POESY : WITH US, IN US THEY ARE

WITH US, IN US THEY ARE

The departed ever haunt the mind,
The living become dearer.
Those that have gone so far
Now ever seem so nearer.

Composed by Sugata Bose

UTPAL AICH FIRES AGAIN

UTPAL AICH FIRES AGAIN
https://www.facebook.com/utpal.aich.7/posts/2064532046923250

Utpal Aich's capacity to sift through cartloads of data and then to be able to arrive at a reasoned conclusion about historical heresies perpetrated is itself mind-boggling. The wealth of data he provides by its sheer density overwhelms the reader and one has to seek some respite from it to regain one's breath, so to say. These are serious essays that are so richly funded in historical detail that casual cursory glance through them will not even be able to touch the hem of the garment that Aich weaves in his reclusive study on the contentious issues of the Independence Movement.

The style of Aich is maturing by the day as his research lends him with increased access to data, analysis and inference thereof which are the products of sustained concentration on a subject that consumes one's interest. These essays are the adornment of facebook and are increasing the creditworthiness of this social medium where more casual commonplace conversation gain currency usually. As such, Utpal Aich must seriously give his thoughts to publishing his articles in book form for preservation of such for posterity.

The discourse on Netaji, Nehru and Gandhi is so one-sided on facebook with indiscriminate bashing of Nehru and Gandhi going on without substance enough to validate assertions that Aich's essays provide a welcome relief from them periodically in providing substantive details to prove allegations levelled, a wealth of data and analytical insights to help read history afresh and an assortment of facts to consolidate understanding which is quite unique in these days of easy assertions and quick responses where depth of perception and enlightened reasoning are commodities that have gone out of sale from the marketplace of life. Here the author with his characteristic rational rigour founded on fact reveals a forgotten feature of writers of bygone days to which elite club Utpal Aich duly belongs.

My appreciation of this erudite would have been far more factually based were I as erudite as he in matters historical and I merely offer my appraisal of his writing in overall terms from the impact each time it has on my being when he bombards me with his fresh findings that stagger one's imagination. And so must it be with a host of his other readers as well who are freely offered this banquet of ideas, of historical facts gleaned and garnered from sources lying low and then presented before all in a delicious buffet. I say 'buffet' because I wonder how many go through the whole course of the dinner that Utpal Aich hosts. I, for one, consume it all like a ravenous reader and hang on to the next edition of Aich with expectancy.

My good wishes to this seminal son of our soil for his continued efforts at excavation of the embedded truths of our historical past for the greater illumination of our countrymen in particular and of the world at large, for social medium is no mean a conveyor of messages rightly spelt out.

Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!

Written by Sugata Bose

THE FALL AND THE RISE OF THE HINDU INFLUENCE ... 2

THE FALL AND THE RISE OF THE HINDU INFLUENCE ... 2

Hindus who criticise Hindus unduly do a disservice to the community through their shallow assertions that proselytising religions make good use of. We have been reduced to a fraction of what we were through our own negligence of our masses, our self-defeating status in supposed liberalism and our ever-thriving self-annihilation through internal squabbles and siding with the Semitic adversary when our cultural imperative calls us to unite in defence of the dharma.

The breakdown of the Varnashrama system has had two negative impacts. The Brahman has been reduced in learning on account of lack of patronage and the kshatriya community has been wiped out of existence by invaders and colonisers who disarmed them to keep the Hindus in subjugation.

The broad Varna system was replaced by the caste system which divided Hindu society so much that India in consequence became weakened to abject submission to foreign rule. Even after independence society continues to be case-ridden and Hindus suffer in consequence. A divided house ever totters, for division weakens the structural base that holds the integrated body. Hence, the enlightened principles of the Varna system ought to be practised today by all in the measure they can and this will lead to a regeneration of Hindu society. Caste exclusiveness in principle has gone after the promulgation of the Constitution of India on 26 January, 1950 but it continues very much in practice. Education of the masses will deal it the death blow and, so, education of the poor Hindus is the key to solving this problem. 

