Sift the grain from the chaff by shifting gears in life. Do not live a despicable sense-bound life that has been imported from the West. This imbecile giving in to the senses, this loss of dignity in conducting life's affairs, this absence of seriousness about the imperatives of earthly existence, all this must go if the fire within has to rage reducing to ashes this coarse corruption that has come to haunt the children of the sages of yore.
Life is serious business for it is a rare opportunity for one to expand consciousness to be one with all, to lift oneself above the plane of the base senses and to sublimate passions and channelise them unto the Divine. Those whose eyes have been opened by past inherent tendencies (praaksanskaar) or by the grace of the Guru come to the appreciation of the rare value of life and conduct their affairs accordingly. Those that do not, miss the golden opportunity of attaining freedom even in this very life. For them life is a sudden experience of alternate emotions which they accept as being the condition imposed upon all as the fundamental feature of earthly existence. They cannot see the continuity of terrestrial living from remotest antiquity unto the unborn future ever unfolding through the possibilities of the present. Life remains for these a chaotic expression of carbon and hydrogen that has no higher objective for there is neither design to it nor destiny. For them enjoyment is the motivation that inspires labour, ethics devoid of spirituality the governing principle in altruistic living at the best and social concerns and human welfare through service the highest aspiration man may claim as his own. Such a secular outlook despite immediate gains degenerates the population with the passage of time and reduces them to social animals who eventually disrupt societal norms and bring ruin to civilisation.
So, turn around while there is time. This base sensate living does not befit you, my countrymen. We are an ancient nation with a different mission altogether. The living Lord has entrusted us of all nations the holy task of disseminating the message of the Atman among the diverse peoples of the world for all to come to the discovery of the Self within. Must we sleep then and remain mired in material misdemeanour quite opposed to the spirit of our ancient tradition of allegiance to the Spirit? Whither dharma then?
The hour is ripe when we must understand the implications of being Indian, the import of our spiritual civilisation running down from Himalayan heights onto the plains below like the rolling waters of the Ganga that fertilise the soil and bring civilisation to fruition, the message of our countless spiritual masters who have breathed life into humanity and ushered in a harvest of ideas that blossomed the flora of culture everywhere, and the significance of the sutras (aphorisms) that form the body politic of our scriptures so that we may remain linked to our pristine philosophical principles and rooted thus to our soil. We must read into the meaning of the Indian civilisation, its culture and essence, its heritage and destiny, its legacy and life eternal. Only then may we call ourselves children of the soil whose privilege is to defend the dharma.
Shall we arise to the meet the challenge or shall we persist in our vain imitation of everything western that debilitates us and reduces us to become cultural cartoons, a mockery of manhood and a being despicable, worthy of pity by the rest of humanity? Upon our choice depends our future as a race. So it is that I say, it is time to turn on a new leaf from our glorious historical past, it is time to turn around after all.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Sister Nivedita who dedicated her life to India like few have ever done. A fiery free spirit, she epitomised the best elements of the message of her Master in real life and laid before all what it was to be a true disciple of the leonine Swami Vivekananda. Hers, indeed, was a life lived for the sake of all who she considered her very own, the children of her adopted motherland, Bharatvarsha.
Nivedita was a living flame of spirituality that ran through the nerves of the early revolutionaries for political freedom, that sustained the scientific sage, Jagadish Chandra Bose, in his years of British denial and dire distress when the Indian scientific movement was still in bud, and that lit up a thousand lives through enlightened nationalistic education imparted. Above all, Sister Nivedita opened up the channel for future women's regeneration that later led to the founding of the Sri Sarada Math and the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission with their unfolding global programmes for the emancipation of womanhood.
A comprehensive being, Nivedita remains India's perennial inspiration in every sphere of national endeavour and as the impelling force for her civilisation in the making. She, perhaps, became the ideal harmonic woman of the future as her Master had envisaged and the culmination of feminine possibilities in her all-round synthetic excellence. We bow down to Sister in love, reverence and homage.
No comments:
Post a Comment