TIME TO BE TIMELY AT LAST
Wednesday 30 June 2021
Tuesday 29 June 2021
BASTILLE, 105 NORTH TOWER
BASTILLE, 105 NORTH TOWER
আমাদের Charles Dickensএর 'A Tale of Two Cities'এর Dr. Alexandre Manetteএর দশা | তিনি যেমন Bastilleএ দীর্ঘ ১৮ বছর একটি কারাপ্রকোষ্ঠে বন্দিরূপে কাটিয়ে নিজের পরিচয় ভুলে গিয়েছিলেন ও নিজপরিচয়প্রদানে কারাকক্ষের নম্বরই বলেছিলেন, "105 North Tower," তেমনই আমরা যুগ যুগ ধরে এই দেহরূপ কারাকক্ষে আবদ্ধ থেকে তাকেই নিজসত্তা বলে বিশ্বাস করে ফেলেছি ও আত্মসত্তা ভুলে গেছি | সেবাশুশ্রুষার দ্বারা Dr. Manetteএর আত্মস্মৃতি ফিরিয়ে আনা সম্ভব হয়েছিল | একইভাবে ঈশ্বরকে ঐকান্তিক ভালবাসার দ্বারা আমাদেরও এই স্মৃতিবিভ্রম দূরীকরণ ও আত্মস্মৃতিতে পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠা সম্ভব | আমরা প্রত্যেকে এক একটি Dr. Alexandre Manette | ফরাসি বিপ্লব যেমন তাঁকে উদ্ধার করেছিল, একইভাবে আর এক স্তরে আধ্যাত্মিক বিপ্লব আমাদের বদ্ধদশা ও স্মৃতিভ্রম হতে উদ্ধার করবে |
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
আলোকচিত্র : Dr. Alexandre Manette in 105 North Tower, Bastille, Paris, 1789.
THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... LEAFLET 1
THE SECOND COMING OF RAMAKRISHNA ... LEAFLET 1
Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied that he would return to this terrestrial plane after residing in his subtle body in the hearts of his devotees for a hundred years. Now, we cannot for sure ascertain the exact date of his prophetic statement and, hence, cannot for sure know exactly when the period of his hundred-year stay in his devotees' hearts has ended. If it be assumed that even at the latest it is from the date of his demise, then he ought to have returned amongst us in 1986. Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi has said that the Master would return after a hundred years when a great many of his white-skinned devotees would visit this land. Is it possible then that Thakur was reborn in the year 1986, the year of the 500th birth anniversary of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu when in point of fact thousands of white-skinned Western devotees had flocked to Kolkata and Mayapur in connection with the anniversary celebrations? True it is that in 1986 Kolkata and Mayapur were literally inundated with Western devotees, Vaishnavas ordained in the Iskcon Movement. It is phenomenal that Holy Mother had spoken of the fact that at this time many white-skinned devotees of Thakur would flock even as the likes of Nivedita, Christine and MacLeod were then assembling in Thakur's name. But, surely, Holy Mother could have had no inkling about Mahaprabhu's 500th birth anniversary as coinciding with Sri Ramakrishna's 100th death anniversary. And herein lies the significance of her remarkable statement.
Holy Mother described Thakur in his prospective new incarnation as one dressed in the garb of a Baul (mystic minstrel) with a broken stone-pot in his hand and walking along the path leading to Burdwan, oblivious of surroundings. On the way there would be a boy excreting by the wayside. Clad in the ochre robe and sporting a long beard, Thakur would be walking seemingly endlessly and eating likewise as he trudged along oblivious of surroundings. Holy Mother would be holding a hubble-bubble in her hand. Perhaps they would have a bit of meal cooked in a broken stone utensil. He would be born once more a Bengali and would appear in the direction of Bali and Uttarpara, two districts to the north-west of Dakshineswar. When Holy Mother had remonstrated that under no circumstance would she come to this earth again, Thakur had laughingly retorted that she had no way to escape, for the eternal companions of Thakur were all inextricably bound to him, even as the stalks of the Kalmi creeper, and a single tug by him would bring them all to the terrestrial plane with Thakur in his next incarnation. Even Laksmi Didi, Thakur's niece, had said that she would not come even if she were cut to shreds like tobacco leaves but met with a similar response. She was told that she would find the pangs of separation from Thakur unbearable and, so, would surely accompany his entourage on earth.
Swami Saradananda has however claimed to have heard that Thakur would return after the lapse of 200 years and this piece of information he has recorded in his magnum opus biography of the Master, 'Sri Sri Ramakrishna Leela Prasanga' (Sri Ramakrishna and his Divine Play). Thus, there is a confusion as to the lapse of time from the last incarnation when the Master will reincarnate himself.
In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna the Master boldly announces that he will be reincarnated in the Vayu-kon, a specific direction among the ten directions of the Hindu astronomical system. He says that he has not imparted total knowledge to his disciples as they will then refuse to come with him when he reincarnates. Those of his inner circle of devotees will not be liberated as they will have to accompany him when he is embodied again in the Vayu-kon.
In America one afternoon Swami Vivekananda suddenly brought up this subject and said that he would have to once more come to planet earth with the Master after a lapse of 200 years. When queried as to why he would have to come just because Sri Ramakrishna had so determined it, Swamiji said, "You do not know the power of these souls, madam. When the Master comes, he brings his entourage along."
Swami Vijnanananda has said that the Master will reincarnate after 100 years and then and not until then will his message take root widely in human consciousness and become fruitful in terms of transformative national and global change. This he said in response to a devotee's query as to why there was such a paucity of spiritual awareness in the world and so much of material meanness despite the fact that the Master had just the other day conducted his terrestrial play.
So from all these accounts it seems that there are two plausible dates of the Master's reincarnation -- 100 years and 200 years from whatever reference date he may have had in his mind at the point of his utterance. Well, 100 years have passed since his death in 1886 and, if he has been born in 1986, then he is now 34 or 35 years in age and in all probability past his formative spiritual practices to perfection. It is for us then to wait for his emergence on the human stage sooner or later to bring to it the fruit of his realisations. We anxiously wait on.
Written by Sugata Bose
APPRECIATION OF SHARMISTHA CHATTERJEE'S PROSE WORK ON RAMAKRISHNA AND GIRISH
APPRECIATION OF SHARMISTHA CHATTERJEE'S PROSE WORK ON RAMAKRISHNA AND GIRISH
A brilliant piece. Really proud of you. Beautiful, poetic, lucid, lyrical style, like a waltzing in words through a rarefied realm of spiritual beauty, an atmosphere of ideas bubbling in sublimity where your words are caressing to burst them at the surface of the lake before encapsulating them within. The preeminent feature of the piece is the sheer musicality in literary rendition. There are no rough edges to it, no coarse outlines that mar the delicate mass within. There is a sublimity to the narrative, brought forth not so much by the factual content as by the manner of its presentation. The essay seems to levitate, lifting the reader's mind with it. There is no jarring note, no corrosive contact with the mundaneness of the earth. Yet, factual it remains despite its ethereal mode, its flight in imagery, its poetic verbal enunciation and its pulsating lyricism. This grand synthesis seems to be naturally your style, a composite consequence of your harmonic thinking. Here your vast erudition seems to have found expression unconsciously as a habitual naturalness which has become your composite style. Your thoughts are deepening by the day and augurs well for the future, not only for your own self but for your expectant readers as well among whom I would be gladdened to consider myself as one. You write well and you write well, indeed.
Written by Sugata Bose
VANDE MATARAM ... 6
VANDE MATARAM ... 6
My countrymen, read more. In it lies the country's resurrection. A greater degree of activation of the national mind will conduce to our faster progress and along the right lines. Right now ignorance abounds everywhere and it is pulling us down as a civilisation. Study more, extensively as well as intensively.
The national mind must be deepened. Right now shallowness and superficiality masquerade as culture and depth is an alien entity. This is ever the seed of the eventual destruction of a civilisation.
'Men, men, these are wanted. Everything else will be ready.' -- these were the words of Swamiji. What did he mean by them? He meant that man is at the centre of human civilisation. It is the civilisation of man, it is built by man, is nourished by man and it is geared towards the best and the fastest evolution of man as well, his evolutionary end lying in his attainment of freedom from the shackles of the senses, from the transmigratory cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, seemingly endlessly.