The intellectual aggression of westernised Hindus against the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) ought to be countered by the proliferation of the Sanskrit language in the country. This is not a short term problem that a short term solution may be sought to tackle it. We must take a long view of our cultural requirements, looking deep into the past for guidance and trying to envision the future in that light streaming from Vedic times when we as a race had reached cultural heights that no civilisation on earth till date has come close to in attainment.

Mass education in Sanskrit will largely solve India's problems as Hindus, freshly grounded in their cultural roots, will veer away from imitation of the West and will strike out their own distinctive path of material and spiritual evolution. Knowledge bestows power and an empowered polity will rise through the turbidity of the times to regain its pristine position of spiritual preeminence in the comity of nations and act as the spiritual preceptor to the rest of humanity.

Times are desperate and their claims on Hindu wisdom are impelled by sheer survival necessities. Must the Hindus fail to deliver the message of their forefathers at this calamitous hour when the seeds sown ages ago in their consciousness have ripened for their harvest to be shared with the rest of humanity who have lost direction and destiny barring that which will lead to their eventual annihilation in arrogant self-infliction? Upon the stance taken by Hindus today depends largely the course the world will take in the coming decades and upon it depends the fate of the Hindus as a civilisation as well. 

Written by Sugata Bose 

Photo : Bijoy Krishna Goswami, famous Brahmo leader, then Vaishnav saint popular as Jatiya Baba in Puri. Follower initially of Keshab Chandra Sen before the grand schism of the Brahmo Samaj in 1878 following the Cooch Bihar Marriage episode involving Keshab's daughter, Bijoy had been blessed by Sri Ramakrishna with vision of his holy self in Dhaka and was much loved by the Master. He was an Acharya of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj but later left the dispensation following theological differences with the Sadharan Brahmos whereupon he settled in Jagannathkshetra Puri where he breathed his last.

CHRISTIANITY MUST BEFRIEND HINDUISM FOR SELF-SURVIVAL

CHRISTIANITY MUST BEFRIEND HINDUISM FOR SELF-SURVIVAL 

Hindu ideas must flood the world if the fanatical cults are to be counteracted effectively. It is time for Christianity to stop converting Hindus. They are doing themselves a disservice by attempting to weaken Hinduism, a philosophy in which lies their own future survival, a spiritual searchlight for a rediscovery of the original intended message of the Lord as partially chronicled in their much misunderstood texts.

Christians must not seek out an enemy in Hinduism for the Hindus accept Jesus Christ as an incarnation of God even though they discard much of the theology of Christianity which are doctrinaire and opposed to reason and the realisations of the Rishis recorded in the Vedas. Christianity must ally itself with Hinduism and learn from the latter its universal principles so that it can broaden its own vision and read into its own scriptures the deeper import of the more luminous passages as obtaining in the Book of John of the New Testament.

Some Hindus will object to this reading as what they term 'digestion' of the intellectual property of the Hindus and they very much have a right to raising such objections. Christians here should be civilised enough to admit that they are borrowing these ideas from the Hindu texts by way of interpreting the Bible. In such mention of the right reference they will be following the established procedure in intellectual discourse and all controversy regarding the same will be, thus, at an end. But will the Christian Church be willing to go to such lengths to modify their own understanding of their scripture? It is an open question and a closed response to it will only harm Christianity in the long run, not Hinduism in any significant way.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Mother Teresa who could be the future harmonic link between Christianity and Hinduism.

THE FALL AND THE RISE OF THE HINDU INFLUENCE ... 1

THE FALL AND THE RISE OF THE HINDU INFLUENCE ... 1

The monotheistic Semitic religions are bitterly opposed to Hinduism which thrives on the concept of the Ishta or the Chosen Deity which they term polytheism. And they mutually fight as well for their own exclusive survival. The result is a wasteful engagement of forces in futile exercises that retards progress and stunts civilisation.

The Indian dharma traditions, on the other hand, show the way to fruitful spiritual engagement along lines of individual preference of the Chosen Deity within the parameters of the wider universal philosophy of the Upanishads. This democracy of the Hindu spirit is anathema to the religions of the Abrahamic tradition. They must fight it to dictatorial submission but have not yet succeeded. So, they keep their powder dry to make fresh assaults whenever circumstances are propitious for such conspiracy against the spirit of India, against the spirit that is India and against her very geography and people to make it count in the flesh.

