IDEAS ... 1

1. What a grave danger there is in the overdose of insulin! The slightest miscalculation and the patient sinks into hypoglycemia. Beware!

2. Is there a safer haven than the blessed feet of the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi?

3. Who was Sri Ramakrishna?

4. Who was Sarada Devi?

5. Who was Swami Vivekananda?

6. Does God exist?

7. Does the Devil exist?

8. Worldly success is also best attained and sustained by diligent practice of the spiritual exercises prescribed by the Guru.

9. How much simpler can spirituality be made than what Thakur has done for us? Read 'Kathamrita' for hours on end daily and be free.

10. Let egotism be rooted out before we approach God. At any rate, there is no other way. The vanity avenue proves eventually to be a blind lane.

11. A bit of originality is what Swamiji wanted from his followers over and above the absolute dedication to the cause of the uplift of humanity. His hopes were belied very often but fulfilled by many who held him as their Pole Star. Some of these venerable ones who did live up to Swamiji's high expectations were Swamis Saradananda, Abhedananda, Trigunatitananda, Vijnanananda, Nirmalananda and the unforgettable redoubtable revolutionary in every fibre of her being, Sister Nivedita.

12. Brahmacharya reorders the nervous system, opens up blocked passages in it, connects neurons in a manner that spiritual illumination results. Swami Vivekananda remains in his all-round brilliance the best illustration of the finer fruits of brahmacharya. His superhuman powers can only be attributed to his superb purity, although, it will still fail to do justice to the explanation afforded. Vivekananda remains a human enigma and can best be described as God walking the planet wearing a human form.

13. The connecting link between the Guru and the disciple is the divine mantra.

14. When you speak to someone and do not get a reply, how bad is that?

15. I do not exist, only Mother is. But if Mother be there, the child must also be. Else, whose Mother is She? So, I exist as well?

16. How does a fully realised soul return to the normal plane after his ego has been completely dissolved in nirvikalpa samadhi?

17. SWAMIJI AND RAJA MAHARAJ

Swamiji once said that Swami Brahmananda was spiritually even greater than he. How are we to look upon this statement? Ought we to accept it at face value, coming as it is from the lips of 'siddha vak' (of unfailing speech) Vivekananda? Or, are we to interpret the statement as being indicative of Swamiji's sublime love for Raja Maharaj who was such a beloved of Thakur himself? I request you all to respond and also to write something on the divine relation between these two spiritual children of Thakur, these two leading lights of the age.

18. How many of you have visited Ramakrishna Math, Baranagar? It is the original monastery of the spiritual children of Thakur. Visit it.

19. To please my Guru is the sole objective of my life. The rest Gurudev knows.

20. Someone asked me, ''What is the need for spiritual initiation?'' My friends, do provide him with a satisfactory answer.

21. The Hindus are most practical about their religion. They have humanised God and made Her/Him their kith and kin. No wonder the Hindus are the most spiritual of peoples.

22. Is patriotism compatible with spirituality? Must not the spiritual be necessarily universal in outlook and not bound to a nation?

23. Hindus are the most tolerant people in the world and Hinduism the most liberal religion that accepts all religions as valid paths to Godhead.

24. We are but the instruments in the hands of the Divine, no more, no less.

25. Not me, not me, but Thee, Thee.

26. Religion is no laughing stock. It is serious business. It is the realisation of one's essence.

27. There is a gulf of difference between intellectual excellence and spiritual altitude.

28. 12 Jan is at our doorstep. Are you ready for the day? What have you to offer Swamiji this year on his birthday?

29. Devotion to God is a rare virtue, devotion to the Guru rarer. While the former leads you to the Guru, the latter leads you to God.

30. Swamiji's birthday, 12 Jan, is at hand. Make a pilgrimage this day to Swamiji's ancestral house and sanctify yourself.

31. Where Vivekananda Road crosses Bidhan Sarani, there at the junction stands Swami Vivekananda's Ancestral House. Visit it this 12 Jan.

32. Is the life of a great man in his deeds or in his state of being?

33. Was Swamiji God?

34. Just over a day left before the great moment is on us. Swamiji's birth anniversary beckons us unto 3, Gourmohan Mukherjee Lane.

35. The world hangs like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It is not 'uurdhamulam' (tree with roots above) but 'nimnamulam' (tree with roots below). The divine is seated in the depths of the being, in the core of consciousness, the eternal 'I', alone through all eternity without hope or possibility of self-replicating.

36. Fear is the worst enemy of man and it is fear that kills more than the enemy that causes it.

37. There is this opportunity to serve all and we must each do it our way. Quoting organisational authority or citing scripture by way of deriving authority is not my vocation. I go by the dictates of my conscience and in so far as it allows me to go, I traverse that far in my bid to serve. I fear none and do not subscribe to any foisted authority on my self. I am free and free shall remain for all time for there is none that can bind my soul which is of the essence of existence and consciousness in its absolute state and of bliss at the relative state of dual perception.   

38. Much of the suffering of the world is because of ignorance and can be done away with better education.

39. God keeps us ever in want to make us feel the inadequacy of material living and make us aware of our divine inheritance.

40. A gush of feeling comes sometimes, a sudden expansion of the spirit, and one sees oneself in the world around. Such is love.

41. To see oneself in one's family is good but better by far is to see oneself in the whole of humanity, for therein lies the lower limit of the spiritual familial consciousness.

42. Is Sri Ramakrishna God?

43. Can it really be that Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi is our real mother, even dearer than our earthly mother who seems simply nonpareil?

