MESSAGES GALORE ... 21
1. The froth of life does not contain the depth of truth. Dive within to discover the gem.
2. Truth, even if universal, is personal, not organisational, for perception itself is personal and so is liberation. The collective is a numeral derivative much like the individual, an extension of discrete thought. The vast multiplicity is built about the one, the one central self which is termed unitary consciousness.
3. Will the sun of consciousness shine on India or shall we sink in the mire of routine ritualism bereft of thought?
4. My object is to induce men to think, an act and an enterprise that has become a curio, a museum piece fit for idle marvelling.
5. The enlightened argue and come to consensus or agree to differ; rogues threaten to kill and silence thought and free speech.
6. Christianity must be strengthened in order to combat the undermining of Europe. The orthodox has the requisite character to resist civilisaltional destruction which the liberal in his myopic vision allows.
7. Hindus do not understand the extent of the threat to which they are exposed as a civilisation. The divisions within are devitalising, the attacks from without menacing. Demographic change will deliver the coup d'état. 'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.'
8. Shun stupidity and arm yourself in valour. Swamiji hated cowardice.
9. হিন্দুরা চিন্তা করা ছাড়ছে; চিন্তার বিষয় |
10. The ostrich-mentality cannot save. 'Face the brute.'
11. Stop shedding tears. Arise and act.
12. Europe has renounced Christianity largely and is now facing a run-over by Islam due to demographic transition and the vacuous space being filled up by an alternative way of religious living. Christianity must be strengthened to face the challenge. Else, Europe's identity will be lost in the foreseeable future. Mere liberalism cannot meet the challenge owing to the game of numbers threatening Europe and because a lack of definite cultural identity amongst Europeans post de-Christianisation has led to a terrible weakening of the social fabric. Europe must retrace its Christian ways to ward off the coming danger of wholesale Islamisation.
13. Ignorance has its own certitude in misconception and misrepresentation. The knowledgeable are wary in judgement, hesitant in assertion. Not so the ignorant who rush to sweeping conclusions and absolute assertions which seem inviolable by their supposed surety of statement.
14. It is time to punctuate posts properly. A completed sentence without a full-stop, capital letters and small letters interchanging indiscriminately and like linguistic errors en masse do not augur well for the intellectual development of a country. Kindly be more accurate in your assertions, both factually and in punctuated representation.
15.
The lion-soul with a failing legacy. We have let him down. Only Swami Asheshananda regretted thus before Bharat Maharaj in America. Alas, introspection today is so sadly lacking!
16.
আমরা কি এঁদেরই উত্তরসূরী? ভাববার বিষয় | সাহস কই?
17. ছবির তো জয়জয়াকার | ভাবেরও জয়জয়াকার হ'ক | কি বলেন?
18. হিন্দু হয়ে গীতা-কথামৃত-স্বামীজী পাঠ না করা বড়ই লজ্জার ! কেমন হিন্দু তাহলে?
19. Whosoever follows the Lord will be led to the Light within. Then the whole world will light up as well with a divine effulgence.
20. Read the Upanishads and remove vagueness of idea about your religion.
21. A handful of men led by an able leader can start a revolution of ideas that will spread like wild fire in due course igniting and illuminating the world.
22. Give up honouring the ordinary descendants of extraordinarily great people simply because of their lineage. This is mental slavery that is symptomatic of a persisting feudal mindset.
23. Earn your own honour by dint of your own merit. Do not bask in predecessor's glory and use it to social and political advantage.
24. জাতির মেরুদণ্ড ভেঙে যাচ্ছে দুর্বল নাচগানে লিপ্ত হয়ে |
25. আমাদের জাতিগতভাবে কিছু ন্যূনতম ভদ্রতা শেখা উচিত, যথা, প্রশ্নের উত্তর পেলে তা প্রাপ্তিস্বীকার করা ও অনুমোদন করা |
26. আজকের স্লোগান : 'বুদ্ধিকে বন্ধক রাখা চলবে না, চলবে না |'
27. ও যতই বল, মরে গেলে স্বর্গে যাব, পুনরায় প্রত্যাবর্তন মর্ত্যধামে | পুনর্জন্ম অবশ্যম্ভাবী, সে তুমি যত এলেমদারই হও |
28. স্বর্গ? সে তো মর্ত্যলোকেরই উৎকৃষ্টতর কল্পনালোক, ভোগের তীব্রতর লৌকিক আধার | এক মধ্যে আধ্যাত্মিকতা কোথায়?
29. The Theory of Karma will be the undoing of the Semitic religions.
30. ঠাকুর-স্বামীজীকে না পালন করার জন্য বাঙালীর আজ এই দশা | তুচ্ছ ভোগের পথে ভগ্নপ্রায় | এখনও সময় আছে | স্বদেশমন্ত্র পড়ুন, আদর্শে স্থিত হ'ন | জাতিগত উত্থান অবশ্যম্ভাবী | নইলে পতন অনিবার্য, ধ্বংস সুনিশ্চিত | বাঙালীর পূর্ব ইতিহাস স্বয়ং তার ভয়ানক সাক্ষ্য বহন করছে | বাকিটা বুঝে নিন |
31. Love ❤️ the one who is the source of all love. He is Sri Ramakrishna.
32. Love ❤️ of God dispels fear. Love ❤️ Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi to be fulfilled in life.
33.
শৌর্যবীর্যপবিত্রতার প্রতিমূর্তি, বুদ্ধি ও প্রেমের যুগ্ম সমন্বয়, উদার বিশ্বহৃদয়, প্রাতঃস্মরণীয় পুরুষ |
34.
মহাপুরুষ মাধবানন্দ | মায়ের ভাষায়, 'হাতির দাঁত সোনা দিয়ে বাঁধানো |'
35.
