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Monday, May 26, 2014

[mukto-mona] Jihad Will Continue Until America is No More



Iran's Supreme Leader: Jihad Will Continue Until America is No More

The Daily Caller
May 25, 2014 2:02 PM
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Iran's Supreme Leader: Jihad Will Continue Until America is No More
Iran's Supreme Leader: Jihad Will Continue Until America is No More
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, all but said on Sunday that negotiations over the country's illicit nuclear program are over and that the Islamic Republic's ideals include destroying America.
"Those (Iranians) who want to promote negotiation and surrender to the oppressors and blame the Islamic Republic as a warmonger in reality commit treason," Khamenei told a meeting of members of parliament, according to the regime's Fars News Agency.
Khamenei emphasized that without a combative mindset, the regime cannot reach its higher Islamic role against the "oppressors' front."
"The reason for continuation of this battle is not the warmongering of the Islamic Republic. Logic and reason command that for Iran, in order to pass through a region full of pirates, needs to arm itself and must have the capability to defend itself," he said.
"Today's world is full of thieves and plunderers of human honor, dignity and morality who are equipped with knowledge, wealth and power, and under the pretence of humanity easily commit crimes and betray human ideals and start wars in different parts of the world."
In response to a question by a parliamentarian on how long this battle will continue, Khamenei said,"Battle and jihad are endless because evil and its front continue to exist. … This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors' front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought. … This requires a difficult and lengthy struggle and need for great strides."
Khamenei cited the scientific advancement of the country. "The accelerated scientific advancement of the last 12 years cannot stop under any circumstances," he said, referring to the strides the regime has made toward becoming a nuclear power.
As reported on May 19 on The Daily Caller, Iran has put up new roadblocks to reaching a deal with the P5+1 world powers over its illicit nuclear program. The powers are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany.
Three days of negotiations in the fourth round of Geneva meetings ended recently without concrete results when the Iranian team presented the country's new "red lines" — diminishing any hope by the Obama administration to claim victory in its approach to Iran's nuclear ambitions, according to reports from Iran.
The Obama administration had hoped that with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif showing an eagerness to solve the nuclear issue and address the West's concerns, there would be a possibility for a negotiated solution. An interim agreement penned last November in Geneva was touted as a "historic nuclear deal."
Under that agreement, Iran, in return for billions of dollars in sanctions relief, limited its enrichment activity to the 5 percent level with a current stockpile of over 10 tons (enough for six nuclear bombs), converted much of its 20 percent enriched stock to harmless oxide and agreed to allow more intrusive inspections of its nuclear plants by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspections were limited to only agreed-upon facilities.
The Iranian delegation last week presented new red lines that could not be crossed, including the expansion of the country's research and development for its nuclear program, the need of the country to continue enrichment, and the fact that the country's ballistic missile program — despite U.N. sanctions — is not up for negotiation.
At the same time, IAEA officials met again with their Iranian counterparts last week in Tehran to discuss information on the work on detonators and needed collaboration by the regime to clear outstanding issues on its nuclear program as part of seven transparency steps Iran had agreed to fulfill by May 15, which has yet to take place.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and author of the award winning book "A Time to Betray" (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).



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Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


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[mukto-mona] বাংলাদেশে যুদ্ধাপরাধের বিচার ॥ আমাদের করণীয় - ইমরান এইচ সরকার



