THE MONK AND THE MAN, AND THE MASTER'S DICTUM FOR THE MONASTICS

THE MONK AND THE MAN, AND THE MASTER'S DICTUM FOR THE MONASTICS

This is a difficult dictum for monastics of the current order but possible to follow if earnestness be there. The demands of philanthropic activity enjoined on them by Swamiji as the necessary means of spiritual culture make social intercourse complicated for monks these days. Interaction with politicians, the requirement of funds, legal complications of organisational life and the stresses of survival in a market flooded with competitive NGOs, all tend to divert the monk's attention from pure spirituality to an admixture of spirituality and materialism.

To keep the balance in this precipitous detour to the Divine calls for a genuine spiritual hankering that undeflected moves on to the summit of realisations. But for the renunciate of more modest spiritual means, the demands of interaction with the world of the senses by way of discharging one's organisational duty becomes a challenge, with the possibility of a fall. Thus, it is the spiritual duty of the lay public as well to to provide all sorts of help to the monks without inducing them into making compromises with the world out of organisational necessity. The laity must always serve the monastics to make their material and organisational survival easier, but all along maintaining the required distance that decency demands. Overmuch of devotion in explicit verbal and behavioural terms that complicates relations must be assiduously avoided by the laity. This will help preserve the purity of the monastic, speaking from the perspective of the lay public. The attitude of the monk and the man will then be one of mutual reverence at a distance and most conducive to the preservation of purity which is the primary condition for civilised living and the attainment of the higher objectives of life.

Written by Sugata Bose

IT IS THE LIVING GOD THAT SPEAKS ... 3

IT IS THE LIVING GOD THAT SPEAKS ... 3

It is the personality of a preacher that touches the audience and not so much what he speaks, for few are able to separate the message from the man. This inability of the ordinary mind to distinguish principle from personality makes it binding that the Mission commissions men of realisation to preach and does not allow anybody and everybody to speak at its festivals and functions and, so, sully the message that in the lips of a realised soul would have set the spirit of the audience on fire. Householders of poor spiritual perception but with pronounced power of articulation must not be allowed to take the podium despite perceived erudition in the facts and figures of the movement, neither monks who are woefully lacking in both power of expression and erudition must be made to gain experience in public speaking before they are ready for the exercise.

Every time a speaker rises and takes his position at the rostrum, he is being afforded the rare opportunity to kindle the latent divinity of the audience with the fire of his words fraught with the realisations of his spiritual life. But if a speaker is merely a surface intellectual and has never plumbed the depths of the soul, he ought not to disturb the ignorance of the masses further with his ill-conceived notions and interpretations of truth, his circuitous way of arriving at core issues of the spirit for want of confidence in the absence of his experience of the truth he verbally delivers, and his cover of assumed humility that reeks of his evident ignorance of the principles he preaches but whose perception he clearly lacks. Such speakers do more harm than good to the spiritual cause in making abstruse philosophy child's play, the sublimity of sages look like every aspirant's easy achievement and the gravity of the spiritual process appear as the layman's exercise in levity.

Thus, it is meet that men of realisation alone speak from the depths of their soul in so far as the podium of the Mission is concerned. If that means lectures shall be scarce, so be it. But let not dilution of the spirit of the movement in the name of the Master any further be for it threatens the very extinguishing of the fire lit up by Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. May the monks meditate more to be empowered to speak eloquently before the world at large and rightfully represent the cause of the Master at whose lotus feet they dwell! May all those who are pretenders to preaching step aside to make room for the children of light who ought to adorn the stage of God! And if laymen must lay claim to the podium, let them lead strictly spiritual lives on the basis of absolute continence and the observance of every detail of spiritual living.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Swami Abhedananda

SOME QUESTIONS ... 1

SOME QUESTIONS ... 1

Why was a section of the Bose family subjected to surveillance for two decades despite Independence?

Was the Congress

(a) apprehensive of Netaji's return from wherever he was to reclaim his position in the polity?

(b) hopeful that he would contact his kith and kin sooner or later whereby they could eventually arrest him and hand him over to the Anglo-American forces as per the secret protocol binding them?

(c) watching over the activities of the Bose family to gauge whether they would pose any serious challenge to the Congress hegemony over Indian politics with the help of a consolidating INA personnel group gathering round them? After all the Netaji Research Bureau was the focal point of a great deal of activity centring Netaji. Could it be the nucleus of a brewing parallel political movement?