দুই বসু | বৃটিশের ভিত কাঁপিয়ে দিয়েছিল |
The Bose-duo who shook the foundation of the British Empire.
36. Do not teach children hell and frighten them into premature submission to a supposed God holding the fiery rod of retribution. Let them blossom naturally into buoyant beings free of fear.
37. Does an extra-cosmic creator God exist or is such a God man's greatest invention?
38. What is your idea of God?
39. Has God created man or has man created God?
40. Should religion be scrutinised by reason or will that also be deemed blasphemous in a world that is increasingly becoming intolerant of free speech?
41. Instead of feeling offended unto engaging in violent action when one's religion is criticised, is it not time for people of faith to grow up into mature individuals who can enter into rational discussion over such?
42. Should fanaticism be fanned by curtailing free speech?
43. Do we propose to be a progressive nation by censoring free speech?
44. Why is culture plummeting in our country?
45. Must the intolerant be tolerated?
46. Will liberalism be defeated yet again by regressive religious force?
47. Can you please wake up and respond to my posts? I raise so many questions but the response is so poor.
48. Democracy does not mean mobocracy that will rule by roadside violence. Free speech must be safeguarded if democracy is to survive.
49. Raise your rational self. Else, regressive religion will rule. A country cannot progress if it will not allow free speech.
50. Swamiji has exhorted parents not to indoctrinate children with irrational religious principles. And, yet, hundreds of millions of children are daily brainwashed by such.
51. মগজধোলাই করে ধর্মের ধ্বজা আর কতদিন টিকিয়ে রাখা যাবে? এবার বিজ্ঞনমনস্ক হলে হয়না?
52. Who taught the Arabs 1,2,3,4,...? The ignorant Hindus who knew nothing of religion and had to be converted to be taught the right way to God?
53. Is it not stupidity to convert Hindus to Islam and Christianity? It is like asking a post-graduate to enrol in a Montessori.
54. We need fire extinguishers more than conversion to avoid hell-fire.
55. Heaven it is when hell is abolished. Hell it is when heaven lures. Rational is the man who has abolished both and makes earth a veritable heaven. Unto him belongs divine consciousness in activated form.
56. It is not Hindu-Arabic numeral. It is Hindu numeral.
57. Before you invite a Hindu to your fold, study Hinduism well and become a Hindu.
58. Spiritually ignorant people convert Hindus to their fold through fanatical conviction, trickery and deceit. As they evolve, they themselves will embrace Hinduism. Such is human destiny.
59. Every Hindu must make it a point to study Swami Vivekananda's 'Paper on Hinduism' that he read out on 19 September, 1893 at the Chicago Parliament of Religions.
60. If every Hindu reads Swami Vivekananda, Hinduism will become invincible. In his Complete Works are a mine of strength.
61. Be proud to be a Hindu and, being one, feel intense sympathy for every other Hindu wherever in the world he or she may be.
62. Mutual sympathy and love must be the basis of Hindu solidarity.
63. This is the colour of awakened spiritual consciousness, the rising sun of knowledge.
64. Hindus must shed cowardice and exhibit valour. Otherwise, they will be traitorous to their cause. Thought, word and deed must match for the resurrection of Hinduism. Mere verbal effusion such as 'Jai Swamiji' is lazy and useless in helping the Hindu cause. Exhibit the warrior instinct, kshatriyahood that alone can preserve the Hindus and their high spiritual culture. Remember Partition? We had so many political, intellectual and spiritual stalwarts then. Yet, a persistent and perverse Muhammad Ali Jinnah pursued Jihad to successfully mutilate our motherland. None could prevent it or the genocide of Hindus which initiated the murderous movement and sustained it to its seditious end. How oblivious we can be of history! This year is not the Amrit Mahotsav of Azaadi but the remembrance of the maliciious murder of the motherland.
65. Fearlessness is the first sign of valour.
66. The ability to defend oneself against the enemy's attack is the second sign of valour.
67. To know the enemy's intent, motive and motivation, political and theological thought-content is the third sign of valour.
68. To be physically and mentally prepared for conscription in times of military emergency is the fourth sign of valour.
69. To be armed in reason, knowledge and wit to ideologically defeat the enemy is the fifth sign of valour.
70. To 'face the brute' that is intent on destroying you is the sixth sign of valour.
71. To train oneself in intelligence so as to pulverise the enemy by sheer brain-power is the seventh sign of valour.
72. Developing strength of character that does not quake in the face of death is the eighth sign of valour.
73. Not being traitorous to one's own religion, culture and civilisation is the ninth sign of valour.
74.
কল খুললে জল পড়ে,
কারণ জানো কি?
মাধ্যাকর্ষণ মান রেখেছে,
নামটি তাহার 'g' |
কল খুললে জল পড়ে,
কারণ জানো কি?
75. How easily 'righteous' Hindus criticise Hindu organisations, calling their followers bigoted fanatics etc.! But they dare not utter a word against those outside the pale of Hinduism who are hell-bent on destroying the Hindus and their religion wholesale.
76. Hindus who criticise the Hindus but dare not utter a word against their enemies are downright cowards and must be disregarded with disdain.
77. An extracosmic creator God is an impossibility because there is no way for Him to produce the material for the universe which is already not there in Him. Such a God then is an immanent being and cannot be called creator.
78. The universe stands on its own by its own cycling principle of subsistence and needs no God as an unnecessary hypothesis for its explanation? The universe is self-explanatory in so far as it can be explained.
79. Pious critics of Hindu organisations, just look out of your casement and see the enemy standing without, waiting to destroy us all. Hindus must unite. Upon Hindu solidarity depends Hindu survival against terrible civilisational odds.
80. Learn to think. Resist exploitation. This is the first step to spirituality.
81. The poor are exploited; the middle classes rationalise. The middle classes are exploited; the rich rationalise. But where is the rationalisation process that renders the system human? Tall talk of spirituality with no practical application. Must divinities suffer economic exploitation? Is there no shame in those that do it? It is a barbarous, brutal system that reduces gods to beasts with impunity.