বাংলাদেশে যুদ্ধাপরাধের বিচার ॥ আমাদের করণীয়
ইমরান এইচ সরকার
যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিশ্চিত করার সম্মিলিত নাগরিক শক্তি হিসেবেই এক ঐতিহাসিক বাস্তবতায় সম্মিলিত গণমানুষের প্লাটফর্ম হিসেবে গণজাগরণ মঞ্চ গঠিত হয়েছিল এবং তারপর থেকে আমরা প্রতিনিয়ত শত বাধাবিপত্তি উপেক্ষা করে বার বার যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার নিশ্চিত করতে এবং শাহবাগে দেয়া জনগণের ম্যান্ডেটের ৬ দফা বাস্তবায়নের আন্দোলনে সক্রিয় রয়েছি। 
আর তাই যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচার এবং এই বিচার সম্পন্ন করার সব বাধাকে সব সময় তীক্ষদৃষ্টিতে নজরে রেখে সেই অনুযায়ী সাধারণ মানুষের পক্ষ থেকে আমরা প্রতিনিয়ত কথা বলে থাকি। গণজাগরণ মঞ্চের এই সংগ্রামে শুধু তরুণ সমাজই জড়িত এমন নয় বরং দেশের সকল মানুষই এই সংগ্রামে গণজাগরণ মঞ্চের সঙ্গে সম্পৃক্ত। যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের নির্মূলের এই দীর্ঘ যাত্রায় বার বারই আমাদেরকে পরিস্থিতি মূল্যায়ন করতে হয় এবং সে অনুযায়ী আগামীর পথরেখা ঠিক করতে হয়। 
এরই ধারাবাহিকতায় আজকের আয়োজন। আজকের গোলটেবিলের শিরোনাম তাই-বাংলাদেশে যুদ্ধাপরাধের বিচার, সাম্প্রতিক পরিস্থিতি ও আমাদের করণীয়। 
এই গোলটেবিল বৈঠকে আমরা দেশের বিভিন্ন অঙ্গনের প্রতিনিধিদের একসঙ্গে আমন্ত্রণ জানিয়েছি যাতে ভিন্ন ভিন্ন দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি থেকে একসঙ্গে পরিস্থিতির মূল্যায়ণ করা যায়। আগামীর লক্ষ্য যেমন নির্দিষ্ট, যাত্রাপথ তেমনই ঝঞ্ঝাবিক্ষুব্ধ, এই সময়ে সকলের সম্মিলিত অবস্থানের কোন বিকল্প নেই। 
আজকের আলোচনার বিষয়বস্তুুতে বলা হয়েছে 'সাম্প্রতিক পরিস্থিতি।' এই সাম্প্রতিক পরিস্থিতির বিষয়টিতে আমি প্রথমেই নজর দিতে চাই। আপনারা দেখেছেন, যুদ্ধাপরাধের বিচার প্রক্রিয়া নিয়ে সংবাদ মাধ্যমে যে সাম্প্রতিক খবরগুলো প্রকাশিত হচ্ছে, সেগুলো আমাদের কারও জন্যই স্বস্তিদায়ক নয়। এর মধ্যে সবচাইতে বড় যে খবরটি আমাদের উদ্বিগ্ন করছে সেটি হচ্ছে যুদ্ধাপরাধী সংগঠন হিসেবে জামায়াতের বিরুদ্ধে তদন্ত সম্পন্ন হওয়ার পরেও গত প্রায় ২ মাস ধরে দলটির বিরুদ্ধে আন্তর্জাতিক অপরাধ ট্রাইব্যুনালে আনুষ্ঠানিক অভিযোগ দাখিল করা যায়নি। এবং গত ১৯ মে একটি নোটিসের প্রেক্ষিতে এই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ এবং ঐতিহাসিক মামলা পরিচালনাকারী ৭ সদস্যের দল তাদের কার্যক্রম বন্ধ করে দিয়েছে। 
এর চাইতে বড় উদ্বেগের বিষয় আর কী হতে পারে?
যুদ্ধাপরাধী সংগঠন জামায়াতের বিরুদ্ধে ট্রাইব্যুনালে অবিলম্বে অভিযোগ দাখিল করা দরকার এবং সাফল্যের সঙ্গে এই মামলাটি পরিচালনা করা প্রয়োজন। কোন ব্যক্তি বা গোষ্ঠীর যোগসাজশে, ষড়যন্ত্রে, প্ররোচণায়, দুরভিসন্ধিতে কিংবা অপচেষ্টায় যদি এই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ মামলাটির অভিযোগ দাখিলে অনাবশ্যক কালক্ষেপণ করা হয় অথবা অভিযোগ দাখিল না করা হয় বা মামলা পরিচালনায় কোন শিথিলতা প্রদর্শন করা হয়, তাহলে এর পেছনে দায়ী প্রত্যেককেই বাংলাদেশের মানুষের কাছে জবাবদিহি করতে হবে। যুদ্ধাপরাধী জামায়াতের প্রতি যে কোন ধরনের শিথিলতা প্রকাশের অপচেষ্টাকে বাংলাদেশের মানুষ রুখে দেবে। আমরা সবসময়ই আশা করব যে, সকল শঙ্কা ও অপতৎপরতাকে রুখে দিয়ে রাষ্ট্রপক্ষের আইনজীবীরা এই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ মামলার আনুষ্ঠানিক অভিযোগ দাখিল ও মামলা পরিচালনায় তাদের পরীক্ষিত দক্ষতার ছাপ রাখবেন। 
আমরা যেন ভুলে না যাই যে, এই বিচার প্রক্রিয়া কোন দৈনন্দিন ব্যাপার নয়। ৩০ লাখ শহীদের রক্ত, ২ লাখ মায়ের সম্ভ্রমের দায় মেটাতে ইতিহাস আমাদের কাঁধে এই বিচার করার মহান দায়িত্ব অর্পণ করেছে। মুক্তিযুদ্ধের পর ৪২ বছর লেগেছে এই বিচার প্রক্রিয়া শুরু" করতে, এখন যদি কোন কারণে এই বিচারটি সঠিকভাবে সম্পন্ন করতে না পারা যায়, তাহলে শহীদদের অভিশাপ থেকে কেউই রেহাই পাবে না।
জামায়াতের বিরুদ্ধে মামলার প্রস্তুতিতে এই স্থবিরতা কোন বিচ্ছিন্ন ঘটনা নয়। গণমাধ্যমের সংবাদ থেকে জেনেছি যে, ট্রাইব্যুনালের রাষ্ট্রপক্ষের কৌঁসুলীদের মধ্যে কিছু অস্থিরতাও তৈরি হয়েছে। আমি সেগুলো এখানে উল্লেখ করা বিব্রতকর মনে করছি। কিন্তু বিষয়টির প্রতি নজর রাখার জন্য আমরা সকলের কাছে জোর আহ্বান জানাই। কোন ধরনের অবাঞ্ছনীয় পরিস্থিতির কারণে যাতে বিচার প্রক্রিয়া ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত না হয়, সেটি দেখার দায়িত্ব সংশ্লিষ্ট সকলের। 
সাম্প্রতিক পরিস্থিতির আরেকটি বিষয়ে আমি সকলের দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করব। ইতোমধ্যে আমরা জেনেছি যে, আরও অন্তত ৪টি মামলার রায় অপেক্ষমাণ।
ট্রাইব্যুনালে রাজাকার মতিউর রহমান নিজামীর রায়টি অপেক্ষমাণ আছে গত ২৪ মার্চ ২০১৪ থেকে প্রায় ২ মাস যাবত, জাহিদ হোসেন ওরফে খোকন রাজাকারের রায়টি অপেক্ষমাণ ১৭ এপ্রিল ২০১৪ থেকে এবং কুখ্যাত রাজাকার মীর কাশেমের মামলার রায় গত ৪ মে ২০১৪ থেকে অপেক্ষমাণ। 
