COMMENTS GALORE ... 46

COMMENTS GALORE ... 46

Sugata Bose @Ujjwal Sarkar : The six Vedic schools of thought:

1) Sankhya 2) Yoga 3) Nyaay 4) Vaisheshik 5) Mimangsa 6) Vedanta.

The three non-Vedic schools of thought:

1) Jaina 2) Bauddha 3) Charvak.

All nine schools are either Vedic or reactions to the Vedas, and are all elements of the massive composite called the Indian dharma tradition.

Sugata Bose @Tanmoy Lodh : But that requires the removal of the Abrahamic religions from India which are scripturally bound to discriminate between the believer and the infidel which is for all practical purposes an impossible task in the short run. The universalism of the Sanatan Dharma makes it ideal for the integration of India but then there are so many Indians who being adherents of other religions or subscribing to no religion at all are outside its ambit. Social cohesion can never be if Islam and Christianity continue to be aggressively proselytising and continue to use force, fraud, inducement and marital methods to undermine the Hindu polity. Hence, is your suggestion that forever Hindus must continue to concede ground by making undue compromises while Islam and Christianity continue to be intransigent in their stated scriptural stance carried to corrosive social practice that can never allow the Hindus to rest in peace as it has historically been the case? Yes, the government of a secular state must be religion-neutral in line with the principles of the Constitution but how long do you think the parliamentary democracy that we now have will last given the asymmetrical demographic change that we are witnessing with Muslim numbers alarmingly rising with their concomitant rising jihad of all forms? Will a Muslim majority population allow the survival and prosperity of non-Muslims in a Sharia-ruled state? What then? Whither integration in the distance and that too not too far? 🕉

Sugata Bose @Koenraad Elst : Swami Vivekananda's statement regarding this is proof of what I have said. It clearly reveals your ignorance of the deeper aspects of the Sanatan Dharma. Study Swamiji well and hopefully grow up from being a mere intellectual of sorts to a person of deeper spiritual realisation whose endpoint is of course the realisation of Brahman. Godspeed unto your intellectual and spiritual enlightenment!

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : Rammohan and Vidyasagar may not have worshipped 'earthen images' but Ramakrishna and Vivekananda did. The images are seemingly made of earth like the whole of phenomena is material but their essence is divine which you have failed to understand.

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : Raja Rammohan Roy and Dayananda Sarasvati being adherents of an aspect of the Vedanta and the Purva Mimangsa respectively were both Sanatanis. Both are on record as having regarded themselves as Hindus and not belonging to any sect extraneous to the Vedic Dharma. Image worship is not intrinsic to original Hinduism but is a Buddhistic evolutionary development which was historically adopted by the Hindus and thus became integral to its vast body politic. But acceptance of the Vedas as inviolable is fundamental to Hinduism which both these great Hindus to the hilt did. There are certain irrational secondary elements in the Vedas which Swami Vivekananda said need not be accepted but the essential elements are a sine qua non for all Hindus. Study Swamiji to get clarification. 🕉

P.S. Hinduism is not a dated dead system of thought but is a living tradition that keeps evolving round the central principles of the Vedas and as such the incorporation of image-worship does not take away its essential character which lies in its first principles of the transcendent Brahman, the immanent Brahman, Karma, transmigration of the embodied soul, the identity of the Atman and the Brahman, and the concept of Truth being One (transcendental) but the wise ones calling It variously (through name and form). ['Ekam sadvipraa bahudhaa vadanti.'] Monotheism is elemental but not essential to Hinduism as henotheism, pantheism, non-dualism, qualified non-dualism, dualism and other interpretations of the Vedas are also deemed systems within the Vedic Dharma. But all these systems are spiritual and none materialistic. This must be marked as the signature of the Sanatan Dharma. There has to be movement of the embodied being towards liberation that is Mukti or Moksha. One life, no Law of Karma, arbitrary dispensation of an overruling Deity who decides on heavenward or hellward destination of the soul based on its single life's deeds are not part of Hinduism.

The fundamental point is that Spirit and not matter determines the soul of the Sanatan Dharma, matter being deemed the seeming manifestation of the Spirit. To be a Hindu in the religious sense---as opposed to the loose civilisational and cultural sense---one must subscribe to its essential spiritual principles. Those that do not and yet claim that they are materialist Hindus are welcome in the all-embracing arms of the Dharma in its civilisational sense. Godspeed unto them towards realising that they too are the Spirit in apparent bondage of Maya! 🕉

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : The Brahmos follow the Upanishads and are therefore Sanatanis. The Arya Samaj follows the Vedas and, hence, are Sanatanis. If it is news to you, I can only congratulate you on receiving it. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Koenraad Elst : And all your spiritual ignorance will not add up to more than the material cipher which you seemingly stand on but in due course will be forced to shift stance and stand to discover your real roots in the eternal Vedas which are not poetic compositions but are revelations as Vivekananda has averred. Visit Vivekananda and learn. To quote Swamiji, "A man may be an intellectual giant but a spiritual babe." And I do not lend you such an exalted epithet as well. 🕉