There are problems galore in the world. Our nation is no exception to this general state of things. There are a myriad problems besetting our country and we need to find solutions to them.
It is in the nature of things that there will be problems but it is also true that every problem carries in its womb its solution. The solution arrived at, one finds another problem arising out of it. This is the dialectical development, Hegel's triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis in an unending progressive cyclical pattern leading to higher and higher development of human society. Of course, this does not mean that there will be a seamless, continuous movement towards higher evolution. No, not so at all. There will be periods of retrogression as well when humanity will seem to be utterly lost but such periodic phases will merely be interludes punctuating the overall general progression, much like an ascent along a mountainous detour. However, even appreciation of such abstruse philosophy needs a strong academic culture in the country in whose absence it will sink into crude errors whence recovery may well-nigh be impossible. That it has happened already to us several times in the past, history bears ample testimony to. Therefore, we must avert such a future fate all over again. Our independence has been hard-won and we must preserve it with all our might. Hence, the spread of knowledge is important but the depth-cultivation of culture is vital.
Why I stress this element of upgrading education in every sense in our country and also proliferating it is because there has of late been its terrible downgradation. The cultural scenario is bleak as crony capitalism has joined hands with religious revivalism of ignoramuses which is spreading its vermin through and through the body politic of India, corrupting the minds of the youth with fantastic ideas of a pseudoglorious cultural revival in line with our age-old spiritual civilisation. But ignoramuses are ignoramuses and they fail to achieve any worthwhile national goals of progress or prosperity or the welfare of the masses. Politics and business have as usual formed an unholy alliance and both practised commerce and propagated culture have become corrosive for the country with impending peril staring stark at us. This has to be averted and how best to do it but build up a resistive force in the polity through massive education and quality education at that.
The problem has been diagnosed, its solution determined but how will the execution take place? Will the government help? Will it be an active participant in the process of arresting this decadent trend? Will it be true to the promises it made to the people who elected it to power? None whatsoever. Governments in today's democracies are hands-in-glove with the capitalists who fund them to power during elections and the latter do not forget to extract their pound of flesh when laws are passed and policies made. As Einstein in a lecture in 1949 had said rightly that the capitalist class in a democracy comes in between the legislature and the polity and controls governmental policy. How insightful was the scientist's statement for this is exactly what happens in reality everywhere and is rampant today with the development of capitalism round the world.
So, crony capitalism has to countered and that means bringing about such a revolutionary change in the socioeconomic system as only enlightened socialism can. But can it? And the very attempt to bring it into being would mean a second independence movement that we must fight as Bhagat Singh had rightly conjectured following his Marxist study should our freedom movement against the British be a bourgeois revolution. Here (in the instance of a socialist revolution) Einstein does seem troubled by the thought of power passing into the hands of a handful of leaders forming an oligarchy in the name of socialism and a bureaucratic machinery aiding them to crush the aspirations of the people. The enlightenment that is needed in men to bring about a just order of social existence is a far cry at the present state of human evolution, Einstein reckoned, when barbarism yet rules humanity in the main with competition, fraud, vice and violence ruling the roost, taking the cue from mankind's savage past for several millions of years before the light of civilisation broke in a few millenia ago, and, to supplement his words with mine, in much of Europe only a few centuries ago.
The ethical question has to be solved both in theoretical terms and in its practical connotation. It is after all a biological question, a genetic one that has to tackled through progressive education but the path is difficult even as the razor's edge is, to quote the Kathopanishad, and difficult of access. But the sunlit summit beckons even as humanity suffers in its trudge through the dark night of ignorance along the rough-hewn path of progress and the ascent, however arduous, must be made. The rope of the climb is education.
Written by Sugata Bose
Monday 28 June 2021
THE EARLY DEWDROP THAT DIFFUSES BEFORE THE LUSTROUS BREAK OF DAWN
THE EARLY DEWDROP THAT DIFFUSES BEFORE THE LUSTROUS BREAK OF DAWN
The greatest geniuses of the world live silently and pass into oblivion leaving their seeds behind for secondary souls to receive them and give expression in real life. These earlier men of the Mind, these sages in safe harbour across the sea of delusion, they live the Life, they think deep, as deep as depth can be, right to the very bed and beyond this phenomenal dream of chaotic shapes and forms, beauteous names clothed in ephemeral attire. These perishing dreams they behold like shimmering flames, like moving mirage, shining and shifting. They have seen through it all and now pass on their knowledge through currents of thought potent enough to penetrate human consciousness wherever the recipient is ready. There they grip minds like impersonal beings, holding forms to transform thought and the consciousness behind. These secondary souls then rise in force to spread the Divine Word. These are the Pauls and the Vivekanandas of the Christs and the Ramakrishnas behind. Or, perhaps, there are deeper ones of which history keeps no record for one to be able to speak of by way of ample illustration. It is these that Swamiji speaks of, the unseen sages, the unobserved savants of the Soul who breathe in seclusion, live in obscurity and die in peace, leaving hardly a ripple behind on the lake of the Cosmic Mind. But they leave behind traces that in course of time raise bubbles, then bubbles joining to cruise as currents of rising thought, pure and simple, till in harmonic streams they touch the surface and raise giant waves that sweep all before them. It is then that ideas embody and seek sanctuary in able bodies fit to receive and hold them and to give expression to them in definite derivatives. The abstract becomes real, the causal transforms progressively to the subtle and the concrete. Secondary souls hold and transform and pass on the fruits of their actions unto lesser individuals who pass thereon the fresh derivatives to the masses. Thus the message is made, thus the spirit spreads, thus is the idea translated into concrete culture. From the fine mist and beyond thus is forged the form of civilisation.
These then are the men who gave zeroed in to Truth and have remained ever in oblivion as benediction unto humanity, their fragrant souls diffusing into human consciousness the sublimity of a superior space, the silence of the Self. The seeking therefrom of dynamic force is the work of lesser souls in a plane where manifestation can make its mark. But the old ones are gone, taking nothing in turn, seeking no return, nor name nor fame nor wealth nor the slightest trace of individual identity. They rather give away their last graces as they rise to limpid spaces. Om Tat Sat !
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday 27 June 2021
VANDE MATARAM ... 5
VANDE MATARAM ... 5
British civilisation is not only to be understood in terms of Shakespeare and Shelley, Newton and Stephenson but also in terms of Jallianwala and Nilgunje, Cellular Jail and Kohinoor, and above all in its dastardly depredation of colonial wealth, induction of famine (ref. the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, one of an jnending series if man-made disasters) and reducing other flourishing civilisations to destitution and ruin. Napoleon called Britain 'a nation of shopkeepers' but he was only euphemistically correct in his characterisation. The British, I say, have been a race of rogues who have caused so much suffering to mankind that 'the vengeance of history' will surely visit them as Swamiji has prophesied and with interest compounded to the corrupt principal sum. This shall come to pass and those kings and nobles, ministers and councillors, officers and administrators who had carried out diabolical torture of innocents across the globe, they shall pay for their sins. There is no escape from this inexorable karmic law. So, hang on Great Britain and await your punishment post the sentence passed on you from the tormented souls you treated as beasts. And yet you rejoice in your erstwhile colonial-imperial glory? Indeed, when destruction is at hand, opposite intelligence prevails. So be it. Who can prevent the boomerang of evil action perpetrated?