এছাড়া আপীল বিভাগে রাজাকার দেলাওয়ার হোসাইন সাঈদীর মামলার রায়ের আপীল নিষ্পত্তির রায়ও গত ১৬ এপ্রিল ২০১৪ থেকে গত দেড়মাস যাবত অপেক্ষমাণ । এই রায়গুলোর জন্য পুরো জাতি অধীর আগ্রহে অপেক্ষা করে আছে । আগের রায়গুলোর চূড়ান্ত রায় ঘোষণায় যে সময় লেগেছিল, বর্তমানের এই ৪টি মামলার ক্ষেত্রে সেই তুলনায় অনেক বেশি সময় লাগছে যা অনাকাক্সিক্ষত। রায় ঘোষণার এই অপেক্ষার সময়ে ঘাতক জামায়াত-শিবির আর তাদের দোসররা কিন্তু চুপ করে বসে নেই । তারা যথেষ্ট সময় হাতে পাওয়ায় আগামীতে আবারও বড় ধরনের তাণ্ডব তৈরি করে এই দেশকে ধ্বংসস্তূপে পরিণত করার চেষ্টা করতে পারে। আমরা আশঙ্কা করি জামায়াত-শিবির আগামীতে তাদের সর্বোচ্চ শক্তির প্রদর্শন করে, দেশী-বিদেশী চক্রের সঙ্গে মিলে এই দেশে যে অরাজকতার সৃষ্টি করবে সেটি অতীতের যেকোন সময়ের তুলনায় আরও ভয়াবহ হবে।
এই সন্ত্রাসী গোষ্ঠী অতীতে যেভাবে নিরীহ মানুষকে কুপিয়ে হত্যা করেছে, থেঁতলে হত্যা করেছে, পুড়িয়ে মেরেছে; রাষ্ট্রীয় হাজার হাজার কোটি টাকার সম্পদ ধ্বংস করেছে, এমনকি রাস্তার পাশের নিরীহ গাছগুলোও যাদের নৃশংস তাণ্ডব থেকে রেহাই পায়নি, এই চক্রকে সমূলে নিপাত করার এখনই সময়। অপেক্ষমাণ রায়গুলোর প্রেক্ষিতে আগামীতে এই সন্ত্রাসী গোষ্ঠীকে প্রতিহত করার কোন ভরসা জাগানো দৃশ্যমান উদ্যোগ কিন্তু প্রশাসনের পক্ষ থেকে দেখা যাচ্ছে না। আমরা বার বার বলছি যে, এই সন্ত্রাসী গোষ্ঠীর বিরুদ্ধে দেশব্যাপী বিশেষ অভিযান পরিচালনা করে এদের সন্ত্রাসী আস্তানাগুলো ধ্বংস করা দরকার, অবৈধ অস্ত্রগুলো উদ্ধার করা প্রয়োজন এবং এদের বড় বড় সন্ত্রাসী পাদের আইনের আওতায় নিয়ে আসা জরুরী। 
কিন্তু সে রকম কোন উদ্যোগ নেই। এর ফলে আগামীতে সাধারণ মানুষের জানমালের নিরাপত্তা বিঘ্নিত হলে তার দায় সকলকেই বহন করতে হবে। 
আপনাদের আমি স্মরণ করিয়ে দিতে চাই যে, গণজাগরণ মঞ্চের অন্যতম একটি দাবি ছিল- 
অবিলম্বে সংগঠনগুলোর আর্থিক উৎস, যেসব উৎস থেকে সকল প্রকার জঙ্গীবাদী এবং দেশবিরোধী তৎপরতার আর্থিক যোগান দেয়া হয়, সেগুলো চিহ্নিত করে আইনের আওতায় নিয়ে আসার জন্য একটি স্বাধীন তদন্ত কমিশন গঠন করা। 
আজকে যখন পত্রিকায় জামায়াতীদের পৃষ্ঠপোষক প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলো থেকে চাঁদা নেয়ার ছবি দেখতে পাই, তখন মনে হয় সাধারণ মানুষের সংগঠন নেই বলে, সাধারণ মানুষের টাকা নেই বলে, সাধারণ মানুষের আন্তর্জাতিক লবি নেই বলে সাধারণ মানুষের গণজাগরণের দাবিকে পাশ কাটিয়ে জঙ্গীবাদের পৃষ্ঠপোষকদের আর্থিক সহায়তা নেয়ার দুঃসাহস দেখানো যায়। 
আমরা যখন জঙ্গীবাদের চিহ্নিত আর্থিক প্রতিষ্ঠানের পক্ষে সরকারের গুরুত্বপূর্ণ মন্ত্রী থেকে শুরু করে নানা পর্যায়ে ওকালতি দেখি তখন নানা আশঙ্কায় শিউরে উঠি। 
এ কিসের লক্ষণ, সেই প্রশ্ন বার বার আমাদের মনে ভেসে ওঠে।
আমি এখনও মনে করি, অবিলম্বে এই বিষয়টিকে গুরুত্ব দিয়ে দেখা প্রয়োজন। আগামীতে যখন যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের বিচারের রায় একের পর এক কার্যকর হতে থাকবে, তখন সারাদেশে তাণ্ডব ছড়াতে এই প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোই ব্যবহৃত হবে। এই প্রতিষ্ঠানের ছদ্মাবরণেই সারাদেশে যুদ্ধাপরাধীদের সমর্থকদের কর্মসংস্থানের ব্যবস্থা হয়, সারাদেশে তাদের নেটওয়ার্কিং শক্তিশালী করা হয় এবং সকল ধ্বংসযজ্ঞের প্রত্যক্ষ ও পরোক্ষ আর্থিক মদদ দেয়া হয়। আজ যদি এই প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোকে নিয়মনীতি ও আইনসম্মত নিয়ন্ত্রণের মধ্যে আনা না যায়, তাহলে ভবিষ্যতে এর জন্য চরম মূল্য দিতে হতে পারে। এই কূচক্রীরা ষড়যন্ত্র করে দেশের অর্থনীতিকে ঝুঁকির মুখে ফেলে রাষ্ট্রকে অস্থিতিশীল করে তুলবে না, সে নিশ্চয়তা কে দেবে? 
এই পরিস্থিতিতে যখন বিচার প্রক্রিয়ায় দীর্ঘসূত্রতা দেখা যাচ্ছে, নানামুখী অস্থিরতা দেখা যাচ্ছে, রায় পরবর্তী তাণ্ডব মোকাবেলার কোন প্রস্তুুতি দেখা যাচ্ছে না, অন্যদিকে জঙ্গী প্রতিষ্ঠানের পক্ষে আমরা নানা মহলকে সক্রিয় দেখছি, তখন সত্যিই যুদ্ধাপরাধের বিচার প্রক্রিয়াকে ঘিরে ধীরে ধীরে একটি বড় আশঙ্কার জন্ম হচ্ছে। 
আমি আগেও বার বার যে কথাটি বলেছি, সে কথাটিই আবার বলতে চাই যে দেশকে যুদ্ধাপরাধীমুক্ত করা একটি বিশাল ক্যানভাসের কাজ। দেশকে যুদ্ধাপরাধী মুক্ত করার জন্য জাতির মাঝে যে ইস্পাত কঠিন ঐক্য গড়ে উঠেছে, সেই ঐক্যের প্রতি সম্মান জানিয়ে যদি প্রতিটি মানুষ তাদের নিজ দায়িত্ব সম্পর্কে সচেতন না হন, সক্রিয় না হন, তাহলে প্রত্যেককেই একদিন ইতিহাসের কাঠগড়ায় দাঁড়াতে হবে। 
আর এখানেই সরকার, ট্রাইব্যুনালের তদন্ত ও প্রসিকিউশন টিম, আইনশৃঙ্খলা বাহিনী, রাজনৈতিক মহল, গণমাধ্যম এবং সাধারণ মানুষের প্রত্যেকেরই দায় ও দায়িত্ব রয়েছে। আজকের এই পরিস্থিতিতে প্রত্যেকটি সেক্টরের দায়-দায়িত্ব ও কর্তব্যকে আবারও স্মরণ করা প্রয়োজন, পুনর্নির্ধারণ করা প্রয়োজন। আমি আমাদের সকলের কর্তব্য নির্ধারণের এই বিষয়টি আলোচনা করার জন্য সমবেত গুণীজনদের বিনীত আহ্বান জানাচ্ছি। 
এতক্ষণ আশঙ্কার পরেও আমি উপসংহারে আমাদের নিজেদের মূল করণীয়টুকু পরিষ্কারভাবে সুকান্তের ভাষাতেই বলতে চাই, "বন্ধু তোমার ছাড়ো উদ্বেগ,/সুতীক্ষè করো চিত্ত /বাংলার মাটি, দুর্জয়/ ঘাঁটি চিনে নিক দুর্বৃত্ত।


