Sugata Bose Sudip Chand God alone is. We are not. This sense of the plural cannot be ascribed to existence which is unitary ever.
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra Bricks apparently exist, that is, in phenomenal terms. But they do not seem to be having consciousness in the sense sentient beings do. And yet they exist in phenomenal terms. Do they not?
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra The consciousness spectra where we humans are caught midstream and wish to pass judgement on that we perceive not. Limited are the sense organs in number and the capacity for outreach. Yet, vain is the mind that uses such limited tools for the exploration of truth transcendental. Is there any possibility for arriving at the ultimate truth? Well, Swami Vivekananda says that our Rishis of yore arrived at this eventual destination ages ago when they discovered the underlying oneness of all of phenomena in the transcendental Self. Einstein attempted the uncovering of the unitary physical basis of existence by means of his 'The Unified Field Theory' but failed in his attempt. Today, the proponents of String Theory claim to have found the fundamental basis of the universe, that is, 'The Theory of Everything' (TOE) but there are sceptics galore within the scientific community who do not subscribe to such a view. It yet seems 'A Bridge Too Far' and future thinkers of the world will labour to unite the world of matter and the world of the Spirit in some sort of a scientific or meta-scientific or trans-scientific manner -- the last named term being the one offered by the astronomer Carl Sagan -- to everybody's satisfaction, one hopes. Till then conjectures will fill common thought-space and reasonable ventures into the realm of the unknown will highlight the voyages of the scientific community. Meanwhile, the Vedic bird broods on while waiting to hatch its egg and we await as well the results of all our collective efforts. Unto the future then. Onward !
Sugata Bose Anirban Banerjee God is generally understood to be the creator, preserver and destroyer of all that is, although, there are wide differences in the definition and concept of the term 'God' in the different religions of the world and in the different philosophical systems arising out of such. Here you are to take your own idea and base your judgement on it to provide for us the answer to the posited question.
Sugata Bose Rohan Chakraborty I suppose so. However, what is food for one is often poison for others, as the saying goes, and, thus, there could be divergence of opinion regarding this. Studying Swami Vivekananda has worked wonders in my life and allowed me in early youth to come into contact with what you have termed 'the soul of India'. If it helps you to discover the essence of Indian civilisation and culture as well, I will be only too happy for you. So, onward with the study please.
Sugata Bose Rohan Chakraborty Of course, you can. Subhas Chandra Bose began his study of Swamiji at your age and became transformed in body and mind to emerge the way he did. Jawaharlal Nehru had also studied him in his adolescence and profited from his study. Swami Ranganathananda was another great man who had started his study thus early on in his teens and went on to become a seminal sage of our times. So, beginning early is definitely an advantage when one's mind is most impressionable. Sri Ramakrishna used to 'catch' his disciples early on in their lives to mould them into perfected beings. Therefore, why worry? Move on. Charaiveti (Onward).
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati Now if I say, God's gift, you will catch me. So, I have to desist for the while from such an avowal.
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati The study of English literature, especially that arsenal of thoughts, a veritable magazine of explosive ideas, 'The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda' over and over and over again. William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Bertrand Russell, the Romantic poets, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Coleridge and Wordsworth, and a whole host of writers who I have selectively studied in an orderly way so as to distil their writings in my mind. But style stems from originality of being, one's intrepid ability to assert one's personality in one's life instead of abiding by those of others, however exalted they may be in public consciousness or in real. The Bhagavad Geeta exhorts us to be stationed in our own dharma, that is, our own mode in life, and hold its out as terrible to imitate another's. [ स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेय: परधर्मो भयावह: || ] I have followed this grand dictum all my life and have never blindly followed anybody else. This has been the distinctive feature of my personality and, in effect, my writing as well from early adolescence. But the earliest watershed in my writing must be attributed largely to the overwhelming influence Rabindranath Tagore had on me between the ages 15 and 22 years when I was simply carried away as in an inundating river by the current of his poetic thought. Tagore triggered in me some sort of a word-flow which continues to this day. But the impulse was embedded deeper in my being as words struggled to issue forth from my mind but, in the absence of sufficient vocabulary then, -- for I had begun reading books outside of the school curriculum only as late as 15 years and was, thus, a trifle handicapped by a paucity of words at my disposal -- I could only utter unintelligible groups of words that jingled in musical harmony but, of course, as stated, carried no communicative meaning to the audience, although, I knew perfectly well what such primordial language meant to me. Thus, in a way, I was able to fathom as well the roots of language when man, in his primeval attempts to communicate, must have uttered sounds which, by commonality of occurrence, -- for there seems to be a similarity between different human brains how words are formed even in the untutored babes in any socio-cultural setting -- gained meaning gradually and evolved into language. So, I was, perhaps, psychologically predisposed towards linguistic endeavours and whatever trifle attainments I may have had by the grace of the Mother of all Word, Saraswati. Music also has been my forte in this regard as I am keenly attuned to it and have also undergone training in the Hindustani classical vocal genre under an eminent Guru. This happy blending of musical harmony, the sense of the metre, the balance of syllables, the alliteration which is optimum and never over-exceeding which is the bane of many a writer's output in print, and the harmonic association of the right set of words in a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph and an entire passage, carried out in a spontaneous flow -- for all good writing must be inspired by spontaneity and never sullied by enforcement -- perhaps, is the hallmark of what I would deem to be my distinctive style of writing. The rest rests on the writer's capacity to please his inner sense of beauty instead of playing to the gallery to please the audience. In self-communication is writing best communicated to the larger self immanent in humanity.
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati You have more pronounced a sense of humour than arrogance, I guess.
Sugata Bose Bipra Chatterjee So, the existence of God, according to you, is a variable and not an invariant reality, for beliefs of people differ and they range from acceptance to rejection of the existence of God and qualified acceptance or rejection of various shades in between. That would really pose a terrible problem for Old Fellow who would have to ever oscillate between being and not being and all that is within the spectrum of such extremities of existence and non-existence.
Sugata Bose John Embrey No, I even mean the God who is immanent in Nature, not merely the transcendent one who is what you have averred.
Sugata Bose John Embrey We create our God or God creates us or do both God and the universe comprising us as well spring together in a dual manifestation from the Being which is not manifest?
Sugata Bose কৌশিক রায় So, you have brought in Bose, I mean, S.N. Bose after whom the Higgs Boson has been partially named and who has been honoured as the paterfamilias in nomenclature at least of 50% of the quantum particles of Nature?
Sugata Bose Srikumar Mukherjee Of course He can. Who else can protect if not He? God is one who is endowed with infinite attributes and one such is that He protects and preserves His devotees, that is, anybody who seeks refuge in Him. Even otherwise, He can and does protect whoever He wishes to, for He is not bound by any causal condition and can do as He pleases. This is a paradox, though, in a strictly causal macroscopic world, but what appears to be rigidly causal for us may not be causal to that degree or in that sense when viewed from a higher dimension from where such operations take place. Therefore, to pass judgement on God while we are in the realm of phenomenal ignorance is but foolhardy and the verdict is bound to be flawed. It is better to repose faith in our Sanatan scriptures and in the sayings of our sages and saints and divine incarnations and, moving along the path proposed by them, endeavour to arrive at the realm of realisation ourselves. Then, and then alone, will we be in a position to comprehend the limitless powers of God in whatever minimal a measure as we can and we will see how in stupendous vanity we had dared to limit His capacities and powers as we deemed it right in line with our own limitations.