Written by Sugata Bose
বন্দে মাতরম ... ১
বন্দে মাতরম ... ১
নেতা হয়ে অন্যেকে ফাঁসিকাঠে ঝোলার অনুপ্রেরণা দেওয়া ঢেড় সহজ কিন্তু নিজে ফাঁসিকাঠে ঝোলার অবস্থা এলে মনোভাব পালটে যায় | তখন ভয়ে 'আধ্যাত্মিক' অনুপ্রেরণা আসে ও পলায়নই শ্রেয় বলে বোধ হয় | এ আমাদের দেশের দুর্ভাগ্য যে নেতা স্বয়ং অনুগামীদের মাতৃভূমির শৃঙ্খলমোচনে বলিদান দিয়ে নিজ শরীরে আঁচটি লাগতে দেননি | অবশ্য সৌভাগ্য এই যে আমরা তাঁর মণীষাকে হারালাম না তাই তাঁর অঘটিত সম্ভাব্য অকালমৃত্যুর মধ্যে যদি তিনি বিপ্লবের পথ না ছেড়ে দেশেই থেকে যেতেন, কারণ তাঁর ভবিষ্যৎ ফাঁসি কিম্বা দীপান্তরের ব্যবস্থা করতে বৃটিশ কোনমতেই নিশ্চেষ্ট থাকতেন না | কিন্তু বিরত্ব ? আদর্শ ? সতীর্থের প্রতি, দেশের প্রতি কর্তব্য ? ভবিষ্যৎ কি চোখে দেখবে এই রণে ভঙ্গ দেওয়া ? রাসবিহারী বসুও তো দেশছাড়া হয়েছিলেন কিন্তু তিনি বিপ্লবছাড়া হননি | তিনি আজীবন বিপ্লব পরিচালনার স্বার্থেই জাপানে কাটিয়েছেন ও পরাধীন দেশের রাজনৈতিক স্বাধীনতালাভের নিমিত্তই কাজ করেছেন |
যিনি সত্যই ঋষি তিনি কি এতগুলো ছেলেকে এহেন বিপদের মুখে ফেলে দিয়ে নিজে গা বাঁচান ? ফাঁসি, পুলিশের গুলিতে মৃত্যু, দীপান্তরের অকথ্য অত্যাচারে আত্মহনন -- এ সবের মধ্যে এতগুলো যুবককে ঠেলে দিয়ে নিজে রণে ভঙ্গ দেওয়া ? এ কেমন ঋষিসুলভ আচরণ ? স্বামীজী হলে কি এ কাজ করতেন ? নেতাজী প্রথমে আশায় ভর করে তাঁর বিপ্লবীরূপের প্রতি মুগ্ধ হলেও পরে আশাহত হন ও তাঁর এই পণ্ডিচেরীতে বসে কংগ্রেসের কার্যকলাপ সম্বন্ধে টিপ্পুনি দেওয়াকে দ্যর্থহীন ভাষায় কটাক্ষ করেন |
সুভাষচন্দ্র ছিলেন যথার্থ বিপ্লবী | তিনিও আধ্যাত্মিক পথের পথিক ছিলেন কৈশোর থেকে | কিন্তু তিনি ছিলেন সাচ্চা মানুষ স্বামীজীর মত, রাসবিহারী বসুর মত, বাঘা যতীনের মত | তাঁর এ হেন 'আধ্যাত্মিকতার' আড়ালে কাপুরুষোচিত আচরণ ভাল লাগবে কেন ? যে নিবেদিতার পরামর্শে ও তাঁরই প্রদত্ত বৃটিশ গোয়েন্দা বিভাগের পরিকল্পনার সূচনাতে অরবিন্দ ঘোষ চন্দননগর হয়ে পণ্ডিচেরী পলায়ন করেন, সেই নিবেদিতা তো স্বপ্নেও কল্পনা করেননি এই আশু বিপ্লববিমুখতা | তিনি বেঁচে থাকলে কি বলতেন ? অধিমানস ও অতিমানস শক্তির অবতরণ নিয়ে আচার্য্য জগদীশচন্দ্র বসু ও রোঁমা রোঁলা নিজেদের মধ্যে রহস্যালাপ (অর্থাৎ, হাসাহাসি) করেছিলেন এর অবৈজ্ঞানিকতা ও অসম্ভবতা নিয়ে | নিবেদিতা বীরাঙ্গনা ছিলেন যথার্থ | তিনি এই কাপুরুষতা কি চোখে দেখতেন ? সবশেষে একজনের কথা না বলে পারলাম না | বালক ক্ষুদিরাম যদি বেঁচে থাকত, সে কিভাবে দেখত তার নেতার এই ত্রস্ত 'ঋষিত্ব' ?
আবার একটি কথা মনে পড়ে গেল | অরবিন্দশিষ্য, দ্বিজেন্দ্রতনয়, সুৃভাষসুহৃদ দিলীপ কুমার রায়ের প্রভূত প্রচেষ্টা সুভাষকে অরবিন্দ পাদপদ্মে প্রণত করার, প্রচণ্ডভাবে প্রতিহত হয় ওই পবিত্রাত্মার দ্বারা যিনি স্বামীজীর চরণে মস্তক অগ্রিম সমর্পণ করেছেন | দিলীপের প্রবল প্রয়াস ব্যর্থ সাব্যস্ত হয় কারণ সুভাষ অরবিন্দসত্তার সংবাদ এতদিনে পেয়ে গেছেন ও তার তাৎপর্য অনুধাবন করতে সমর্থ হয়েছেন | তাই দলভারী করা আর গেল না | সুভাষ স্বামীজীরই রইলেন | এতে অরবিন্দ অবশ্যই প্রসন্ন হননি, সে তাঁর তৎকালীন ও ভবিষ্যতের সুভাষসম্বন্ধীয় বক্রবক্তব্যেই প্রতীত | সুভাষের ভারতমুক্তিহেতু অক্ষশক্তির সাহায্য প্রার্থনাকে, বিশেষত জাপানী বাহিনীর সাহায্যে বৃটিশশাসিত ভারত আক্রমণকে শ্রীঅরবিন্দ দেশের প্রতি বিশ্বাসঘাতকতার আক্ষা দিয়েছিলেন | এ তথ্য অরবিন্দ আশ্রম থেকেই প্রকাশিত ও তাঁর দিলীপ রায়কে লেখা চিঠিপত্রে সংকলিত | অরবিন্দ জানতেন যে সুভাষের তীক্ষ্ণ ধীশক্তিতে সম্পূর্ণ পরিষ্কার হয়ে গেছে তাঁর (অরবিন্দের) বিপ্লববাদ ও আধ্যাত্মিকতার অছিলায় তাঁর বিপ্লবকে বাদ দেওয়া | তিনি এও জানতেন দিলীপমারফৎ যে তাঁর তথাকথিত অবতারত্ব, ঈশ্বরত্ব, অধিমানস শক্তির অবতরণ সুভাষ মানতেন না এবং এইটি ছিল তাঁর সুভাষের কাছে বড় হার | তাই হয়ত তাঁর সুৃভাষ সম্বন্ধে নানা কটুক্তি | সুভাষও তাঁর সম্বন্ধে সত্যভাষণ করতে পিছপা হননি, সে বক্রবাকেই হোক না কেন |
অতএব, এই হল হক কথা -- বাপু, কবিতা লেখা, গান রচনা করা, গল্প-উপন্যাস লেখা, ছবি আঁকা, আশ্রম করা, বিদ্যালয় -বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় করা, নাইট উপাধি প্রথমে বিপ্লবীদের রক্তে রাঙা বর্বরহস্ত হতে গ্রহণ করা ও পরে উথলিত স্বদেশপ্রেমে বর্জন করা এবং যোগবিয়োগগুণভাগসাধনা করা অপেক্ষাকৃত অনেক সহজ কিন্তু ফাঁসিকাঠে হাসতে হাসতে প্রাণ দেওয়া বিস্তর কঠিন | তাই কে যে নেতা আর কে অনুগামী বিপ্লবে, তা যথার্থ নির্ণয়ের সময় এসেছে এবার | বীরের জয় হোক ! বন্দে মাতরম !