লেখক : মুখপাত্র, গণজাগরণ মঞ্চ
(২৪ মে ২০১৪ জাতীয় প্রেস ক্লাব ভিআইপি লাউঞ্জে আয়োজিত গোলটেবিল বৈঠকের স্বাগত বক্তব্য)

প্রকাশ: মঙ্গলবার, ২৭ মে ২০১৪, ১৩ জ্যৈষ্ঠ ১৪২১



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Posted by: SyedAslam <Syed.Aslam3@gmail.com>


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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

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VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





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Re: [mukto-mona] FW: Salman Rushdie: On 'Modi's Toadies'



You are right - Mullahs made Salmon Rashdie and Taslima Nasrin famous. These Hindu extremists are doing the same thing for those anti-Hindu writers in India; they will be famous in India, at least, if not in the world. None of these incidences are good for democracy.  Religious hatred are increasing around the world, and that will influence Indian Hindus. 

I do not know if there is bounty on the life of any of those writers, like Rushdie and Nasrin. I doubt - there is.  

Jiten Roy



On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:49 AM, "Farida Majid farida_majid@hotmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
<< If freedom of expression is under attack, if religious freedom is threatened, and if substantial parts of society live in physical fear for their safety, then such a society cannot be said to be a true democracy.
In contemporary India all these problems exist and they are getting worse.
The attack on literary, scholarly and artistic freedom has gathered force ever since the banning of my novel, The Satanic Verses in 1988. >>>

To: foil-l@insaf.net

 

http://blogs.outlookindia.com/default.aspx?pid=3262&eid=31&ddm=10
 
Salman Rushdie: On 'Modi's Toadies'
POSTED BY Buzz ON May 06, 2014 AT 21:05 IST ,  Edited At: May 06, 2014 21:05 IST
                  
Salman Rushdie spoke on India: Religious Freedom and Personal Safety on April 28, 2014 at the 2014 PEN World Voices Festival.
Let me talk a bit about my country of origin, about India. 
There is a general election under way in India right now. 
Because of the immense size of the country, it takes six weeks for everyone to vote.
The election is largely fair, largely free. Voting is peaceful, incidents are few, and the results will be a trustworthy expression of this gigantic electorate.
On this electoral process rests India's claim to be the world's largest democracy. A proud claim, for it is harder for a poor country to be a free country.
And the long civil uncertainties and frequent unfreedoms of the citizens of all India's neighbours—the north, east, west and south—make the Indian boast all the prouder.
This, we can all agree, is good. 
But a democratic society is not simply one in which such a ballot takes place every four or five years.
Democracy is more than mere majoritarianism. 
In a truly free democratic society, all citizens must feel free all the time, whether they end up on the winning or losing side in an election—free to express themselves as they choose, free to worship or not worship as they please, free from danger and fear. 
If freedom of expression is under attack, if religious freedom is threatened, and if substantial parts of society live in physical fear for their safety, then such a society cannot be said to be a true democracy. 
In contemporary India all these problems exist and they are getting worse.
The attack on literary, scholarly and artistic freedom has gathered force ever since the banning of my novel, The Satanic Verses in 1988.
Rohinton Mistry's acclaimed novel Such a Long Journey was attacked recently by members of the Hindu extremist party the Shiv Sena in Bombay and Bombay University caved in and removed the book from the syllabus.
A.K. Ramanujan's classic essay, The 300 Ramayanas, for decades, the foundational text of Ramayan studies in Delhi University, was similarly attacked and similarly the authorities cravenly succumbed and removed it from the syllabus.
Not only was James Laine's study of the Maratha warrior king Shivaji, an icon of the Shiv Sena Party, attacked and banned, but the great library of ancient texts in Poona, where Laine had done some of his research was attacked and many ancient manuscripts destroyed.
And most recently, the same fanatical Hindu—a person called Batra— who attacked Ramanujan's essay, brought an action against Wendy Doniger's important scholarly work, The Hindus, accusing her ludicrously and ungrammatically, of being a "woman hungry of sex" and instead of being laughed out of court, he succeeded in scaring the mighty Penguin Books of withdrawing the work.
A gay artist, Balbir Krishan, was first threatened and then physically attacked in India's capital New Delhi, accused of spreading homosexuality.
The grand old man of Indian painting, Maqbool Fida Husain, was driven out of India because of threats from Hindu goon squads who disliked his nude portraits of Hindu goddess Saraswati in spite the long sculptural and artistic tradition from the most ancient times of depicting Indian goddesses heavily adorned in jewellery but very scantily clad. The wardrobe of the goddess Saraswati wouldn't take up much room.
Episodes of this sort are multiplying it seems by the month, by the week, by the day almost, and the authorities have failed lamentably in their duty to protect free speech rights.
In fact, politicians and police officials alike have repeatedly blamed the victims for being the trouble makers.
The climate of fear that has consequently been created is such that, as some of the examples I have given show, hooligans and censors' work is now done for them by the collapse of those who ought to be free speech's defenders.
Penguin Books, whose merger with Random House, has created the world's largest and most powerful publisher, and who were prepared to defend my work back in 1988, this time gave in to Doniger's critics without so much as a fight.
This already lamentable state of affairs looks likely to become worse if, as seems likely, as seems probable, the election results bring to power the Hindu nationalist BJP so that the highly divisive figure of Mr Narendra Modi, accused of being responsible for an ant-Muslim pogrom in 2002 in the state of Gujarat, whose chief minister he was then and still is, a hardliner's hardliner, becomes India's next Prime Minister.
Films dealing with the pogrom have been banned in Gujarat ever since the attacks. Already, the threats to free expression have begun to spread beyond the state of Gujarat.
Siddharth Varadarajan, the editor of the distinguished English language daily, the Hindu, was forced to resign recently because the paper's owner's felt he wasn't pro-Modi enough. Soon afterwards, the caretaker of his apartment was beaten up in a Delhi street, by thugs who told him, 'Tell your boss to watch what he says on Television.'
Sagarika Ghose, a leading anchor of CNN's Indian affiliate, IBN, was ordered by her bosses to stop posting tweets critical of Mr Modi. In response, she tweeted what many journalists are thinking: 'There is an evil out there, an evil which is stamping out all free speech and silencing independent journalists: journalists unite!'
Nor are the threats limited to free expression. Modi's campaign manager Amit Shah delivered a speech in early April in the northern town of Muzaffarnagar, the site of sectarian strife last year. He described the elections as an opportunity to seek revenge against the Muslim minorities. 
Giriraj Singh, a senior leader of the BJP, said in an election rally in the northern state of Bihar, that those opposing Mr Modi would have no place in India—they will only find a place in Pakistan, he shouted.
Praveen Togadia, one of the most senior of what I have come to think of as Modi's Toadies, told his supporters to prevent Muslims from buying property in Hindu majority neighbourhoods in Gujarat. 
The writing is on the wall. 
A couple of weeks ago, the sculptor Anish Kapoor and I, along with several other Indian artists, academics and intellectuals, signed an open letter, worrying about Mr Modi's rise to power.
Since then, the attack on us in Indian social media has been relentless and, paradoxically, has validated our fears.
We worried about the arrival of a bullying, intolerant new regime and here are its early outriders: menacing, nasty, bile-spewing, vengeful, substituting ad-hominem attacks for any real debate. There will not be less of this after a Modi victory.
Mr Modi's supporters hark back to the ballot box. He will win, they say, because he is popular. And they are right. 
A disturbingly high percentage of the Indian electorate wants a strong man leader, is willing to turn a blind eye to his past misdeeds, even if those include genocide, believes that dissenting intellectuals should be put in their place, critical journalists should be muzzled, and artists should behave themselves.
This willingness to bet the house on Modi's alleged economic genius, on which many commentators have doubts, and to risk everything that's beautiful about a free society, may indeed provide the wave which sweeps Mr Modi to victory.
It would be easy to say: then India will get the government it deserves. For all those who value what is being lost, all those who want a country free of fear, an open society not a stifled one, all those Indians will get an India they don't deserve. 
Those who value the India for which Rabindranath Tagore yearned in his great poem, 'My country awake!' will get an India that would have horrified the poet.
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high, 
where knowledge is free, 

Tagore wrote, in part:
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

India is in danger of betraying the legacy of its founding fathers and greatest artists like Rabindranath Tagore.
Thank you.






--
Peace Is Doable





__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





__,_._,___

Re: [mukto-mona] The New Message on Religion



Please read: "..stated to pushed God..." ...as started to push God...


