MESSAGES GALORE ... 55

MESSAGES GALORE ... 55

1. In childhood we were taught to begin a sentence with capital letter and to end it with a full-stop. A lesson sadly forgotten these days. Carelessness has its limits. Or does it?

2. In childhood we were taught to begin a sentence with capital letter and to end it with a full-stop. A lesson sadly forgotten these days. Surely, carelessness has its limits. Or does it?

3. We must inculcate a natural sense of symmetry which should characterise all our actions. Symmetry is the sundaram principle.

4. Symmetry is beauty, the conformity of the parts to the whole.

5. 'Hindusthan' would be a better substitute for 'Hindustan'.

6. US may be a hegemonic power but will increasingly find itself financially strained if it has to support the war efforts of its allies on multiple fronts. Geopolitics is a tricky game and calls for correct timing of armed conflict to derive aspired ends. US in a quandary now. 

7. Regularity of correspondence is the precondition to learning. 

8. Slaves ever think that they are masters, not knowing that they compound their slavery worse that way.

9. Which one would you do---read Sri Ramakrishna's biography or just look at his photographs?

10. Do we miss out on giving full-stop to mark the end of a sentence because we wish to impress upon the readers the Brahmic infinitude of sentences? A curious interpretation of the Vedanta!

11. We are not yet. We will become.

12. We have to develop far greater manhood in us as a race before we may feel a semblance of security as to the survival of our Sanatan civilisation against the marauding attacks of perverted proselytising cults that seek to destroy it.

13. A world of selfish means and selfish ends. Gratification of the self eating into the vitals of the world for ages. Awake!

14. What a thumping win for India! Sri Lanka obliterated.

15. Love of God is not institutional. It is individual.

16. Nothing for myself, everything for Thee.

17. The external and the internal make up the Whole with the mind being the comprehending interface of the dual terrain. 

18. Our educational institutions have overtime become hubs of politics and have thus become non-functional as academic institutions of merit. Hence the all-round decadence in our polity. We must drive out politics from our universities if we are to reverse this trend. But is that possible within the democratic framework where university politics is an integral part of national affairs?

19. The whole country has shamefully forsaken the full-stop at the end of a sentence as if a sentence supposedly has no end and is tending to infinity which is its Brahmic destination. Emoji substitutes for full-stop quite often. Such mass callousness is symptomatic of the cultural decline of a race and does not show it up well as a Vishvaguru.

20. Mother's children warring with each other, killing each other like savages, ancient animality impelling them unto fratricidal feud and an infertile future. Satan seemingly rules the world yet, God in His negative aspect working out the collective karma of the past with humanity rolling over again and again in the transmigratory cycle of terrestrial life resolving past deeds divine and diabolic unto an uncertain future. Shall humanity perish, Mother's children wiping each other out of phenomenal existence instead of wiping each other's tears while Mother in pain looks on? Or does She in Her cosmic dance of destruction orchestrate earthly savagery to extract the core divinity of man in course of time? A terrible ordeal at any rate for humankind blinded in ignorance and fury that perpetuate suffering. 

21. Duty does not let people love, the dust of desire confounding comprehension of the core content of life where love ♥️ abounds even unto transforming man into a god. 

22. Delhi air pollution a recurring annual phenomenon now. Yet another instance of national inefficiency, gross callousness of politician and polity. Stubble-burning in neighbouring state a nuisance every year that has not met yet with reasonable response or solution. Promises and proposals by governments to tackle pollution hardly materialise even as particulate matter floating in air keeps destroying Delhiites' lungs. Situation alarming, attitude shameful.

23. There are true Gurus and fake Gurus operating in the country, the former unattached to money and a rarity these days, the latter ruling the roost and minting money. Beware of these mercenaries masquerading as messiahs! Have faith in your own selves and reject these rogues with tall promises and eyes focussed on your pockets. Deliver yourself by your Self. Visit not these deceivers who do not themselves believe a word of what they preach.

