READ VIVEKANANDA AND FIND OUT

READ VIVEKANANDA AND FIND OUT

Swamiji wanted aggressive Hinduism. On the contrary his followers have gone on progressively with defensive Hinduism that hypocritically harps on harmony with roguish religions intent on the destruction of Hinduism with a gory history of dastardly acts against Hindus and Hinduism for over a millennium to testify to this averment. It is time to shed this hypocrisy and come to terms with the civilisational challenge from inimical religions that faces us.

Harmony even Swamiji wanted but he was not shy to criticise roguish core tenets of an alien religion that had ruined our Hindu civilisation till the life of a Hindu for centuries remained uncertain each day under the tyranny of the zealot's sword. He, thus, constantly exhorted the Hindus to shed cowardice and rise in defence of the Dharma.

But we have failed him. Partition with all its preceding and succeeding horrific genocide of Hindus followed. We still did not learn. Now as Bharatvarsha is increasingly getting demographically changed and in proportion challenged, as the Sanatan civilisation is under threat of being wiped out in a century's time under this contrary demographic deluge, it is time to set everything aside and give topmost priority to the defence of our Dharma. Else, Bharatvarsha will die. 

Written by Sugata Bose

ঠাকুরের কজন সাক্ষাৎ সন্ন্যাসী পার্ষদ ?

ঠাকুরের কজন সাক্ষাৎ সন্ন্যাসী পার্ষদ ?

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তুলসী মহারাজ কে তাহলে---ঠাকুরের মন্ত্রশিষ্য না স্বামীজীর নাকি কারোরই নয় ? ঠাকুরের ১৭ জন নয়, ১৬ জন সাক্ষাৎ সন্ন্যাসী পার্ষদ---এই মিথ্যাপ্রচার আর কতদিন চলবে ? কবে আবার স্বীকৃতি পাবে ঐতিহাসিক সত্য তথ্যের ভিত্তিতে, ভ্রষ্টপ্রচারের শক্তিতে নয় ?

মিথ্যা দীর্ঘস্থায়ী হয় অনেক ক্ষেত্রেই, যেমন যীশুশিষ্যা মেরী ম্যাগ্ডালীনের ক্ষেত্রে | তাঁর মিথ্যা পতিতাপরিচয় পঞ্চদশ শতাব্দী ধরে বজায় রয়েছিল ক্যাথলিক চার্চের সৌজন্যে |

তুলসী মহারাজকে এভাবে সংঘব্যবহার হতে সরিয়ে রাখায় ক্ষতি হয়েছে এযাবৎ সংঘেরই প্রভূত | আর ক্ষতি হয়েছে সাধারণ মানুষের যাঁরা এই মহামানবের জীবনচরিত হতে বঞ্চিত রইলেন | বিষয়টি গভীর ভাবনার | সত্যকে সংঘগত কারণে চাপা দিলে সত্যের ক্ষতি হয় না, সংঘেরই ক্ষতি হয় | আর ক্ষতি হয় সমাজের, সংঘ যার ক্ষুদ্রতম সংস্করণমাত্র |

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)

COME ON, NO MORE PRETENCE, NO MORE HYPOCRISY IN THE NAME OF SURFACE HARMONY WHILE CORE CORROSIVE TEXTS LIE UNATTENDED TO

COME ON, NO MORE PRETENCE, NO MORE HYPOCRISY IN THE NAME OF SURFACE HARMONY WHILE CORE CORROSIVE TEXTS LIE UNATTENDED TO

https://youtu.be/Vu8KgncN2Iw

Preach harmony of religions in the name of Ramakrishna to these brutes who have no respect for human values. Pointless preaching to Hindus harmony of religions. They already practise it and have been doing so for ages. It is time to stop hypocrisy and visit the dangerous places with the message of peace and harmony. Pointless preaching peace to peaceful people which we, Hindus, are. Address the intolerance problem scripturally where you very well know they exist and do not pretend that all is well with these intolerant and persecuting faiths by cherry-picking passages from their scriptures or from the sayings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda while conveniently forgetting to mention the criticisms which Swamiji made about them. Come on, be sincere in the name of truth and stop pretending harmony where there isn't any nor is likely to be. Think of these poor girls, the veritable emblems of the Divine Mother who have been reduced to objects of sensual gratification of the worst kind simply because specific scriptural texts allow such exploitation of the infidel. And these are not isolated cases. Over a millennium of world history bears testimony to such dastardly acts in the name of religion. We, Hindus, in the subcontinent have ourselves suffered such tyranny for over 1300 years such that we yet are 'a wounded civilisation', to quote Naipaul.