On Monday, May 26, 2014 2:29 PM, "Jiten Roy jnrsr53@yahoo.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
We need to understand the essence of religion in the context of the time of its origination. In a world where there was no concept of authority and no rules of law for the human society, wise people assigned the concept of authority to an unseen entity, called God, and rules of law as commandments of religion. Religion was introduced to unite, organize, and lead people in a direction, deemed to be right at the time.
As people started to become enlightened, they also realized that God and religion can be exploited to gain authority. That's when man stated to pushed God in the background to attain authority through religion.
Today, religion is one of the most powerful  means of uniting, mobilizing and leading people in a defined direction. As a result, behind each religion, there is an almighty pied piper to lead the parade of the foolish people to a defined direction of his choice. 
Jiten Roy 
 


On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:55 AM, "Musa Ali qurisl@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
We should understand what is religion for then we will know who is
truly religious and who is religion trader. This new message seems
interesting. Religion is indeed a mystery! A mystery for good reason,
God only knows!

--
Dr Musa Ali (PhD)

The New Message on Religion

As revealed to God's Messenger
Marshall Vian Summers
on July 20, 2009
in Boulder, Colorado

At this time and place, it is important to speak about the purpose of
religion. Religion is part of the human experience, and any attempts
that have been made to eradicate it or to minimize it have proven to
be unsuccessful. For you cannot deny the reality of the human spirit.
You cannot deny the fundamental reality that there is a greater
spiritual need in people that must be expressed. But like all things
in the world, that which is natural and essential can become
distorted, misaligned and misused, allied with other purposes,
particularly when these natural impulses become connected with
governments and powerful forces in society.
Simply said, the purpose of religion is to cultivate the desire and
the capacity to experience the Divine Presence in one's life. All
teachings and rituals, whether within large institutions or within the
privacy of one's home, [are] for this purpose. And the desire and
capacity to experience the Divine Presence [are] to bring one to the
power of Knowledge that the Creator of all life has placed within each
human heart.
Yet when you look about, either at home or in foreign lands, you will
find there is a great poverty, a great poverty in that people's lives
are not demonstrating this Presence and the power of this Knowledge.
The look of disappointment and dissatisfaction, the sense of regret in
the older people, the sense of hopelessness and discouragement in the
young [are] evidence that this Power and this Presence are not being
experienced. Religion has become now a yoke and a harness for people,
requiring them to believe along certain prescribed lines of thought
and to behave along certain prescribed lines of behavior. But this is
far from the essence of what religion is really for.
To require, either through inducement or threat, for people to adhere
to a certain system of belief does not represent the essence and
purpose of religion. Yet that is what is so manifest in the world
today. Religion has become another form of government--a form of
government that seeks power and domination, a form of government that
seeks to overcome its competing rivals, the competing agendas of other
religions and faiths. And so there is a contest and a kind of war
exerted between the most radical elements of these systems of belief.
But this is not what religion really is.
The Creator of all life has initiated all of the world's religions,
but they have all been altered by people and governments, by cultures
and traditions and by the competition for power in the world. That is
why there are so many people today in the world who, though they have
genuine spiritual needs and yearnings, are so put off by the
manifestations of religion as it has become. Where can you find the
cultivation of one's inner life? Where is the emphasis on recognizing,
following and embracing the power and the presence of Knowledge within
the individual? Where is the emphasis on developing and encouraging
the individual's capacity and desire to experience the mystery of the
Divine Presence--a mystery that defies all religious teachings and
conventions? Where are such things being encouraged for the
individual? You visit the church or the temple or the mosque and what
is presented but an emphasis on upholding the ideology of religion,
the institutions of religion [and] the demands of religion? This
emphasis is out of context and out of relationship with the essential
purpose of religion.
In essence, all religion is to teach The Way of Knowledge, to bring
the individual into the direct experience of Knowledge, the deeper
mind beyond the intellect, the mind that God has provided each person
to guide them, to protect them and to lead them to a greater life and
expression in the world. But you do not hear this emphasis. Instead,
there is the encouragement to believe, to adhere, to follow the
prescriptions of a religious tradition, however illogical and
unreasonable those prescriptions may be within the context of modern
life. And this is called "the Word of God," God's will for humanity.
Of course, there is great competition between competing powers over
who has the ultimate and final claim of God's will and prescription
for humanity.
It is as if the unreligious have taken over the business of religion
for their own purposes. Never having realized its essential purpose
and meaning, they have turned it into something else. It is like now a
political party, and of course religion has political aims as well.
This is so far apart from God's initial impulse and intention for
religion--to keep Knowledge alive in the world, to teach The Way of
Knowledge, to encourage human responsibility and ethical behavior, not
simply as a prescript or as a requirement for admission into Heaven or
some other exalted future state. It is really a denial of the natural
integrity and natural ethics that will arise with the person who has
experienced this power and presence of Knowledge and is guided by its
wisdom and its grace.
These individuals, no matter what part of the world they reside, no
matter what tribe or group or culture they come from, will all uphold
the same values because these are the values of Knowledge. And so you
have a world that seems deeply religious, but is not practicing and
emphasizing what religion is really for. And given the submission and
oppression of peoples throughout human history, whatever sacred intent
has been maintained has been maintained only for the elite, for the
monastic, for the adept.
As a result, God's true Messengers have had to break the chains of
convention, have had to teach in opposition in the face of the
prevailing religious beliefs and attitudes. They have had to become
rebels and reformers, counteracting humanity's tendency to turn what
is sacred into what is profane. What is the intent of the true
Messenger but to evoke the spiritual fire in the individual and to
bring them in contact with the deeper conscience that exists within
them--a conscience that is not the product of social conformation or
social expectation, but a deeper conscience that is innate and
essential to the human life?
So you have a world that is religious, but knows not of religion. You
have a world where religious institutions and their advocates clash
and compete with one another, not realizing that the source of their
faith is the same. They will have people demanding and expecting
adherence to ideas and beliefs and admonitions, but who themselves
have never received the real initiation into the mystery and the power
of the Presence.
Religion has become concrete. It has become political. It has become
an economic and social power that seeks to preserve its status and its
power at whatever cost. So those who are truly responding to
religion's true purpose now find themselves in exile, now find
themselves heretics and visionaries following the Mystery--a Mystery
that has been lost to so many in the religious orders and
institutions. It is as if religion has become the enemy of what
religion is really for. It is now the religion of the state, religion
of tradition, religion of history, religion of fixed ideas, fixed
beliefs and exclusive claims of authority. So far this is from the
desire and intent of the Creator to keep Knowledge alive in the world.
In certain cases, religion has become the enemy of Knowledge,
declaring that only God has Knowledge and that people are foolish and
must be corralled like animals, must be programmed and conditioned to
believe--to believe things that are incredible and impossible, to
believe things that run counter to the deeper experience that people
have, things that are apart from the real mystery and the profound
experience that is the essence of what religion really is.
Throughout the ages, the mystics, the wise amongst them, have kept
this Power and this Presence alive, but they were the outcasts, at the
margin of religious institutions. They were the rebels and the
reformers who, though disapproved of or distrusted by their
authorities, actually gave life and substance and meaning to the empty
religious practices that prevailed in human society.
So what does this mean for you? This means that there is a greater
power in your life, a greater mystery in your life, and that your
connection to God is through Knowledge--the deeper intelligence that
God has placed within you, an intelligence that is beyond the realm
and the reach of your intellect. This power is calling to you, and
your response to it represents the deepest need of your soul--a need
that is deeper than the need for survival and gratification, for
education and opportunity, for friendship and partnership.
To find this need, you must realize that what the world is providing