Written by Sugata Bose

TAGORE'S 'DESHANAYAK' AND HIS DOMAIN, THE TAGORE WAY

TAGORE'S 'DESHANAYAK' AND HIS DOMAIN, THE TAGORE WAY

The problem that I have with this address of Tagore is that he restricts Subhas Chandra Bose repeatedly to being the leader of Bengal and does even once address him as the leader of the nation which he specifically reserves for Mahatma Gandhi. Tagore's 'Deshanayak' must be understood to be the captain of the destiny of Bengal and no more. Bengal, though, in those days meant the Bengal Presidency comprising today's West Bengal, Bangaladesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam and the North-eastern provinces and parts of Himachal Pradesh. (Please correct me if I am wrong.) This penchant for calling himself the poet of Bengal may suit the poet in some sense but it is quite inappropriate in the case of the firebrand national leader that Bose was and of significant international standing, too. The poet's pertinent speech was delivered at Mahajati Sadan in Kolkata, 1939, if I recall right, which would mean that in strict organisational terms Subhas Chandra had already graduated to the highest echelon of national leadership with his election to the Congress Presidency in the two successive years of 1938 and 1939 at Haripura and Tripuri. But such short-sightedness was uncharacteristic of a poet of such a seminal stature and, in effect, by recognition of the mettle of Subhas Chandra in such glowing provincial terms, nonetheless, much reduced him in estimation in national terms and confined him, so to say, to being the premier leader of the province (desh) of Bengal and not the nation (desh) that undivided India was.

Myopia can haunt even the most universal of men in whom catholic ideas seek habitat in the superficial plane of emotive articulation but do not become consonant with their very existence. Such is the problem of detailed observation that strikes roots in localised terrain and induces one to focus on the immediate environs of habitual residence and rumination. Such, perchance, was the predicament of the poet whose sights, ever set in practical terms on the plethora of stimuli in the surroundings, failed to apprehend in comprehensive terms the domain of leadership dominance of Subhas Chandra and relegated him to being the leader of Bengal alone instead of the vaster motherland, quite out of a habitual inertial sense. That it should be so, in hindsight may be construed as the poet's grand failure to apprehend the impending meteoric career of the one who would emerge as the undisputed leader of the liberation struggle, one whose every move in the international plane sealed the doom of the British Empire. Or, perhaps, Tagore was of the conviction that only Mahatmaji with his vast national following from the aristocrat to the pariah was worthy of wearing that laurel of national leadership. In point of fact, Tagore, in this very speech, made it abundantly clear towards the end that his naming of Subhas Chandra as 'Deshanayak' in no way meant that he was by implication hailing Subhas as the new numero uno national leader ahead of Gandhiji. Tagore reiterated that in his opinion Mahatmaji remained India's supreme leader ahead of all and Subhas' new honorific in no way reduced the preeminent leadership status of the Sage of Sabarmati.

All this extent of leadership in terms of the Tagorean honorific on Subhas Chandra Bose never did apply to Gandhiji who in the poet's eyes remained the undisputed leader of the entire people of India and not just Gujarat. What could have been the reason for it? The most obvious reason must have been Gandhiji's massive popularity all over India that lent no doubt over his said all-India leadership status. Contrarily, Bose was overwhelmingly popular in the Bengal Presidency and not so pronouncedly in other parts of India as was Gandhi in his uniformly overwhelming way. This is the crux of the issue. The leader of the Congress movement for freedom was unanimously and indisputably Gandhi and not Bose which is what Tagore underscored in the latter part of his speech despite conferring upon Subhas Chandra the honorific 'Deshanayak' with its territorial limitations.

When we Bengalees overly inflate the territorial significance of the honorific 'Deshanayak' than is historically tenable, we do so out of emotional gullibility in so far as reading into Tagore's intent in its conferring is concerned. Reading more into it than is due in terms of the dated speech of 1939 is, perhaps, on account of Netaji's subsequent brilliant career overseas when he was showered upon by his comrades and colleagues with this latter honorific as the leader nonpareil of India's liberation struggle. But conflating the two honorifics out of historical context is improper and adherence to the stated truth in Tagore's speech is due in all fairness. Not that it will reduce Netaji's leadership luminosity but that it will put things in their proper perspective.