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
YOUR SWAMIJI
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 1
Have you heard of Swami Vivekananda? Yes? But have you heard of Narendranath Datta? I am sure most of you have not but some of you may have. Well, this little boy is the subject of our story which I shall begin narrating to you, children, from today.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 2
The Dattas were an affluent family who lived in North Kolkata at a place called Simla or Simulia. Rammohan Datta was the grand patriarch who had thrived in the legal profession and amassed a fortune. His sons, Durgaprasad and Kaliprasad, grandson, Vishwanath, were the immediate ancestors of Narendranath who grew up to become the world renowned monk, Swami Vivekananda. Durgaprasad excelled like his father at law but renounced life to become a monk at age between 20 and 22 after fathering a son. So, Kaliprasad became the head of the Datta family and as he was not upto earning a living, the Dattas' fortunes started declining steadily.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 3
Durgaprasad renounced between age 20 and 22. Shyamasundari, his wife of valorous virtue, took up to rearing baby Vishwanath amidst great difficulties as Kaliprasad was not sympathetic to their lot. When Vishwanath was three years old, Shyamasundari went on pilgrimage to Varanasi by boat. En route the playful baby fell into the Ganga. Instantly the mother, forgetting the fact that she knew not how to swim, dived into the surging waters and gripped the baby, so hard that it bore the mark for several years. A fellow pilgrim and a resident of the Datta household, indigenous physician Umapada Gupta, diving suit, rescued them and hauled them overboard. The pilgrimage carried on and holy Varanasi was reached in the fullness of time.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 4
Varanasi. The Ganga flowing by since time immemorial, sanctifying this city of Shiva. Thousands of temples of all kinds of deities thronging to get the worship of devotees who flock by the millions. The most ancient city of the world, dating 5000 years, now welcomed Shyamasundari and her little boy, Vishwanath.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 5
Shyamasundari went on her daily rounds of the temples in Varanasi. One day on her way to the seat of Lord Vishwanath, she slipped on the way and fell unconscious. A monk passing by picked her up, laid her on the temple steps and brought her back to her senses. When she came to her own she was astonished to behold her own husband as her rescuer. Overwhelmed by sudden emotion, the couple, now renounced to the world, went their way.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 6
Durgaprasad visited his hometown Kolkata once, probably en route to the Gangasagar, and put up with a friend. He requested confidentiality but the message leaked and he was accosted home by his family members where he was confined to a room with food and refreshments for three days. The monk, locked up thus, touched neither food nor drink for the said period and his relatives, fearing the worst, unlocked the door. The monk quietly slipped away thereafter and was never seen again. Later it was rumoured that he had become the head of a monastery in Varanasi but nothing could be ascertained with any degree of certitude. Vishwanath in his youth visited Varanasi in search of his father but failed to trace him. Thus disappeared the monk of sterling spiritual strength from the horizons of the Datta household till his gene reappeared in his redoubtable grandson, Narendranath, whose monastic future bore unmistakable marks of his predecessor, Durgaprasad.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 7
Vishwanath, deprived of paternal care and patrimony, grew up under the loving care of his mother, though amidst straightened circumstances. But a worse fate was awaiting him. At the age of ten he lost his mother. Now, orphaned and ill-treated by uncle Kaliprasad, Vishwanath took to the hard way of labouring through to life's success. He became proficient in several languages - Bengali, English, Persian, Arabic, Urdu and Hindi, and also learnt a smattering of Sanskrit in a classical Sanskrit Tol. He studied history in-depth, astrology enough to be able to cast the horoscopes of his children, and studied music under an Ustad. After completing secondary education he attempted business, failed and apprenticed himself under Mr. Temple, a British attorney. In 1866 he qualified as an attorney and set up shop with one Ashutosh Dhar under the name 'Dhar and Datta'. Soon his legal proficiency earned him independent status as attorney-at-law in the Calcutta High Court where his practice took off.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 8
Vishwanath's fame as a legal practitioner spread far and wide and he had to travel extensively all over India to meet up with his clients' cases. His income soared and so did his expenditure as he lived lavishly and gave liberally to seekers in need. His charity earned him the sobriquet 'Daataa Vishwanath' or 'Philanthropist Vishwanath'. He refused none and gave to all who were in need and even to some indolent relatives who abused his magnanimity by indulging in intoxicants with his money. Vishwanath lived for the day and saved nothing for the morrow, steered by the conviction that his sons, if well fed and well educated, would be able to make their way in life but that the hapless ones he helped were too weak to help themselves and, hence, needed help. The large heart of Vishwanath bled for all, perhaps so conditioned by his own stressful childhood in financial and psychological distress under an unsympathetic uncle. Anyhow, this was how he was and this liberal largeheartedness he bequeathed to his beloved sons, Naren in particular who even imbibed sterling virtues of head and heart from his mother Bhuvaneshwari.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 9
Well-versed in the Holy Bible and the Dewan-i-Hafiz and well acquainted with Hindu, Islamic and European culture and customs, Vishwanath had a universal outlook on life and living. Progressive in thinking but guarded in giving into new-fangled socioreligious movements of the day, Vishwanath was a precursor in some sense to the modern Hindu man as yet germinating in the womb of time. His illustratious son would set the seal on the mould that was thus being cast on the dawn of this new awakening of the ancient spirit whose crest bore the personality of Ramakrishna. But we are fast-forwarding the narrative thus which we must desist from. As of now we must remember that here was Vishwanath, caught in the cross-current of the three aforementioned cultures out of which he was fashioning his own perspective, his world-view, and setting them to print in the form of three books which he authored, namely, 'Shishtaachaar Paddhati' ('Canons of Good Conduct') in two volumes and a novel in his vernacular Bengali, titled 'Sulochanaa'. Vishwanath supported Vidyasagar's crusade for the remarriage of widows but refrained from participating directly in such social movements, busy as he was with his intensive legal practice. One more pointer about Vishwanath - he was an agnostic of sorts, irreverent of superstitious religious practices that kept people down but was never irreverent towards sublime principles of spiritual and moral thought which he tried to put into practice in his own life by way of alleviating the misery of the hapless ones he came across in his life's thoroughfare. This was then the father of the future Vivekananda.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 10
Hardly anybody recalls the name of Swami Vivekananda's maternal grandfather or the maiden surname of Swamiji's mother. That she was Basu and bore in her bloodstream the kshatriya valour of this clan from erstwhile Kannakubja (Kanauj) is forgotten in the name Narendranath Datta. But the great prophet bore in his arteries that strong blood which made him revolutionise India into rebellion against the British and break the citadel of global colonialism. Narendranath's grandfather on his mother's side was Nandalal Basu of Simla, North Kolkata, and his only daughter Bhuvaneshwari Basu, married to Vishwanath Datta, was his mother. Bhuvaneshwari, born to wealth and high culture, was aristocratic in temperament devoid of its vices and it was from her that the boy Bileh absorbed in his mother's milk that nobility of character that set him out as unique in the world of men, so much so that in later years in Paris he was mistaken to be a prince by a hotel boy who could not be convinced otherwise. Well, Bhuvaneshwari, wedded to Vishwanath at ten, mothered Narendranath as her seventh child and her first surviving son. But more of that later for here we are in the midst of the maturing of a modern Madonna for who else could hold in her womb the one whose eagle eye holds countless universes in harmonic play ? Let us dwell on this girl, Bhuvaneshwari.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 11
Bhuvaneshwari was wedded to conjugal life at the early age of 10 as was the custom in those days prior to the passing of the Age of Consent Bill. She bore fruit several times of which three died in infancy and she remained without a son yet. The pious girl prayed and fasted and exhorted an aunt living in Varanasi to offer prayers at the seat of Vireshwar Shiva in Kashi. Accordingly, every Monday special offerings were made there and they were reinforced by Bhuvaneshwari keeping her vigils and fasts here in Kolkata. The channel was thus being set up for the golden road that was to connect the ancient city and this modern metropolis, and when the pathway had been fully laid, Bhuvaneshwari dreamt of the meditative Shiva awaking from his seat of concentration and announcing His resolve to be born as her son. In ecstatic joy Bhuvaneshwari awoke from her divine slumber and fell prostrate at her chosen deity's feet, the adorable Umanath, who she had so ardently worshipped all these years. Bathed in tears of bliss Bhuvaneshwari felt saturated with the Lord's grace. Soon she felt that she had conceived.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 12
12 January, 1863. Makar San°kraanti Day. Millions of pilgrims were assembled at the estuary of the Bay of Bengal to offer oblation to the Highest when heaven itself descended to earth in the form of the infant who was to steer humanity onto a new course, setting the stamp of his divine personality on the unfolding age of light that was now waiting in the wings to emerge in full flight. The forest of this world was ready for this fresh efflorescence and the bud blossomed from the womb of Bhuvaneshwari six minutes before sunrise to send a thrill of joy through the Datta household. A son had been born, Bhuvaneshwari's long-cherished dream, the parched earth's long longing, humanity's hope of redemption from its decadent state. Vishwanath grew so blissfully excited that his charity broke all bounds this hour as he started giving away to whosoever came his way anything he could lay his hands on. Finally, he had given away the very clothes he was wearing, a la Emperor Harshavardhana of old, and had to borrow his wife's saree to cover himself. The boy was named by the mother Vireshwar after the deity who had fulfilled His promise to be born as the pious supplicant's son. Soon lingustic aberration changed it to Bileh and so was how the future Vivekananda used to be called by his loving mother even in his twilight years in Belur Math when the old lady proudly strutted about the precincts of the monastery in search of her son, calling loudly, "Bileh ! Bileh !" and the son would emerge from his room and descend the stairs to fall prostrate at his beloved mother's feet. But we have much advanced in our narrative in our flight of fancy and must revert to its fresh beginnings, for we have a full lifetime to cover. Right now the baby cries in its mother's arms. Or, does it blink in wonder at the strange world around ?