82. জেগে উঠুন | আর কতকাল শুধু 'প্রণাম স্বামীজী' বলে তাঁর বাণী ভুলে থাকবেন? উত্তিষ্ঠত, জাগ্রত !
83. স্বামীজীকে শুধু অলস প্রণাম নয়, তাঁর জীবন ও বাণীর আলোচনা করুন |
84. মস্তিষ্ককে সচল, সক্রিয় করুন | সেটাই স্বামীজীর প্রতি শ্রেষ্ঠ প্রণাম | স্বামীজী বলেছিলেন, "Let men be thinkers." (মানুষ চিন্তাশীল হ'ন |)
85. The main problem of the average devotee is that he dares not 'face the brute' that openly threatens his existence. Courage is the key and that is sadly missing even when 'following' such a valorous one as Vivekananda.
86. ঘটকালী না ঘট খালি? একটু তো চিন্তা করতে শিখতে হবে | নইলে যে ঠাকুর-স্বামীজীর ঘোর অপমান | তাঁরা তো স্বকীয় চিন্তায় পারদর্শি ছিলেন | তাহলে তাঁদের অনুগামীরা কেন শুধু জয়ধ্বনি করে ক্ষান্ত?
87. To secure heaven postmortem, must you convert life on earth to hell? Does not earthly life deserve a better deal?
88. You cannot wish away a problem. You have to fight it.
89. We need real men who can stand up to invasive alien culture, now infiltrated deep in our system, so that India does not die a civilisational death in due course.
90. Love India? Then study Vivekananda. Do not idle away your time and energy in singing futile praises such as 'Jai Swamiji' but study him and be real men.
91. Ghettoise and create islands of peace within a warring world -- this is the long-term strategy of the peaceful ones till peace through perversion has been achieved worldwide.
92. We have a Buddhist king (Asoka the Great) and a Muslim king (Akbar the Great) but no Hindu king who has been named thus, although we have so many greats like Chandragupta Maurya, Samudragupta, Vikramaditya, Maharana Pratap, Chattrapati Shivaji, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Krishna Deva Raya, the Chola kings, the Ahom kings, Sasanka and a host of others. This is so because Hindus en masse have chosen to remain ignorant of their past despite a plethora of information that is so easily available in the form of books and online data that is easy of access.
93. ❤️❤️❤️ These are the Trinity in Unity that is the inscrutable essence of Truth. Perceiver, perceived, perception, or the Trinity, and the transcendental which is the Unity, all bound in the interface of the twain in distinguishable-indistinguishable love, Achintya Bhedaabhed, the master philosophy of Mahaprabhu.
94. Is he not the soul of India, Bharatatma Vivekananda?
95. Want to break India? Want to pervert India? Yours is an impossible hope. You have to destroy Vivekananda then. Try it and see if you succeed. Brother, come to your senses and give up vain desires. Shed alien association and become Indian in the Hindu sense of our ancient continuing Sanatan culture.
96. Man-made systems of social living are far better than 'God'-made ones.
97. The world is up against a civilisational war. The longer it takes to respond, the bloodier this war is likely to be.
98. Multiculturism is destroying Europe. Because of it Europe is losing its character and soon there will be only one culture left. The critical limit of liberalism having been exceeded, Europe is in the process of being overwhelmed by absolutist theocratic culture that will eventually destroy all else as mandated by extracosmic authority.
99. A world where free speech is being increasingly curtailed can scarcely be deemed democratic. It is an illiberal world we are being drawn into where every democratic mode is beng used to subvert democracy. We are going down as a civilisation and are being pushed back to medieval times when the sword of the One God ruled.
100. You may love the tiger and move to embracing it but surely the tiger will reciprocate your love by eating you up. So, reflect on your 'love options' and act wisely.
THE EXTERNAL AND THE INTERNAL THREAT
India faces terrible dangers within and without. The greats of the 19th and 20th centuries could save at a terrible partitioned price only a fraction of India while the rest of it was cleaved away by jihad and geopolitics in the form of Pakistan. What became India thereby is again under internal and external threat and the bulk of the population sleeps to the danger. If we do not become self-conscious and secure in knowledge, the enemy will keep dealing death-blows till India, as she historically has been, is no more. For this education is necessary of the enemy's intent and cultural content. Mass awareness thus raised and India's hoary heritage enlivened within the bulk of the polity, her security may be ensured. But uppermost must be the raising of the deplorable condition of the masses who form the rank and file of the nation. These teeming millions, nay, hundreds of millions, are the real strength of the nation and they must be empowered through education, employment and exploitation-free atmosphere. Unfortunately, everywhere their labour is extracted at an exploitative low price and they are made to sink lower and lower. Even spiritual orders of renown horribly exploit their labour and pay their employees abysmally low salaries that would merit ridicule in a Western country where they preach the Vedanta. This must be resisted and labour laws enforced everywhere whereby the bulk of humanity in India sees the living light of freedom. Then and only then will 'India rise to life and freedom.' Remember, there are enemies without and enemies within. Now, educate yourself in self and national awareness to identifying them and, armed in such knowledge, arise in defence of the motherland and her continuing but constrained cultural life, her 'wounded civilisation'.
Written by Sugata Bose
SWAMI NIRMALANANDA (TULSI MAHARAJ), A DIRECT DISCIPLE OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA OR NOT?
