PROSELYTISING AND CLAIMING TO BE A RELIGION OF PEACE?

PROSELYTISING AND CLAIMING TO BE A RELIGION OF PEACE?

How can proselytising religions claim to be peaceful, especially when they are also exclusive in their monotheistic creed? Is it not a contradiction in terms? Only a broad-based democracy of faith that allows the personal pursuit of any Chosen Ideal (Ishta Dev/Devi) within its liberal fold of philosophical catholicity can lay claim to peacefulness for it rejects none of the pathways to God and accepts all, even the agnostic and the atheist as diverse perspectives on the same eternal truth of life and the being. In this regard the Indian dharma traditions are truly spiritually inclusive and peaceful, not the religions of the Abrahamic tradition which are all, to a greater or lesser degree, violent in their attitude towards religious denominations that differ with them on perspective.

The Vedanta, thus, remains the hope of future humanity for peace and spiritual wisdom, and the Vedanta is the climactic evolution of the long ancient tradition of the Sanatan Dharma which is commonly referred to as Hinduism, a historical aberration that seems now beyond linguistic rectification. 

Written by Sugata Bose

LARGER LIVING ... 2

LARGER LIVING ... 2

There is a desperation in the human mind, born out of a sense of helplessness in the face of the uncontrollable elements that threaten life itself, that brings forth a reckless courage in combating life's evils. And there is hope and a sense of fatalistic security in the belief that a merciful and just God will, after all, protect them that quickens this courage in threatened souls. Eventually, it is the innocence of ordinary people and their sheer helplessness in the face of religious persecution and terrorism thereof that calls out the nobility of their beings in living their lives in divine dependence and in goodness.

Such stressful circumstances of sustained persecution brings out the best of community feeling among these oppressed people and ennobles them in their increasing sense of the impermanence of life and the futility of a mere material living. Their close encounter with death and destruction makes them value life more, increases their empathy and draws out in their growing detachment their most courageous elements to combat the dangers that ever stalk their lives.

Ultimately, it is the triumph of their souls amidst adversity that makes their larger living for the common good a celebration in a collapsing world of desperate dreams.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Coptic Christians of Egypt who are under enormous Islamic fanatical persecution.

LARGER LIVING ... 1

LARGER LIVING ... 1

It is necessary to feel for our people and do what we can to alleviate their earthly misery. Let us begin with our own family first. For as they say, charity, indeed, begins at home. But let us also expand our idea of home and include wider humanity within it. After all, we are a single human species, a vast variegated people but of a common biological ancestry and a common terrestrial habitat. Why must we confine ourselves within artificially laid small limits when the vast world calls us unto a larger living?

Written by Sugata Bose

SHAME ! SHAME ! SHAME !

SHAME ! SHAME ! SHAME !

Our country is doomed so long we remain cowards and, so, ungrateful in our forgetfulness of our revolutionary heroes who sacrificed their lives for our freedom. A nation devoid of gratitude, manhood enough in rising to virile remembrance of the ones who gave their all for its freedom does not deserve the best in the world and must suffer, so, at the hands of all those countries who treat their heroes better.

It is a shame that a nation that prides itself on spirituality must be so sunk in inhumanity and ignorance that its brightest stars remain hidden from its vision by the cloud cover of its own despicable living, its downright degradation of culture, its abysmal effeminacy of the intelligentsia, the educated and the so-called highly literate. Even the average run of humanity in this country, among the middle classes, are callous about these seminal personalities and are content to go about their humdrum existence, chasing the means of daily survival merely.

Such opacity can scarce make a nation in any manner spiritual and it is a shame that it is so. Vivekananda today hides his head in shame and so does Netaji Subhas that their motherland should be begetting only cowards ever since they castigated their followers and struck up the fire of revolution in their sinews, in their bloodstream, in their every pulse-beat that eventually liberated the nation.

Shame ! Shame ! Shame !

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi

FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARIES ... 1

FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARIES ... 1

Bijoy Kumar Sinha and Raj Kumar Kumar Sinha played seminal roles in the extreme revolutionary movement for freedom in India.

Bijoy Kumar Sinha was born on 17 Jan, 1909 at Kanpur. While in Christ Church College he joined the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association along with two friends of his, Ajoy Ghosh and Batukeswar Dutt. He was convicted in the Lahore ConspiracyCase but could not be immediately apprehended by the police. He went underground for full two years before being arrested and sent to the notorious Lahore Jail. Bijoy Kumar Sinha was also involved in the in the Delhi Conspiracy Case. His brother, Raj Kumar Sinha, had participated in the Kakori Train Robbery.