YOUR SWAMIJI ...13
The boy was Bileh at home, to the world Narendranath, a name that was, as if by divine sanction, to set its stamp upon the very world. An exceeding force seemed to well up within him making him irrepressibly naughty, playful, self-willed and at times given to fits of violent temper when he would even rampage his way through whatever he could lay his hands on, furniture et al. Mother Bhuvaneshwari, driven to her wit's end, would then in exasperation exclaim, "Alas ! I had prayed to Shiva for a son but He has sent me one of His demons instead." No amount of censure, threat or even inducement would work with the turbulent child and he had to be manned by two nurses constantly to keep him in a semblance of check. Finally, Bhuvaneshwari discovered a unique way of tackling the situation. When Bileh was in one of those moods, she would pour water over his head profusely while chanting the name 'Shiva'. She would further induce fear in him saying, "If you are naughty thus, Shiva will refuse you entry into His abode, Kailash, again." Like magic this would work and calm the boy and he would be his bonny self again.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 14
Now two very important features of the baby Bileh's personality were (a) his easy acceptance of all and sundry as his own and his consequent easing into anyone's arms who extended them to hold him, and (b) his submission to gentleness shown to him by any and equal revulsion of harshness by any in interaction with him. These traits manifest in the baby are worth meditating on as we attempt to unravel not only the secrets of the child-mind universally but also as we seek to plumb the divine depths of the future Swami Vivekananda, now, though, right in bud.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 15
Grandfather Durgaprasad's gene was very much manifest in Narendranath from early boyhood. He had a liking for mendicant monks and would give away alms freely to them. But he was just a small boy. What did he have that he could give? Well, he gave away his first piece of dhoti from round his waist to a sadhu. Likewise he gave away whatever he could lay his hands on to these pilgrims of the Spirit so much so that when any such appeared at their door he had to be kept confined in an upper storey room to keep him in bounds. But such ploys failed when Naren flung through the open window whatever was available to him in his cell to monks passing by on the road below. Such affinity for the renunciates was early signal of things brewing up in the heart of the Divine Mother orchestrating things from behind that was to fashion Narendranath's fate. A vast force was accumulating in the child that was to inundate the world in the days to come. And in this prophetic mission of his he was to bear not only the blessings of his divine Master but those of each and every monk who he gave and who in their turn blessed him silently from the depths of their hearts.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 16
Ebullient as he was, Naren was given to pranks galore. One of these was to tease his sisters and, when chased, to seek refuge in the open drain and makes faces and remarks such as 'Catch new! Catch me !' from there, knowing full well that they would not dare follow suit into the dirt where he lay. The future Vivekananda was worshipped in Kashi Kedarnath Temple as Shiva, was reverenced by a passing monk in the Himalayas as Shiva and venerated by many including his brother disciples like Swami Brahmananda as the same Lord Ascetic. In that sense he was Pashupati, the Lord of all animals, and to this effect he showed early signs by way of his affinity towards his pet animals. Lifelong this relation remained, even in his advanced years in Belur Math where he had quite a number of pets. The boy Bileh had a monkey, a goat, a peacock, pigeons, guinea-pigs, the family cow and his father's horse to keep him company. He with his sisters would bedeck the cow with garlands, mark her forehead with vermillion and reverence her on festive occasions. This easy relation with the dumb animals must have been a formative influence in the making of his future deep sympathy with the muted millions of his benighted motherland.
YOUR SWAMIJI ... 17
Naren's bosom buddy was his father's coachman. He spent hours in the company of the syce at the stable and nursed ambitions of one day becoming a syce himself. His intimacy with the syce drew the twain into close communication and imperceptibly lay open Naren's mind to whatever the former had to say to him. At noon every day the little boy was privy to the women folk's rendition of the Ramayana reading and with rapt attention he absorbed the epic tales which gradually endeared him to Sita and Rama. Soon he had bought from the market idols of the divine couple and with the help of a friend installed them in the attic and with floral offerings worshipped them to his child heart's content. This went on till the syce, himself victim to an unhappy marital life, criticised the very institution of marriage vehemently before Naren, thereby making the boy brood on its futility. He could no more now accept the fact that his divine ideals, Sita and Rama, were also one such married couple and in tears confided his predicament to his mother. Bhuvaneshwari instantly assuaged his grief by asking him from then on to worship the ascetic of ascetics, Shiva, instead. Naren was pacified but could not reconcile himself anymore to being in the proximity of Sita and Rama. Accordingly, he rushed to the attic, picked up his beloved idols and in the dark enveloping evening walked to the edge of the terrace railing and hurled down the images onto the road below. His ideal had been shattered, now he smashed the idols representing them. Next day he bought from the market a clay image of Shiva and began afresh his meditation on the Lord. However, Sita-Rama remained forever etched in his memory as his boyhood's first divine love and became a significant formative influence in his life and a perennial presence in his monastic life as well. Many years later he called every Indian the child of Seeta, that holy woman who unmurmering bore all her suffering in her all-encompassing love for her beloved husband, the divine Rama.
VANDE MATARAM ... 4
VANDE MATARAM ... 4
Durga Puja ought to call out the valour in Bengalees to destroy the demon within and without and not just to indulge in annual frivolous merrymaking. Here was a living Durga who even today stands as the exemplar of manly valour much like Joan of Arc was to medieval Frenchmen. Swamiji could hardly restrain his tears when mentioning her, calling her a goddess as he did so. Netaji, following his spiritual mentor's footsteps, made his women's regiment in the Rani's name and called each female member of the regiment 'Rani'. Such is the significance of the Durga Puja in the vision of our highest minds and such should be our attitude as well. Bankimchandra composed the Vande Mataram in Mother Durga's name. Swamiji instituted the annual Durga Puja in Belur Math. Subhas Chandra Bose fought for the right to worship Mother Durga in jail and in the Rammohan Student's Hostel of City College. All this was done to instil patriotic fervour, arouse virility and valour in a subject race struggling for freedom from foreign occupation. But that spirit has been lost as Bengalees have somewhere down the line lost that spiritual idealism, no doubt a consequence of the decadent materialistic influence of the Age. But the decadence has to be countered and the spirit revived. Let us from now on once more start worshipping Devi Durga in the real spirit then. Let us be manly in our aspirations, in our attitudes, in our actions and in our adoration of the Divine Mother. As Swamiji said, "Mother wants the sacrifice of a thousand heroes." I offered myself at the sacrificial altar in my youth decades ago and have been awaiting Mother's sickle to sever my head ever since. That has been my lifelong Durga Puja. You too offer yours, my friends, and attain through death at Her hands to immortality. Jai Durge !
Written by Sugata Bose
VANDE MATARAM ... 3
VANDE MATARAM ... 3
Please cultivate the habit of reading. This will surely lead to self-development which in turn will raise the level of culture in our country and, so, lead to national good.
Reading enhances knowledge, concentration and creativity. It generates ideas that energise the being. A civilisation is sustained by the availability of a large number of well-informed minds who can preserve and foster culture, and who can take it forward. So, read and get ready for affirmative action in a society that desperately needs your participation. No wonder Swamiji had exhorted revolutionary Hemchandra Ghosh and his comrades-in-arms to take up the Library Movement as one of the four foundational features that he had made mandatory for them by way of rendering national service.
