THE CULTURAL CONVERSION

THE CULTURAL CONVERSION 

The upper-class Indian mind must be de-Anglicised and de-Americanised but not with a vengeance. Imitation is dangerous. Enlightened assimilation of the best of every culture the world over into the body politic of Indian culture is most beneficial. Neither regressive nationalism nor slavish culture-copying will serve our national interests. The soil has its own elemental composition that will yield best its typical vegetation. Keeping this in mind we must forge ahead as a nation in the wider community of the peoples of the world, absorbing, assimilating and growing along the line of our age-old national development. Our cultural characteristics must be preserved if our nationhood in substantive essence is to be preserved. The Bhagavad Geeta exhorts us to better die in the pursuit of our innate nature than succumb to terrible alien nature. This Anglicisation and Americanisation is connected to exposure to such cultures by the rootless upperclass Indian who by dint of wealth can afford such contact and conversion but the poor people are saved from such perversion owing to their rootedness in home culture simply because of poverty. Hence, the nation yet has a bright future. But the virus is spreading and hundreds of millions of middle-class Indians are coming under the sway of superficial and shallow westernisation with its concomitant evils. Thus, there is ample cause for concern.

Written by Sugata Bose

THE MASTER'S MISSION ... 1

THE MASTER'S MISSION ... 1

We need a monk of sterling character like the late Swami Satyarupanandaji to inspire us unto dedicating our lives for the mission that Ramakrishna-Vivekananda stood for. A living ideal alone will inspire an otherwise somewhat insipid movement that we are witnessing today.

When ideals are compromised, the life of organisation suffers. Cherry-picking passages to suitable use such as Swamiji having said that the spiritual current that had hit the banks of Belur Math in the being of Ramakrishna would last 1500 years and that the Ramakrishna Mission was the extended gross body of the Master, cannot conduce to its lasting well-being. Here each one of us who belong to the Master's Mission have a role to play. We must build our character in the mould of the Master direct as is evident in his sayings in 'The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna' and not in the mould of the selective statements made by individual monks from within the organisation where they run contrary to the original intent of the Master. Then rectification through pressure from the lived lives of dedicated devotees will come in the organisation proper and Thakur will no more suffer such neglect as, unfortunately, he has been subject to in the preceding several years, the last straw having been added to it on 1 May, 2022 when his vesper service was conducted for a large while without the vesper song 'Khandana bhava vandana' being sung as the loudspeaker lectures drowned vesper proceedings with the final lap of the Devotees' Meet being run paying scant respect to the Master's temple service, an unprecedented feat now freshly achieved as a progressive mark of the Mission. 

Written by Sugata Bose

''TAGORE, QUELLE HARMONIE!'' ... ROMAIN ROLLAND

''TAGORE, QUELLE HARMONIE!'' ... ROMAIN ROLLAND

Rabindranath Tagore was the outstanding genius of what has now come to be known as the Bengal Renaissance. His was a versatile genius in literature, music and art unrivalled in the annals of Indian history and holding pride of place in world history as well. Tagore was not only prolific but his poetic and musical compositions were of a very high order as well in terms of their timelessness and universality of appeal. His works are our great national treasure even as the Taj Mahal which incidentally Tagore had described as 'a tear-drop on the cheek of time'.

As we celebrate the 161st birth anniversary of Tagore on 9 May, 2022, we must remember that we owe it to the poet to be creative in our endeavours as we build our nation, hopefully along the broad lines envisioned by the poet in his Gitanjali poem, 'Where the mind is without fear'. One more thing --- we must indeed celebrate the life of our poet about whom the French savant Romain Rolland had exclaimed in admiration, "Quelle harmonie!", who Europe beheld in the inter-war years as a veritable Messiah, whose Gitanjali held the literary circles of London in rapturous silence culminating in the Nobel Prize in 1913, this, our poet, we must honour by reading his works and comparing notes with the other great geniuses the world has seen that we may do better justice towards appreciating his own genius.

We must scrupulously avoid the innate tendency in us to offer him blind adulation instead of properly studying the development of his life and works. Our heart's love is for him, for sure, for where shall we get another like him who was, perhaps, the climactic evolution of the Indian artistic tradition, but even so, we must not surrender our critical faculties or creative discernment in absorbing the genius that was Tagore. Only then can we do him honour as, perhaps, he would have liked, and only then, perhaps, we as a nation may hope to keep our artistic traditions up and evolving towards giving birth to future Tagores, for infinite is the potential of Man. It may sound facile, but did not Tagore say, 'হে নূতন, দেখা দিক আরবার জন্মের প্রথম শুভক্ষণ' ? ('Hail heralding newness! May it show its visage once more, that hallowed first moment of birth!')

