SELF-REFLECTION ... 1

SELF-REFLECTION ... 1

I feel so tired at times, weary of life, utterly jaded, worn out, dejected, insulted, slighted and let down. Then inspiration comes yet again, filling me with fresh vigour to battle on in this Kurukshetra of life where dharma must eventually triumph. But the slights and the insults, this rubbing of rough souls, this clash of personalities with all their pettiness, all this leaves me sore before the new rays of dewy dawn freshens me with life and vigour once more. The glorious Ganga flows, the ancient hills beckon with their mute murmur, the southern breeze blows with its fair fragrance, its invigorating touch, and I awake to yet another leaflet of the book of my life, a pilgrim since primeval times traversing the forest tracks till modernity opens up new vistas across the shifting, expanding horizons of life. The path has been long, uncharted tracks yet await me as I, a solitary soul, trudge on carrying the ancient lantern of the sages guiding my path through the myriad mazes of Maya. Will I reach the goal? Will Mother take me in through the deep dark night to the sunlit summit of sublimity? Mother knows best. I can only submit, no more. May Mother's will be done! 🕉 

Written by Sugata Bose 

THE DIVINE DILEMMA

THE DIVINE DILEMMA

Greed on one side, moralising on the other. This won't work. The youth need renunciates to show the way. But who will? Monks and religious leaders pander to the vanities of the rich and the power of the politicians, all the while justifying such action in the name of welfare work. Capitalism in all its naked viciousness has entered monasteries and universities, and the leftist reaction in like terms is coming. What is lacking on both fronts is character which is the bedrock of civilisation and all upward movement. Materialism has enveloped the land as a dark mushroom cloud and when it showers, acid rain poisons the fair fruition of the soil.

A toxic soil can only breed toxic vegetation. And so it is with the soil that is leftist India, producing generations of revolting youth (pun intended) and creating a curious medley of progressive and degenerate ideas which are ruining more minds than they are building. Here spiritual India must come to the rescue. But, can it, when monks and monasteries themselves are falling victim to the third vice, greed, and its cousin, exploitation of labour? Ponder and alter stance. Then set yourself to work, the work of spreading the word, the word of Vivekananda who was Comdensed India. Vivekananda was character personified and the propagation of his life and message will lend character to faltering Bengal, to failing India.

Written by Sugata Bose

GANDHIJI, FATHER OF THE NATION?

GANDHIJI, FATHER OF THE NATION?

Netaji called him so. Gandhiji was a son of the soil. This eithet conferred on him was with respect to the prevailing times when his figure loomed large over the political scenario that precipitated independence and brought into being the modern nation state of India. But as times have passed historical India in all her past glory has emerged from behind the cloud cover of her recent colonial past and set into shadow her current foisted identity of a newly built republic. Here India's eternal status has put things into perspective and cast aside all such epithets accorded to men of modern eminence as puerile propositions bearing no more meaning than what titular honours bear. Thus, Gandhiji has been reduced to his due status as a luminous soil of the soil whose life's labour was his offering to his mother, the motherland Bharatvarsha, and not the other way round as the mother being born out of the son which is blasphemous to even conceive of. Bharatvarsha has a hoary heritage, a pristine past and has borne worthy children through the millenia, children such as Buddha, Mahavira,  Rama, Krishna, Yajnavalkya, Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Nanak, Meera, Chaitanya, Rammohun, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Guru Tegh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh, Shivaji, Manarana Peatap, Samarth Ramdas, Kabir, Dadu, Ashvagosha, Nagarjuna, Shilabhadra, Atisha, Panini, Patanjali, Veda Vyasa, Valmiki, Kalidasa, Janaka, Janaki, Ashtavakra, Gargi, Maitreyi, Kshana, Varahamihira, Aryabhatta, countless Rishis of yore, in short, uncountable seers, savants, sages and saints, Avataras and Vibhutis who have contributed their ploughshare of work, their labour of love to bring into being today's India in consequential terms. Thus, to eliminate all our forefathers and posit Gandhiji there as the sole father of the nation is to put the cart before the horse which can ill move the nation forward along its evolutionary path. History deems a re-reckoning, events need their proper placement, modern movements need to be put in perspective and our nation's modern heroes need to be accorded due recognition in historical terms and not as per effusive emotional hyper-approbation that tends to obliterate the seminal past of this glorious Bharatvarsha. 🕉

Written by Sugata Bose

MESSAGES GALORE ... 49

MESSAGES GALORE ... 49

1. Wash everything except your brain. Keep your faculties alive and fight conversion.

2. Don't seek heaven. Don't fear hell. All archaic superstition. Reject. Study. Build your life. Be self-dependent.

3. Swamiji has given us a mantra which no one follows. He said, "Unite the forces of goodness." Swami preached strength and expected us to be strong in every sense.