P.S. 'The Paper on Hinduism' read out by Swami Vivekananda at the Chicago Parliament of Religions on 19 September, 1893, whose online link I have afforded you in my earliest comment in this stream is not pretentious quotation of authority but a sincere one in truth. Hence, your insincere stand in branding me as pretentious stands exposed. I say, return to Vivekananda and begin afresh by studying the rudiments of the Sanatan Dharma. Along with it reverentially meditate on the deeper aspects of the Dharma by coming out of your supposed intellectual cocoon. Religion is realisation, not mere reading of texts whose real read eludes understanding owing to the incapacity of 'the one seer (mental) can attempting to hold four seers of milk (that of knowledge)', to quote Sri Ramakrishna. Hence, your misapprehension of my writing and of my intention thereof, and my apprehension of what the Hindus are to learn about their Dharma from narratives set about it thus, as afforded by you above, for instance. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : He was spiritually short-sighted as averred by Sri Ramakrishna. He was not a Brahmajnani and had, despite his highly estimable character, magnanimous heart and attainments as a social reformer, fallen short of witnessing the Eternal Witness within, the Atman that resides in the deepest cavity of the heart. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : I have not questioned the integrity of Vidyasagar who I deeply revere but have merely stated, in response to your unending references to him in each and every comment of yours and here to your particular question posed to me, that he (Vidyasagar) was spiritually short-sighted in the sense that he had not realised the Self or the Atman. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : So, were Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Shankaracharya and countless Self-realised souls dabbling in imagination whole life while the materialists have stood in reality? Can you prove the existence of this universe for that matter without presupposing your own existence? And you must remember that such a presupposition is not rational at all.

Sugata Bose @Nilanjan Chakraborty : Not at all. Jeevkotis can rise through sadhana or through divine grace to realisation of the Atman and even continue in the body as jeevanmukta (living-free) on return to the phenomenal plane post realisation.

Sugata Bose @Goutam Ghosh : Degeneracy of the times, sensuality spiralling downwards, materialism gone murky, perversion putting up the pretence of gender liberalism, effeminacy engendering social corruption, overall a despicable order of inverted ideals. (Reference to Bengali men dressing up as women and, that too, one scantily clad in upper inner wear.)

Sugata Bose @Tanmoy Lodh : Prospective scam (Electoral Bond) nipped in the bud by the Supreme Court of India.

P.S. However, dharma cannot be kept aside as it regulates ethical behaviour. Moreover, it is staple to Bharatvarsha, being its spirit and civilisational essence.

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : Kindly accept my pranam and continue the deliberations as before. Senior citizens like you, erudite and cultured, are of honourable intentions always and I hold such in high esteem ever. Feel free to communicate unhindered, unhestitant, and I shall respond in a like manner. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : I think Debaprasad Bhattacharya here is referring to Vidyasagar's letter to the then English government. He himself can clarify best. Do hold your patience awhile for him to respond.

Sugata Bose @Koenraad Elst : Physics existed before the first principle of it was discovered. So also the Vedas have eternally existed. You are confusing a book called the 'Veda' with the body of spiritual knowledge called the 'Veda' in much the same way as someone may mistakenly identify a book called 'Physics' with the subject 'Physics' itself. 

Read the following passage from Swami Vivekananda's 'Paper on Hinduism' read out by him on 19 September, 1893 at the Chicago Parliament of Religions.

"The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honour them as perfected beings..."

https://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/addresses_at_the_parliament/v1_c1_paper_on_hinduism.htm

Sugata Bose @Koenraad Elst : Your spiritual ignorance is simply stunning. No amount of explanation can dispel, it seems, the material dross that has covered your consciousness and enveloped you in Mayic delusion of an inferior order that in its patent intransigence refuses to see the light that is all around. No wonder you sink to calling me names and resort to casting aspersions on my motives, adorning me with improper adjectives which is most unbecoming of a supposed gentleman and, worst of all, refusing to even comprehend the passage from Swami Vivekananda that I have quoted by way of explanation of what I mean. Hitting below the belt may suit you but is beneath my dignity. Irrational intransigence has simply no limits as is evident from your stubborn refusal to understand the import of what I have said. No wonder Swami Vivekananda had forewarned us, Hindus, that the day we sat at the feet of the westerners to learn the rudiments of our Dharma, that day this benighted race of ours would have become extinct. I had imagined that scholars like you would have better discretion, judgement and idea about the essentials of the Sanatan Dharma than you have unfortunately but in fulfilment of Swamiji's forewarning exhibited thus. Godspeed your understanding! 🕉