Our prostrations at the feet of our beloved poet, our venerable Gurudev.

Written by Sugata Bose

এও বুঝি ধর্ম ? তাহলে অধর্ম কি ?

এও বুঝি ধর্ম ? তাহলে অধর্ম কি ?

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প্রবক্তা হতে প্রবহমান প্রজন্মাবধি পবিত্রতাবিহীন যে পাশব সম্প্রসারণ পৃথিবীজুড়ে, তাকে ধর্ম আখ্যা দিই কি করে ? স্বর্গারোহণ যার পার্থিবভোগের অসমাপ্ত অধ্যায়, পরবর্তি পরিপূরক ও অনন্তের অন্তিম অভিলাশ, তাকে অধ্যাত্মপথ বলে অভিহিত করি কি করে ? মোক্ষপ্রাপ্তির ধারণামাত্র যে মতে নেই, যার আকস্মিক পার্থিব সূচনা, সমাপ্তি ও পশ্চাৎপরিণতি ব্যাখ্যাবিহীন বালখিল্যের বাতুলতামাত্র, তাকে ধর্ম অথবা ভগবৎপথ বলে অভিহিত করলে মিথ্যাচার হবে | এহেন মতে বিস্তর মানুষ নাম লেখাতে বাধ্য হলে অথবা জন্মসূত্রে বহুল ব্যাপ্তি লাভ করলেই কি তা ধর্ম বলে বিবেচিত হবে ? কখনই না | সভ্যতার সম্প্রসারণে, বিজ্ঞান ও বেদান্তের বিস্তারে চন্দ্র যেমন সূর্যপ্রকাশে মিলিয়ে যায়, তেমনই এই অসহিষ্ণু, অনৈতিক, অমানবিক, অত্যাচারী মত তার অন্ধ উৎসের অতলান্তে মিলিয়ে যাবে | শুধু সময়ের অপেক্ষা আর ক্ষয়ক্ষতির আশঙ্কা, এইমাত্র |

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)

ARE WE CIVILISED?

ARE WE CIVILISED?

The jungle is our original habitat. We have left the jungle and civilised ourselves but have not been able to get past our original instincts, that of the ferocious forest. Civilisation thus far has been skin-deep. For all our vain talks humanity in the main is hardly human. The animal rages in man with all his advanced demonic technology and weaponry snuffing the life out of man. Politics has thus far been diabolical, proselytising religions no less evil, often more so. The forest in fine form resides behind the facade of cities. Violence, once in the animal-man instinctive, has assumed preposterous premeditated proportions. The forest-man is at best the camouflaged city-dweller with all his ancient propensities sharpened by a refined intelligence and an unrefined heart. The 'selfish gene' (courtesy, Richard Dawkins) yet rules the roost as the moral man struggles to emerge amidst the barbarism of the bulk. And yet through all this violence and vice the selfless man slowly emerges to create a new world order where wisdom rules reason and reason reigns over divisive superstition. It is as yet a long way off but the onward march is on. Charaiveti! (Onward!)

Written by Sugata Bose

'SAVING' THE HEATHEN AND SENDING TO 'HEAVEN'?

'SAVING' THE HEATHEN AND SENDING TO 'HEAVEN'?

When will Islam and Christianity stop converting people? They should take a cue from the Ramakrishna Mission if they really care for our people. Conversion is an offence. It is a violation of the dignity of the individual, a statement that one's present position which holds one is unworthy of continuance and one needs to make a fresh beginning along alien channels of thought and culture for improvement of spiritual prospects. It is a direct desecration of the soul, the very soul that Christianity wants to 'save'. It is a needless transplanting of the sprouting seed from its fertile soil to its desert-sand of dry death. Such cultural carnage is unholy. And Christianity and Islam consistently do so. They must mend their proselytising ways and reform along the lines the Ramakrishna Mission follows for harmonic living. 

Written by Sugata Bose

FAITH WHEN IT IS ANOTHER NAME FOR FANATICISM

FAITH WHEN IT IS ANOTHER NAME FOR FANATICISM 

Religions based on exclusive faith invariably turn fanatical, especially when they pursue a political doctrine that is deemed spiritual by supposedly divine decree and is mandatory upon its adherents to zealously follow. The Indian dharma traditions by contrast are based on direct experience of Truth and not on faith. Hence, they are so liberal and humanistic. 

Conversion is a great sin. Growing in numbers so as to forcibly eliminate all other religions by dint of it is another evil. 

These fanatical religions are inhuman, antihuman and must be rejected. Their adherents will fall behind in the advancing tide of civilisation. Then they will be forced to reject the vice that had so long held them back.

Reason must replace fanatical faith. Realisation of spiritual principles must then transcend even reason. This is the path to be followed. 

Written by Sugata Bose