Observe the two photographs. The lower one cites Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj), placed at the righthand corner of the lowest rank, as the published disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. But all modern photo-compilations of Sri Ramakrishna's direct disciples now exclude Swami Nirmalananda from them. The upper photograph is evidence of that. Why? This is a question that is simply not answered clearly by the concerned authorities nor sufficiently entertained beyond providing vague references by way of self-support of official status that are least credible. On the contrary there is legal evidence citing Swami Nirmalananda as 'the chela of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Dev' furnished by no less than Swami Brahmananda, the first President of Belur Math, when he deputed Swami Nirmalananda to South India with power-of-attorney stating thus. Strange it is that such a dynamic monk as Swami Nirmalananda should so suffer organisational neglect much like Swami Nityasvarupananda (Chintaharan Maharaj), the founder of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. "Organisation," indeed, "breeds new evils," as Swami Vivekananda had rightly observed. Devotees, when they support ethically lost causes by way of bolstering the erroneous ways of monastic organisations, do a great deal of harm to them for they side with untruth and injustice. 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' And to support declining spiritual culture out of blind loyalty is most unspiritual.
Written by Sugata Bose
[Tap to expand the photgraph to its full size.]
WHEN ADULTS GIVE IN TO PICTURE-PLAY LIKE PUERILE PLAY-CHIDREN DO
Thakur-Ma-Swamiji's advent on earth has been in vain. All that they had needed was to have sent carload of beautifully posed photographs for their would-be devotees to look at and marvel. Sufficient unto the day has been the devotional element manifested even among the educated classes! And now the movement is taking the inevitable monetary turn.
Vivekananda cries in vain. He has been banished to the wilderness but will he ever emerge among the People of the Promised Land? History will hold us responsible for our individual and collective apathy to his message for he which he lived and bled to his divine martyrdom.
We are ungrateful descendants of the divine sages of yore to whom we trace our heritage only at the point of recounting our lineage to the priests while offering worship but whose grand legacy we spurn knowingly and unknowingly each moment as we allow ourselves to sink in the mire of mundane, material ignorance. Would it were otherwise! India's fate would have changed then.
A nation of irrational materialists -- and mark my words, 'irrational materialists' -- can scarce call itself spiritual except in the lowliest conception of the word. Whither our links to our lineage? Whither are we headed as such? A rudderless ship in a tempestuous sea? A sinking ship where the boarders are actively participating to drill fresh holes that water may enter and drown them all?
Why, brothers, must you be so unthinking as to your own destiny? Swamiji has exhorted you to think. In his celebrated address 'Is Vedanta the Future Religion' delivered at San Francisco in 1900 he said, "Let men be thinkers." Are you willing to be one? Or have you made up your mind that the brain is better to mortgage to buy the ephemeral pleasures of life before the icy chill of death seizes you and with it ceases your miserable existence on earth that was meant for a higher purpose of Self-discovery which went abegging in pursuit of devotion to pictures like play-children do?
Written by Sugata Bose
THE HOODED COBRA GETS READY TO STRIKE
Awareness of the real danger is the key but freedom of speech is being cleverly curtailed to allow the take-over of the world by forces inimical. Reflect!
The danger is out there in the open now and, yet, the slumber continues. If a race has resolved to commit suicide by democratically empowering forces that are bent upon enslaving it, then its hour of expiry has arrived.
Warfare of the sword no more wins today as fighter bombers destroy armies en masse. Hence, the new strategy. Enter the democratic system and rip it up from within. Use law to undermine law. Make the system work out its own downfall. Use the liberal left to destroy the resistive right. Gain power thus, then destroy the left to impose regressive, reactionary religion of the worst kind. A peep into the future. Gone are the left, gone are the right, only brute force remains that will career humanity to the dark ages.
Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
Written by Sugata Bose
RAMAKRISHNA-VIVEKANANDA FORGOTTEN ... 1
It is so strange that the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna are not universally known in India even 135 years after his disappearance. And the world is more or less oblivious of it, too. Rapid dissemination of his life and message is the surviving call of the hour. Else, humanity seems doomed to death en masse.
Swamiji had said that he had a message for the West just as Buddha had a message for the East.
The West is sitting on its seat of self-destruction today and have long forgotten Vivekananda. 9/11 has brought the West to its hour of reckoning. 37,000 jihadist attacks have reportedly taken place throughout the world post September 11, 2001. The West is unsure how to deal with it.
There was another 9/11 in 1893 when a young monk from India had stormed the stage in the Chicago Parliament of Religions and brought in tidings from the East that would potentially harmonise the conflicting elements of life but have overtime gone into hibernation as the West has buried his memory and message in the melee of its pursuit of transitory life. As Eleanor Stark has written in his book ' The Gift Unopened -- The New American Revolution', America has indeed a gift from Vivekananda which she is yet to unpack and see. There lies the solution to her problems and to that of the problems that beset humanity, too. Ramakrishna-Vivekananda is the way ahead for the world. But will the world get to know that they ever existed? And will it heed the message of the masters from India while yet there is time to salvage things and save humanity? Will India listen, to begin with? Or, will passive piety continue?
Written by Sugata Bose
টাকা মাটি, মাটি টাকা
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'টাকা মাটি, মাটি টাকা |' ঠাকুরের সাধনকালের এই বিখ্যাত উক্তির গভীরতা আমাদের উপলব্ধি করতে হবে বিশুদ্ধ বুদ্ধির দ্বারা, সাধন অবলম্বনে ও তাঁর কৃপার গুণে | তারপর তা জীবনে প্রয়োগ | বিশেষত, ধনতন্ত্রের এই যুগে যখন লোভরূপ তৃতীয় রিপু মানুষকে অমানুষে পরিণত করে চলেছে, যুগাবতারের এই বাণী মানবসমাজের দিশারী |
মানুষ আজ পন্যে পরিণত | এমনকি আধ্যাত্মিক প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলিও নানা প্রক্রিয়ায় অর্থসংগ্রহে আজ অতীব তৎপর | তবে কি ঠাকুরের এই ব্রহ্মবাণী আজ তার সময়সীমা অতিক্রম করে সমাজজীবনে নিষ্প্রয়োজন হয়ে পড়ল? আজ কি তাহলে "টাকা খাঁটি, খাঁটি টাকা" -- এই নবমন্ত্রের যুগ? ভাববার বিষয় কারণ শ্রীরামকৃষ্ণ তাহলে সমূলে ব্রাত্য হয়ে পড়েছেন তাঁরই অনুগামীদেরই কাছে | অথচ তিনি যুগাবতার ও রামকৃষ্ণযুগ এখনও শেষ হতে ঢেড় দেরী !