Written by Sugata Bose

AN APPRECIATION OF NETAJI'S ADDRESS AT THE GREATER EAST ASIA CONFERENCE OF 1943

AN APPRECIATION OF NETAJI'S ADDRESS AT THE GREATER EAST ASIA CONFERENCE OF 1943

What an address ! Netaji at his best. His grasp over international affairs, his diplomatic sagacity and his hold over historical episodes, all in a comprehensive free-flow of speech delivered in immaculate eloquent terms, makes this address one of historic significance where a seer among politicians with incisive insight into the womb of futurity prophesies about the unfolding course of events.

Indeed, Netaji, from his extensive international exposure and contacts thereof, from his comprehensive understanding of international relations and from his actual execution of plans and programmes for the freedom of India on the global stage, stands out among the leaders of the Indian National Congress and their fabled Mahatma, head and shoulders above the rest. Pity it is that even today few are interested in conducting extensive research into the exploits of this mighty man and are merely content in wallowing in the mire of a material culture of a most despicable appropriating order.

Netaji is for heroes for he himself was one, a hero of mythical proportions, yet, of flesh and blood just like the rest of us. It is the strong, the intelligent and the renounced who can properly appreciate the life, achievements and ideas of this patriot premier whom epithets can scarce attribute his true colour as a nationalist and an internationalist while all along retaining his human hues above everything.

Netaji seems to me to be the dramatis persona of Swamiji's political play, coded in cryptic terms in his considerable conversations and speeches but never quite enacted on the stage of this world in direct political terms for which he chose his protégé in the making, Subhas, who was not to fail him in eventual terms. Between the philosopher and the revolutionary, the preceptor and the pupil dealt the death-blow to world colonial imperialism and in truest terms liberated India and the rest of subjugated humanity.

The very speech of Subhas Chandra Bose at the Greater East Asia Conference, so redolent of his Vivekananda grooming with the same fire and uncompromising zeal in achieving the sublime objective of freedom as his Master gave his life for in a vaster field of spiritual fruition, makes Netaji stand out as one of the greatest world leaders of the time imbued with a wondrous sense of history, a capacity for direct action when the anvil is hot and a prophetic insight into the future where history in the making seeks deliverance of the womb of the progressive moment of the ever-shifting present.

Netaji needs to be studied more often, more diligently by a greater number of youths in especial, for he, like Swamiji, holds within the ambit of his magnetic personality the inspiration and the energy for the rise of future generations to sublime heights of nationalistic humanism where narrowness there is none and all of humanity is embraced while remaining rooted to one's essential identity as a people and a culture.

Written by Sugata Bose

THE DELIBERATE MISCALCULATION

THE DELIBERATE MISCALCULATION

60 million lives were lost in the Second World War. Does it include the 5 million dead of Bengal in 1943 due to Churchill-enforced starvation by induced famine? Will the Britishers re-count now and arrive at the correct death-toll of World War II?

The Jewish Holocaust victims numbered 6 million and they are a part of the count of the dead for the Jews had been annihilated by the Germans who lost the war. But the Bengalees who had been deprived of food and starved to death, those 5 million died at the hands of the victorious British. Hence, they do not form a part of the count.

The Jews have never rested to make their voices heard. Their constant study, research and submissions in international fora about their annihilation in Nazi concentration camps have never let the world forget for a day the horrors they experienced and survived through to emerge the nation they today are. This constant affirmation has created for them an identity which they have clung onto in their nation-building. The German Government post World War II has had to not merely apologise to Israel and Poland for the Nazi atrocities perpetrated in Treblinka, Auschwitz and Sobibor but it has radically transformed German policy-making in the post war scenario.

On the contrary, the Bengalees have been loathe to broach the issue of the Bengal Holocaust of 1943 by deliberate British policy. In a year of plentiful production of crops when famine was not even a distant possibility, 5 million Bengalees died just of it. Crops by the cartloads were shipped by the British under Churchill's orders to Europe to provide buffer stock for the soldiers and war-time provisions for the population of England. That the Bengalees paid for such British future provisions with their lives, 5 million of them, mattered least. After all the natives were hardly fit to be called civilised human beings, so it was in the fitness of things that they should perish to let the superior Anglo-Saxons live !

Even Stalin starved 7 million Ukrainians to death to suppress the agrarian revolt there, that of the Kulaks, sealing off Ukraine's borders to prevent a fly from migrating to safe terrain. Mao's Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, cost tens of millions of lives. 100 million Hindus lost their lives over a thousand year period of Islamic tyrannical reign in India which is today dubbed the Hindu Holocaust. But these are beyond the purview of the discussion here for they are unrelated to the Second World War.