is inadequate. It meets social and psychological needs. It meets
practical needs. But it does not meet the real need of the soul. That
requires an engagement of an extraordinary kind.
The Creator of all life of course understands this predicament--that
religion has become the problem and not the answer, that religion has
become the impediment and not the pathway, that the true purpose and
emphasis of religion has been lost in so many ways, that now only a
very wise and exceptional teacher within a faith tradition can speak
to the mystery and the power and refer to the deeper conscience within
the individual. But such teachers are rare. They represent the
minority of those who claim ecclesiastical powers and authorities. For
how can you be allegiant to the church or to the mosque or the temple
if your greatest allegiance is to Knowledge, which represents your
allegiance to God? And if God is not bound by human thought, human
philosophy and human theology, then you as a follower of Knowledge
will not be bound by these either. This makes you free and
uncontrollable. This makes you perceptive and more incorruptible. This
makes you question the value of religious authority and the ethics and
behavior of religious institutions--all things that religious
institutions are prone to resist and to repress.
Therefore, it is necessary that you come back to what is essential, to
the initial impulse and power of religion--not the religion of the
state, not the religion of the traditional institutions necessarily,
but to something much purer that can exist within them and beyond
them.
Beware of beliefs that seem set in stone. Beware of proclamations of
exclusive privilege or authority by religious leaders. Recognize that
there are people who are freedom oriented and there are people who are
control oriented. And the control oriented are afraid of freedom, and
they are afraid of Mystery because they do not believe in the
essential goodness of the human spirit. They have lost their faith in
humanity and have placed all their faith in their ideology and their
prescriptions that they believe have come from God. But God has only
given recommendations through the great Teachers, not
rules--recommendations for living, guidelines for living to help people
orient their lives correctly and productively and beneficially.
Therefore, to find your real connection, you must come to learn The
Way of Knowledge, for at the heart of every religion, there is The Way
of Knowledge. This is not the way of belief. This is not the way of
obedience. This is not the way of blindly following [the]
prescriptions and precepts and admonitions of religious leaders and
institutions. It is finding the power and the presence of Knowledge
within you and learning over time and through instruction how to
discern this Power and Presence from the other impulses and
compulsions that exist within you as an individual.
God's purpose in the world is to keep Knowledge alive so that human
freedom, human justice [and] human compassion may be kept alive in the
world. God's purpose is not to exalt religious leaders or
institutions, or to crown one over another. These are human creations
and not God creations, and they are fallible and prone to corruption
as a result.
God has provided a New Message into the world to clarify this picture
and to provide a clear pathway for those who seek to have the real
experience, and they can have this experience within their religious
traditions or outside of them.
God's New Revelation may conflict with political ideology and
longstanding beliefs, but that is what happens when what is pure is
contrasted with what has been altered and adapted. God is not bound by
human creations, human beliefs and admonitions. God only provides what
is real and essential to ignite the human heart and to give each
individual a foundation for being inner directed rather than outer
directed. Here your imam or your rabbi or your priest can help you if
they are guided by Knowledge. But they will hinder you if they are
not. You must learn to see the difference.
Religions are institutions that have to be maintained and protected.
They are in competition with each other, so none of them that exist in
the world today can really foster human peace and human unity, for
they all claim special privileges, and only those few individuals
within them that support a great ecumenical movement and the
acceptance of all world's religions can counteract this competition,
which is inherently divisive and destructive.
In these words, we speak to the human heart, not to the intellect that
wants to have everything figured out and wants to adhere to its
notions, its beliefs and its traditions. There is nothing wrong with a
tradition if it fulfills the basic purpose of religion, which is to
inspire and expand people's desire and capacity to experience the
presence of God and to connect them with the deeper intelligence that
God has placed within them that will be essential for their success
and their well-being in the world. This is much more important than
the teachings of the founder of a religious tradition. It is much more
important than the religion's official declarations of belief or
doctrinaires.
People celebrate and worship and repeat endlessly the lives of the
great Teachers, but can they really live the lives that these Teachers
promoted? It is not merely human behavior that is important, for
people can behave well for all the wrong reasons. People can fall in
line with each other for social advantage, for economic advantage and
to achieve social status and acceptance, but this is not religion.
You who seek to know your greater purpose in the world and the greater
meaning of your life are a religious person. Whether you belong to a
church or a mosque or a synagogue or any other religious organization,
that is secondary. Promoting a religious ideology in the world does
not represent supporting God's will and purpose here. It is only if
this ideology and system of belief can meet the basic requirements of
religion that they have real and lasting value and produce real
benefit for people.
Likewise, no religious teaching should promote war and attack upon
other groups. This represents competition for power between these
groups, but this is not what religion is. Religion is bringing you to
God and to what God has placed within you to guide you, to protect you
and to lead you to your great accomplishments in life. Anything beyond
this is an invention--a human invention, an adaptation. People will
have to figure out what this means in terms of the application of law
and the running of societies.
God is not here to run societies or to carry out the intricacies of
jurisprudence or the administration of the law. God is pointing you to
the Mystery, not to the manifestation. God is calling you to the
Mystery, not prescribing the manifestation. If you want to have more
saints in the world, if you want to have truly inspiring individuals
in the world, if you want humanity to have a higher standard that is
born not out of an oppressive regime, but out of a natural
understanding, then you must guide people to the power of the Mystery.
Religion, you see, does not have an answer for every social and
political problem, but it does give people access to the deeper
intelligence that can guide people effectively in meeting all these
needs. Religion must be free of the state; [it] must be free of
politics, which will only taint and corrupt it to the point where
those who claim to be holy men will call for the execution of people.
This is the degree of distortion and aberrancy that has been
established in the world today, and that is why there is a New Message
from God--to restore the clarity and the purpose of religion, the
meaning of spiritual practice and the nature of the Divine Revelation
that must happen within each person. It is not enough to celebrate a
great Teacher's revelation if you cannot find access to your own. It
is not enough to worship a great teacher or emancipator unless you can
find this power and this presence within your life, which will apply
itself in far more mundane and simple day-to-day circumstances.
Here the contrast is significant. Here the contrast is significant and
must be comprehended. If you want religion to be a thing, you will
lose its essence and its meaning and turn it into something that it
was never meant to be. If you want to turn religion into a set of
ideals or beliefs or a complex theology, you will lose what religion
really is and what it is for. To argue whether Jesus or Mohammed is
the greatest Teacher or provides the final word for humanity is so
utterly ridiculous and so far from the nature and intent of religion
as God intended it to be that it represents a kind of pathetic
diminishing and distortion of what religion really is.
To think that Mohammed gave the final Revelation is to misunderstand
God's purpose and presence, for God has many more things to say to the
world, particularly at this great turning point when humanity is
facing a declining world, a world of declining resources, when
humanity is facing the reality of contact with intelligent life in the
universe--two great events that none of God's previous Revelations are
meant to address or that can address sufficiently [and] reasonably.
Religion has become overlaid with ideas, beliefs, institutions, laws
and requirements that have become repressive to the people or
abhorrent to people who are more freedom loving. They do not meet the
deeper need of the soul. That is why you must come back to what is
essential, to what is real.
The temple, the mosque, the church and the tribal place of worship are
the places to honor the Mystery and to evoke the Presence and the
Power.
The Way of Knowledge, which is at the heart of all the world's
religions, must become its essential teaching, instead of a focus for
clerics and monastics and exceptional individuals only. This is the
challenge before you, or religion will be part of the problem for
humanity and not its essential means of reconciliation, inspiration
and a high ethical awareness. Let this be your understanding.