Written by Sugata Bose

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 3

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 3

From age 22 Swamiji has been inspiring me to live and die for the cause of propagation of the Sanatan Dharma. I am now a fortnight short of 62. And yet he continues to fire me up even today. Strange hold Swamiji has on me! He has, as it were, as prophesied by him in America, 'eaten into my brain' with his 'words' which 'are spirit and fire' and I can 'never get away from them'. Neither do I wish to. Let Swamiji's words find utterance in my awakened soul and resound in every seeking soul so that the cause of the Sanatan Dharma is well served and Hindus 🕉 find security everywhere at a time that is most treacherous for them with proselytising cults on full prowl here in Aryavarta itself.

Written by Sugata Bose

P.S. Sorry for personalising the post on a spontaneous spur. But the impersonal message remains nonetheless. 

COMMENTS GALORE ... 25

COMMENTS GALORE ... 25

Sugata Bose @Rohini Jalan : Do you know that in India Hindus are being targeted by Muslims and converted to Islam on a systematic basis? More so the Hindu girls so as to reduce the number of Hindu births and increase instead the number of Muslim births to gradually tilt the demographic balance in favour of the Muslims for the future imposition of the Sharia as in Pakistan and other Islamic countries.

Much more needs to be done than routine chanting and reading. Feeling for the motherland and her Sanatan Dharmic culture and rising in defence of it is the duty of every Bharatiya. What feeling is there that prompts you to bed at the right time but makes you not wonder why I burn my deep-night fuel of life rising in defence of the Dharma, inching every hour evermore closer to the pyre to set alight the lives of fellow Hindus with its burning blaze? Upon the shoulders of the Braahman rests the defence of the treasury of the Dharma, says the divine Manu, and Swamiji adds on to that saying that upon every Hindu rests this responsibility of the defence of the Dharma.

Sugata Bose @Murthy Kvvs : My writings these are. Don't you see it's written below the post? In coloured boxes often it is inconvenient to put up such affirmations owing to paucity of space. Hence, needless advice, a trifle supercilious, is not solicited. Had it been Swamiji's writing, I unfailingly would have mentioned him as the author. Therefore, rest assured that such lapses, unpardonable as they are, are unacceptable by me, too. Plagiarism is not my forte. Thakur-Ma-Swamiji have blessed me graciously with the due resources to serve them in the manner I best can, in the literary mode. May the Holy Trinity keep blessing you and yours as well is my earnest prayer at their lotus feet!

Sugata Bose @Murthy Kvvs : Your arrogance bespeaks the little learning that prompts it. Great men think alike and so also small men. Ideas overlap, converge and coalesce. Your following or unfollowing the page depends entirely on you and does not require my solicitation. However, civility would have deemed a better attitude while addressing someone else's writing notwithstanding your democratic rights to speak the way that you have thought it prudent to do, perhaps. The royal road is open in all directions and you are welcome to any one of them. May Sri Ramakrishna be with you!

Sugata Bose @Murthy Kvvs: Your arrogance bespeaks the little learning that prompts it. Great men think alike and so also small men. Ideas overlap, converge and coalesce. Your following or unfollowing the page depends entirely upon you and does not require my solicitation. However, civility would have deemed a better attitude while addressing someone else's writing notwithstanding your democratic right to speak the way that you have thought it prudent to, perhaps. The royal road is open in all directions and you are welcome to any one of them. May Sri Ramakrishna be with you!

P.S. Despite it having been clearly mentioned below the post that the writing is mine, you have raised suspicion of possible plagiarism on my part which is discourteous, to say the least, a direct affront in the intermediate and an outright casting of aspersion on my character, if you understand what it means after all. Desist from such offences in the future. My first response to your rather caustic comment was comprehensive in consequence but it did not satisfy you for your doubt lingers. A doubting Thomas is never satisfied thus. Only post realisation does he come to sanity. 'Bhidyate hridayagranthi chhindanti sarvasangshayaa.' (Bhagavad Geeta) Hence, instead of having deliberated on an issue thus where you eminently are the offender, you ought to have been civil enough to appreciate the writing as duly this author's and not his plagiarised material from Swamiji.