Sugata Bose Srikumar Mukherjee Actually, there are ide divergences of conceptions about God between the way the Semitic prophets have spoken and the way the Arya Rishis have pronounced. The Indian traditional view of reality is highly scientific and modern science, as Swamiji points out in his celebrated 'Paper on Hinduism' in the World Parliament of Religions at Chicago, 1893, is a distant echo of what was once, ages ago, articulated in philosophical language by the Arya Rishis of yore. Hence, you will find less or almost nothing to differ from if you closely study the Upanishads and the Geeta, and in modern times, 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' and 'The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda'. The systematic study of Swamiji will clarify conceptions and align your own conceptions with those of the Rishis of yore as interpreted by the preeminent Rishi of this age, Swami Vivekananda.
Sugata Bose Shaoni Sarma So, if creation (manifestation) does not exist, as you put it, how do we exist and, in that case, how does perception come into being that negates creation?
Sugata Bose Uttam Mukherjee 1. Who is God? : God is absolute existence (Sat), absolute consciousness (Chit) and absolute bliss (Ananda), the transcendental reality devoid of name and form, and the immanent reality endowed with limitless attributes, consciousness and power.
2. The address of God : God is everywhere as the immanent being and all of space-time-causality is in God as well, this inter-twinedness being the curious feature of immanence. The absolute God or Brahman is, however, transcendent and, so, without form or formal address. You cannot post a letter to It that has any chance of reaching It but, for sure, you can dissolve yourself in phenomenal terms and zero in to this transcendental truth that in fullest measure abides in you as well as it does in every particle of matter and in the cosmos as a whole, being the ground of the cosmos and all that is contains.
3. Barter in devotion : Yes, the commercial instinct runs in man in general that reduces devotion like almost every other human activity to an exercise in profit-making. This stems from a wrong attitude taught from childhood that makes individuals helpless creatures at the mercy of a spiritual tyrant and leaves them with no manliness to rise in self-defence against an overwhelming opponent in disaster and death. Here the Vedanta can play an affirmative role in reshaping human consciousness by quickening the spirit of self-reliance. Then such puerile prayers will cease and men, indeed, will seek the divine within themselves instead of in the sanctum sanctorum of places of worship external to themselves. Indeed, if worship at all should be, it ought to be with a greeting to God and asking Him how He is. Barter must be kept out of one's intimate relation with God which must be one of pure love irrespective of return. Such a devotion is called 'Prema Bhakti'.
4. Discovering God in the heart ; 'Sada janaanang hridayey sannivishtaha' -- He who is the object of our search the universe over is the very subject of our soul and is located in the sanctum of our spiritual heart. Indeed, man in the middle phase of devotion, discovers God in the heart before he, in his maturer wisdom, realises His presence everywhere, inside as well as outside of his own self. The quasi-realised soul sees God in his heart but the sage of supreme spiritual sanity sees Him everywhere. Matter, energy, space-time-causality and all of sentience then disappear as distinct broken appearances and shine transfigured in a solidarity of existence as the Light Eternal.
Sugata Bose Brenda Arnold Mattox I have already answered in that very post where you apprised me of the question. Please have a look at it. You have been tagged to the reply.
Sugata Bose Tanushree Banerjee Answer, if you wish to, as per your definition, in case you have any. If not, then do not bother to do so.
Sugata Bose Tanushree Banerjee My earlier response to your question by way of response to my question in the post proper contains the present response to this reply of yours as well. Hence, further explanation I deem unnecessary and you are welcome to deem it, too, by way of not responding to the post in any pertinent manner.
Sugata Bose Jayanta Loha Chaudhury Now, there you answer by raising a counter question. This is what is called answering by implication. Stay safe, Jayanta.
Sugata Bose Rajib TravelWorld Why? Am I debarred from asking it? It is good to examine ideas such as this from divergent view points. And what better way than to seek public opinion on this most contentious issue of all time, a matter that has rocked human mind for millenia without as yet bringing about a wide consensus of opinion?
Sugata Bose Rajib TravelWorld Belief, though, may be contradisposed to realisation. The Semitic religions exhort their followers to believe whereas the Sanatan Dharma asks people to experiment and experience the truths enshrined in the Vedas. Such spiritual experience at a transcendental height is deemed spiritual realisation.
Sugata Bose Rajib TravelWorld Then does God suffer from the flaw of partiality or favouritism, for He is supposed to be neutral, is He not?
Sugata Bose @Kapan Dutta : Please specify the process how I may communicate with my Soul in which case alone I may ask the relevant question.
Sugata Bose @Ribhu Jit Halder : I am simply asking a question to assess public perception about the existence or non-existence of God. I am not seeking any proof for people's proffered statements for the same as such.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra So, existence is a variable quantity in your opinion, if I get you right. For you have brought in the mathematical concept of proportionality to illustrate it. In other words, God is waxing and waning with us and is, so, a variable as well. Do I interpret your statement right or am I off the mark by miles?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra And what about Mahamaya, the immanent God or the Goddess, whichever way you put it? Does She exist or does She not?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Then, can it be called existence which by definition is that which transcends space, time and causality?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra But that is extraneous to the previous point raised by me. You did not address it. So, do you admit the existence of God with all His attributes, form and formlessness, and the Avatar in his cognisable form and in his formless self?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra You are being evasive in your answers and refuse to address the points raised by me, either in the post proper or in the comment stream. None of the points raised by me have been attended to as yet. Let us stick to pertinent principles.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra And how is this addition done? How can something phenomenal be added to the transcendent which all operations of addition must necessitate? Where will be the contact point for such a fundamental operation? Brahman and Maya are mutually exclusive and cannot be thus united in an unholy wedlock. Where Brahman is, Maya is not. And where Maya seemingly is, Brahman seems not. Again I reiterate the fundamental question of the post : Does God exist? So, what is your take on that? Does the Avatar exist? Does Sri Ramakrishna exist? Does the Divine Mother exist? Does Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi exist?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra All right. So, you do accept the existence of God. But do you then allow for existence both in the absolute state and in the relative state? Would you call the relative or the phenomenal state 'existence'? And if so, would also allow for the cyclical birth and death of God in every universe of an unending, infinite, cyclical series of universes in the linear order as one of the infinite such series of parallel universes with different Gods presiding for their cyclical terms in each phase? Which, if you admit, would you then be inclined to rethinking about the persistent existence of the phenomenal God or otherwise?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra You have been addressing the questions that are being raised by me each time either partially or neglecting to answer them altogether. I understand you are getting by now fatigued by my persistent probe. But then, Sir, that is the way of the Jnani, the discriminating researcher who will examine every phase of the process that supposedly leads to Truth and will not blindly adhere to whatever pronouncements are made in the scriptures, for that would lead to a fractured and erroneous intellectual apprehension of the Truth in its phenomenal, verbal, refracted embodiment.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Oh, you should not have mentioned the 'fry' part ! It immediately reminded me of 'fish fry' which I much relish but have not of late savoured on account of the routine diet of the common household to which I have been relegated. But this sort of a continuous dialogue with an avowed Vedantist like you is in no small measure an adequate recompense for such a dietary denial.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra The liner, when it sinks, requires the little boat to save the sailor. SOS, SOS, Liner sinking !
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Now I know that Thakur exists and Debkanti Moitra Mahashay also exists, and what a delicious existence is it ! Full of the choicest delicacies prepared in Vaikunthha.
