of crony capitalism and all its diabolic derivatives. Jai Hind!

THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... LEAFLET 1 (REVISED)

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 great many of his white-skinned devotees 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, Vaishnavas 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 death anniversary. 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 (mystic minstrel) with a broken stone-pot in his hand 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. Holy Mother would be holding a hubble-bubble in her hand. Perhaps they would have a bit of meal cooked in the broken stone utensil. 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, had said that she would not come even if she were cut to shreds like tobacco leaves but met with a similar response. She was told that she would find the pangs of separation from Thakur unbearable and, so, would surely accompany his entourage on earth.

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 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 29 or 30 years of age and, in all probability, in the midst of intense 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.

THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... THE NEED OF THE AGE

The Lord must be in our midst today. The times are pregnant with such a possibility. There is erosion of values everywhere and the threat of global extinction from a nuclear holocaust or environmental disaster looms larger than ever before now. Religious and ideological intolerance is at its height and capitalistic exploitation is reducing man to a beast everywhere. The bare means of subsistence is being systematically taken away from billions across the world to suit the pleasures of a privileged few and decadent culture is robbing the moral fibre of the masses, denuding them both in body and mind. Armed in technology and modern weaponry, the nations of the world are lining up to start a cataclysmic third world war that shall see the end of civilization. And worst of all, there is a terrible clash of civilizations going on, between the Islamic conservative world-view and the liberal democratic way of living of the West. Islamic terrorism is on the rise and is a global phenomenon for some time now. The totalitarian ideology of Islamic terror groups with their radical programmes of 'elimination of the enemy' at any cost has brought the world face to face with this new menace of global jihad (holy war). Western domination of the weaker nations of the world and their ruinous exploitation of these has sharpened the geo-political divide causing newer alignments with their nefarious future military implications. And there is the alarming rise of China as a super-power, both economically as well as militarily. Lastly, the rogue State of Pakistan, the hub of international terrorism, a nuclear nuisance of a nation, the leader of all the theocratic Islamic States, master-mind of all mischief perpetrated against India and aided foolishly for regional 'balance of power' by the United States of America. Such then is the scenario in the world today with the West trumpeting the cause of democracy to hide their evil designs of neo-colonialism, intolerant and exclusive Islam engaged in a war of attrition with its counterpart Christianity for domination of the conversion market and the currency note holding humanity by the scruff of the neck such that the very soul of man shrinks to make space for the almighty dollar. And to top it all is the rise of atheism that is driving away God and spirituality to the back seat, making material science the driving force of life with its concomitant evils of sensate living to a fault. India is under threat. Hinduism, the crowning glory of man's spiritual achievements, is under attack from Islam and Christianity and more so, from the disunity among Hindus themselves. Shall India survive? This was a pertinent question raised by Vivekananda over a century ago. The exigencies of the times raises the question again. Shall India survive? Will Hinduism be able to hold her own once more and be a beacon unto the world amidst the turbulence of the times? Well, only the unfolding future will tell. For the present, the scenario is dark and only a divine descent may save the world.

        

ARISE INDIA, LAND OF THE VEDAS

Why does Pakistan not comprehend this simple truth that its programme of disruption of Indian life is counter-productive for itself?

Hatred heaped on Hindus by bigoted Muslims will no more serve to divide us as the youth of India know today the power of national solidarity.

When will man awake to a higher sense of humanity devoid of fanatical brother-baiting in the name of so-called fraternal religion? Love, love --- this is the way.

Too much authority is still concentrated in the individual under all systems of government for peace on earth to get a fair chance of subsistence.

Fanaticism has its source in the human heart for sure but it is fuelled and organized en masse by indoctrination of irrational cults.

What a pity that fanatics fail to appreciate and accept the universality of Hinduism which is the one system that can as yet save the world!

The propagation of Hinduism across the wide world by men of character is the one hope for the civilized world. Realization, not faith, is the key.

Open proselytization by fanatics who spew venom against Hinduism and beam it live on TV does in no way help the cause of India's solidarity.

They converted all the nations they ravaged with their sword but failed to do so to India. They despoiled us but could not defeat our resolve to hold on to our religion. Impregnable stood the Vedas.