Sugata Bose @Alok Sarkar : You are one person who does not insult my posts by posting emojis by way of comment. Thank you.

Sugata Bose @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : সত্য সর্বসময় সত্য, ত্রিকাল অবাধিত | তত্ত্বকে খর্ব করে সময়োপযোগী করে নেওয়া চলে না | অনুশাসন এক, তত্ত্ব আর এক | আদর্শ সর্বসময় প্রযোজ্য, ক্ষেত্রবিশেষেমাত্র নয় |

Sugata Bose @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : বিচারকালে জগৎ মিথ্যা | ব্রহ্মজ্ঞান হতে বুত্থানকালে সব কিছুই ব্রহ্ম বলে প্রতীত হয় | তখন এই বিচারকালীন মিথ্যাবোধ অন্য মাত্রা লাভ করে | প্রপঞ্চ ব্রহ্মরূপে সত্য বলে প্রতীত হয় | তখন উভয়ই সত্য---অদ্বয় ব্রহ্মরূপে সত্য, আবার মায়িক ব্রহ্মপ্রকাশরূপে সত্য |

Sugata Bose @Sharmistha Chatterjee : Stability is of the Self (Atman). All else are unstable in oscillating, undulating, disintegrating Maya.

Thank God that net is unstable there in the hills. A stable network of Maya would have held you in its clutches perpetually. But that can never be so. Maya holds but, itself being unstable by its very nature, has to loosen its grip on souls at times which allows them to escape to freedom in the discovery of the ever-free Self.

Sugata Bose @Vivekananda Mission (Biman Panti -- administrator) : Does this post deserve a place in this group? I would like to draw the attention of the administrator. Sorry for the intervention if it is deemed as an overriding of my rights as an ordinary member of this not so ordinary group, established, I believe, for the purpose of propagating the ideals of the Vivekananda Mission which, to my knowledge, had no culinary intentions to begin with akin to what the post proper improperly hints at.

Sugata Bose @Sanjoy Sankar Guha : Islamic brotherhood is limited to Muslims alone and not for the infidel (kafir). It is not universal brotherhood at all. And within the Islamic fraternity as well each sect calls the other a kafir, Sunnis and Shias providing the highpoint in this regard with fratricidal war raging between them since the death of Muhammad.

Sugata Bose @Ranita Indic : I am at last relieved to see someone write Ahalya instead of Ahilya which is the linguistic aberration in currency these days. Thank you, Ranita, for setting the spelling right. Regrettably, the wrong version is becoming right by dint of constant repetition online, much like Haridwar which originally was and still ought to be written as Hardwar. When I was a child I remember having seen at Hardwar railway station the name written as Hardwar. Today I see it written as Haridwar. Satyajit Ray has spoken about it in his final film 'Agantuk'. Thanks, nonetheless, for setting the narrative right in regard to Ahalya Bai Holkar of revered memory.

Sugata Bose @Manoj Sivan : But haven't you written elsewhere that the photograph posted by me (here appended as well) was taken by Sister Devamata? If it has been edited and added on, then my posts to the same effect on my profile, page and group stand nullified. Kindly confirm.

Sugata Bose @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : আমার তো পশেছে | অপরের কথা অপরে জানে | শুধু আমি জানি যে তাঁরা আমারই রক্ত, আমার জ্ঞাতি, স্ব-আত্মা, বন্ধু, প্রাণাধিক প্রিয় | তাই তো শতবর্ষ পরে হুঙ্কার দিই থেকে থেকে সেই ঋষিলব্ধ বাণী---ওঠো ! জাগো ! মরতে হয় তো স্বধর্মরক্ষায় মর | আর বাঁচতে হয় তো স্বধর্মরক্ষাকল্পে বাঁচো |

Sugata Bose @তাপস ঘোষ : Then why did you edit and alter its content? It is so misleading in that case for it is unhistorical and conduces to spreading misinformation.

Sugata Bose @Manoj Sivan : Yes. It's ready information now to be judiciously used so as not to cause undue offence. Otherwise likely to brew up controversy that will limit online activity. Truth becomes often unpalatable to people, organisations and the ruling dispensations, you see.