ঠাকুরের আদর্শ আজ প্রতিনিয়ত খর্ব হয়ে চলেছে | দোষ আমাদের, প্রভুর নয় | আমাদের আত্মসমিক্ষা ও আত্মসংশোধনের দ্বারা এর প্রতিকার করতে হবে | ঠাকুরের মহামন্ত্র যথাযথ মহিমায় আজও বিদ্যমান কিন্তু তার পালনে গাফিলতি আমাদেরই | আসুন, নিজেদের নতুন করে ঠাকুরের শ্রীপাদপদ্মে নিয়োজিত করি ও ভগবানের অভিপ্রায়কে কর্মানুষ্ঠানের দ্বারা সঞ্জীবিত করে স্বীয় ও সমাজজীবনকে প্রাণদান করি | বৈশ্যযুগের বর্বর লোভের সাথে যোঝার এর চেয়ে বড় উপায় আর নেই |
রচনা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)
SAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION
Freedom of speech is being increasingly curtailed the world over to make allowance for a particular community that feels offended at any criticism of their cult for which they then take recourse to violent reprisal. This way we are losing the public space for critical thinking, rational discourse and open exchange of ideas which form the bedrock of a modern scientific society. The free world must not bow down to pressure exerted thus on them by vile elements that are antithetical to the high principles of liberal civilisation. Else, darker days will ensue and resolutions will have to sought out at a dearer cost at a latter date when much damage to the citadels of civilisation will have already been done by the forces of the dark. Suppression of thought and expression as is now happening the world over with so-called allowance of only tempered talk and near-prohibition of even factual but unpleasant historical or theological stuff with authority coming down heavy on the 'offender' can only derail the progressive march of modern civilisation and take us back to medieval times which surely is not what we want. Hence, a concerted effort must be made by all conscientious citizens to restore sanity to civic discourse by protecting the people's fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression without any unreasonable bars thwarting it.
Written by Sugata Bose
COMMENTS GALORE ... 12
Sugata Bose @Suman Gangopadhyay : So, statement of truth spoken in civilised language is deemed detrimental to civic order according to you? Has democracy reduced civic discourse to such an abysmal depth that a passive acquiescence is the sole option left? Think deep, 'face the brute', as Swamiji was wont to saying, and prove yourself to be a man having courage of conviction and character. Else, by your standard of judgement, all our freedom fighters ought to be hidden from our text books as generating potential violence against the British today for their articulate affirmations yesterday when the country was seething with the passion for freedom. Come on, gentleman, give sanity a chance in this world gone wrong with the doctrinaire deeds of dastardly violence.
Sugata Bose @Soham Pain : Grand rebuttal. Wholly agree with you and largely differ with some of Swamiji's sweeping generalisations in his moments of inspirational love for certain sections of society whosoever they may be.
Sugata Bose @Bhattacharya Kalyan : Atheists, anti-Hindus, anti-Christians etc. Atheism masquerading as political philosophy itself is a dark and divisive force, albeit even one of totalitarian political religion. Then there are the fanatical versions of political philosophy or its utter absence which are the unreasonable dark forces of religion. Intelligence and discernment should help you to recognise them. Time for a homecoming instead of hitting out at the Mother Religion like a youth gone wrong and unrepentant at that. The prodigal son returned to sanity but there are so many of his permanently strayed siblings who follow their deluded course unto perennial distraction. If such distraction be self-inflicted alone, damage caused to society would have been less. But they choose to disrupt social sanity and wean away more of the masses unto their indulgent, ignorant and intolerant philosophy whereby civilisation is thrown into despair. Poor fellows, they know not what they do in their vanity which they deem to be light when it is darkness dwelling in their tortuous hearts that impels them to do so. Return to Ramakrishna!
Sugata Bose @VRana Roy : Fair enough. But the history of the world has seen the dastardly triumph of untruth. Civilisations have been swept away by the sword of untruth.
Sugata Bose @Dipankar Paul : Yes, thus far this has been the historical truth. The strong have triumphed over the weak through might of arms and not so much by superior wisdom.
Sugata Bose @Sammik Mitra : Perceptive observation. Hope readers heed it. The survival of the Hindus depends on it.
Sugata Bose @Dayanand Mishra : I have introspected and said what I have. Yes, I have heavily donated lifelong but have seen the sad spiritual demise of the organisation right before my eyes. Your understanding may be different.
Charging legitimately is one and taking whatever comes the course while refusing to issue coupons without a minimum amount by way of reimbursement for the expense entailed is another. There should be a price tag attached in such a case like all other consumer commodities and not a vagueness abounding where unlimited amount will be accepted from one while refusing coupon to the very next person for falling short of the unprescribed price for it. Those who wish to entertain in corruption thus are free to forget the ideals of Swami Premananda who had famously said, "I wish to see the water of the Ganga go white with the flowing starch of the rice prasad." He said it when the Belur Math had not the means for daily subsistence of the monks and yet they distributed prasad free for all. It is a sad decline of spiritual culture and a sad demise of the ideals for which the Holy Trinity of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji stood for. May Mother bless you!
Sugata Bose @Sujit Kumar Tarafdar : Donation is one, demanding unceremoniously right beside the Ramakrishna Temple built on the Master's golden principle of 'Money is mud, mud money' (Taka maati, maati taka) is another. Extraction by demand is not reception of donation which is voluntary.