Sugata Bose Subhrajyoti Bhowmick The content of the debate lies in front of you. You now act as the judge and pass your judgement as you deem it right. And that will be your conclusion, not ours, though. For each one has his discernment and judgement thereof. And more often than not it is an inertial, habitual holding on to past conceptions despite evidences galore posited to counter and contradict such contentions. Here religion in its general practised mode loses out to science whose boundaries ever shift in the light of increasing knowledge and the rejection of past misconceptions then held as truth of sorts or even universal truth. The library of science is thus littered with the rejected mass of long-held ideas that had to give way to fresher discoveries. The same was with religion in its earlier Vedic phase as well when discoveries in the realm of the Spirit were rationalised on to produce the sublime, yet, rational philosophy of the Vedas and the Upanishads. Through thousands of years seekers of the Spirit meditated, deliberated, debated, discussed, speculated and realised the diverse principles of the mind and the soul and the supreme Spirit or the Self which transcendent revealed its secrets to sages rising to the plane that lay beyond the relative planes of space-time-causality. All these realisations and rationalisations were not blindly accepted by others but had to go through rigorous disputations in open arenas from which arose the vast body of the Vedic literature. This has been our Sanatan Dharma culture, intensely spiritual, intensely intellectual and, yet, never dogmatic or arbitrary. Now, in the light of this tradition live your life and judge the aforesaid debate as well if you please.
Sugata Bose Avik Ghosh I have just posited a question. It is for each one to affirm or deny the existence of God of their own conception and not mine. Mine is just to ask, and the question is plain and simple for each one to interpret his or her way and respond to or to ignore altogether as some may have done.
Sugata Bose Arup Banerjee I know. But what to do? An immature person like me can only ask my immature friends an immature question. But thank you very much for so responding maturely. Our observations in the copiously funded comment stream, though, may discover some facets for mature ones like you in terms of paucity of knowledge and vanity thereof. Knowledge bestows not only humility but decency of address which, my dear friend, you evidently lack when you so arbitrarily label a most pertinent question the way you do. It were better that you had gone through some of the illumined discussions that have followed from the keypads and the brains behind of some of these immature respondents for you to have arrived at a more comprehensive and more well-considered opinion of these pitiable ones, for you seemingly are towering above these in the sense of super-maturity of sorts. Nonetheless, stay safe and secure, too, in these days of insecure social living when death is but a dance away from life's delirious existence till the day.
Sugata Bose Arup Banerjee No, no, the last bit was a general statement on life as such and more especially in these times of toxic touch that could spell disaster for any in an inadvertent moment. Stay safe by adopting all care and keep others safe, too. May the God, whose very existence men cannot quite determine in either affirmative or negative terms, grant, out of His unbounded mercy, a long and healthy creative life to you !
Sugata Bose Shakkeela Ambattuvalappil Lovely ! You really have a fantastic sense of humour. I love your posts.
Sugata Bose Koyel Deb Roy I liked the stress. That is what is called courage of conviction. Most people are either apologetic or unsure. However, I do not mean to say that we must be vain in our assertions founded on indoctrinated mental make-up but that we must have the courage to own up our stance on what we genuinely believe irrespective of how society may view us. It is not only curious but outright strange that in a country that prides itself on its spiritual heritage so few had the courage to say with an open face that they believe in the existence of God. It was a marvellous exercise, thus, to discover where the polity stands on this contentious issue and poor paterfamilias of humanity must now be contemplating calling it quits with these educated Indians of sterile convictions and relegating once again his residence in the rural realm where men are as yet of simpler and purer motivations and movements.
Sugata Bose Sabyasachi Das Thank you for defending the great Indian leader and all India in consequence. This hatred of Gandhi by Churchill is understandable in colonial racist terms but this self-hatred by Indians baffles me. Gandhi seems to be the one peg which they have found to hang their hateful coat by and it is shame that it should be so. Most are surface readers of history or ignorant totally of it and form their biased views on the basis of shallow thinking fuelled by online slanted versions of historical truths to win over the polity for purposes of the electoral mandate. Indeed, such hatred of Gandhiji and all the seminal leaders of the day who had aligned against Netaji post Haripura is a blot on our national consciousness which is seeing a precipitous downfall these days, especially when fractional information and articulate output thereof are so easily available online. One sincerely hopes that better intellectual activity will prevail in the years to come as the polity comes into its being in a more developed university set-up. Till then we must endure this sort of maligning of our seminal leaders whose undeniable contributions and sublime sacrifices brought us to where we stand today.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra But you ought to criticise Churchill for his comment, Debkanti Babu, and not in any way endorse it. It is a national insult for us to hear such dreadful words spoken by this racist Englishman of no mean meanness that exemplifies the hollowness of British imperial culture and it is a shame if we do not stand up to such an indignity heaped on our great leader, the like of whom has rarely graced the world in its entire span of recorded history and the like of whom is unlikely to grace humanity in the foreseeable future as well. So, raise the storm in national self-defence instead of siding even partially with this perfidious British whose stated intention was to keep India in perpetual slavery to the corrosive Crown he served with all his dastardly loyalty.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Gandhiji is also gone. Generally, what do people do in regard to him for whom, I dare say, very often I see a wanton disregard among the people who operate these days online? Also, hammering Churchill on the count of his having perpetrated the Bengal Famine is the setting right of history and also proof of patriotism which we, in self-hatred of our seminal leader, so badly lack for us to be deemed sufficiently nationalistic or even human for that matter.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra To be man enough to rise up in self-defence instead of adopting the cowardly stance of criticising Gandhiji. We must rise up as a nation in honourable self-esteem and in immeasurable sympathy for our fellow countrymen. We must also raise a monument to the memory of these departed ancestors of ours who starved their bodies off to gain us eventual freedom, for the price of freedom cannot ignore their enforced sacrifice of body and mind, the agonising cries of which I can hear even now as I remember my late mother recounting it in flowing tears, for she was witness to a woman dying at her very feet who sought thus : "Give me starch, mother, give me starch," and even before my mother, then a young girl of 11 years, could rush in to bring food, she perished at her feet before her very eyes.
This was why Amartya Sen worked on the famine issue and won his way to groundbreaking research in economics and this was what prompted my mother to exhort me everyday to stand at our doorway with a can of rice to offer to whichever beggar first chanced to appear. Till her dying days she could not forget the suffering of these hapless countrymen of hers, starved to death by the wilful action of this malevolent British tyrant, and we, ignoramuses that we are, raise foolish questions that call us to stand before the High Court of history, to quote Deshbandhu, for failing to espouse the national cause, although we vaunt plentifully our pretentious aspirations for spiritual freedom for which, I dare say, we as a nation are woefully short in terms of the requisite qualifications.
Therefore, it is our foremost national duty to highlight these issues of British brutality on us, colonised peoples of the world, and, so, set history right. We ought never to forget the indignities heaped on us, the injustices meted out to us and the exploitation of our nation carried out for centuries to build Britain from a savage past to its vaunted modernity. In this the Chinese, with their superior memory and superlative patriotism, can teach us a like lesson.
Sufficient unto the day has been the evil thereof and we must no more endure even a microscopic part of it. Do not forget Swamiji's thunderous admonition of Miss Josephine MacLeod when she had unduly ventured to criticise an Indian in Kashmir. Swamiji roared at her, "Not one word more !" That is what I call patriotism and not debasing Anglophilia or degenerate self-hatred that prompts us to castigate our own great ones, oblivious of the fact as to how the world may view us as slaves of a regenerate kind.