Sugata Bose @YouTube [J Sai Deepak arguing in the Supreme Court] : J Sai Deepak is a brilliant intellectual. He is superbly articulate as well which makes him a formidable foe for opponents and an insubordinate subordinate to superiors, his lordship in this case. Sai Deepak is the luminous star in a darkened Hindu sky, his lustrous presentations setting alight the horizons with the message 'Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached,' the clarion call which Swami Vivekananda had given over a century and a quarter ago. Sai is the representative voice of the Hindus 🕉 in many a sense, his accurate analysis of the current conspiratorial situation in India and its comprehensive solution, and his robust defence of the Dharma awaking thousands of Hindus and making them aware of the existential challenges that face them making him eminently fit for that epithet. Glory unto his movement, and boundless gratitude and love for this son of the soil who in heroic fashion is battling it out both in the law courts and in the Kurukshetra of life. May Sri Ramakrishna bless J Sai Deepak with life, longevity, health, happiness and power to carry on with his defence of the Dharma! 🕉

Sugata Bose @YouTube [ANI News] : This man is a fraud. That dance of his that has gone viral is not of spiritual ecstasy but of pronounced sensuality. That people get caught in his trickery is proof of the gullibility of the commoner, especially of the consumerist kind. The interviewer is either purposely pandering to this pretender's vanity or is herself of a superficial sort having no clue whatsoever as where genuine spirituality lies. Such men, as the interviewee is, are today the bane of our Hindu society, a scourge unto us and pertinent proof of the fact that time it is for a genuine spiritual revival to take place which these charlatans are patently working against. Be not deluded by these false prophets, as the saying goes. A genuine sadhguru would never name himself so but a fake one would to advance his self-interest. We need a Vivekananda today for the regeneration of the Hindus in particular and for humanity in general, and not these fraudsters who are bringing us as a polity to ruin. 🕉

Sugata Bose @snjpverma : Exactly. These are not men of God but are messiahs of moneymaking.

Sugata Bose @YouTube [Jaggi Vasudev staging deplorable Shivaratri dance] : What a fraudster! What a gimmick! What a waste of money! Misleading the people from the true dharma. An absolute charlatan and the consumerist commoners are gullible fools too.

Sugata Bose @Bidhu Bhusan Behera : Study Swami Vivekananda. The disease will be rid off.

Sugata Bose @Bidhu Bhusan Behera : But Swamiji himself advocated this view that the whole nation must be taught Sanskrit. It will revolutionise the national psyche and anchor Indians firmly in their cultural roots whose basis is Sanskrit literature, especially the literature pertaining to the Sanatan Dharma in its progressive phases beginning from remotest antiquity and rolling down to modern times.

Sugata Bose @YouTube [ANI News---Smita Prakash] : The interviewer (Smita Prakash) disturbs too much. She breaks the flow of talk by the interviewee (J Sai Deepak) by her needless interruptions. Sai is simply brilliant as usual despite all this.

Viewers are not as foolish as Smita Prakash imagines. It is an insult to their intelligence to keep on repeating that J Sai Deepak has sarcastically said something in reverse order to drive home the point better which, in Smita Prakash's considered and considerate estimation, the intellectually challenged audience will scarce be able to otherwise apprehend. Such low expectation from the audience is uncalled for and shows up the interrupting interviewer in a rather poor light. J Sai Deepak, brilliant as he is, was courteous enough to bear with her, albeit with flow interrupted, his level of thinking dipping and the grain of talk shifting at times. Brilliant interviewee, poor interviewer, shallow to a fault.

Sorry Sai. You have made a slip in saying that Aurangzeb was the Subedar of Bengal. He wasn't so. Aurangzeb was the Subedar of Deccan and Gujarat but never of Bengal. His elder brother Shah Shuja was the Subedar of Bengal who he drove away to the Arakans during the fratricidal War of Succession in which he (Aurangzeb) triumphant emerged.

Smita Prakash is too dull, too superficial to be able to interview this brilliant erudite and articulate well. Sai Deepak simply has to lower his intellectual level to accommodate her.

Sugata Bose @Narayanan P D Namboodiri :  Support my writings by regularly reading them. That itself will be inspirational for one striving alone in the desert-sand of an unsympathetic, cowardly, hypocritical section of the Hindu community which is more prone to pleasure than the preservation of their identity against marauding Abrahamic cults. Shame on us that we have sunk so low! Here work is to be done. Come along and join hands with me. 🕉

Sugata Bose @Amar Khanna : Sri Ramakrishna did not go the feet of the Mother. He himself was the Mother incarnate.