44. How would you know that someone is God if He were poor and powerless without any manifest attribute showing Him to the Divine?

45. In this hour of distress I have none to cling to except the Holy Mother who is still with me. She was and she still is.

46. All human relations are tainted by the demand for more and more even as the one that demands gives less and less.

47. Sister Nivedita's identification with India was more complete than all other foreigners who came to India and made her their home.

48. Hinduism needs a re-utterance. Ramakrishna must fulfil his pledge to reincarnate after a 100 years which are now past. Is he here?

49. Reading 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita'/'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna'/Sri Sri Ramakrishna Vachanamrit' daily purifies the soul.

50. The important thing is to live life in such a way that it is conducive to good health and good thoughts.

51. The idol is the external symbol of the internal Spirit, the means to concentrating the outgoing mind on the indwelling Self.

52. For some this world is the idle man's dream, for others it is of unceasing activity. In between lies the yogi of moderate measures.

53. In your hour of trial comes your test of faith. Whoever reposes perfect faith in his Chosen Deity is devotee indeed.

54. Bhakti is the unconditional love of God.

55. Karma is the movement of life itself.

56. Jnana is the realisation that you are the imperishable Self, the Atman.

57. Yoga is the union of the individual soul and the universal soul.

58. Love but be not attached for attachment is the seed of all misery consequent on restriction of the field of love.

59. Honesty is still the best policy for rectitude ever pays a richer dividend in the end.

60. ভক্তের স্বভাব মধুর ও অহংশূণ্য |

61. It is a larger living for the greater good that is the call of the hour.

62. Death comes as deliverance.

63. There is suffering everywhere. Come, let us reduce it.

64. When love rolls down as tears, know mother is gone.

65. মা, হৃদয়ে থাকো মা, হৃদয়ে থাকো |

66. The two wallclocks in her room stopped a couple of months back. They were never replaced. She was lost to time and sank into timelessness.

Photo : Ma being helped by me to cut her 86th birth anniversary cake on 3 July, 2018. Thank heavens that we had done it a final time. Now we shall do it in her memory but never will she be there to partake of it in the flesh.

67. The one that showed me the light of day has passed into eternal sunshine.

Photo : Ma on her 86th birth anniversary on 3 July, 2018. Her last birthday celebration in mortal coil. Now it shall be for us to keep up the tradition.

68. On the eve of Republic Day I wish all a very happy dedication to the nation.

69. Now we must immerse ourselves in the two oceans that commingle their waters and become one -- Swamiji and Netaji.

70. Love crystallises as mother, then dissolves into perennial undying love.

71. The nation must be built. Come, join hands with me and help serve this vast mass of humanity that is the living form of the Lord.

72. The clerk must keep at his clerical work after release from prison, said Sri Ramakrishna. So must I keep at my posts despite this loss.

73. Do not waste money. Have wartime rationing of your funds for the greater good of society.

74. There are so many in acute need of money for their bare survival. Knowing this to be the case, stop wastage of all sorts.

75. Take care of your health by cultivating good living habits and save for a secure future.

76. Help people when they are in need, desperate need, indeed, and not when the hour is past. Serve the dying well, not the dead.

77. Come, let us pool up resources for the service of humanity and see what a blessing you become unto it.

78. Do not indiscriminately donate but give unto the one that desperately needs your giving to survive.

79. Every moment spread the word of Swamiji so that the sleeping mass of humanity awakes unto the sense of its divinity.

80. Remember, your luxury is at the expense of someone's suffering. So, wisely spend, save and give for the maximum welfare of all.

81. Mother remains my perennial inspiration unto sacrificing myself for the lot of humanity. In self-giving lies true self-receiving.

82. We must rock up heaven and earth with the thunderous roll of the Vedanta. In the Atman is the seat of all power.

83. There is a greater purpose to life that reveals in the wake of a separation that makes life seem precious even in its transience.

84. Mother has receded into the sunlit meadows where the eye reaches not. Alas, when shall I see her again?

85. The rude call of life beckons us unto death. And death reveals a life beyond. It is life everywhere.

86. In the Mother my mother had sought her refuge and Mother did not deny it to her.

87. There is a force greater than man can conceive of that governs all life, a mighty ordinance that runs the life of things.

88. At the hour of death one feels the presence of God. So are the fortunate blessed by the final vision.

89. It was a life well spent, a life lived to fulfilment. The legacy remains for us to be deserving of as inheritors to the cause.

90. Excellence of a high order was her hallmark. And this she has bequeathed unto us.

91. The Constitution promulgated, the nation springs to life free of colonial shackles. It is the seventieth Republic Day. Jai Hind !

92. Rash Behari Bose must not be allowed to sink into oblivion. Read Narayan Sanyal's 'Ami Rash Behari ke dekhechhi' and discover the hero of epic proportions.

93. I will bathe in the Ganga of my daily devotions to my Guru and God.

94. Everyday there is birth, everyday there is death. The traffic of life is ever on in its coming and going along reverse tracks.

95. We must make our devotion to God dynamic. Passive piety must give way to active service of God in humanity and in subhuman species.

96. Is there a way out of this intricate web of Maya? There is. Take refuge at the feet of the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and be free.

97. The hour dawns and we shall set her afloat on her voyage across the seas unto her celestial abode. Ma will forever be with us still.

98. In her absence I realise the sublimity of her self. Ma stands supremely serene now and I remain to offer her my final gift of love.

99. She was mother in her finite form. Now she assumes her universal significance.

100. She was outside of me so long, or, so it seemed. Now it seems she has gone within and is enthroned in my heart.