Written by Sugata Bose
VANDE MATARAM ... 2
VANDE MATARAM ... 2
We have to be entirely affirmative in our outlook, positive in our actions to counter masses of negatives that surround us. The nation needs solidarity and progress amidst the despairing dark that envelopes it in turbulent, nay, even treacherous times. Our ideals must be sublime, our deeds must translate them into service of our countrymen so that a powerful nation emerges that will be a beacon unto the world. It is not good enough to have historically discovered the divinity of sentience, the integration of the universe in the light of the Atman but it is imperative that we, the descendants of those discoverers, the Vedic Rishis, are able to demonstrate the lofty principles of the Vedanta in bold deeds that will help humanity out of the material abyss it has sunk in. For this India has to rise and she can do so not by resorting to alien religious or political ideology or by giving in to shallow and superficial so-called secularism which is a mask for materialism and sense-craving but by adhering creatively to India's traditional thought that reached its climactic development in the Upanishads and gained utterance in modern terms in Swami Vivekananda. This is the Sage of the Age. He is our lighthouse in this tempestuous sea that threatens to engulf us. He shall show us the Way. Let us listen to what he has to say.
Written by Sugata Bose
VANDE MATARAM ... 1
VANDE MATARAM ... 1
The rise of the masses will inevitably lower culture and it is already in evidence. This has to be arrested with as great a force as one can muster for the harmonic renaissance of Indian civilisation. The Shudras must be raised from their state of age-old servitude not only through physical improvement of living conditions but by empowerment through a massive diffusion of culture. This is the work before us, this our mission in the making, this our cherished aim, the desired destiny of all our dreams in directed deed. Come ye all and join me in this, the wholesale resurrection of man and his wholesome manifestation of latent divinity.
Written by Sugata Bose
POESY : FROM DUST TO DUST NO MORE
POESY
FROM DUST TO DUST NO MORE
I try to gather my senses
But my senses have already gathered me.
Scattered am I in the winds.
Bits and pieces and minuscule parts,
They seek fulfilment, each to each,
But how on earth can that ever be?
The torn fragments --
They lie in disarray,
Blown about by the winds.
Little minds over little bodies,
Broken bricks of the edifice.
The storm rages, the tempest strikes,
The billows keep crashing against the vessel of life.
Gentle leaves,
Afloat on the ripples
Of dainty brooks,
They rise and they fall
With the current of flow.
An Age passes,
Another comes.
Evening dawns like dawn breaks the mist.
Time flows on an even keel,
Then temptestuous rushes revolution.
Fortressses fall,
The Bastille breaks,
The Winter Palace from sea is felled,
The March of Mao and the March of Man,
They all come,
And they all go.
But deep within the heart I hear,
I see by the eye that witnesses deep,
The young sage by the Sarasvati,
Encircled by ancient, venerable ones,
Rise up and call out in trumpet voice,
"Hear ye, O residents of the earth,
Hear ye, O children of immortal bliss,
Even ye hear that reside in higher spheres.
I have known the One, the Ancient One,
Whose hue is of the radiant sun,
Who resides beyond the pale of the dark.
Knowing Him shalt thou for sure
Pass beyond death and dust.
O, know it now,
There is no other way,
None, none whatsoever."
And once more he rose
In the august assembly by the Pacific
In times nearer to home
When 'Come September' did fulfil
The promise of the past ages.
Chicago, the fusion point,
The meet of the sages.
A hall packed with hoary heritage,
A point crystallised in Time.
There he rose and in trumpet voice
Flying through ages of sages of the Land,
Across distant seas stood
And stormed once more
The citadel of the heavens
To declare the glory of Man.
"Sisters and brothers of America,..."
And the vault of heaven did give way
Showering the bliss of eternal life.
They came cascading down
In torrents of bliss,
In currents of life,
Enlivening a material world
Unto the deep Spirit within.
The scattered parts did gather,
The senses did take to heels,
The bits and pieces fused and diffused,
The broken doll became whole.
Composed by Sugata Bose
Saturday 26 June 2021
NOTHING MAJESTIC AFTER ALL
NOTHING MAJESTIC AFTER ALL
There is nothing majestic in being king or queen anymore in today's democratic world and yet people show undue respect to the British royal line steeped in colonial carnage the world over. Is there any greater sacrilege of the human spirit than to show such undeserved reverence to a seat drenched historically in a deluge of the blood of the conquered, in a depredation of foreign resources on a scale unprecedented in history and unsurpassed since, and in a brutalisation of the vanquished with a savagery seldom, if ever, seen in history? You may curtsy to the Queen if you like. I, for my very life, if it be on the line, will never do it. God save the soul of man from the savagery of such sovereigns !
Written by Sugata Bose
দক্ষিণ আফ্রিকায় তো বেশ ছিলেন | এলেন কেন গোল পাকাতে ?
দক্ষিণ আফ্রিকায় তো বেশ ছিলেন | এলেন কেন গোল পাকাতে ?
-------‐-------------------------------------------
উনি দক্ষিণ আফ্রিকায় ছিলেন, বেশ ব্যবস্থা ছিল | মাতৃভূমি স্বামীজীর বৈপ্লবিক আদর্শে সুরক্ষিত ছিল ও সশস্ত্র সংগ্রামের সঠিক পথেই এগোচ্ছিল | ওঁর দেশে ফেরাই হল ভারতবর্ষের কাল | সর্বনাশা দুর্বলতা ভারতের স্নায়ুকেন্দ্রে সংক্রমণ করে জাতির মেরুদণ্ডটাই ভেঙে দিলেন উনি | ঘোরতর অবিদ্যা সঞ্চার করলেন দেশের রাজনৈতিক মানসে | তারই ফল ভারতের ত্রিখণ্ডিত হওয়া ও অদ্যাবধি বৃটিশের দাস হয়ে থাকা তাদের কমনওয়েল্থের সদস্যরূপে তাদেরই প্রভুত্ব স্বীকার করে | এমন দেশপ্রেম তিনকালে দেখিওনি, শুনিওনি বাবা | তাঁকে আবার জন্মভূমির জনকের আসনে বসানো | বাড়াবাড়ির চূড়ান্ত ! আমরা কি তাহলে সব তাঁর নাতি নাতনি ? এমন দাদামশায় আমি অন্তত চাই না | আমার নিজের দাদু এঁর থেকে অনেক বেশী পবিত্র ও চরিত্রবান ছিলেন, সত্যাশ্রয়ী, অকপট, যথার্থ দেশপ্রেমী, যা এঁর চরিত্র বিশ্লেষণে বিন্দুমাত্রও পরিলক্ষিত হয় না, সে যে যাই বলুক | আম্বেদকারই ঠিক চিনেছিলেন এঁকে আর চিনছেন অগণিত দেশবাসী আজ দিনে দিনে | বন্দে মাতরম্ !
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
FACEBOOK MESSAGES AND TWEETS ... 34
FACEBOOK MESSAGES AND TWEETS ... 34
1. ভারত একদিন পুরো হিন্দু ছিল | কিন্তু আর কি সেদিন দেখতে পাবো যেদিন ভারত আবার অবিভক্ত ও পুরো হিন্দু হবে ?
2. An entire class of indigenous traitors sided with the British to keep us down for two centuries.
3. ছেলেরা, পুরুষোচিত হও | বিপ্লবীদের জীবনী পাঠ করার সময়ে এ কি মেয়েলি ভঙ্গিমা পাঠের ? অহেতুক কন্ঠস্বর কাঁপানো আর কপট কাব্যসুলভতা ! যাঁর জীবনী পাঠ করছ, তিনি বীর বিপ্লবী, ফাঁসির মঞ্চে বীরগতিপ্রাপ্ত অমর আত্মা, দীনেশচন্দ্র মজুমদার | এই বীরের জীবনালেক্ষ্য বলার সময় কি বাচনভঙ্গির এই কৃত্রিম অতিকোমলতা শোভা পায় ?
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
4. 