Sugata Bose @Amar Khanna : Amar Khanna : And Ishwara (God in the Vedic sense) because he was the essence of all deities, as you have rightly pointed out. Swamiji went further. He called Thakur 'Bhagabaner Baba', that is, the Father of God.

Sugata Bose @Comal Mahadevan Amrtheswaran : Sufism is a ploy to lure converts into Islam. It has historically worn a soft facade to camouflage its true intent. It is deception through and through. Read Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup to get a clarified understanding of Islam.

Sugata Bose @Debaprasad Bhattacharya : Oh, I see! You 'have read'---that is what you meant. I thought you were asking people to 'read' Ram Swarup alone. The word 'read' was used by you in the past tense whereas I thought you were asking people to 'read' Ram Swarup alone to the exclusion of Sita Ram Goel.

Sugata Bose @YouTube [Sangam Talks] : Robert Spencer is not only well versed in his subject but he is articulate and rationally persuasive as well.

Sugata Bose @Binita Ghosh : প্রগতির সাথে সাথে লিঙ্গভেদ বহুলাংশে দূর হবে বইকি | কিন্তু তা তো শুধু দেহভিত্তিক, মনভিত্তিক, বাহ্যিক | প্রকৃত অভেদবুদ্ধি আসে নির্বিকল্প সমাধিতে ও ব্যবহারে তা প্রকাশ পেয়ে থেকে সমাধি হতে বুত্থানের পর | তাই অনেকটা ভেদ কাটলেও সম্পূর্ণ কাটবে না | তাতে ক্ষতি নেই যদি উভয়লিঙ্গের সুযোগসুবিধা সমান হয় সমাজে | এই প্রতিবেদনটিতে সামাজিক অর্থে নয়, অধ্যাাত্মিক অর্থে এ কথা বলা হয়েছে | বাইরের বৈষম্য অন্তরের বিভেদজ্ঞান থেকে হয় | তা দূর করা সাধনার অঙ্গ | যেমন যেমন বৈষম্য কমে, তেমন তেমন সাম্যবোধ জাগে | আধ্যাত্মিকতার এই হল সূচনা |

Sugata Bose @Tapan Bhattacharya : Terrible photo of mine. Me at my thinnest, emaciated and at my photographed worst. Thanks for your labour of love, Tapan Babu, nonetheless, and for your good wishes.

Sugata Bose @Soma Das : Your birthday is the same as mine. I discovered just now to my surprised delight. Happy birthday!

Sugata Bose @John Embrey : That (hellfire) is essentially the devised ploy to frighten people into submission and to contain them within the specific faith. It is devised ploy and not revealed truth.

Sugata Bose @Rohini Jalan : Your qualifications are outstanding. Now you need to deepen your study in your specific field to be able to contribute pathbreaking insights into it. You must also broaden your academic perspective by enlightening yourself in your motherland's history and civilisation.

Sugata Bose @Shusobhan Charit : Study Vivekananda and you will see sense in what I have written. You have misread the content of this profoundly philosophical post and reduced it to superficial stuff which it is not. It is Vedanta in its inmost sense. This, alas, is the predicament one faces in terms of reader response to online posts! However, you are welcome to your own understanding but not so to imposing your characterisation of the writer's status in knowledge or understanding, if you understand what I mean. That sort of a supercilious attitude in terms of ascribing attributes on another is not only uncalled for but is positively uncivil and untrue as well, for none knows the other person's depth of knowledge or shallowness, as the case may be. What I have written is philosophically sound and corroborated by references to be found in the talks of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, leave aside personal experiences that may not be divulged here or be of interest to any anyway.

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 2

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 2

For a while manifest some manhood in fighting the menace of conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity. Educate Hindus about their dharma. Mere make-believe religious harmony does not match the deep differences that lie in the scriptural texts of Islam and Christianity with respect to those of the Sanatan Dharma. Harmony cannot be one-sided. As Sri Aurobindo had famously said, so long as Islam and Christianity continue to convert Hindus to their fold religious harmony can never be.