Link: www.newmessage.org/the-new-message-on-religion






__._,_.___

Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


****************************************************
Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
Call For Articles:

http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=68

http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

****************************************************

VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/

****************************************************

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





__,_._,___

Re: [mukto-mona] The New Message on Religion



We need to understand the essence of religion in the context of the time of its origination. In a world where there was no concept of authority and no rules of law for the human society, wise people assigned the concept of authority to an unseen entity, called God, and rules of law as commandments of religion. Religion was introduced to unite, organize, and lead people in a direction, deemed to be right at the time.
As people started to become enlightened, they also realized that God and religion can be exploited to gain authority. That's when man stated to pushed God in the background to attain authority through religion.
Today, religion is one of the most powerful  means of uniting, mobilizing and leading people in a defined direction. As a result, behind each religion, there is an almighty pied piper to lead the parade of the foolish people to a defined direction of his choice. 
Jiten Roy 
 


On Monday, May 26, 2014 10:55 AM, "Musa Ali qurisl@gmail.com [mukto-mona]" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
We should understand what is religion for then we will know who is
truly religious and who is religion trader. This new message seems
interesting. Religion is indeed a mystery! A mystery for good reason,
God only knows!

--
Dr Musa Ali (PhD)

The New Message on Religion

As revealed to God's Messenger
Marshall Vian Summers
on July 20, 2009
in Boulder, Colorado