এ বাংলা ভাষাই আমূল পরিবর্তন করতে হবে | নইলে বাংলার ঘরে ঘরে ছেলে হয়ে জন্মেও মেয়েলি ভাব যাবেনা এদের | ভাষায় গলদ, ভাবে দৌর্বল্য, শব্দের মূর্ছনায় মেয়েলি ভাব | পাল্টাতে হবে, নইলে গোটা বঙ্গে এই নারীসুলভ হাবভাবসম্পন্ন হীনবীর্য, পৌরুষবিবর্জিত, এক ললনাপ্রায় অদ্ভূত পুরুষজাতির প্রাদুর্ভাবহেতু বঙ্গসমাজ বীর্যহীনতায় বিনষ্ট হবে |
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
5. Dialectics? -- the dynamics of Karma?
6. কী সুন্দর ফুল ! ঠিক ব্যথায় অশ্রুর মত, বিন্দু বিন্দু শিশিরের সম |
7. আর একটিবার ব্যর্থ হল | কিন্তু তাতে কি? পূর্ণতায় সফল হবে | শুধু কালের অপেক্ষা |
8. Here is the one (Netaji) who liberated us and not the other one (Gandhiji) who is much acclaimed. Let this sink in once and for all through study, analysis and understanding thereof.
9. 
Indian blood was spilled to win Indian freedom, Indian toil, Indian souls sacrificed at the gallows. How dare you say non-violence won it for us?
10. 
It is unbelievable that the Government of India had attempted to confer the Bharat Ratna on Netaji posthumously when they never did contemplate such a move regarding Gandhiji. Which basically means that in the eyes of the Government of India Gandhiji is above all such conferment whereas Netaji is not elevated enough to be beyond it. What would be a sacrilege to offer Gandhiji would be an honour for Netaji -- is that so? is that it?
11. We have to conquer the world with the thought of India.
12. 'Shivaji Utsav' must be reinititated in West Bengal. It will lead to a strong sense of nationalism, a patriotism which is the prime requisite of the day.
13. 
'Shivaji Utsav' must be reinititated in West Bengal. It will lead to a strong sense of nationalism, a patriotism which is the prime requisite of the day.
14. Durga Puja ought to call out the valour in Bengalees to destroy the demon within and without and not just to indulge in frivolous annual merrymaking.
15. The entire history of the freedom movement is wrongly written. Due emphasis must be laid on the revolutionary struggle for freedom through armed resistance culminating in the INA war against imperial Britain on the north eastern borders of British India.
16. 
What a pity ! What a shame !
What unconcern in yoga's name !
17. We should have a massive university for Indological studies in the heart of New Delhi. Then like universities must open in every major city of India. Only then will we get to know our heritage and culture, our lineage and legacy.
18. The less we exhibit self-importance, the more important shall we be in terms of fruitful service to society.
19. অপ্রকাশেই যথার্থ আত্মপ্রকাশ |
20. 
ইংরেজরা আমাদের অসম্মান করতে, ঘোর অপমান করত আমাদের জাতিগতভাবে | আজ তো ইংরেজরা চলে গেছে | তাহলে ঘরে ধরে আমরা কেন এত অপমান করি আমাদের নিকটজনকে ? আসলে নৈকট্য কাকে বলে তা আমরা ভুলে গেছি স্বার্থসিদ্ধির তাড়নায় | সভ্যতায় পুনর্শিক্ষণ প্রয়োজন | তাই হবে আমাদের জাতিগত অভ্যুত্থান, আমাদের সাংস্কৃতিক পুনর্জাগরণ ও আমাদের সমাজগত সংহতির মূল উপাদান |
21. শিক্ষার মধ্যেই সাধনা | শিক্ষাই সাধন |
22. Every affirmative thought does good to the nation, every positive impulse builds the world.
23. ঠাকুর কি শুধু স্বামীজীর ভালবাসায় বাঁধা ? ঠাকুর আমাদের ভালবাসারও বশ | তাই তাঁকে লাভ করার উপায় হল তাঁকে ভালবাসা |
24. Despite receiving the most merciless of criticisms Gandhiji emerges each time as the paragon of peace and non-violence in a world torn by war and savage violence.
25. যাকে ভালবাসা যায় তাকে কি নিজের কষ্টটা দিতে মন চায় ? না | নিজের কষ্ট নিজেরই থাক, ঈশ্বরকে যেন নিজের আনন্দটুকু প্রাণ ঢেলে দিতে পারি |
26. ভক্তি আর কি ? অপার্থিব ভালবাসা |
27. জ্ঞান, অর্থাৎ, এককে জানা, অর্থাৎ, মায়ারাহিত্য, বহুত্ববুদ্ধি নাশ |
28. কর্ম ? চিন্তাই কর্ম |
29. বিষয়বিয়োগই যোগ |
30. প্রকৃতির সম্পদ হরণ করে নিজের মালিকানা ফলানো -- এই তো ধনতন্ত্র, ভেদবুদ্ধির চূড়ান্ত, শোষণের নামান্তর |
31. আপনজনের কাছ থেকে কি কেউ যথেচ্ছ লাভ করে ? লোভ ও ক্ষমতার পিপাসা হল ধনতন্ত্রের যুগ্ম ভিত্তিভূমি |
32. We as students did hard labour. Nowadays students are up to soft leisure.
33. To be timely is to be civilised. Now if this principle is applied to us, where would we stand in terms of it ? The question would then arise : Are we civilised ?
34. You cannot appropriate Ramakrishna.
35. Study the scriptures, Kathamrita, Bhagavad Geeta and the Kathopanishad. After that do not start exhibiting your newly acquired knowledge. That show of little knowledge will spoil it all.
36. Always try to move from the specific to the general. This generalisation principle is at the heart of arriving at the laws of both external and internal nature. It is the core principle of philosophy. It is the fundamental impulse of evolution.
37. 
Poetry in form, music in visage !
38. Sometimes circumstance plays havoc with your life and you are unable to cope. Then, patience is the only way out. Patience and forbearance are one's best friends in adversity.
39. Perfection, my children, perfection. Excellence in writing deems grammatical perfection, perfection in punctuation and in order and form a sine qua non. Then comes the balance of ideas and the rational rigour of writing. Finally, imagery and optimal beauty of form and expression.
40. বোকা সবসময় নিজেকে চালাক ভাবে যদি না সে চালাক বোকা হয় |
41. We must see to it that we do not suffer from an erroneous inflated sense of self-estimation. Such a delusive idea is certainly detrimental to evolution of the self.
42. Profit-motivation destroys character, the motive to serve builds it. A mother never makes profit out of her children.
43. In seeking the pleasure of the hour we forsake permanent peace.
44. Vidya dadaati vinayam ; vinamra didaati vidya.
Knowledge bestows humidity ; humility quickens knowledge.
45. সন্ন্যাসী স্বয়ংস্থিত, আপন ইন্দ্রিয়দমনপূর্বক আপন আনন্দসত্তায় অবস্থিত | কিন্তু যথার্থ সন্ন্যাসী মেলা ভার |
46. 
The inertia of the past ever holds us. Revolutionary changes are difficult in coming. The requisite force takes time to muster. Then comes the deathblow and a new age dawns.
47. To be optimistic is good. But a make-believe, unreal optimism that shies away from solving problems so as to live in an indulgent fantasy-world is dangerous.
48. People who thwart other people's freedom do them a great disservice. This predatory instinct of man, so very common to humanity and shorn of humanity too, has retarded the progress of civilisation.
49. I have known him but he will never know me. Such is the relation between the common man and the famed man extraordinaire, such the one-way acquaintance.
50. What a bloody revolution, the French Revolution !
51. জড় মাত্র জড় নয় | তাহার মধ্যেও আছে তরঙ্গায়িত জীবন |
52. You must work with enthusiasm. That is the way to building the nation.
54. 
লিখলেই হবে না | শব্দের সংযম চাই, ভাষার ব্রহ্মচর্য | এলোমেলো শব্দসংযোজন সাহিত্য নয় | রচনার প্রবাহস্ফূর্তিতে যদি অসংলগ্ন, অনিয়ন্ত্রিত শব্দপ্রয়োগ হতে থাকে যা ব্যাকরণসম্মত নয় ও নিছক ভাবের আতিশয্যের প্রকাশক, তা কখনই রচনারূপে সুন্দরের আক্ষা পেতে পারে না | সংযমই জীবন | তাই সংযত শব্দপ্রবাহ আয়ত্ত না হলে রচনা সাহিত্যিক প্রগলভতার খেতাব পেতে পারে, যথার্থ সাহিত্যের মান নয় |
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
55. একটা মানুষ তৈরী হলে দেশ তৈরী হবে |
56. Patience is no more the ordinary man's share. It being sold at a premium. The waiting quality is missing in a bustling material life.