It is time to set up educational cells for Hindu adolescents and the youth so that they may get a fair idea about the core principles of their dharma and are thus able to ward off the real challenge they so often face of conversion attempted on them. We must organise academic institutions that will cater to this end. Right now we, Hindus, are a disorganised, disoriented mass of men [read humans] with poor knowledge of our scriptures. This is a serious problem which we must address and solve. How we may do so will be dealt with in future discussions on this subject.

Written by Sugata Bose

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 1

THE CONVERSION PROBLEM ... 1

Ramakrishna Mission should conduct regular classes on an organised basis for Hindus 🕉 with the specific aim of resisting the conversion of gullible Hindus to Islam and Christianity. No wishy-washy harmonic talk please but rigorous addressal of the conversion problem that is weakening Hindu society by the day and posing increased threat to national security. Swamiji was against even one man going out of the pale of Hinduism to Islam. He had said, "And then every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more." The following interview of Swamiji by Prabuddha Bharata will testify to the veracity of my statement. Please read it.

Written by Sugata Bose

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ON THE BOUNDS OF HINDUISM

(Prabuddha Bharata, April, 1899)

Having been directed by the Editor, writes our representative, to interview Swami Vivekananda on the question of converts to Hinduism, I found an opportunity one evening on the roof of a Ganga houseboat. It was after nightfall, and we had stopped at the embankment of the Ramakrishna Math, and there the Swami came down to speak with me.

Time and place were alike delightful. Overhead the stars, and around — the rolling Ganga; and on one side stood the dimly lighted building, with its background of palms and lofty shade-trees.

"I want to see you, Swami", I began, "on this matter of receiving back into Hinduism those who have been perverted from it. Is it your opinion that they should be received?"

"Certainly," said the Swami, "they can and ought to be taken."

He sat gravely for a moment, thinking, and then resumed. "Besides," he said, "we shall otherwise decrease in numbers. When the Mohammedans first came, we are said — I think on the authority of Ferishta, the oldest Mohammedan historian — to have been six hundred millions of Hindus. Now we are about two hundred millions. And then every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more.

"Again, the vast majority of Hindu perverts to Islam and Christianity are perverts by the sword, or the descendants of these. It would be obviously unfair to subject these to disabilities of any kind. As to the case of born aliens, did you say? Why, born aliens have been converted in the past by crowds, and the process is still going on.

"In my own opinion, this statement not only applies to aboriginal tribes, to outlying nations, and to almost all our conquerors before the Mohammedan conquest, but also in the Purânas. I hold that they have been aliens thus adopted.

"Ceremonies of expiation are no doubt suitable in the case of willing converts, returning to their Mother-Church, as it were; but on those who were alienated by conquest — as in Kashmir and Nepal — or on strangers wishing to join us, no penance should be imposed."

"But of what caste would these people be, Swamiji?" I ventured to ask. "They must have some, or they can never be assimilated into the great body of Hindus. Where shall we look for their rightful place?"

"Returning converts", said the Swami quietly, "will gain their own castes, of course. And new people will make theirs. You will remember," he added, "that this has already been done in the case of Vaishnavism. Converts from different castes and aliens were all able to combine under that flag and form a caste by themselves — and a very respectable one too. From Râmânuja down to Chaitanya of Bengal, all great Vaishnava Teachers have done the same."

"And where should these new people expect to marry?" I asked.

"Amongst themselves, as they do now", said the Swami quietly.

"Then as to names," I enquired, "I suppose aliens and perverts who have adopted non-Hindu names should be named newly. Would you give them caste-names, or what?"

"Certainly," said the Swami, thoughtfully, "there is a great deal in a name!" and on this question he would say no more.

But my next enquiry drew blood. "Would you leave these new-comers, Swamiji, to choose their own form of religious belief out of many-visaged Hinduism, or would you chalk out a religion for them?"

"Can you ask that?" he said. "They will choose for themselves. For unless a man chooses for himself, the very spirit of Hinduism is destroyed. The essence of our Faith consists simply in this freedom of the Ishta."

I thought the utterance a weighty one, for the man before me has spent more years than any one else living I fancy, in studying the common bases of Hinduism in a scientific and sympathetic spirit — and the freedom of the Ishta is obviously a principle big enough to accommodate the world.

But the talk passed to other matters, and then with a cordial good night this great teacher of religion lifted his lantern and went back into the monastery, while I by the pathless paths of the Ganga, in and out amongst her crafts of many sizes, made the best of my way back to my Calcutta home.