Sugata Bose Sutanu Chatterjee Let the D depart, Sutanu, as I had long back asked you to do. 'The' looks better than its abbreviated substitute 'd' in a match of words where substitutes are best substituted by the originals.
Sugata Bose Indrani Dey You are one of those rare ones among my Facebook friends who genuinely values my philosophical posts. To have befriended you, thus, has been one of those acts where online superficiality assumes a deeper significance and one finds a kindred spirit to share one's deeper thoughts with. However, your infrequent presence makes for an inadequate communication even as the rare appearance makes up for it with a much anticipated arrival that has finally come to fruition. Would it were that you would communicate more often ! That would lend a fillip to my writings, for rare is the writer who pens his words for an empty audience even as the Lord had uttered His sublime words to a solitary soul on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Such solitary confinement I sometimes feel as I remain incommunicado with respect to my readers, most of whom care not to read my essays with any degree of diligence or discipline and are content to express their desperate devotion in terms of a diving down at the imaginary feet of the subject of the appended photographs. Herein readers like you make a difference which continues to infrequently but critically inspire me to carry on with my writing even unto my dying days for I feel happiest when I express my thoughts that will find a lodgement in some kindred soul after all. Were it not for readers like you, I would have long back withdrawn from my online endeavours and retired into my solitary self far 'from the madding crowd'. Hence, do read on and do as well care to be a trifle more communicative by clicking your appreciation on the 'like' button that will allow me to understand that you have, after all, read the pertinent piece. Thereafter, if possible, and if it does not cost labour too big a deal, do leave behind a comment on the subject of the post, as opposed to extraneous devotion of sorts on the subject of the appended photographs, so that I may savour the lingering satisfaction and draw from it fresh inspiration for printing further posts.
Sugata Bose Indrani Dey Please give a 'like' to the post to show your appreciation, that is, in case you like it. I had earlier also apprised you to this effect to keep the popularity of my posts that would inspire me to continue writing, although, some wise saws continue to remind me that I ought to be detached as to the result of my work and not seek any fruits post operation which, strange to say, they themselves do not maintain in their own lives. This is by way of supporting the cause of the divine as opposed to supporting me the person, I hope you understand, for the forces of light must come together to combat the forces of darkness that threaten to pervade the public discourse these days.
Sugata Bose Shabari Ghosh Perhaps that is a way of looking at it but I prefer the Chinese solemnity of sorts when it comes to matters of national pride and cannot quite come to terms with recounting the sufferings of my countrymen thus with a smile adorning the face. It clearly gives the impression that Shashi Tharoor does not quite feel the intense pain that our countrymen suffered at the hands of the British for over two centuries at least, although, he has done a seminal service to them by bringing to the fore, both through his books and through his speeches, the plight of his countrymen better than any before, perhaps. Also his command over the English language and his intellectual ability to defend the Indian position against self-defence by the British have caught them napping and spread the message wide. That is a commendable work of scholarship, I admit. But my criticism is valid as well, I feel, for my blood boils to see smiles, whatever the type you call it by, while recounting Indian plight at the hands of the British. But your perception may, of course, differ from mine. Perhaps, that is the distant viewing of things where one's own feelings are subjugated to one's intellectual assessment of things, as Tharoor's surely is, or, perhaps, it is a personality trait that cannot quite comprehend the misery of people in a more solemn way as would merit in this case.
Sugata Bose
Purnando Muktidharan All that you have said is not the subject matter of the video. Hence, your comment relates to extraneous issues like one typically preconditioned to uttering in the same vein the oft-repeated statements of those who cannot quite come out of their familiar shells.
Purnando Muktidharan All that you have said is not the subject matter of the video. Hence, your comment relates to extraneous issues like one typically preconditioned to uttering in the same vein the oft-repeated statements of those who cannot quite come out of their familiar shells.Sugata Bose Purnando Muktidharan Who is evaluating and evaluating thus? Before speaking about great men it were better if we looked at our own selves and thought what we have by way of credentials to judge them or what we, after all, have ever contributed to the well-being of our country. And even if some of us had his literary or oratorical skills or both, it would have done our country a great deal of good.
Purnando Muktidharan Who is evaluating and evaluating thus? Before speaking about great men it were better if we looked at our own selves and thought what we have by way of credentials to judge them or what we, after all, have ever contributed to the well-being of our country. And even if some of us had his literary or oratorical skills or both, it would have done our country a great deal of good.Sugata Bose Purnando Muktidharan Of course, I did, and is this what you have derived from the viewing [a Nehru video]?
Purnando Muktidharan Of course, I did, and is this what you have derived from the viewing [a Nehru video]?Sugata Bose Purnando Muktidharan What you have commented on has not been on the subject matter of the video. It has been based on your other conceptions to which you, for sure, have a right. But your observation here is entirely extraneous to the content of the video and hence, how are you being topical or relevant to the said post?
Purnando Muktidharan What you have commented on has not been on the subject matter of the video. It has been based on your other conceptions to which you, for sure, have a right. But your observation here is entirely extraneous to the content of the video and hence, how are you being topical or relevant to the said post?Sugata Bose Suryadhar Unfortunately, that is not the case. The illiterate people are much more reverent to our great leaders, most to Mahatma Gandhi. It is the literate fools who are mean enough in their vanity of little learning to abuse one of the greatest souls that has ever been born on this earth, at least in recorded history. And you cannot blame the leaders for keeping these self-indulgent ones in ignorance.
Suryadhar Unfortunately, that is not the case. The illiterate people are much more reverent to our great leaders, most to Mahatma Gandhi. It is the literate fools who are mean enough in their vanity of little learning to abuse one of the greatest souls that has ever been born on this earth, at least in recorded history. And you cannot blame the leaders for keeping these self-indulgent ones in ignorance.Pettiness has become the characteristic of ill-informed people and it is the purpose of this group page to discourage such an attribute and endeavour to arrive at an unbiased understanding of history and the estimation of personalities who have shaped its flow.
Sugata Bose By all means have a democratic discourse but avoid its petering down only into Gandhi-Nehru baiting. That hardly does any service for the cause which the devotees of Netaji truly ought to espouse. I am not calling anybody illiterate for I am not so vain as to think that I, myself, am highly literate, which I am not. Hence, that question does not arise. However, this downgrading of discourse each time along the selfsame line of hyper-criticism of our nation's great leaders without bothering to engage in any civil discourse cannot be supported, too. Let people come up with positive ideas of patriotism centring their great hero, Netaji, rather than engage in fruitless diatribe. I think I have made a point which you will appreciate. P.S. The point about illiteracy which you have referred to was brought about by my friend in an earlier comment to which I had merely responded. It was not I who had initiated it. There has been a misapprehension on your part in regard to that comment of mine. However, that has been, I do hope, sorted out by this response of mine. Please feel free to make this group as intimately yours as you can and contribute to its intellectual and spiritual health.
By all means have a democratic discourse but avoid its petering down only into Gandhi-Nehru baiting. That hardly does any service for the cause which the devotees of Netaji truly ought to espouse. I am not calling anybody illiterate for I am not so vain as to think that I, myself, am highly literate, which I am not. Hence, that question does not arise. However, this downgrading of discourse each time along the selfsame line of hyper-criticism of our nation's great leaders without bothering to engage in any civil discourse cannot be supported, too. Let people come up with positive ideas of patriotism centring their great hero, Netaji, rather than engage in fruitless diatribe. I think I have made a point which you will appreciate. P.S. The point about illiteracy which you have referred to was brought about by my friend in an earlier comment to which I had merely responded. It was not I who had initiated it. There has been a misapprehension on your part in regard to that comment of mine. However, that has been, I do hope, sorted out by this response of mine. Please feel free to make this group as intimately yours as you can and contribute to its intellectual and spiritual health.Sugata Bose Nirmal Kumar Dey I neither write in favour of Gandhiji or anybody else, nor do I write against them. I dispassionately deal with the episodes of history and recount them as I view them. There is no partisan attitude in me that prompts my writings but there is always an intense response to the happenings of history as I understand.