24. Spiritual organsations are running after money, forgetting Thakur's dictum of 'Taka mati, mati taka'. What a sad state of affairs!

25. We are spirit. Personality is myth.

26. Christ saved himself. So must we. No Christ can save us. We must save ourselves. We are saved already. Just let the veil drop.

27. Do not believe in the Fire of Hell. None such exists except in your superstitious imagination affirmed and reaffirmed everyday through ritualistic prayer that holds you in its deathly grip.

28. You exist and that depth-existence is God. There is no other God. This is the highest Truth.

29. Unless the Vedanta spreads worldwide and dispels delusion existent as narrow nationalism and religious bigotry, there can be no peace on earth. The faster the message of the divinity of man disseminates across the world, the better for humanity. Right now it is the law of the jungle that rules---might is right. 🕉 

30. The only hope of harmony in our hopelessly fractured world lies in its understanding, appreciation, acceptance and practical implementation of the principles of the Vedanta which declares the divinity of all without distinction.

31. Children must be taught to be unselfish and that cannot be through hateful indoctrination from birth. Vedanta is the hope of humanity. 🕉 

32. Judge not an Avatar by the organisation that follows in his wake. The latter compromises on the former's principles and lends itself gradually to increasing worldliness.

33. The Jews are such a tiny minority in the world but by Jove, what a massive contribution to human civilisation they have made!

34. As China's population falls, its prospects rise. Reverse result for India.

35. Scriptures contain at best partial truth. The real truth is concealed in our selves and must be revealed in the fullness of time.

36. Here's a believer and here's a kafir springs from spiritual ignorance. All are divine---this springs from spiritual knowledge.

37. Christ is the only Saviour---this springs from spiritual ignorance. All are inherently saved, free---this is Vedantic knowledge.

38. ঘুম থেকে উঠে কথামত পড়ুন | দিন ভাল যাবে | ক্রমে অভ্যাসে পরিণত হয়ে ঈশ্বরের নিত্যসান্নিধ্যলাভ হবে, জীবন ধন্য হবে |

39. The calmer you are, the more successful you will be.

40. Happy birthday, Virat! Score your 49th ODI century today and match Tendulkar's world record to help India win at the Gardens. [5 November, 2023, World Cup league match, Eden Gardens]

41. Thank you, Virat, for fulfilling the hope of millions today. Morning's hope fulfilled by evening. Happy birthday! Happy world-record-equalling 49th ODI ton. [5 November, 2023, World Cup league match, Eden Gardens]

42. প্রাতঃপ্রণাম প্রভু |

43. প্রভুর প্রতি প্রেমই প্রকৃষ্ট প্রণাম |

44. Many of the monks we venerate as realised souls are at best quasi-realised, hence, unrealised souls. But Swamiji was a realised soul.

45. INDIA RISING

Nowadays, 'sovereignity' and 'publically' are doing the TV rounds for what ought to be 'sovereignty' and 'publicly'. What 'pronouncation' (instead of 'pronunciation' which is the other catastrophe that English words have suffered), dear countrymen! Literally, the English language is in ICU in a precarious condition. We are duly taking revenge on the British for holding us in bondage for two centuries. We shall teach them such a lesson naa that they will never dare to rush in where angels fear to tread. Hnaa.

Written just in jest by Sugata Bose

46. ALL IN GOOD HUMOUR, PLEASE

This Punjabi propensity to call elders 'paaji' is highly offensive to many a Bengali innocent of the Punjabi language. Fuming in anger they argue, "Ought you to show reverence to elders by insulting them thus?"

Written just in jest by Sugata Bose

47. Nobody has the guts to speak the bare truth. Watering it down to save one's skin is destroying whatever remains of civilisation.

48. Mahabharat is not merely an epic or ancient itihas. The ever-accumulating achievement of Bharat is Mahabharat, an endless growth.