Sugata Bose @Bhaskar Mukherjee : Wrong. Less than a certain unspecified amount has been rejected recently and a bigger amount then accepted. The first donation amount apparently fell short and the second one, now raised and given, was accepted. Reports are coming from devotees whose names are here for propriety's sake being withheld.
Sugata Bose @Utpal Chakrabarty : No, he (Swami Nirmalananda) was not thrown out of the Order. Wrong information. Hence, is it stale? And does such factually inaccurate knowledge merit such a sweeping conclusion or does such supposed 'throwing out of the Order' deserve exclusion from the said list which then becomes a historical heresy?
Sugata Bose @Ramakrishnan Mahadevan : Christianity has been rationally scrutinised by the West for the last few centuries which has led to the European Enlightenment, the Age of Reason and the emergence of modern scientific thought.
Sugata Bose @Partha Datta : Suddenly, why this comment? Is it not extraneous to the discussion?
Sugata Bose @Soumen Lahiri : You respect Netaji. Others will follow suit. Do not worry about those who do not. Truth triumphs albeit decidedly late.
Sugata Bose @Anindita Dutt : Are you reading? I am listing attributes of valour by way of responding to your request.
Sugata Bose @Soumen Lahiri : Better focus on Netaji in a positive manner rather than hinging discussion about him in terms of mere critical remarks about his adversaries in the Congress. Netaji was a positive person, 'an eternal optimist', in his own words, and harboured no hatred against compatriots who pulled him down. Remember, it is these latter ones who impelled Bose to become Netaji. His own evolution owes much to his adversaries' conjoint deceitful action. Hence, move on with a positive outlook rather than the hackneyed one of criticising Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru. Such a lopsided segmented discussion, a frustrated diatribe against Gandhi-Nehru does Netaji's cause no good. Surely, he deserves a better deal from his devotees.
Sugata Bose @সৌ রে ন : You should keep your counsel to your own self. That much for it. Read Vivekananda well before hazarding opinion.
Sugata Bose @Dipankar Paul : That's a supposition. I know bits and parts of his life only. Need to delve deeper into this seminal personality who seems a saviour of our benighted Hindu race today, so forthright are his messages tending to the resurrection of the Hindus 🕉.
Sugata Bose @Nilanjana Chakraborty : But we must neither seduce devotees by using higher principles to rationalise low exploitative ends as organisation is upto these days.
Sugata Bose @Abhijit Mandal : Let us follow the ideals these seminal ones represent instead of idle idolising. Vidyasagar's whole life was an exemplification of ideal practised to some degree of fulfilment. We should live like him instead of engaging in mere verbal indulgences tantamount to nothing. Efficiency in work, honesty of approach, manifestation of courage of conviction and character would serve better to further the cause that he stood for and be a more robust expression of our reverence. When the young Kalikrishna (future Swami Virajananda) and his fellow mates (all future monks of the nascent Ramakrishna Order) went to Vidyasagar begging for a small contribution that would help them celebrate a festival in honour of Sri Ramakrishna, the great one rebuffed them politely on grounds of uselessness of the endeavour in terms of real social welfare. The learned one of large compassion rejected all forms of passive piety and would have appreciated us in following suit for the betterment of society.
Sugata Bose @Pahari Pothik : No, I am not a relative of Netaji. But does it matter? Is being one's own self not infinitely better than basking in predecessor's glory as people are wont to showering on such descendants who gleefully accept the accolade? Self-respect would deem otherwise. Why are people so obsessed with such links of lineage in ascribing attributes? Were I to be linked by lineage to Netaji and hailed as somebody special by dint of being so, I would deem it an insult to my human self and my unique individuality as a once-visiting terrestrial person who at any rate can stand on his own feet and needs not predecessor's props to support himself.
Sugata Bose @Satnam Walia : Or to frighten them into submission. Human ingenuity seeks diverse methods to control the masses and the invention of divine and devilish tools has been most effective in securing such subjugating ends. But, alas, at what a cost! We are still paying for it.
Sugata Bose @Narendra Singh : We have enough positives to give. First let us do that, then we may contemplate receiving toxic elements from invasive alien culture into our system. We do not need them any more. They have penetrated our system for centuries to subvert our culture and reduce it to ruins. Now let us go back to roots and advance our ancient civilisaltional cause. Vivekananda waits in the wings, Shankara calls, the Rishis ring out their Vedic chants from across millenia, and all of these positives are yet to be taken in despite tall talk of progressive culture. Let us be men imbued with our own values first before we embark upon inferior values coming from elsewhere which we can and must dispense with for the while. Else, annihilation awaits us for sure, and such a fate can bever be allowed to befall the descendants of sages and saints.
Sugata Bose @Santanu Ghosh : Which game do you suggest? How can I be familiar with 'a grain of' your 'earth' when you alone are a son of the soil and we are all soiling your solitary reputation as such?
Sugata Bose @সৌ রে ন : Incidentally, Christopher Hitchens went further to be so anti-religion as to dub himself an anti-theist and not merely an atheist. Read his book entitled ' God is not Great'.
MESSAGES GALORE ... 20
1. A significant section of Hindus are the biggest enemies of Hinduism. Shameful! Despite a thousand year slavery they continue to hurt their own cause.
2. Slaves bicker among themselves. They cannot unite and, so, fall prey repeatedly to the ever-alert predator. Such has been the sad lot of Hindus as they fail to perceive their existential threat at the hands of proselytising Abrahamic religions.