A foolish consistency is the philosopher's hobgoblin, Emerson said, and I am instinctively not one who resonates to being such a consistent person. I try to hold before my readers all the angles, or, as many as I possibly can, of the historical episodes and the personalities who shaped them. Like the chameleon changes colours, my writings may seem to the surface vision to change in a like manner, but it is not so in reality. There is a deeper connection between the continuously altering presentations that hold them in a consistent comprehensive fold. Deeper understanding of my writings would reveal the complexities of the historical process that I deal with and the resultant apparent contradictions that may seem to the surface vision.
History has its facets that are arranged in contradiction and contradistinction to each other, and my endeavour is to unravel the inner workings of such to my readers. I cannot take a simplistic view of things for that would be being untrue to history. Hence, those who in their simplicity seek absolute solutions and would either tend to black or to white, they find the grey areas of historical presentation baffling and exhort the writer to adopt a definite stance, which he cannot in all honesty to his trade. My adoration of all the seminal leaders of the freedom movement does in no way restrict my criticism of them nor does my criticism in any way reduce my adoration of these preeminent personalities of the age.
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati Truth itself will make me vigilant. I do not have to bother about it, do I? This fire does not burn. It saves by illumining the darkness that otherwise spells death.
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati But truthfulness is not the same as Truth. That is a reality of a different dimension altogether, and in the absolute sense, transcending all dimensions. Hence, the maintenance of truth in life's daily intercourse may not have a direct bearing to absolute Truth as such, for the former is a social construct while the latter is the basis of all that is.
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati That is alright and I do also appreciate its practical usefulness in attempting to arrive at Truth absolute. But truthfulness in social relations or even in the resolution to arrive at Truth absolute are completely two different things of two different orders. That is what I meant to say. Society is an appearance, that is, it is laid over the ground reality as a cover that hides that reality and, as such, cannot be the springboard for attaining the absolute Truth. Or is there a hidden connection, a gradation between society, which is an appearance, and Truth, which is the real, like Jacob's ladder leading in a divine ascension? I have always wondered how the relative may lead to the absolute and I have come to the conclusion that the relative, being essentially unreal, eventually drops off on account of its own unreality, and to this end, in a strange way, the maintenance of truthfulness and the performance of austerity comes of aid. But the eventual leap unto Truth or the final erasing of Maya is a deed inexplicable except in terms of the Advaita philosophy. Shankara's Mayavada seems to me the only way out in this regard. Nothing else seems to be a satisfactory answer.
Sugata Bose Neeta Banerjee Yes, they (religions) are the best things that have been revealed to mankind at its sublimest, the inner workings of the Spirit and the ultimate aim and end of life through its myriad migrations of body to eventual spiritual freedom. That is why we, as a civilisation, are considered by the wide world as so glorious. It is in religion that lies our stock and the very substance of our civilisational experience has been the progressive manifestation of this grand objective of terrestrial evolution which does not see fulfilment in Darwinism but must seek so in Patanjali's enunciation of its principle of 'Prakrityaapuraan' or 'the infilling of nature' leading to eventual emancipation from the shackles of primeval ignorance. What proselytising religions of the Abrahamic tradition have done may have prompted you to make your comment, and, I appreciate, that these religions have perpetrated some of the worst violence in human history. But then even science has been culpable to the same offence and each time religion has been used to perpetrate violence, it has been by the use of scientific tools of destruction. So, it is not religion per se that is at fault but, to quote Gandhiji, the devil in the human heart that is at the root of it. Where would you get a Buddha or a Ramakrishna or a Vivekananda were it not for religion? And where would you get a Newton, a Galileo or an Einstein were it not for science? Science probes the outside world and arrives at its material laws and religion probes the inner workings of man's mind and goes even beyond to enunciate the laws of the Spirit. These are the complementary pursuits of the human mind and their holy wedlock will truly humanise the human species. Each without the other is incomplete. To end it by quoting Einstein, "Religion without science is blind and science without religion is lame."
Sugata Bose Neeta Banerjee That depends on the scope of your definition of religion. Swami Vivekananda defines religion thus : 'Religion is the manifestation of the divinity which is already in man.'
Sugata Bose Shantanand Saraswati They are not mutually exclusive that one has to be replaced by the other. Democracy can ensure meritocracy as well and, more often than not, it does so. Hence, the argument falls flat.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya You are right. Oho, I made a mistake ! You are left. But then, never mind. Nothing much is today left of the left. So, you must be right.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Both Stalin and Mao were barbaric dictators, unfit to be called civilised human beings.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya China's economic miracle has been achieved out of the abysmal failure of the socialist economic model and the adoption of the out and out capitalist model.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Come clean. Where lies your allegiance - India or China? Motherland or land of ideological allegiance?
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Those that have endured the Stalinist regime have left enough evidence of its brutality for all to get a clear idea of what it was like and it is only deluded people who keep on entertaining rosy ideas about such horrendous barbarism and imagine it to be the political panacea for all the ills of the world. Idealism thus gone wicked has caused grief enough for the world till now for it to be tolerated any longer.
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra Please participate in the communist bashing I am right now engaged in. These people are pro-China and anti-India. They need a dressing down.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Certainly not Tchaikovsky. He was long dead and gone. Why, there was no composition as such of a decomposing regime? Khrushchev revealed it all and then at the very end Gorbachev did it again when he launched his glasnost programme. De-Stalinisation has done it all for the wide world except for deluded adherents of the decadent system who keep asking for proofs of a case whose verdict before the High Court of History (to quote C.R.Das) has been delivered.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Why? What about it? He [Khrushchev] was the liberator eventually from Stalinist oppression that led to the climactic development of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev which ended the barbaric Bolshevik legacy that had throttled the lives of hundreds of millions of people across the communist world.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya So, now you quote personalities of eminence and their gullibility in misapprehending the situation, for they were not endowed with X-ray vision that could penetrate the Iron Curtain that hung over the Soviet Union. They were misled in their judgements which were formed by way of reaction to the colonial-imperial-capitalist exploitation of the times and the appearance of communist equality which was put up before them in a perfidious showcasing of selected items while screening from their eyes the brutality of the regime to which the Soviet people were being subjected at the hands of that demonic tyrant, Stalin. It is easy to talk gibberish in the name of communist ideology and practice as happened in these countries under the Iron Curtain while oneself enjoying all the benefits of a democratic free society. Shame on such allegiance to ideological wickedness of other countries while castigating the system of one's own ! Patriotism, indeed ! Well, I never thought communists could be any better for all their pretentious and pompous tall talk.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya How wonderful ! So, there are you are. Your 'internationalism' which opposes national interest at every point spews your venom at last at a national organisation to which I neither belong nor hold adherence to but which, to my mind, is far more committed to national well-being than communist organisations of this land and their members and associates who are opposed to the very idea of India's spiritual civilisation. If communism ever were to hold its sway -- which it will never -- its prime objective would be the destruction of India's spiritual culture and the instating of barbarous materialism in its place. Live in such delusion that communism is the panacea of the world's evils, for there is no harm in individuals daydreaming anything so long as they do not join hands to bring ruin to the ancient civilisation of this nation. And, for good measure, let me tell you that Tagore did not even subscribe to much of India's spiritual beliefs and practices but I do so, as an ardent follower of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, and, as such, do defy him wherever my principles stand in contradistinction to his. I am no blind adherent of whatever a Tagore or an Einstein may had said when I know for certain that both these seminal giants of the twentieth century did make glorious blunders in assessing international situations. So, ruminate on this for the while before responding.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya You are a rank materialist and not endowed with the faculties required for higher spiritual perception. Hence, your allegiance to the materialists of yore who were the worst aberrations in ancient India of all that Indian civilisation stood for, and even today stand for, a la cousins of your modern-day Indian communists. Hence, the ulcer in the national body you pick to describe it just as a fly sits on it to feed its belly.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Ask Stalin's or Mao's ghosts or Xi Jinping, in case you meet them, and they will well apprise you of what the term 'nation' means or 'nationalism' means in the communist lexicon, apart from theoretical lies.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya I told you earlier to observe the fly and see how it prefers to read a human body as an ulcer that adorns it.