Sugata Bose @Koenraad Elst : Swami Vivekananda has averred what he has averred and you fail to understand or address it. You have not the spiritual experience to understand the point I am making and are making matter out of Spirit, mistaking the envelope for thd letter and the case for the content. Veda is the sum total of spiritual principles governing phenomena at its foundations and you fail to understand it because you are rooted in a rustic material interpretation of it. You have to study Swami Vivekananda thoroughly to dispel this delusion and remember Sri Ramakrishna's words that the 'Pundit' who has not an iota of renunciation can speak volumes of scriptural stuff without comprehending its essential significance. Renounce to read into the depths of the Dharma. May Sri Ramakrishna bless you! May Swami Vivekananda illumine your understanding! May the Spirit reveal unto you where It stands, shorn of seeming material superimposition! 🕉

Sugata Bose @Subhrajyoti Bhowmick :  Socialism in the Marxian system is the preliminary preparatory phase of the people's revolution and communism is its final phase in its ultimate evolution where the state, 'the organ of class rule' in Lenin's words, withers away as the ideal utopian socioeconomic order unfolds where there is a total absence of exploitation of the proletariat in any form and perfect order obtains. 

There are many versions of socialism, though, not all of which are Marxian but all of which are geared to alleviating the misery of the masses from capitalistic class exploitation. These several kinds you see in different countries the world over as 'left movements'. The welfare schemes that abound in Europe and to a lesser extent elsewhere are the result of such socialistic movements of the past and are democratic responses to the threat of communism that loomed over Europe post the publication of Marxian thought from mid-nineteenth century onwards. The Russian revolution of 1917 and Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe post World War II consolidated such European welfare measures in free Europe to avert the threat of the democratic state precipitating into a communist one.

Hinduism is a dharma which as such is independent of any socialistic content in the European sense of it as socialism is a materialistic philosophy while Hinduism is preeminently spiritual. The Ram Rajya of Gandhi is an Indian socialistic concept which is called Gandhian socialism but it lacks the rigour of economic thinking that can become practicable in the modern world. Even classical communism of Marx has become obsolete in today's highly evolved technological world where such Marxian absolute stipulations simply do not work. Marxism in the classical sense has failed everywhere and is now an outdated unscientific system as science itself has marched ahead of its Newtonian materialistic stand and is uncovering day by day the underlying realm of ideas that elude deterministic behaviour which is the scientific basis of Marxian thought.

Swami Vivekananda gave a lot of thought to this issue of class exploitation and concluded that in the coming age people's government will be everywhere which he called the advent of the 'Shudra Yug'. Now this could mean democracy as well as communism in its socialist connotation. More such systems are likely to develop where the people's voice will become more and more pronounced and their power exhibited progressively more.

With respect to crony capitalism, as obtains very much in India, it can only be said that this is in direct contravention of people's interests. Ambani's expenditure on family wedding, if well accounted for, is within legal bounds and cannot be countered as such but it certainly is a glaring pointer to the economic disparities that abound in a growing capitalistic state even with welfare pretensions. This worship of Mammon cannot be condoned as obtains in a society riddled with crass consumerism and this certainly is not in keeping with Sanatan principles. The shlok of the Upanishad 

'ईशावास्यमिदँ सर्वं यत्किञ्च जगत्यां जगत् ।

तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जीथाः मा गृधः कस्य स्विद्धनम् ।।' 

clearly enunciates what is incumbent upon Sanatanis and stands in direct opposition to what we are upto in our indulgent consumerist living whose extreme illustration is the aforesaid Ambani wedding's exhibitionist expenditure. Ethically, spiritually and socially this ought not to be if we are strict Hindus and abide by Upanishadic injunctions.

As the population of our country grows, despite GDP growth at whatever percentage, economic disparities will increase and social discontent seethe. Thus, we must devise ways and means to reduce disparity and bring in greater equitability of resource possession by all and sundry. Every such move adopted along Constitutional lines will be welcome but the intent must not be to secure power by wooing the electorate with insufficient and unsustainable doles. How it may be achieved is difficult to conceive all at once, for it is a complex socioeconomic problem and will need constant and continuous work at it, but, to return to rudiments, it must be by character-building of citizens through proper education along classical Indian lines suited to modern requirements, as Swamiji had envisaged. Hinduism in all its elaborate philosophy underscores the need to renounce and serve, as Swamiji had pointed out ('Renunciation and service are the twin national ideals. Intensify her in those channels and the rest will take care of itself.'---Swami Vivekananda), and this must be the basis for all of its practicalised socialism in whose absence there will be violent people's revolution overturning things unless of course through demographic turnabout---rather unlikely as of now and a long process at any rate should it ensue in the long run---order is restored better. Therefore, training of the individual to live a morally sound frugal life, as Hinduism enjoins, is step one of this complex collective build-up. So, let us begin with hope and assurance in our prospective progressive civilisation in line with classical conception and guided by the divine duo of the modern age, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, whose message as well has sadly been missed in practical terms of late. 🕉