49. Subhas Chandra Bose followed in the footsteps of the great revolutionary Rash Behari Bose to create conditions for the freedom of India.

50. Dreams never come true. Reality comes true.

51. Unless you value yourself nobody will value you.

52. Deleted the post on the Geeta shlok of Chapter 6.16 where through lapse of memory I off-hand misquoted it. Thanks Bhattacharya Kalyan for drawing my attention to it. Thanks a lot indeed. The concerned shlok is not related to excess work or too little work as I through misconception and memory-lapse assumed and wrote but is rather related to too much intake of food or too little of it as also too much of sleep or too little of it, either of which makes a person unfit to become a yogi.

53. For heaven's sake be manly. This was how Swamiji summed up his gospel in just one word---'manhood'.

54. Do not believe that if you convert to Islam your past sins will be forgiven. No such thing will happen. The Law of Karma is inviolable. These are so many ploys to trap you into conversion. Beware! Avoid those who give you the dawah (invitation to Islam).

55. Do not be hypnotised by scripture frightening you with eternal hellfire if you disbelieve and enticing you with intensest sensual pleasure in heaven ad infinitum should you believe. This is not spirituality. It is materialism all the way. Inducing fear and providing allurement cannot be deemed spiritual and must be rejected outright even if scripture provides such suggestions in the name of divine commandment. Be rational. Reject archaic assumptions, puerile medieval propositions. Instead master your senses, go beyond the body and become truly spiritual. 🕉 

56. The calmer a bowler is, the greater is his success. Refer Murali, contrast Shamsi. Hyper-excitement throws a bowler off-rhythm.

57. So long as merit alone does not remain the criterion for team selection and mandatory inclusion of at least two non-whites is the norm in South Africa, the nation will more often than not be at the loser's end in crunch knockout matches of the World Cup. Undiluted excellence alone is eligible for qualification for higher laurels.

58. What a distracting telecast of the match with inconsequential matters intervening dramatic match moments!

59. The average IQ of the nation needs to be looked at and academic standards and social discourse in accordance raised and rationalised so that we may emerge from our benighted state as a nation of literate fools.

60. I find it baffling that most of my reader-critics are unable to comprehend the very import of my posts and proceed to comment extraneously after their own fashion that suits their imaginary erroneous interpretation of my writings. This surely is not indicative of the intellectual health of a nation.

61. What's your prediction for the finals? India or Australia?

62. Levity of an absurdly inappropriate kind is ruining social discourse these days.

63. Literacy that makes a man devious and cunning is the progenitor of spiritual ignorance.

64. The only way to be an interesting conversationalist is to be well-informed about the affairs of the world, past and present, through wide and consistent reading.

65. যেখানে সম্মান নেই, সেখানে মতামত দেবে না, মৌন থাকবে |

66. Greed is bad.

67. Australia won the first ever Test match at Melbourne in 1877. Now they have won the latest great cricketing event at Ahmedabad in 2023, the 12th ODI World Cup. Thus has this sporting nation been dominant in cricket throughout its 146 year old history. Congratulations Australia!

68. Cricket is as much bat-play, ball-play as brain-play. Unless as a nation we learn discipline of thought, we will never succeed.

69. A barrage of inter-over advertisement telecast shows Indian commerce in bold relief while rupturing the flow of viewer concentration, especially irritating when fortunes of the final are plummeting.

70. The World Cup was handed over to the Australian skipper in a rather unceremonious and ungracious manner with the presenter not even commending him or exchanging a congratulatory smile. This is simply not done. Shameful! Compare this with the graceful manner in which Kapil Dev was handed over the coveted trophy in 1983. There lies the difference in civic culture. Moreover, the presentation of the World Cup was conducted in such a hurried manner, as if it was some corollary to the earlier presentation of medallions, that robbed the event of its sheen somewhat. If this be the way that it must be, then better to present the Cup at the outset and then proceed to presenting individual medals.