The point pertinent here is that the world is largely unaware of this British barbarism. A more shameful thing is that even most modern Bengalees are unaware of this terrible catastrophe that shook Bengal in 1943 and reduced a nation to ruins. There aren't bodies which will take up the cause and uphold it before the world to break the myth of Churchill's heroic stature as a statesman. The evil that he represented which was so symptomatic of the colonial Raj itself must be brought to international focus and the British exposed for their perpetration of barbarism in India. But, alas, Bengal sleeps on this issue even as she raises revolution over coffee cups !

This is in sharp contrast to the Jewish race which has made the Holocaust their national rallying point. Their single-minded pursuit of the narrative has exposed German atrocity like nothing else has done and maligned Nazism as the handiwork of the Devil. Einstein, post his self-exile, refused to visit Germany ever again, 'the land of mass murderers' as he dubbed it. He never forgave the Germans for what his own people suffered at their hands.

This is called patriotism. When will we, Bengalees, who revel in everything English and who love to settle in England which was built out of our blood and toil, our resources and reserves, our sacrifices and sufferings, our torment and torture, learn to return the Jewish compliment and rise up to recast our own historical narrative? Would not that be the real obeisance to our forefathers, the true 'tarpan'? To expect the British to expose themselves on this diabolical deed of that other Devil, Winston Churchill, and with it to open up the Pandora's Box of British colonial corruption down the centuries in India will be to fantasise too much in the great myth of British fairplay. Hence, initiatives must begin from home if ever the world is going 'to lend its ears' to this human tragedy of monstrous proportions enacted in the heart of British Bengal in 1943.

The only Bengalee that capably reacted was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. He sent by first consignment a shipload of Burmese grains to feed Bengal but the British authorities refused entry into the port to the ship carrying the relief material. The ship, laden with food grains, returned to Burma while Bengal starved to death. A much much smaller quantity of Burmese rice was sent by Swami Ranganathananda of the Ramakrishna Mission from Rangoon and it was accepted by the British. Why so? Because he was on the right side of the wartime political spectrum so far as Britain was concerned. Netaji was after all a Japanese ally and, hence, an enemy whose help could not be accepted. But why so? Because it was the determined programme of the British to kill revolutionary resistance in Bengal by debilitating the population through starvation. Bengal must die if Britain is to rule over India ! This, perhaps, was the dastardly dictum of the British.

Israel has risen from the Holocaust to self-respect and self-preservation. When will Bengal rise to such self-esteem and eminence?

Written by Sugata Bose

THE PROBLEM OF THE SPIRITUAL PATH AND ITS SOLUTION ... 1

THE PROBLEM OF THE SPIRITUAL PATH AND ITS SOLUTION ... 1

Remember, in life it is simply not possible to get along with certain people, however much one may try and adjust, strive to accommodate. Their level of evolution does not permit effective cooperative co-existence and this is the pity of it after all. The disjointedness of human relations often makes for all the rancour in life whose collective resolution in the macroscopic plane is war. And ego plays the truant in all of this.

The Acharyas are the sole refuge in this world of delusive dreams and absolute devotion unto their teachings alone helps deliver the soul in bondage unto infinite freedom. These Acharyas are 'the living commentary on the Vedas' (to quote Vivekananda) even as their thoughts themselves are chronicled as the verbal commentary on the Vedas. These spiritual luminaries, these men of God, these veritable incarnations of God Himself are the living pilgrimages where we must go and cleanse ourselves of all the accretions of the ages that have clouded our spiritual vision.

The Guru is the linkman to God, the necessary intermediary between the oblivious soul and its deeper essence which it has forgotten. He is the living light that illumines our evolutionary path, that lightens our earthly burden and energises us to traverse the razor-edge of enlightened reason, of the abundance of detached affection to the divinities on earth with whom life then becomes a playhouse of endless joy as the undercurrent of its superficial angularities and conflicts.

But this harmony is not come by easily. Self-restraint as prescribed by the Guru and prolonged practice of the spiritual disciplines gradually leads the soul along this inclined plane and when it has attained a certain altitude, it can live at a depth where sameness abides and the embattled forces are in functional harmony. Then and then alone is a person able to take the surface separateness into stride, the fractured understanding of men about situations and the attempted impositions of others on his self in a free spirit without caving in under pressure. Such a life then becomes a delight and a benediction unto all.

Written by Sugata Bose