Sugata Bose Prasanta Bhattacharya Indian civilisation is preeminently spiritual. It stands on the bedrock of the Vedas which does not exclude science. It is puerile to detect a contradiction between the Sanatan Dharma and science at its sublimest and even its material rendition. You need to study Swami Vivekananda for long for a possible 'purge' -- to use your communist favoured term, -- of your material system of all decadent ideas about Indian spirituality before you are on the same wavelength as me to be able to apprehend what I have laboriously and fruitlessly attempted to explain thus far. Your one liners have met with elaborate responses from my side, but, alas, they are in vain, for men may choose to live in delusive communist utopian dreams so long as a Stalin or a Mao do not smash them to smithereens to expose the hollowness of the ideology and the brutality of it in practice.
Sugata Bose সৌভিক বিশ্বাস Rubbish. You need to know what you are talking about. Educate yourself better. There is a world of difference between what you learn online from ill-informed sources and what the truth of the matter is. Be historically more aware and in articulation more accurate before you pass such a hazardous judgement on India's premier freedom fighter and one of the greatest human beings to have ever walked on the face of this earth, to quote Einstein.
Sugata Bose Parnika Bubna Brilliant. What a succinct way of putting it, straight to the heart of it !
Sugata Bose Diganta Sengupta Keep reading above as the article unfolds. As for your question, there is a thing called 'proportion' and another thing called 'perspective'. These will have to be comprehended well before assessing great personalities. That Gandhiji was one of the greatest personalities in human history is more or less the verdict of the preeminent thinkers of the world and I can only corroborate their views by adding my own like opinion arrived at after a lifetime of study of the great personalities of human history in whose august company Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi shines a stellar personality of sublime effulgence.
Sugata Bose Subhrajyoti Bhowmick Read up and reconcile yourself to your current ideas or reject them after better illumination from a broader understanding and a universal perspective.
Sugata Bose Dyutimay Banerjee This is an obtuse way of looking at things, like viewing an artistic masterpiece from too close a quarter that reveals certain local details but loses out on the grandeur of scope and the overall impression the master had meant to convey. History read thus can often mislead and allow misapprehension of its broader outlines which shall outlive the pettiness of the pertinent times and remain enshrined in the Temple of Eternity. How many of the personalities who graced the earth alongside the Mahatma will endure in history remains to be seen but centuries later the Mahatma, like the Buddha before him, shall continue to be a beacon for storm-tossed humanity traversing through turbulent seas of the times to come.
Sugata Bose @Shaon Malik : Read more, reflect even more, and realise the exigencies of history before arriving at such absolute agreement on issues of momentous significance. As stated above, view things on the basis of 'proportion' and 'perspective' that historical situations propose before the executors of the destiny of humanity.
Sugata Bose Sanjay Choudhry You have aptly summed it up. Now let's see who contradicts this statement of yours? I will appreciate his courage and expect you to provide your defence of your statement against probable disparagement of the Mahatma.
Sugata Bose Sanjay Choudhry True. A lot of my time is thus wasted in responding to comments that are either prejudiced or ill-informed or plain puerile. I have also been contemplating of responding to a minimum to save time and energy resource.
Sugata Bose Deep Pal That's a pretty statement. The power of the single letter, you see, which, if inserted at the right place, works wonders. How much more must have been the wondrous achievements of the Mahatma who Mother Nature inserted as Her chosen letter to spell out the right meaning of life and its objectives !
Sugata Bose Subhadeep Banerjee I believe so, for hatred arises out of narrowness of the heart unlike love that arises from broadness of the spirit.
Sugata Bose @Shaon Malik : What are you talking about? That is so unhistorical an approach. How could Gandhiji have forsaken his own political philosophy and spiritual principles to accommodate the armed revolutionary cause which he neither espoused nor thought fit to fight for? His was a totally different approach and his endeavours must be viewed in that context. To expect Gandhiji to support the armed cause for freedom is like expecting Marx to support crony capitalism of the day.
Sugata Bose Satyendra Singh Not a shift by any means. I have always been of the view that Gandhiji and Nehru and the like are great personalities who have shaped human history in their parts of the world at least. But, of course, the entire Gandhi brigade including the Mahatma himself played false at Tripuri with Subhas Chandra Bose for which we are, perhaps, even today suffering. And it is this that antagonises a significant section of the common mass of humanity of insignificant breadth of vision who thereby cannot tolerate the Mahatma and his followers for what they view as a betrayal of the interests of the motherland. It is here that I am working to bring about a rapprochement between the ideologically opposed camps of common humanity by not glossing over the historical heresies of the times but by bringing to light the exigencies of the times that so led the two diametrically opposed camps then to a political collision of such momentous future significance. The task can never be achieved by superficial estimations of their greatness without in any way attempting to explain what had actually chanced then at Tripuri and thereafter, and how the Mahatma and his coterie had actually resorted to some nasty politics for which he stands convicted today before the High Court of humanity in India at least. Things cannot be brushed away like that but neither should such a venerable one be foolishly vilified without understanding him or his actions in the proper light.
Sugata Bose @Ishan Ghosh : But compromise is the art of politics. And even Netaji did it when he sought Nazi help for India's independence but did not once speak out against Nazi atrocity on the Jews or Japanese atrocity on the Chinese. That he did compromise for his preferred cause of India's freedom proves my stated point that 'compromise is the art of politics'. Even Swami Vivekananda did not openly condemn the British and ask them to quit our country. He kept himself sort of above politics for his broader concern of saving civilisation for ages to come. This also was a compromise of sorts for a deeper purpose to be served, though. Hence, your simplistic statement would not hold ground as it is.
Sugata Bose Manotosh Banerjee It is to bring about a better understanding of the superlative character of the Mahatma, the like of whom the world has seldom seen. If this debate does not start, how will you learn, men who have preconceptions about Gandhiji that are all wrong as they are prejudiced and, so, erroneous?
Sugata Bose Subhrajyoti Bhowmick As red as I could make it. Hope the Marxists do not mark me out for it. It is a chromatic pastime as you well understand and has nothing to do with ideological inclination. Just a riot of colours as we indulge in while celebrating Holi. So, keep saluting your way and I will respond in a like manner.