4. Reject superstition. Be rational. Seek truth on the basis of evidence and not blind faith. This is the way to strength.

5. Use your brain and scrutinise religion. Let it stand the test of reason. In so far as it does, accept it. Where it fails, reject.

6. Islam was forced onto India through Arab conquest. Christianity was forced onto India through European conquest. Sufferer? Hindus.

7. Continuous brainwashing creates robots out of men to be manipulated at will and create chaos in civilised society. Ponder.

8. Stop cruelty to animals in the name of religious sacrifice. Give life a chance.

9. The resurrection of the Sanatan Dharma and the complete restoration of subcontinental Sanatan culture is the goal. 🕉

10. Do not mortgage your brain to faith.

11. When in the land be of the land. Alien culture doth ill befit thee. Gayatri, Geeta, Ganga ought to suffice.

12. It takes a lifetime to overcome inbuilt superstition. Blessed are those who are free of such cramping beliefs, blessed indeed!

13. Submission has its limits. How much must women submit to men in the name of obedience to God when men may rule as they please?

14. Give up fear. You need fear no God, no fire to fear. Make paradise on earth by declaring your inherent freedom. Submit to none.

15. Stand on your own feet. Be independent. Fear none. Let courage be your guide through life. Be self-confident. You will triumph.

16. Why fear God when you are in essence God? Give up childish conceptions of a creator omnipotent God. Affirm your own divinity.

17. With deep distress I see helpless people suffer the tyranny of a created God of archaic attributes, of medieval tribal conception.

18. Honouring women holds the key to a rising civilisation.

19. Question religion. Seek evidence. Do not blindly believe. Test. Reason. Train your brain. Reject authority that dictates. Be free.

20. Release the stranglehold of religion and you will see civilisation rise in all its varied facets. Civilisation thrives in freedom.

21. Be not a slave to ambition. Work in freedom. Enjoy every bit of it. Be unattached.

22. If you are brainwashed from birth into believing in the doctrines of a religion, it becomes mighty difficult to rationalise and come out of it. But try and come out. Your reason will help you, your self-belief, so far stifled and crushed but never quite extinguished, will make you triumph. Stop believing blindly in God or any other divine or human agency and start believing in yourself. You will be at peace. Best wishes and all support in this difficult endeavour. You must win and you will.

23. Swamiji says that the Abrahamic scriptures are said to have been inspired but the Sanatan scriptures have been expired. Meditate on this essential difference. By this Swamiji means that the Abrahamic scriptures have an external source outside of the prophets whereas the Sanatan scriptures have as their source the very heart of man. A crucial fundamental difference with huge philosophical implications. 

24. Halal and halala! Hai hai!

25. When you love God, you are loving yourself. All prayer, reflection, meditation, concentration are self-reflective.

26. Ignorance about the principles of the Sanatan Dharma is the primary cause of conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity.

27. Your karma judges you every moment. The Sanatan Dharma does not postpone it to the Last Day or the Day of Judgement. That is an Abrahamic concept which is philosophically untenable as per the Sanatan Dharma.

28. How can Sikhs convert to Islam ever after knowing what the Mughals did to their Gurus and their families?

29. Organised conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity is going on. Hindus must organise themselves to resist it. Moreover, Hindus must go missionary and propagate their Dharma far and wide while educating their children in its essence. We need activists, think-tanks and preachers of quality. Each Hindu must be a missionary on behalf of the Dharma. Reconversion of perverts from the Dharma must be widely organised. The Arya Samaj has been doing this since inception through their Shuddhi Movement. May more such reconversion channels open up!

30. Varanasi and Mathura must be recovered by the Hindus and purged of inimical influences. Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura---these are our trinity of holiest places.