3. Slaves, they want to rule over others, not knowing that they thereby merely exhibit their slavery.
4. স্বামীজীর ছবির পূজা ভাল কিন্তু আরো ভাল তাঁর বাণীর অনুধাবন ও পালন | পোস্টগুলো পড়ুন | শুধু ছবির মহিমাকীর্তনেই ক্ষান্ত হবেন না | স্বামীজী চাইতেন মানুষ তার মস্তিষ্কের ব্যবহার করবে | তাই করুন | তবেই তো ঠিক ঠিক ভক্তি |
5. Everybody talks about the democratic process. What about the demographic process with all its inevitable implications?
6. Reformation is necessary. But if you will not allow legitimate discourse citing threat to communal harmony, then how will society progress? 21st century humanity cannot be held hostage to medieval absolutism.
7. If you have a bare minimum of humanity, a tinge of rationality in you, can you yet hold onto medieval ideas that are patently antihuman?
8. Make it a habit to read Swami Vivekananda everyday. That is a sure way of a Hindu renaissance. Vivekananda will give you courage of conviction and remove all cowardice. Then and then alone will Hindus survive as a flourishing civilisation.
9. Tolerating intolerance cannot be a democratic option as we see now. If so, then democracy dies and is replaced by totalitarianism which will be the death of everything high and noble in human civilisation.
10. Persecution of Hindus continues unabated in Bangladesh.
11. Nipping in the bud all critical inquiry into theological assumptions degrades humanity. Better by far the scientific method of investigation into the claims of religion. Let evidence prove the veracity of such claims. Let reason be the guide and not arbitrary faith that has thus far held down humanity to the dark ages.
12. India must become a Hindu Rashtra 🕉 for her abiding spirit is Hinduism.
13. If you are a Hindu, practise its pristine precepts and preach the same far and wide in the spirit of service.
14. Cowards cannot realise God even if they be monks.
15. Christianity and Hinduism will unite to overcome the dark forces of religion. Ramakrishna and Christ will embrace in spiritual union.
16. The very Church that proposes peace also proposes proselytism. Strange!
17. We are not atheists. Our power we derive from Ramakrishna. He is the fountainhead of all that we are.
18. One's last resort is one's most neglected.
19. The golden mean is to be struck between obedience and independence.
20. Let the imagination soar unto heights of sublimity. Let the Spirit soar through limpid spaces.
21. I will restrict myself. I will raise myself and go beyond range. I am the rainbow being that melts into nothingness.
22. A spiritual symphony is in the making. It will overspread the world. The mission has slipped. A newer message is in the offing. The past will bury itself. A fresh efflorescence shall be.
24. Success cannot be in the absence of proper communication. A preoccupation with self is contradisposed to community success.
25. Monotheism will never win in India. The people love pictures too much.
26. Time for a change of gears for Hinduism. According to Swamiji Hinduism must go aggressive.
27. Devotion is constant loving memory of God and zero animosity to any. But resistance to evil must, nonetheless, be there and it must be paramount.
28. We carry the baggage of this world so long we are in the body. Once the body is gone, we are released of this universal burden.
29. May the heart be an expanding circle of love that embraces more and more people within its fold!
30. I cannot submit to God to get a passport to heaven. My love will create a heaven here on earth.
31. Do you believe in rebirth?
32. Does religion make man static?
33. Why is it that liberalism dies over and over again and fanaticism invariably wins to create its stranglehold on civilisation?
34. Hindu culture must be made to spread in the world. Otherwise, the forces of the dark will destroy humanity.
35. Does truth win or falsity?
36. Are we in the grip of medieval barbarism or are we truly civilised?
37. Hindu solidarity is needed. Overcome divisions within and unite on a common front. Let 🕉 be the divine symbol of solidarity.
38. When truth goes, goes with it virtue.
39. Every material object has a spiritual idea governing it.
40. Matter is the clothing of the Spirit.
41. Do not concern yourself with the faults of others. Rectify your own.
42. Time is flying, life is limited, wake up!
43. The Vedanta is the only universal idea that embraces all. All else are sectarian by differing degrees.
44. Let us clean up our hearts. That is the one Temple we need to keep tidy.
45. I am not the body. I am the enthroned Being within it. I am the Lord of this encapsulated universal mansion.
46. Is there a God beyond Me? None whatsoever. But who am I?
47. There is not a moment's rest for us. We are always working within and without. Even the laziest lazes not. In his idleness he broods feverishly.
48. The survival of us collectively depends on our efforts individually.
49. Man made God in His own image.
50. The Spirit is a discovery, religion an invention.
51. I shall cast in my own ploughshare of work and others will follow. Life must follow life.
52. Brush after eating. Do not eat after brushing. Brush twice a day. Teeth kept well, health remains well.
53. Every morning wake up to bow before your Self. But bow in humility and awareness of your inner glory and vow not to be vain.
54. Relative truth is relative falsity. Only the Absolute Brahman abides in transcendental Truth-status.
55. Perspectives define perception within the relative realm. But there is a state beyond the senses where perceiver, perceived and perception become One. To discover that transcendental Truth is the goal of individual and collective evolution.
56. Crooked people take to crooked philosophies. The virtuous ones are Vedantic.
57. We need Vedanta with a human face, not capitalism couched as Vedanta as the modern monks are resorting to.
58. A spiritual organisation cannot last long if it shifts its basis from Spirit to Money. Beware!
59. Sri Ramakrishna's prasad does not remain prasad if money is charged for it. Gone are the golden days when 'money is mud, mud money' (টাকা মাটি, মাটি টাকা) used to be the golden principle of organisational life.
60. চোখ দিয়ে দেখুন | মা তাকিয়ে আছেন আপনার দিকে আপনারাই চোখ দিয়ে | এখন প্রশ্ন হল, কার চোখ? কে বা তিনি? কে আপনি?
61. We are increasingly en masse becoming ignoramuses.
62. Has the mind been mortgaged to raising pictorial funds of ignorance?
63. আগামী প্রজন্মের বাচ্চারা লেখাপড়া ছেড়ে যদি তাদের অভিভাবকদের দেখাদেখি শুধু ছবির পূজো শুরু করে, যথা পদার্থবিদ্যায় আইনস্টাইন ও নিউটন প্রভৃতির, তাহলে কি মা-বাবারা খুশী হবেন?