PM, PONDER

When I see simple folks toiling away at their posts in life, I feel humbled by their innocence and wonder why God in all His wisdom allows crooked, corrupt politicians and businessmen to ruin the course of these minstrels of the Lord, they who yet sing paeans of praise in His honour, although, they stand denuded, despoiled of all that is worthwhile holding in life to lead a decent terrestrial existence. Yet, these are the salt of the earth, the sum and substance of all that is worthwhile in the name of humanity, the harbingers of hope of a new era of social equality, the builders of civilisations through aeons past, now buried in the sands of time.

These toilers in the mines unearthing the gems they wear not, these tillers of the soil they call their mother, these workmen who shed their life's blood to reap the harvest of their labour for their mercenary masters, is there no end to their fruitless festivity on earth? Must they suffer eternally at the hands of the cunning and the crafty, the mighty and the malevolent, the tyranny of the ages crushing them ever under the wheels of the social machine? Is there a benevolent God somewhere who hears their piteous cries for redemption, for justice, for deliverance of their bodies and not merely their souls by pious prescription or archaic articulation?

The heart breaks to see the human body broken, the human heart ravaged, the human soul famished of all that is good and beautiful merely because the unceasing appetite of the billionaire barons of the day must be appeased. Billions must die a daily death so that a billionaire may float in his private yacht or his spouse celebrate her advent on earth in a manner that would put emperors to shame. And where does the money come from for all this pomp and show? Why man, from the pockets of the poor who know not how they are pilfered off their meagre means of livelihood in the name of well-meaning developmental profit-making by the mercenaries among men, the messiahs of mankind, the Machiavellis of this material civilisation! What pleasures are being partaken of by the profiteers that are not at the expense of the poor? What luxuries are the politicians wallowing in that are not derived from the life-blood of the very people they represent? What greatness are we vaunting of our hoary spiritual culture when a billion goddesses and gods are living lives of servitude to their capitalist masters, and why, to their political masters as well?

Shame on our politicians, men of little conception and even less character, that a billion-strong population, veritable divinities on earth, should so suffer even after seven decades of independence, recipients of universal franchise and universal susceptibility to crafty manipulation by men at the helm of affairs that the country is careering to God-knows-where with a proliferating population and an ever-widening rift between the contra-disposed classes of the economic bubble that needs must burst in the fullness of time to redress the balance lost to the masses for ages!

Then shall come retribution, a violent revolution may sweep the expanse of the punyabhumi (holy land) to restore the rights of man. Lest such a day befalls the soil trodden by the rishis, politicians beware! The wrath of the people no power on earth can resist. Seek good counsel while yet there is time and reform yourselves, else, destiny demands the liberation of the masses from the thraldom of this nefarious nexus between the politician and his patron, the gluttonous, self-serving, crony capitalist. Beware businessmen! the footfall of the future is beckoning for a different deal. Jai Hind!

REFLECTIONS ... 1

The freedom fighters did not bleed for nothing to liberate India from the shackles of the British Raj. Let us stand up as virile citizens to safeguard that freedom by being rooted to our spiritual culture upon which depends our future well-being. India is to live not by the power of the sword but by the power of the spirit that animates her age-old civilization. Hers is a freedom that shall free the nations of the world into becoming spiritually conscious of the essential solidarity of the world and the kinship of the whole of humankind.

The Hindu scriptures are a mine of priceless gems of human thought of the highest order but alas! they are sadly neglected in our school curriculum thereby depriving our children of the beneficent influence of such thought in the formative years of their life. If this is done to safeguard secularism in the name of pluralistic democracy, then it is a sad plight of our nationhood indeed. Our children deserve the best thoughts of their ancestors to rise into full national self-consciousness and be beacons in this sea of humanity where ignorance and intolerance stifles the life of man. Let us then restore this gift from the Rishis to our children that they in turn may be Rishis too.

The vanity of wealth and the greater vanity of learning must be vanquished in our leading men and their heart awakened to the condition of the poor who have neither wealth nor learning. What is this modern trend of editing the scriptures to suit one's own ends? And what is this foolish philosophizing in the name of a supposed social God that suits one's whims and fancies one fine morning or a cosy evening over a cup of coffee? Did the Rishis discover the principles of the Vedas thus? It is time to be honest and admit that this is sheer sophistry, that it will not carry far the agenda of self-deception or deception of others. So, let us revert to what our sages have in true earnest pronounced about the principles of life and living before we put on the facade of knowing it all. Let our wealth be for the good of all, for the service of God and man. Let our learning bestow on us humility that it may mature into spiritual wisdom for the good of one and all.      