31. The uttam bhakt anticipates the Guru's needs.

32. It is the heart that feels that sees God, not the head that quotes scripture and moralises.

33. Holiness and unholiness are the moralising done by the unfeeling man. Love all such who have fallen.

34. Who am I? Who are you? Who are we all?

35. 'Greed' for God must not degenerate to hankering for heaven.

36. শ্রদ্ধাবিহীন অধ্যয়ণে বিদ্যা নয়, অবিদ্যা বৃদ্ধি হয় |

37. বাইরের ভেতর আর ভেতরের বাইরে অনুস্যূত ব্রহ্ম |

38. Manhood, Swamiji said, was his last gospel. That manhood is most absent in some of his followers who are effeminacy personified.

39. "বালিতে চিনিতে মিশে আছে |" ঠাকুরের এই বাণী গভীর তাৎপর্যপূর্ণ আধ্যাত্মিক, দার্শনিক, ঐতিহাসিক, রাজনৈতিক, সব দিক দিয়েই | বোঝা চাই |

40. I am a worshipper of God, His myriad images, multiple gods as representations of His multiple aspects. Any problem?

41. Bharatvarsha is my mother. I have no grandfather that way for my motherland is unborn, eternal and has no father.

42. Maharana Pratap Singh, Chhatrapati Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singhji are our heroes.

43. If a spiritual organisation becomes rich, it loses spiritual power. Spiritual decay then sets in causing its eventual demise.

44. "Arise! Awake! Approach the one who has at the Truth arrived. Seek his counsel. Then proceed along the path that is like the razor's edge and difficult to traverse." --Kathopanishad.

45. Is it good to support the rot in a spiritual organisation or is it better to resist the rot by refraining from doing so?

46. To stand on one's soul is spirituality.

47. 

Thought, speech and action must match and in purity abound if one is to be deemed spiritual. But the preachers of spirituality in the mass market that they milk seldom fulfil the trinity of obligations. Caught on camera above was one that did.

48. Ragging has reduced education to rags.

49. Less word, more work.

50. If universities become the hub of decadent culture, what remains of civilisation?

51. University students, study Vivekananda and become luminous citizens of this great nation.

52. Spread Vivekananda. Do not run after money in the name of welfare work. See how our university students are turning into degenerate materialists tending to smoking and drinking on campus, and justifying such license as legitimate natural rights. Let the words of Swamiji spread like a forest conflagration consuming all material dross that afflicts left-leaning West Bengal today.

53. নিজের প্রচার ছেড়ে স্বামীজীর প্রচার করো | তবে জাতি জাগবে |

54. ফল পেতে গেলে ফলের আকাঙ্ক্ষা ছাড়ো ।

55. Ragging অশুভশক্তিসম্পন্ন অসংস্কৃত কাপুরুষে করে | Ragging is evil.

56. বৈরাগ্য না এলে ভগবানকে চেনা যায় না |

57. যে ভগবান তোমায় বাঁচান, তুমি তাঁকেই মারো?

58. It is better to be reasonable and rational than fanatically religious.

59. Conversion is not only a cultic conquest but a cultural conquest as well with deep civilisational ill effects. Hence, deplorable.

60. Ragging is not innocent indulgence in pranks. It very often is tantamount to criminal offence.

61. মেধা থাকলে কি হবে? জড়বাদ, ভোগবাদকে আশ্রয় করে শ্রদ্ধাবিহীন যে মেধা, তা অধার্মিক, নিষ্ঠুর, অমানবিক কর্মের জনক |

62. Fanatical faiths take freedom away from their followers. Reason should help you to reject such faiths that curb your freedom.

63. বুদ্ধি ও শিক্ষা থাকলেই হয় না | শ্রদ্ধা, পবিত্রতা, সুরুচি, সুসংস্কৃতি, সংযম ও সর্বোপরি চৈতন্য থাকলেই মানুষ যথার্থ মানুষ পদবাচ্য হয় |

64. Don't fear. There is no God waiting to cast you into the Fire. That goes against the very spirit of God who is all love.