64. Vedanta was discovered in India but is yet to be appreciated and applied in collective life by her citizenry.
65. We need a handful of brave and uncompromising patriots, not a nation of compromising fools. It is quality and not quantity that matters.
66.
শিমলার পুকুরে বাটি ডুবিয়ে
তুলেছি আমি হিমজল |
কাদের কথা বলি, ভেবে ভেবে তিনদিন
পারিস যদি তোরা বল |
67. The ability to call a spade a spade is a rare virtue indeed, especially in these days of wholesale sycophancy and compromised 'truth'-telling.
68. Devotees are conservative by nature and cannot bear truth-telling even when furnished with evidence. Alas, truth has taken to its celestial flight!
69. My Guru must be God even when he is not so. Religion then becomes more of a brainwashing exercise than a reasonable one.
70. Sri Ramakrishna said, "Money is mud, mud money" (টাকা মাটি, মাটি টাকা), an ideal which has been sadly and badly cast aside.
71. Employees must not be paid a monthly salary of INR 1250/2500/3000/4000 by spiritual organisations that receive public donation by the millions.
72. The nexus between the rich and the religious in equal exploitation of the masses is an age-old phenomenon.
73. Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied that he would reappear in human form after 100 years. 100 years are already over. Is the Lord among us now?
74. Save more to save yourself from potential penury in distressing times. Money will be devalued like anything in the decades ahead.
75. I will fall at the feet of the pariah before I bow before the ochre-exalted earthly one.
76. Swami Nirmalananda (Tulsi Maharaj) was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna. When will he be reinstated as such after being removed from his rank since the 1960s? When will historical truth be restored and fanciful falsification disallowed within the holy precincts of organisational life? If truth goes, goes with it virtue and vice reigns with unhindered venomous spread.
77. Belief is bad when it is blind as it invariably is. Experience of spiritual truth followed by rational justification if there be any to it, is acceptable.
78. Belief-based religions must adopt the scientific method or die in due course as society in modern knowledge advances. Where they fail to modify scripture or to shelve outdated principles that have been falsified by modern discovery, they will expire when their term of survival is over. As man advances, his philosophical awareness advances with it and outdated religions will be cast to the wastebin of history.
79. Learn rationality from Tagore. Stop being of unsound mind that depends on the irrational assumptions and arbitrary impositions of absolutist religions.
80. Giving tall talks on spirituality while pursuing monetary ends for supposed organisational consolidation is a hypocrisy that may be dispensed with.
81. Swamiji had forewarned the organisational pitfall of 'hanging by the sleeves of the rich'. And how true his prophecy has come, alas!
82. If spiritual organisations justify the raising of funds at the cost of core principles, they are bound to lose character and in consequence public sympathy in the end.
83. Ramakrishna, the loner who has now again been left in the wilderness with his principles withering away in the desert-sand of desire. His life's spiritual gains lie wastefully floundering in the absence of takers as men resort to money-making by way of supposed consolidation of welfare work. The Master has been badly let down yet again and that will necessitate his future descent in earthly attire.
84. If we are true followers of Ramakrishna, we must renounce totally all unholy association with filthy lucre that is corroding his very cause.
85. No organisational justification for money-making ought to be supported when it is a non-profit spiritual body of pristine principles dating back to the Master. Those that support such declining spiritual standards do the Order great disservice.
86. Sycophancy must not be construed as devotion.
87. If everything was going right about the mission of Mahaprabhu as his followers would claim, why did the Lord descend again as Ramakrishna? The same applies to the mission of the Master this time which when floundering will hasten the descent of the Divine. And, has not the hour arrived?
88. Sycophants are sycophants. They can never become devotees. The rich are ever hands-in-glove with the religious. Capitalism seeks the 'spiritual' facade to fulfil its nefarious needs.
89. When prasad is sold, it ceases to be so.
90. Rare is the devotee who stands up for truth. The bulk of humanity compromise slavishly with ongoing corruption within a spiritual order.
91. Donation must not be cleverly manipulated out of the pockets of the unsuspecting. Demanding donation by way of extracting the price of prasad depreciates the goodwill of a spiritual order obtained at a superlative sacrificial price.
92. Swamiji cries in the wilderness in vain as his followers 'hang on to the sleeves of the rich', an act that invariably spells the doom of a spiritual order as amply testified by history.
93. Those devotees who support low organisational compromise with spiritual principles, effectively spell the doom of the organisation. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof!
94. Loyalty to organisation must not degenerate to making common cause with corruption camouflaged as commercial need of the hour.
95. Ramakrishna asked them to renounce. They have now renounced Ramakrishna himself.
96. Defeat idea by idea, toxic ideology by enlightened rationality and resistance.
97. লেখাগুলো পড়ুন, বুঝুন, দেশের বিপদের দিনে জাগ্রত হ'ন | ছবির মহিমাকীর্তন ছেড়ে বাস্তবসত্য জানুন, বুঝুন, সচেতন হ'ন |
98. Europe is learning her bitter lesson of demographic overpowering. India shall learn hers as well.
99. Compromise and corruption are siblings. Those who indulge in one, necessarily give in to the other.
100. Those who blindly abide by authority without discerning between right and wrong may be fanatics but not devotees. Such, unfortunately, is the lot of many so-called devotees who will support organisational indiscretion at any cost but will never raise their voice against such. These, when they form the rank and file of the laity that provides the economic bulwark of a spiritual order that has gone wrong, are traitorous to the cause that the movement by original principle stands for, a movement which once upheld lofty spiritual values but has since strayed badly from the straight path. These devotees are destroyers of the Master's mission.