57.
Slowly and steady wins the race,
Fast and faltering loses it.
58. Health is the state of energetic equilibrium in the body. See to it that you maintain the balance of forces. Illness is this balance gone wrong. Recovery is its restoration.
59. 
Who is this baby? Toddler one day will topple the world and cast it afresh.
60. Governments should heed the needs of the people and reform constantly. Else, a Revolution gestates in the womb of Time.
61. We have made a mockery of our scriptures. What stupid interpretations we make of such classic treatises! There can be no greater folly than such misadventure into sacred terrain by the commoner of crass sense and a crasser sensibility.
62. There is not one that understands, not half a soul that follows Swamiji. And yet they all pronounce allegiance to him.
63. 
'Vande Mataram' encapsulates the concept of India as our Mother, the Great Motherland we ought to adore, venerate, worship with our heart's ardour, our soul's sacrifice and the ruddy drops of our felled bodies, fallen at the altar of her freedom.
64. এ আত্মপ্রচারের যুগ | বিনয় এখন সমাধিস্থ | মানযশটি চাই বাবা | ওটি ছাড়তে পারব না | আর ঠাকুরকে পন্য করে আত্মগরিমাগাথা রচনা, এই এখন সাধুতা !
65. We must have feverish intellectual activity in India and must deluge the world with original thought. This ought to be the mission of India.
66. Formlessness of God truly means absence of physical or mental form, that is, absence of all attributes. Therefore, to posit a formless God having attributes is a contradiction in terms. Nirguna Brahman is the only Reality. If God has form, that is attributes, He/She/It is Relative and, so, not Real, even if such a God be the Master/Mistress of such relativity. Such a God, therefore, falls short of the Absolute Truth.
67. 'Shraddhaa' is that intense aspirational mood seeking perfection.
68. And yet again I say, "India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will unite in the future to form the indivisible motherland that is Akhanda Bharatvarsha."
69. The rich enjoy the wealth produced by the poor and, yet, are shameless enough to claim such wealth as their own.
70. MAMMON AND MOTHERLAND
Greater dynamism is required of the youth, greater drive towards building their own lives in conjunction with that of the nation. Settling abroad cannot be the solution to our national problems. Our brilliant boys and girls must not betray the motherland. However, those that shrink from the conception of the country as motherland need not bother. Theirs is the wide world of opportunity that should serve as being Mammonworld. Let them go where they like. At any rate they would have done not much for the country who could do so easily nourish on her breast-milk, only on maturity to leave her to perish while they made merriment abroad in their western world of affluence.
Written by Sugata Bose
71. ASK YOURSELF
Civilisation is built on the lifeblood of the masses but the masses keep on bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. There is no end to it. Is this civilisation after all where culture is born in blood and is sustained thereafter in blood as well and that too of those who do not ever share in the spoils of their untold sacrifice?
Written by Sugata Bose
72. You take the world to be true so long as the thirst for Truth has not been felt. Once the thirst begins, you investigate, and you get to know the world to be false, utterly false. Then the world drops off and the Truth reveals.
Written by Sugata Bose
73. The ' I ' is the nucleus of Maya.
74. There is an expiry date to medicine. There is an expiry date to our ignorance as well. We shall all be free one day when time itself ceases and space disappears to reveal the Self.
75. Remember, the aim and end of life is Atmajnaan, that is, Self-realisation. All other moves for liberation are but progressions along the way, preparations for this final end.
76. Action proceeds from ignorance. The Atman is beyond all action. Attributeless, It abides in Itself in timeless, spaceless, uncaused Self-brooding, a singularity of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss which seems a trinity from the relative standpoint but is an integrated Absolute Whole that is impossible to partition.
Written by Sugata Bose
77. The Semitic religions hold attainment of heaven as the highest goal but the Indian religions hold absolute freedom, mukti, moksha, nirvana as the highest ideal.
78. Those students who do not study hard can hardly be called students.
79. কিছু কিছু লোক আছেন, সকাল বিকেল পাড়া বেড়াতে না গেলে যাঁদের চলে না, সে মহামারীই হক আর অতিমারীই হক না কেন |
80. To be scattered in the mind is the sign of the ordinary ; the geniuses have phenomenal concentration.
81. Stop converting Hindus to Christianity and Islam. It does a terrible disservice to them.
82. Existence simply is and cannot not be. This Existence is the Reality.
83. India has not won independence. In every house tyranny goes on, man by wife and wife by man.
84. 
এবার মুক্তি দাও মা |
85. There are some people who only know how to break a house, how to break people's hearts and how to destroy human hopes.
86. Genius overrides circumstance to flower but many a flower lies crushed under the heels of circumstance.
87. When hope leaves, even sadness leaves with it. Then the blank of a purposeless life stares at one and a futile death to follow.
88. Failed people torture others. Let them achieve something in the wide world. Then they shall get their own medicine back and realise their homely folly.
89. Self-respect gone, everything gone. Do not let it go. Retain it at any cost, with all your might.
90. Music has left. It has left its strains behind. The voice is stilled. The heart beats still. Will the beat of the heart beat to time still? Or will the pulse break rhythm and fail?
91. If life ebbs, let it.
When the high tide sets in,
Let me sail.
92. We are a slave race. We do not know how to respect one another.
93. কত কষ্ট করে ছাত্র তৈরী করি ! কত অনায়াসে সব নষ্ট হয়ে যায় ! কর্মে অধিকার, ফলে নেই | পশুর সমাজ, বর্বর, আদিম, নরখাদক ! এই সমাজে আমি-রূপ পশুরও বাস | খাদ্য-খাদক সম্পর্ক, করে বা কি ? তবে চলুক পশুর শাসন |
রচনা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
94. 
এমন মানুষও আছে বর্বর সমাজে |
95. শেষে ছবির জয় হল ! ভাব বোঝে না, ছবি বোঝে | গোটা ভারতই কি এইরূপ রূপের বশ ? কি দুঃসময় এসেছে তাহলে ! শুধু শুধু কি আর স্বামীজী ভর্ৎসনা করতেন এত তাঁর পত্রাবলীতে উচ্চ ভাব ধারণা করতে না পারার জন্য ?
রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
96. মৌখিক ভক্তি তো অনেক হল | এবার একটু ভাব বোঝা যাক | নইলে সনাতন ধর্ম যে পুনরায় রসাতলে যাবে | ভাববার বিষয় বইকি |
97. এতকাল ছিল মূর্তিপূজা আর এখন শুরু হয়েছে আত্মপূজা | শ্রদ্ধাপূর্বক বিগ্রহপূজায় চিত্তশুদ্ধি হয়ে মন দেহাতীত ভূমিতে ক্রমে উন্নীত হত আর শ্রদ্ধাবিবর্জিত এই আধুনিক আত্মপূজায় চিত্ত অশুদ্ধ হয়ে মানুষকে উত্তরোত্তর ভোগপরায়ণ করে | স্বামীজী যেমন বলেছিলেন পাশ্চাত্যে যে হিন্দু দেবীবিগ্রহের সম্মুখে নতজানু হয়ে আত্মনিবেদন করে যা পাশ্চাত্যবাসী গর্হিত কুসংস্কার জ্ঞান করে কিন্তু তারা অনায়াসে তাদের প্রেয়সীর পানিগ্রহণকল্পে ফুলহাতে নতজানু হতে দ্বিধা বোধ করে না যার উদ্দেশ্য যদিও ভোগসর্বস্ব সংসারী জীবন যাপন করা | বাহবা আধুনিক কালের নিত্যপূজার ! জয় নিত্যদেবীর জয় !
রচয়িতা : সুগত বোস (Sugata Bose)
98. 
The Datta brothers, Narendranath, Mahendranath and Bhupendranath, three jewels born of the same golden-wombed mother Bhuvaneshwari.
99. Where the will is weak, constancy is lacking. This fickleness is the impediment to attaining greatness.
100. Great souls are grateful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)