71. We are an immature nation. We simply love lazy adulation of our select 'heroes'. We cannot critically think and if anybody does so, we resort to endless trolling for the supposed offence.

Analysis and critical scrutiny are part and parcel of the civic discourse in a flourishing democracy, not in a floundering one. Now assess the state of the polity by this gold standard and arrive at your own conclusions. Mere adulation, hyper-emotionalism, frothy expression without rational content, lazy thinking and dizzy dreaming without follow-up work by way of substantiation do not make for excellence. Slipshod in mind, unfit in body and scattered in concentration, we hope to scale the summits of international excellence in proportion to our populous output?

72. জাতিগতভাবে চাই চিন্তার পরিচ্ছন্নতা, কর্মে নৈপুণ্য |

73. In victory and in defeat keep practising. Success is at hand.

Congratulations Team India for such a sterling tournament performance! That the Cup slipped by is inconsequential if the thinking be now set right which will ensure future success. But the mind must be ordered first.

74. Absorb what is best from the world, reject what is worst in you.

75. Why was the World Cup given away so late when the match and post-match proceedings were well and truly over for quite a while?

76. Sunil Gavaskar will be 75 next year. We appeal to the Government of India to declare him BHARAT RATNA in 2024.

77. God is man's most enduring imagination.

78. Is the Government of India contemplating honouring Kohli for his golden world record 50th ODI century?

79. Merchant, Hazare, Gavaskar, Vishwanath, Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman, Sehwag, Kohli. Who's the greatest Test Match bat of them all?

80. Individual players are important but the team matters most. Hence, hyper-adulation of individual cricketers must cease.

81. Sycophancy seems to the dominant feature in our polity. Rare do we see celebrity taking up a principled stand against corruption.

82. Those who get adulation in public life or are held up as our current national icons are hardly deserving of such elevated estimation. Men devoid of the moral fibre to look beyond personal interest can hardly be venerated the way they are. Where courage of conviction is lacking and in dire want is the moral strength to uphold high principles in public life, how can iconic figures truly be unless the polity has chosen to grovel to lend their heroes height?

83. Do you know what life is all about? Life is word given and word kept. Broken promises sully life and fill it with the stench of death.

84. What is achievement but a blind shot at freedom?

85. What is dharm? The guided track to freedom.

86. What is bondage? Savouring the honey from the spoon and not the sea.

87. No one in history has sunk into samadhi so often as Sri Ramakrishna has. He literally lived on the interface between the finite and the infinite, what in classical terms has been called 'bhaavmukh'.

88. The heart says it all.

89. We have to give up inhibition as a race and yet preserve our classical purity. There lies the wedlock between tradition and modernity.

90. Tamas and wickedness must be shunned.

91. Love cannot come where insults are heaped periodically. Respectfulness is the basis of love, reverence for the inherent worth of the person.

92. The decline of Bengal is the decline of India.

93. Love your way to labour and labour your way to love.

94. It's the tyranny of man, never of God. God is the facade tyrants have traditionally used to justify oppressive action.

95. What were the causes for India's failure to win the World Cup when the stage was all set for a victory?

96. যে জাতি জাগেনি, সে জাতিতে নেতানেত্রী তৈরি হবে কি করে?

97. People are prisoners of their ego.

98. The alarming rate at which the Indian population is increasing ought to be a cause of grave concern for our politicians. And, yet, this explosive issue (pun intended) will not feature in any political party's manifesto in the forthcoming national general elections in all probability. Whither are we headed as a nation?

99. Today is 26/11. We remember the martyrs to our motherland's defence, the sacrifice of our forces and the solidarity of our nation in that hour of crisis. Mumbai mourns and the nation mourns with it. Jai Hind!

100. We do a lot of hero-worship of our iconic personalities but do not bother to emulate them and emerge heroes ourselves. Alas!