Sugata Bose Subhrajyoti Bhowmick But will it be in evening suit as well? In that case the most suited attire will be that which allows you to ease into your evening meditation, for the hour is ripe and the tide is strong and the breeze of mercy blows on all who would use the moment to dive deep into their subliminal consciousness to recover the treasures that lie hidden and discover their divine selves in the process.
Sugata Bose Subhrajyoti Bhowmick Get along, son, for unto thee lies the hope of salvaging whatever is left of this decadent civilisation. As Swamiji had famously said, "Wait not for a prophet to save you but be a prophet unto others." So, off you go on to your divine mission. Godspeed unto thee !
Sugata Bose @Nitin Diwadkar : And how did he do so, will you not specify? How he was hypocritical and nothing more such that you still cannot get past his legacy, will you not elaborate to illumine us on that discovery of yours?
Sugata Bose Manotosh Banerjee Good to see you make a modest attempt to uphold your earlier statement. Keep corresponding like this, for many will be the posts on Gandhiji from my side in the future, for sure, and many will be the occasions for you to thus respond. Only make sure that you cite actual historical instances to prove your point and not make random allegations, for they will add value to your comments thus.
Sugata Bose Subhadeep Banerjee The shortest biography of Gandhiji ! You need to publish it, keeping the rest of the pages empty.
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra Indeed, Gandhiji was quite often more hospitable, in that sense, to the Muslims than to the Hindus who he considered to be his kith and kin and who he could better bank on as he battled to prevent the communal forces from gaining the upper hand. This he did to assure the Muslims of their safety in an undivided India and not out of any anti-Hindu sentiment which he secretly nursed. The dialectics of the movement then, coupled with his ideological inclinations, induced him to adopt certain courses of action which with hindsight today we may of course criticise. But to label him an anti-Hindu, a pro-Muslim or, worst of all, a British agent is unhistorical and founded in colossal ignorance. That Gandhiji could not keep his word of dying before allowing Partition is our great fortune and must not be held against him as his spiritual failing. That he did reluctantly permit Partition was simply because things had gone far too much out of hand to prevent it. History may be shaped by individuals of great personal powers who are called men of destiny but history also shapes men of destiny and forces them along its own colossal current. Historical forces once released are difficult to contain and take their own course. Gandhiji had at the time of Partition become a pawn at the hands of these historical forces which nothing but a collective effort of the British, the Muslim League and the Congress could have thwarted, if indeed they could. Thus, to lay the blame for every evil deed enacted, every evil motive pursued to malefic fulfilment, every vicious aim achieved that led to the dismemberment of the motherland amidst horrific communal carnage on Gandhiji, who among the partakers of the spoils of independence alone stood apart in sacrificial service, is to do him the most stupendous injustice which history will not forgive us for. It is, therefore, meet, that instead of casting aspersions on the one sane man in an insane world that blew itself to destruction, we ought to study his life, contemplate his ideals and meditate on his message to rebuild a better world order in the centuries to come when all this din will have been forgotten and the colleagues of the Mahatma of signal significance today will have been reduced to footnotes in history, and yet the sage of Sabarmati will shine a luminous star in the firmament of future humanity for all time to come.
Sugata Bose My dear friends, contribute to this group right away your posts to keep it throbbing with life and activity.
Sugata Bose @ উজ্জ্বল মান্না : You are doing wonderfully well. This group page is an inspiration to all. It surely will be an inspiration to the youth whose embodiment was Swamiji.
Sugata Bose Keep up the quality of the posts. Do not let the standard sink or this group will stink as well like many a group that abounds online.
Sugata Bose What more can I say? May this group flourish ! As of now it is the most inspirational group for me. May it remain so and prosper !
Sugata Bose This group exceeds expectations. The posts keep soaring to sublime heights as depth reveals the Swami in all his profundity. Kudos to the founder, উজ্জ্বল মান্না (Ujjwal Manna).
Sugata Bose @ উজ্জ্বল মান্না : No, it ought to be made mandatory for all posts to carry the author's name and/or the source of information. Otherwise, it has been elsewhere seen that copy-pasting of other people's posts has taken place which ought not to be ever allowed here, to maintain the sanctity of the page.
Sugata Bose @উজ্জ্বল মান্না : But a servant with self-dignity, not one with merely a base servility reeking of lowly ignorance. A self-conscious dignified stance of one who humbly serves -- this ought to be the attitude.
Sugata Bose What a beautiful post ! What a poem, full of loving remembrance and benediction that knows no bounds for a soul, supreme in service and sacrifice, the anointed one of God ! (Reference : Swamiji's poem on Goodwin's death -- Requiescat in Pace)
Sugata Bose কী অসাধারণ ! আবার নতুন করে জানলাম, অনুধাবন করলাম এই 'স্বামী-তিলক সংবাদ' । কী যে আনন্দ দিলে উজ্জ্বল, কি বলব !
Sugata Bose You have a marvellous eye for beauty, the aesthetic sense, as they say. The sense of proportion that is the hallmark of great art is amply evident in your editing of the photographs.
Sugata Bose The innocence of Vivekananda writ large on his face and the battle-hardened Tilak with his iron will manifestly evident on his face. How the patriots with supernal love for the motherland, yet differ in their approaches and bear them out on their countenance so clearly !
Sugata Bose অসাধারণ ! এর নাম রচনা । প্রাণস্পর্শী, হৃদয়গ্রাহী, সম্যক উপলব্ধি সম্বলিত । কতদিন পর আবার পড়লাম । স্মৃতি রোমন্থন হল । ধন্য উজ্জ্বল মান্না !
Sugata Bose এই একটি গ্রুপ বটে । কী অসাধারণ ! এমন তো আর কোথাও দেখলাম না । উজ্জ্বল মান্নার শিল্পবোধ এক বিস্ময় আমার কাছে । এই সম্মেলন সত্যিই আনন্দস্থল ।
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra It is not a theoretical finding that is insisted upon here but a practical finding by the common man who cannot rest contented thus by quoting the scriptures. It simply will not satiate his spiritual cravings.
Sugata Bose Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi But the tendency these days is to bash Gandhi instead of glorifying Bose's achievements. This springs from ignorance of the attainments of both and not from any understanding which you are talking about.
Sugata Bose Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi Can this be historically authenticated or is this a conjecture based on analysis of facts and perception thereof? Was the media boost not essentially on account of Gandhiji's stupendous personality and popularity thereof even in Great Britain? And what were the chances then of a second Revolt of 1857 prior to the Second World War when Gandhi was being thus lionised by the British media? Going by Bose's submission in 'The Indian Struggle' the revolutionary mass movement was dead by the time Gandhi arrived on the political scene in India and it was sheer madness to conceive of any such in the prevailing conditions which was why he himself joined in the Gandhian resistance, albeit reserving his freedom to keep clandestine connections with the armed revolutionaries who as yet operated in pockets. So, where was the danger that the British faced of a second Revolt of 1857?