NATIONALISM AND ITS ILK

Nationalism as a creed is often a pernicious one as evidenced in the two great wars of the 20th century but suits the Indian narrative fine.

Without the nucleus of nationalism India will not have a cohesive identity that will secure her sovereignty and instil pride in her citizens.

The Hindu philosophy is universal, yet it is inclusive of nationalism as an integral part of the spiritual unfolding of its adherents.

Nationalism need not be petty or geographically divisive and self-centred. It is a necessary stage of the socio-political evolutionary process.

The nation must have a narrative. Hinduism provides that age-old philosophical basis to her life-story. We have to rediscover our roots.

The Constitution of India is our modern Smriti Shastra. Swami Vivekananda was much insistent on the rewriting of the Smritis to suit modern times.

Nationalism as understood in India traditionally is universal in its scope and will never be parochial and violently so. Let peace prevail.

The masses must be raised. Nationalism must not sell into the hands of a few capitalists the fate of a billion. The nation belongs to all.

The drainage of wealth upwards into the coffers of the top 1%, denuding the remaining 99% and reducing them to poverty, is not true nationalism.

Being verbose is good but delivery on promises made to the people is better for in it lies the moral fibre and the character of a leader.

Few, alas! understand that the nation, despite its tall pretensions of development and progress, is slowly sliding into a catastrophic class-conflict.

SARADESHWARI 5

This is a fact of supreme significance, not an article of faith but an awakened sense, a cognition, a realisation that distils age-old wisdom into the madness of the moment, a depth-discovery of the divine in a flash of insight that uncovers the subterranean strata of the life flowing within. All of us are linked in the heart. Humanity is one. Invisible cords of sympathy and oneness bind us all to each other. Mother binds us all to Her with umbilical cords, unbroken and unbreakable. Such are the strings with which She flies us, kite-like souls, in the firmament of her fancies for no apparent reason that we may fathom. Sentience is threaded in Her divine maternal love, the cosmos is bound by Her will, Her wishes tracing curvilinear paths, spreading through the field of Her imagination as so many waves across space-time, Her thoughts penetrating the web of countless universes as rays, field-interactions mesmerising galaxies, holding them in their cosmic dance. And here on earth we are held by the same beguiling motion feeding us on in our individual enterprise of cooperation and conflict on the face of things while the river of Her grace flows beneath, caressing us to wholeness when fratricidal feuds fragment our vision and hope dies a horrendous death amidst the turbulence of the times. Mother nourishes us with Her nectarine love to build anew our broken homes when all are in ruins. Cities come, cities go, forests appear where civilisation was, humanity surfaces where barbarism reigned, so the cycle goes on. But through all this the common connection in all is never disrupted at depth for such severance is opposed to the essential unity underlying things.
The surface is not all. There is a deeper layer to everything, a substratum that endures the test of fleeting times, a soul to manifested flesh, a nucleus which none may touch but which is the source and substance of things. The electrons whirl in their probability paths clouding vision and leaving uncertainty in their wake. Galaxies collapse into gravitational holes to reduce to nothingness but re-emerge to radiate as sprightly beams. The universe oscillates in endless rhythms of rise and fall even as countless others of its ilk bubble and burst into being and non-being in an unceasing orchestration of cosmic symphony. And the conductor is Mother. She holds the strings in Her hands, deftly juggling the cords to lull us to sleep and usher in us the dreams of phenomenal existence till we have had our fun and play, and then gently waking us, those that wish to dream no more, to career us to our eternal abode of absolute rest whence return to terrestrial life is no more. Freedom is ours and in bliss we abide, peaceful souls that know no hate or fratricidal feud that divides, but fulfilled we dwell on the lap of the Mother with no cares or worries to beset us, ruminating on the romance of the Self.
Such then is our inheritance, our birthright, our possibility in a sea of delusive dreams. We are divine, our source is such and our common destiny is the divinity that frees, not the eternal subjection to a tyrannical being they choose to call God but the repose of an unfettered freedom in Self-contemplation and universal camaraderie beholding oneself in all. Love is the natural corollary to such a state of realisation of the solidarity of the universe and the oneness of the Being pervading all that is. Then work is worship, labour love and the soul of man the temple of the Most High. Man is the object of adoration then, sentience the sublimest response of the Divine and life itself a pilgrimage unto the ocean of consciousness.