India's cultural influence over the world has been steadily declining over the last two millenia thanks to the inroads of Christianity and Islam which have converted nations from their early Hindu orientation to a foisted Semitic one. Judaism, being non-proselytising in nature, has not done this damage for it has not spread in numbers but its Semitic siblings in Christianity and Islam have devastated the world through the sword to bring it line with their scriptural dictates. As a result, the inclusive universal teachings of the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) have been relegated to being concentrated almost exclusively in India where 1.1 billion of the 1.15 billion Hindus of the world live today.

Asia and some parts of Europe which were much marked by Hindu cultural influence now no more bear such pronounced influence. The people of these regions were forcefully converted to Christianity and Islam as is the wont of these two highly intolerant proselytising religions. Even India was not spared. Million and millions over a period of the last one thousand years were perverted from the Sanatan Dharma to Islam by the sword. Finally, India was partitioned on the basis of a large section of the Muslims refusing to co-exist with Hindus in a common homeland freed from colonial control.

The Hindus have been, thus, at the receiving end of persecution even in the land of their ancestors for the last one thousand years and are now barely recovering from their past wounds. The resurgence of Hinduism has begun since the advent of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda on the world scene and it remains to be seen what we can make out of it in the days to come. Upon our effort depends the fate of our ancient spiritual civilisation.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : left -- Swami Sadananda (disciple of Swami Vivekananda) ; right -- Swami Vivekananda. With Vivekananda has begun the active resurgence of Hinduism and the legacy the leonine Swami passed on to worthy disciples like Sadananda, and the legacy continues to this day with the mantle being borne by a succession of luminous monks of the Ramakrishna Order who have become the upholders of the Sanatan Dharma.

A CURIOUS CONVERSATION IN A CURIOUS CLASS

A CURIOUS CONVERSATION IN A CURIOUS CLASS

A : Hello, Sir, how are you?

B : Well, stuck up at Class 8.

A : Why, Sir? What happened? Why stuck there?

B : Oh, the last and the final teacher came to teach a few years back and none have come since then. None can come anymore.

A : Why so, Sir? Who prevents the other teachers from coming to teach?

B : Oh, know you not? It is the Principal's order that none may violate.

A : So, Sir, you remain ill-qualified at Class 8 level.

B : Yes, brother, no more teaching, no more classes, no more learning. I am just repeating every day what he taught in Class 8 several years ago. And I coach others the same lesson as well over and over again without altering it even slightly. And they listen and learn well and memorise so well, too, barring a few, though, that play truant. They wish to know more but there is no more to teach. The final lesson has been delivered. Children, they do not understand, some of them, I mean.

A : Any chances that the Principal will relent?

B : No way. He is giving prizes and punishments for lessons well learnt or ill learnt. And the students are fiercely fighting for them.

A : Alright then, Sir, good luck to you and to your students. I have got to move on and see other schools, too, and find out what they are up to.

B : Tell them as well that this is the law. They must study the lessons I am sending with you, those which our Principal's appointee, the last teacher, taught in Class 8. This is our Principal's command.

A ; Sure, Sir, I will tell them and hand them over the lessons. And take care, Sir. Mind your flock well. 

Written by Sugata Bose

SPEAK GENTLY TO YOUR BRETHREN, SPEAK SOFTLY IN DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

SPEAK GENTLY TO YOUR BRETHREN, SPEAK SOFTLY IN DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

The very language that we use in denouncing our Hindu sisters and brothers with whom we vehemently differ must change and we must address them with a softer and a sweeter language. Only then mutual sympathy will derive and not till then. We must stand united under all circumstances. An integrated body of Hindus will prove impregnable in defence and irresistible in appeal to the rest of the world.

Let us make this small change in our attitude towards each other. May the lips utter sweetness! May the soul feel sympathy for all! May we in earnest care for our brethren in spite of all! United we stand, divided we fall.

Written by Sugata Bose