Sugata Bose Subhadeep Banerjee That was at the height of the Second Word War. But my point is Gandhi's popularity in Britain was from far earlier when Bose's career had not yet quite taken off on its sublime flight. In the early thirties there was hardly any chance of an armed national revolution of the scale of the Revolt of 1857. Obviously, you did not quite get my point that I have raised with the venerable Maj Gen Gagandeep Bakshi. The Indian armed movements were revolutionary in character no doubt and raised British alarm doubtlessly, too, but they were sporadic and far between and isolated efforts that lacked the integrated revolutionary approach that united a whole nation, and, consequently, to imagine that the British in real terms feared an impending Revolt of 1857 would be far-fetched and lacking in historical substance. That the British were wary of all such movements post the aborted Ghadar Mutiny of the second decade and the Chittagong Uprising in the fourth which effectively freed parts of the district in East Bengal for almost three years, did cause trepidation in British hearts and induced them to deal with the revolutionaries with utmost brutality, but to thereby infer that a second Revolt of 1857 was being apprehended by the British -- for which there was no intelligence available in the twenties and the thirties -- is to be plain hyper-inductive and must be rejected by this writer as a puerile proposition. Yes, I do agree that the British media did show Gandhi in a positive light and with a lot of fanfare among the labouring class in Britain at the time of Gandhi's visit to England for the Second Round Table Conference but that was purely on the basis of the mass excitement that his personality, attire and unique political approach with the human touch had generated among the Brits in times of dangerous dictatorships the world over that posed the possibility of a cataclysmic collision course of the fascists with the imperial powers of Europe. We must deal with issues at a time and not conflate things to get the better of an argument.
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra The autobiography of a person you have read which is but his account of himself for a fraction of his life in this case which does not include the bulk of his revolutionary activity, that is, from the period 1921-1948. And this is the most pertinent period, too, in terms of the Indian Independence Movement which has been rightly termed 'The Gandhian Era'. And, yet, on the basis of such fractional knowledge you proceed with your assessment of the Mahatma and his seminal contributions to freedom. You have truly by your submission highlighted what many others dare not to and I commend you for it. This is the central problem. Ill-information, misinformation, fractional information -- these three siblings conspire these days to corrupt public understanding of the historical process that had unfolded in India in those tumultuous days of struggle for her freedom. Now, I am sure, you see what I mean. One needs to extensively educate oneself in the content of a subject before one attempts to compose narratives of one's settled rational perceptions. This is not being done and the result is flying saucers of indulgent imagination everywhere that is the core content of the common discourse these days. And so-called writers who bring in disputations to the discourse, for the selfsame reason of being ill-informed about the facts of history and on account of their predilections founded on such fractional knowledge or glaring ignorance, as the case may be, make common confusion worse confounded with their lopsided views of history which, to put it plainly, is no proper historical view at all. These are the ones who need education and, yet, these are the ones who keep on clamouring that there is not enough data available on the armed revolutionary struggle for India's freedom when whatever is available on both the Gandhian struggle and the armed struggle they have never bothered to even browse through with a modicum of sincere application. I, therefore, exhort you to do what they have not done but I know for sure that it is raining mercies in the desert sand that will lead to no future fruition in this case as well. Hence, monumental ignorance will prevail, as will prevail its offspring in monumental misapprehension of the movements of history.
Sugata Bose Tamoghna Das Sharma What an unhistorical approach, uncorroborated by fact, unfounded in reason and in plain terms, fanciful, just a personal perspective, prejudiced and based on puerile propositions to one's indulgent imagination !
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra Local, and you will prevent it. You must. Unto your service lies the well-being of those you come across in life's thoroughfare. But for that you need to do more by way of sincere application than casual commenting.
Sugata Bose Indradeep Bhadra Please carry on with your good work and I shall feel blessed to behold such if even in my mind's eye. Upon the youth rests the future of our nation and you must remember that what you do can be infinitely improved upon by not allowing yourself the indulgence to enter into casual commenting of sorts that have no real merit or value beyond passing the idle hour that could be better spent in self-improvement through study, meditation and rendering service wholeheartedly to anyone who you come across in your domain of active life.
Sugata Bose Rajendra Kundu Yes, yes, very much so. When we were small, we witnessed a different order of responsible civic behaviour among the citizenry except government employees who ever shirked their duties and remained wage-thieves as such. But now it is all hell broken loose and values have been subordinated to commercial compulsions -- whatever that may mean -- as men stoop lower by the day to fill their pockets, not so much out of necessity as out of greed and a casual contempt for anything moral that ought to bind them in responsible civic behaviour which was normal till several decades back. Unless we actively reverse this trend -- and we can do it if we wish -- darker days await us as we move precipitously to our societal doom.
Sugata Bose Poulome Mitra Shaw Have a look at your inbox in case you miss it for long on account of overloading of messages. I could think of no other way of communicating as I have no contact number of yours otherwise. Waiting for your response. God bless you !
Sugata Bose Journalist Susmita In ancient times Semitic men were in the thrall of the natural forces and attributed them to the controlling power of divinity as sending retribution on them for evil deed done. Such misapprehension of the workings of Nature primarily led to them being fearful of God in their devotion to Him and being devoted to God in their fear of Him as they tried to pacify His anger by sacrifices -- as in the case of Abraham tending to sacrifice his son Isaac to do the bidding of God who then sent His angel to save Isaac's life, being pleased with Abraham' devotion -- and this formed the substance of the fear-devotion causal link in Semitic religion from its earliest in Judaism and continuing to its later developments in Christianity and Islam. The fear of heaven and hell are central to the Semitic religions and are considered on account of its earliest and latter-day traditions to be the sine qua non for the awakening of spiritual wisdom that lay in (a) pacifying the ever-angry God (b) pleasing Him through fearful devotion (c) practising self-restraint in civic behaviour and relations out of fear of burning in hell-fire and out of the aspiration to live in bliss in an eternal heaven otherwise. Thus, fear is the cardinal character attribute of an adherent of all three religions of the Abrahamic tradition. Not only in the Bible but in the Quran as well this element of fear is much stressed upon as being essential to bringing about the pleasure of God who is ever ready to curse or otherwise punish for earthly misdeed done. Fear remains the antidote to bad behaviour and, as such, in effect, the cause of subsequent wisdom arising out of living a life of piety. However, in the New Testament in the Book of John we find a grand departure from this exclusive doctrine of fear where it is written, 'There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.' This is a significant development in and through the personality of Christ where the sublimity of divine love for the Heavenly Father has overcome all traces of fear and wisdom is seen as the generation of love rather than fear. So, the New Testament is an advancement in the spiritual conception of wisdom and this is what has gradually held the evolving life of liberated Christians the world over as they framed out of it their newer conceptions of social life, ethics and laws what in common parlance goes by the name of Judeo-Christian values. The Indian spiritual traditions, however, have never subscribed to the notion that fear conduces to the awakening of wisdom, although, even fear has been named as one of the many causes of the awakening of the kulakundalini shakti which is the seat of all spiritual knowledge. But in general terms fear has been conceived of as conducing to ignorance rather than knowledge or wisdom of any measure. The Upanishads state that the whole of Nature is running to precision out of an over-abiding sense of fear. Again fear in the Sanatan Dharma has been depicted as the outer manifestation of the sense of impermanence lurking at the back of the mind of the sentient being which in simple terms is the fear of death. The Sanatan Dharma thus stresses on the conquest of fear through knowledge of the imperishable Self (Atman/Brahman) as the primary and ultimate condition for freedom.
Sugata Bose John Embrey Your comments are truly educative and are a model for others to follow. Thank you for being such a perceptive reader.
Sugata Bose Deep Pal The realisations of the Rishis right to Ramakrishna and verification through individual realisation thereof or otherwise is the proof of God.
Sugata Bose Deep Pal Believe it, before looking at your comment I anticipated the exact words the moment the notification came in the form of the 'ping'. Clairvoyance? No, no, plain understanding as to the words that may come forth so fast upon my comment by way of response.
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Facile logic ! Why ask someone the question whose existence you are not sure of at all?
Sugata Bose Debkanti Moitra Why did you withdraw your comment, Sir? It would have ignited an enlivening discussion.
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