65. Reject fear born out of brainwashed faith in damning scripture. Be spiritual. Be compassionate. Be free.

66. Man-made words masquerading as God-made ones. Falsity from first. A bit of reason would reveal the truth about it.

67. If rebirth is true, you will have to be reborn even if your book tells you otherwise. Truth is higher than what your book reveals.

68. How many decades more will fanatical faiths last?

69. Liberalism must not be built upon quicksand foundation. The brute must be faced square on and combated. Low preferential politics engaged in to bring about progressive changes will backfire in the long run as in Iran prior to and post the Iranian Islamic revolution.

70. স্বামীজীর ছবি ছেড়ে স্বামীজীর লেখা পড়ুন |

71. (5/7500) × 100 % = 0.066% of my followers on an average 'like' my posts. A stupendous success rate, indeed!

72. Today I met a few young people at a family function. I was saddened by the utter lack of Vivekananda-awareness among them. 🕉 

73. Nobody will go to hell. Reject such hellish ideas born of primitive ignorance.

74. The percentage of practising Muslims is far higher than that of practising Hindus. Herein lies a 'striking' difference.

75. Fear not. You are the imperishable Atman, the one permanence behind this ever-changing perishable universe, the sole constant behind all universal variables. Let fear fear you, let death die upon you. Move on resistless along your onward path. Who can stop your progression unto eventual fulfilment? 🕉 

76. Don't believe in any scripture that damns you to burn in hell for so-called failure in faith. Be fearless. Be free. 🕉

77. We need virile, bold expositors of Swamiji's message in like lightning terms, thunderous personalities cutting through the veils of Maya and lifting the audience to rarefied heights of soulful Self-awareness and sacrificial self-giving.

78. We need pure souls today who do not run after politicians in the name of being apolitical and money in the name of renunciation.

79. It is best to pride on one's own achievements and not bask in familial glory of a past great of divine descent.

80. মানুষ মেরে যে বিপ্লব, তা দানবরাজে পরিণত হয় | চাই চরিত্রগঠন যা সনাতন ধর্মের সারমর্ম, স্বামীজীর বাণীর নির্যাস |

81. স্বামীজীর বাণী নিজে পড়তে হবে আগে---তন্ন তন্ন করে |

82. Language has its limitations. Which is why pleaders find out loopholes in law. Interpreters of the law are thus necessary who must pass judgement on what the scope and intent of the said law is and how far it has been observed or violated.

83. On Facebook I find many anti-Swamiji elements. Surprised to discover such pernicious persons. They are also patently anti-Hindu.

84. As I see online malicious maligning of Swamiji, my resolve to spread his message grows stronger. Swamiji's devotees, support.

85. Swamiji being judged by every হরে প্যালা পঞ্চা !

86. শ্রদ্ধাবিহীন তথাকথিত উচ্চশিক্ষিতজনের একটি বেশ বড় অংশ, বিশেষতঃ উচ্চবর্ণের বঙ্গবাসী, যে স্বামীজীর প্রতি বিরূপ মনোভাব পোষণ করবেন, তাতে আর নতুন করে আশ্চর্য হওয়ার কি আছে ? বর্তমান ভোগমুখী সমাজে জড়বাদী শিক্ষা যে মানুষ তৈরী করতে পারছে না, তার এর চেয়ে বড় নিদর্শন আর কি হতে পারে?

87. All of India over the moon.

88. You must pretend that all is hunky-dory with the world you live in. If you raise your voice, you'll be held accountable for it.

89. বড় দুঃখের বিষয় যে যাঁরা সবচেয়ে বেশী 'হিন্দু, হিন্দু' করে সোচ্চার, তাঁরা প্রায় কেউই স্বামীজীর 'বাণী ও রচনা' ভাল করে পড়েন নি, পড়েন না, পড়ার প্রয়োজনও সম্ভবত বোধ করেন না |

90. ব্রহ্মচর্যবিহীন উচ্চশিক্ষা মনকে ঊর্ধ্বমুখী করতে বিফলকাম হয় |

91. ভোগাকাঙ্ক্ষা থাকতে ভগবৎ চেতনা সুদূরপরাহত |

92. ভারতবর্ষের সনাতন আদর্শ আত্মজ্ঞানলাভ | শিক্ষার উদ্দেশ্য তাই ব্রহ্মচর্য অবলম্বনসহায়ে এই উচ্চতম শিখরে মানবমনকে প্রতিষ্ঠিত করা |

93. যে উচ্চশিক্ষা বিদ্যার্থীকে দেহবুদ্ধি অতিক্রম করতে সহায়তা করে না, বরং তাকে দেহবুদ্ধিতে অধিক আবদ্ধ করে, তা ঘনীভূত অবিদ্যা |

94. Lunar landing on the south pole a new feather in the cap of ISRO.

95. 