Inside Lahore Jail conditions for the political prisoners was so abominable, nay, subhuman, that the convicts all lodged their protest by means of indefinite hunger strike till the conditions were improved by the authorities. Jatin Das died after his 63 day fast. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and a host of others also participated and rocked up the British authorities. Bijoy Kumar Sinha was also a participant in this famous hunger strike.

When the judgement of the Lahore Conspiracy Case was out, Bijoy Kumar Sinha was sentenced to lifetime deportation to the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andamans. Here he again participated in a hunger strike. In 1937 the Government repatriated the Cellular political prisoners and Bijoy Kumar Sinha was incarcerated in a mainland Indian jail. In 1945 he was eventually released.

This is the brief profile of one who had engaged in revolutionary activity of an extreme kind to free us from colonial shackles and suffered in consequence a lifetime of imprisonment and torture in the dreaded Cellular Jail. Today, he remains a forgotten hero as we, who breathe the air of freedom on account of the sacrifices of revolutionaries like him, have conveniently chosen to cast his memory into oblivion. I ask one question just. Are we men? Do we deserve to be free?

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Bijoy Kumar Sinha

Source : https://shibham.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/our-real-heroes-59-bijoy-kumar-sinha/

RAJENDRANATH LAHIRI, MASTERMIND OF THE DAKSHINESHWAR BOMBING AND THE KAKORI TRAIN ROBBERY, A FORGOTTEN HERO

RAJENDRANATH LAHIRI, MASTERMIND OF THE DAKSHINESHWAR BOMBING AND THE KAKORI TRAIN ROBBERY, A FORGOTTEN HERO

Rajendranath Lahiri was the mastermind behind the Kakori Robbery and the Dakshineshwar Bombing. He was an active member of the Hindustan Republican Association whose objective was to evict the British from India by armed revolution.

Rajendranath Lahiri was born in 1892 in Mohanpur village in the Pabna District of East Bengal in a wealthy Brahmin family. His elder brother, Kshitish Mohan Lahiri was a landlord there.

Rajendra Lahiri was a leading participant in the Dakshineshwar Bombing episode whereupon he absconded to Benaras and took to his studies there. Revolutionary activity was quelled in Bengal for the while and spread to Uttar Pradesh. By then Rajendra was doing his postgraduate course. He became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association along with many others.

Revolution needed money to become operational and, accordingly, it was felt that the Government treasures coming by train would provide the necessary resources if looted. The Kakori Train Robbery was, thus, masterminded by Rajendra Lahiri. and executed with close associates, Ramaprasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan, Chandrasekhar Azad, Sachindra Bakshi, Keshav Chakravarty, Manmathnath Gupta, Murarilal Gupta (in real, Murarilal Khanna), Mukundilal Gupta and Banwarilal.

Rajendra Lahiri was apprehended by the British police in Bengal in connection with the Dakshineshwar Bombing Case and sent to ten years' rigorous imprisonment.

Then the Kakori Conspiracy Case was opened and Rajendranath Lahiri being its mastermind was tried for it. A stray unintentional discharge had resulted in the death of a passenger of the Kakori train by the name Ahmed Ali and this led to the case being fought on the basis of both robbery of Rs 8,000 from the Government Treasury as well as manslaughter in the attempt. Eventually, the verdict was out and Rajendranath Lahiri along with Ramprasad Bismil, Ashfaqualla Khan and Thakur Roshan Singh were sentenced to death by hanging.

The final act was done in Gonda District Jail on 17 December, 1927, two days before the scheduled date. Lahiri, Bismil, Khan and Singh were hanged to death for sedition against the Raj.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : left -- Rajendranath Lahiri ; right -- top, Ramprasad Bismil ; middle, Thakur Roshan Singh ; bottom, Ashfaqulla Khan.

JUDGE THYSELF FIRST BEFORE THOU JUDGE THY PRECEPTOR

JUDGE THYSELF FIRST BEFORE THOU JUDGE THY PRECEPTOR

Before judging the Guru man must judge himself whether he is fit for receiving initiation. Only when he has himself fulfilled the spiritual conditions enjoined upon him as obligatory by way of prospective discipleship that he is in any position to start judging the spiritual sufficiency of the prospective preceptor. When these conditions have been fulfilled, he may proceed to pray for spiritual initiation and thereon embark on the long voyage of spiritual practice.

Written by Sugata Bose