VEDANTA, THE WAY AHEAD ... 1

The uncertainty of life and the inevitability of death makes the pursuit of God and Truth an imperative. So long as death stalks this earth, the search for the ultimate meaning of life will haunt man and he cannot get away from his quest somehow. Religion is this quest of man for the ultimate answers, for the final solution to this problem of existence and for the possible harmony of the disparate forces that plague this terrestrial life. The word has got tainted, though, for the abuse of centuries centred on religion has darkened the connotation of an otherwise bright term whose purpose from definition was supposed to have been to integrate humanity and not drive wedges through it 'sending civilizations to despair'. However, God and religion, in the highest sense, still awaken the sublimity of the soul like none else does, even as the baneful influence of the twain continues to divide humanity into warring units threatening extinction of the human race, given the availability of weapons of mass-destruction now. These horrific forces of fanaticism are all derivatives of archaic absolutist monotheistic cults, though, and may effectively be countered by the propagation of the benign spiritual movements of India which hold humanity as a family and all spiritual paths as equally valid means for the realization of the underlying divinity of man and sentience.

PENTATWEET 1

Is religion to be given precedence over the nation? If so, then where is the chance for national unity? Let every citizen of India muse on it.

India has had a surfeit of spiritual inspiration breathed into the nation by seers and saints down the ages. It is time indeed to follow them fair and square.

Our misery is of our own doing. Let us own up our responsibility towards the Motherland and fulfil our pledge to build the nation.

Will a new order come into being or will the old persist with its false pledges and falser promises, cash transfers and character transactions ?

When leaders cheat, the masses are denuded. But when the masses rise up in rebellion against the tyranny of the times, then follows retribution.

CAPITAL AND THE CLASS

Despite the victorious march of capitalism, Marxism is being vindicated in so far as the class divide predicted by it is concerned and the consequent class struggle to be to redress the balance. Nefarious capitalism in collusion with the State worldwide is reducing humanity to the despicable state of being a beast of burden whose earthly existence is dependent on servile subjugation to capital and rights reduced to eking out a living barely above savage level relative to the grandiose style of earthly habitation by the rich and the powerful. If the State does not look after the masses, who will? How long must the dispossessed look to the rich man's charity for that which is rightly his? How long must this pilferage, this pillaging persist before humanity awakes to its tall pronouncements on the rights of man? Every passing hour is deluged with blood spilled from the corporeal frame of the living God in gushes from the gashes rent deep by unholy offences against the dignity of man. Who cares for humanity when all we hear of is success bred in the wine of desire, desire distilled in the desecrated human spirit and the human spirit held hostage to the triumph of matter, the omnipotent dollar dishing out delicacies to the rich and delivering death-blows to the poor? The delight and the despair of these conflicting classes are a study in contrast, not the poet's fantasy nor the philosopher's speculation but the realist's nightmare, a veritable hell here on this terrestrial plane where to live is to speculate not on one's distant future but on one's very moment of existence defrauded of health and hope, denuded in spirit, a mass of meaningless motivations stifled at birth, yet, seeking regeneration, for such seems to be the sublimity of the human soul that it ever defies the destitution imposed on it by malicious matter. And herein lies the hope which phoenix-like rises from the ashes of its funeral, bearing to tormented hearts the glad tidings of an elusive dream of the kingdom of heaven, the utopian State, an imagined perfection of aggregate living where all will be finally well. And so, man carries on, trudging his way along the rough terrain of his master's pleasure, seeking the slices and the crumbs that befall his being as trickles of his lord's lavishness. And this we call civilization, life, et al. Glory unto humanity for being so inventive as to demolishing the one temple that ought to have truly mattered, the temple of humanity, the sanctum of the living God, the only God that exists! Hail Humanity, Mother of Man, ought you not to have done better?