Squadron leader Rakesh Sharma, India's first spaceman.

96. "I reached America, as you know, through the help of a few friends of Madras."-Swamiji 

Mark, Madras and not Calcutta!

97. I want neither good nor evil but God who is beyond both.

98. বিনয়ভূষণ বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়ের সন্ধানে আছি | সবই দেখি আত্মশ্লাঘা আচার্য | বিনয়বাবু, কোথায় গেলেন ?

99. Hindu girls, be careful of the marital conversion trap!

100. Moderate fanatic? What is that? Hindus, guard your religion. Do not convert.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY (15 AUGUST, 2023)

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY (15 AUGUST, 2023)

Today is the day to remember the martyrs to the motherland who died to win freedom for us, a day to mourn the loss of millions of lives that were laid waste by centuries of colonial oppression and a day to celebrate that despite a dismembered territorial sovereignty gained after endless suffering, we at last stood a dominion in direct control of state affairs, a state that achieved fulfilment two and half years later on acquiring republic status. Our forefathers have suffered that we may breathe the fair air of freedom. Our prostrations at their feet, our reverential love ❤️ and resonant feel of their every pulsation of heart that yearned for freedom and groaned under the tyranny of the times. Vande Mataram!

Written by Sugata Bose

SPARE THE BRAIN AND SAVE THE CHILD

SPARE THE BRAIN AND SAVE THE CHILD

Do not frighten children into submission to faith. Let them grow up and reason for themselves. If you love them, you will spare them this ordeal.

Taking away the faculty of rational thinking by substituting irrational doctrines in the growing consciousness is injurious to the growth of children and produces either lame followers of fanatical leaders of faith or transforms them into fanatics themselves. From birth to death let them not be haunted by the fear of hell and the lust for heaven. This is the way to developing healthy citizens of the future. 

Break away with the octopus-grip of archaic superstition passing off as faith. Religion, if it has to be a positive factor in the onward march of human civilisation, must allow men the freedom to think, question, doubt and reject it if necessary without the penalty of death following it. Scepticism must be the foundation of the discourse in faith just as in science. Only then is faith worthy of being followed. Else, it is archaic superstition fit to be rejected. 

Written by Sugata Bose

ভাববার কথা

ভাববার কথা 

--------------

পড়ুন যা লিখি | চিন্তা করুন | শুধু ছবিতে আকৃষ্ট হবেন না | চিন্তা না করলে চৈতন্য আসবে কি করে ? স্বামীজী বলেছিলেন ১৯০০ সালে তাঁর বিখ্যাত বক্তৃতা 'Is Vedanta the Future Religion'এ, 'Let men be thinkers.' ['মানুষ চিন্তাশীল হোন |'] তাঁকে কি আমরা হতাশ করব ? তিনি তো মহাসমাধির অব্যবহিত কাল পূর্বে দুঃখ করেছিলেন যে তাঁর উচ্চ উচ্চ ভাবগ্রহণে তাঁর অনুগামীরাই অপারক | তাহলে আজও কেন আমরা শুধু তাঁর নামে শূণ্য জয়ধ্বনি দিয়ে ক্ষান্ত হব ? তাঁর ভাব বোঝার দিন এসেছে | ভাবুন | রামকৃষ্ণ-বিবেকানন্দ ভাবান্দোলন আজ ভাবজগতে বহুলাংশে ব্যর্থ আমাদের লঘুতিত্ততার জন্য | আসুন, গভীর অনুধ্যান করি তাঁদের জীবনবেদ | সেই অধ্যয়নে আছে পরম কল্যাণ, তার অনুসরণে দেশগঠন, জাতিগঠন, আর বিশ্বমাঝে তার প্রচারে মনুষ্য সভ্যতার রক্ষা |

রচয়িতা : সুগত বসু (Sugata Bose)