At this time and place, it is important to speak about the purpose of
religion. Religion is part of the human experience, and any attempts
that have been made to eradicate it or to minimize it have proven to
be unsuccessful. For you cannot deny the reality of the human spirit.
You cannot deny the fundamental reality that there is a greater
spiritual need in people that must be expressed. But like all things
in the world, that which is natural and essential can become
distorted, misaligned and misused, allied with other purposes,
particularly when these natural impulses become connected with
governments and powerful forces in society.
Simply said, the purpose of religion is to cultivate the desire and
the capacity to experience the Divine Presence in one's life. All
teachings and rituals, whether within large institutions or within the
privacy of one's home, [are] for this purpose. And the desire and
capacity to experience the Divine Presence [are] to bring one to the
power of Knowledge that the Creator of all life has placed within each
human heart.
Yet when you look about, either at home or in foreign lands, you will
find there is a great poverty, a great poverty in that people's lives
are not demonstrating this Presence and the power of this Knowledge.
The look of disappointment and dissatisfaction, the sense of regret in
the older people, the sense of hopelessness and discouragement in the
young [are] evidence that this Power and this Presence are not being
experienced. Religion has become now a yoke and a harness for people,
requiring them to believe along certain prescribed lines of thought
and to behave along certain prescribed lines of behavior. But this is
far from the essence of what religion is really for.
To require, either through inducement or threat, for people to adhere
to a certain system of belief does not represent the essence and
purpose of religion. Yet that is what is so manifest in the world
today. Religion has become another form of government--a form of
government that seeks power and domination, a form of government that
seeks to overcome its competing rivals, the competing agendas of other
religions and faiths. And so there is a contest and a kind of war
exerted between the most radical elements of these systems of belief.
But this is not what religion really is.
The Creator of all life has initiated all of the world's religions,
but they have all been altered by people and governments, by cultures
and traditions and by the competition for power in the world. That is
why there are so many people today in the world who, though they have
genuine spiritual needs and yearnings, are so put off by the
manifestations of religion as it has become. Where can you find the
cultivation of one's inner life? Where is the emphasis on recognizing,
following and embracing the power and the presence of Knowledge within
the individual? Where is the emphasis on developing and encouraging
the individual's capacity and desire to experience the mystery of the
Divine Presence--a mystery that defies all religious teachings and
conventions? Where are such things being encouraged for the
individual? You visit the church or the temple or the mosque and what
is presented but an emphasis on upholding the ideology of religion,
the institutions of religion [and] the demands of religion? This
emphasis is out of context and out of relationship with the essential
purpose of religion.
In essence, all religion is to teach The Way of Knowledge, to bring
the individual into the direct experience of Knowledge, the deeper
mind beyond the intellect, the mind that God has provided each person
to guide them, to protect them and to lead them to a greater life and
expression in the world. But you do not hear this emphasis. Instead,
there is the encouragement to believe, to adhere, to follow the
prescriptions of a religious tradition, however illogical and
unreasonable those prescriptions may be within the context of modern
life. And this is called "the Word of God," God's will for humanity.
Of course, there is great competition between competing powers over
who has the ultimate and final claim of God's will and prescription
for humanity.
It is as if the unreligious have taken over the business of religion
for their own purposes. Never having realized its essential purpose
and meaning, they have turned it into something else. It is like now a
political party, and of course religion has political aims as well.
This is so far apart from God's initial impulse and intention for
religion--to keep Knowledge alive in the world, to teach The Way of
Knowledge, to encourage human responsibility and ethical behavior, not
simply as a prescript or as a requirement for admission into Heaven or
some other exalted future state. It is really a denial of the natural
integrity and natural ethics that will arise with the person who has
experienced this power and presence of Knowledge and is guided by its
wisdom and its grace.
These individuals, no matter what part of the world they reside, no
matter what tribe or group or culture they come from, will all uphold
the same values because these are the values of Knowledge. And so you
have a world that seems deeply religious, but is not practicing and
emphasizing what religion is really for. And given the submission and
oppression of peoples throughout human history, whatever sacred intent
has been maintained has been maintained only for the elite, for the
monastic, for the adept.
As a result, God's true Messengers have had to break the chains of
convention, have had to teach in opposition in the face of the
prevailing religious beliefs and attitudes. They have had to become
rebels and reformers, counteracting humanity's tendency to turn what
is sacred into what is profane. What is the intent of the true
Messenger but to evoke the spiritual fire in the individual and to
bring them in contact with the deeper conscience that exists within
them--a conscience that is not the product of social conformation or
social expectation, but a deeper conscience that is innate and
essential to the human life?
So you have a world that is religious, but knows not of religion. You
have a world where religious institutions and their advocates clash
and compete with one another, not realizing that the source of their
faith is the same. They will have people demanding and expecting
adherence to ideas and beliefs and admonitions, but who themselves
have never received the real initiation into the mystery and the power
of the Presence.
Religion has become concrete. It has become political. It has become
an economic and social power that seeks to preserve its status and its
power at whatever cost. So those who are truly responding to
religion's true purpose now find themselves in exile, now find
themselves heretics and visionaries following the Mystery--a Mystery
that has been lost to so many in the religious orders and
institutions. It is as if religion has become the enemy of what
religion is really for. It is now the religion of the state, religion
of tradition, religion of history, religion of fixed ideas, fixed
beliefs and exclusive claims of authority. So far this is from the
desire and intent of the Creator to keep Knowledge alive in the world.
In certain cases, religion has become the enemy of Knowledge,
declaring that only God has Knowledge and that people are foolish and
must be corralled like animals, must be programmed and conditioned to
believe--to believe things that are incredible and impossible, to
believe things that run counter to the deeper experience that people
have, things that are apart from the real mystery and the profound
experience that is the essence of what religion really is.
Throughout the ages, the mystics, the wise amongst them, have kept
this Power and this Presence alive, but they were the outcasts, at the
margin of religious institutions. They were the rebels and the
reformers who, though disapproved of or distrusted by their
authorities, actually gave life and substance and meaning to the empty
religious practices that prevailed in human society.
So what does this mean for you? This means that there is a greater
power in your life, a greater mystery in your life, and that your
connection to God is through Knowledge--the deeper intelligence that
God has placed within you, an intelligence that is beyond the realm
and the reach of your intellect. This power is calling to you, and
your response to it represents the deepest need of your soul--a need
that is deeper than the need for survival and gratification, for
education and opportunity, for friendship and partnership.
To find this need, you must realize that what the world is providing
is inadequate. It meets social and psychological needs. It meets
practical needs. But it does not meet the real need of the soul. That
requires an engagement of an extraordinary kind.
The Creator of all life of course understands this predicament--that
religion has become the problem and not the answer, that religion has
become the impediment and not the pathway, that the true purpose and
emphasis of religion has been lost in so many ways, that now only a
very wise and exceptional teacher within a faith tradition can speak
to the mystery and the power and refer to the deeper conscience within
the individual. But such teachers are rare. They represent the
minority of those who claim ecclesiastical powers and authorities. For
how can you be allegiant to the church or to the mosque or the temple
if your greatest allegiance is to Knowledge, which represents your
allegiance to God? And if God is not bound by human thought, human
philosophy and human theology, then you as a follower of Knowledge
will not be bound by these either. This makes you free and
uncontrollable. This makes you perceptive and more incorruptible. This
makes you question the value of religious authority and the ethics and
behavior of religious institutions--all things that religious
institutions are prone to resist and to repress.
Therefore, it is necessary that you come back to what is essential, to
the initial impulse and power of religion--not the religion of the
state, not the religion of the traditional institutions necessarily,
but to something much purer that can exist within them and beyond
them.
Beware of beliefs that seem set in stone. Beware of proclamations of
exclusive privilege or authority by religious leaders. Recognize that
there are people who are freedom oriented and there are people who are
control oriented. And the control oriented are afraid of freedom, and
they are afraid of Mystery because they do not believe in the
essential goodness of the human spirit. They have lost their faith in
humanity and have placed all their faith in their ideology and their
prescriptions that they believe have come from God. But God has only
given recommendations through the great Teachers, not
rules--recommendations for living, guidelines for living to help people
orient their lives correctly and productively and beneficially.
Therefore, to find your real connection, you must come to learn The
Way of Knowledge, for at the heart of every religion, there is The Way
of Knowledge. This is not the way of belief. This is not the way of
obedience. This is not the way of blindly following [the]
prescriptions and precepts and admonitions of religious leaders and
institutions. It is finding the power and the presence of Knowledge
within you and learning over time and through instruction how to
discern this Power and Presence from the other impulses and
compulsions that exist within you as an individual.
God's purpose in the world is to keep Knowledge alive so that human
freedom, human justice [and] human compassion may be kept alive in the
world. God's purpose is not to exalt religious leaders or
institutions, or to crown one over another. These are human creations
and not God creations, and they are fallible and prone to corruption
as a result.
God has provided a New Message into the world to clarify this picture
and to provide a clear pathway for those who seek to have the real
experience, and they can have this experience within their religious
traditions or outside of them.
God's New Revelation may conflict with political ideology and
longstanding beliefs, but that is what happens when what is pure is
contrasted with what has been altered and adapted. God is not bound by
human creations, human beliefs and admonitions. God only provides what
is real and essential to ignite the human heart and to give each
individual a foundation for being inner directed rather than outer
directed. Here your imam or your rabbi or your priest can help you if
they are guided by Knowledge. But they will hinder you if they are
not. You must learn to see the difference.
Religions are institutions that have to be maintained and protected.
They are in competition with each other, so none of them that exist in
the world today can really foster human peace and human unity, for
they all claim special privileges, and only those few individuals
within them that support a great ecumenical movement and the
acceptance of all world's religions can counteract this competition,
which is inherently divisive and destructive.
In these words, we speak to the human heart, not to the intellect that
wants to have everything figured out and wants to adhere to its
notions, its beliefs and its traditions. There is nothing wrong with a
tradition if it fulfills the basic purpose of religion, which is to
inspire and expand people's desire and capacity to experience the
presence of God and to connect them with the deeper intelligence that
God has placed within them that will be essential for their success
and their well-being in the world. This is much more important than
the teachings of the founder of a religious tradition. It is much more
important than the religion's official declarations of belief or
doctrinaires.
People celebrate and worship and repeat endlessly the lives of the
great Teachers, but can they really live the lives that these Teachers
promoted? It is not merely human behavior that is important, for
people can behave well for all the wrong reasons. People can fall in
line with each other for social advantage, for economic advantage and
to achieve social status and acceptance, but this is not religion.
You who seek to know your greater purpose in the world and the greater
meaning of your life are a religious person. Whether you belong to a
church or a mosque or a synagogue or any other religious organization,
that is secondary. Promoting a religious ideology in the world does
not represent supporting God's will and purpose here. It is only if
this ideology and system of belief can meet the basic requirements of
religion that they have real and lasting value and produce real
benefit for people.
Likewise, no religious teaching should promote war and attack upon
other groups. This represents competition for power between these
groups, but this is not what religion is. Religion is bringing you to
God and to what God has placed within you to guide you, to protect you
and to lead you to your great accomplishments in life. Anything beyond
this is an invention--a human invention, an adaptation. People will
have to figure out what this means in terms of the application of law
and the running of societies.
God is not here to run societies or to carry out the intricacies of
jurisprudence or the administration of the law. God is pointing you to
the Mystery, not to the manifestation. God is calling you to the
Mystery, not prescribing the manifestation. If you want to have more
saints in the world, if you want to have truly inspiring individuals
in the world, if you want humanity to have a higher standard that is
born not out of an oppressive regime, but out of a natural
understanding, then you must guide people to the power of the Mystery.
Religion, you see, does not have an answer for every social and
political problem, but it does give people access to the deeper
intelligence that can guide people effectively in meeting all these
needs. Religion must be free of the state; [it] must be free of
politics, which will only taint and corrupt it to the point where
those who claim to be holy men will call for the execution of people.
This is the degree of distortion and aberrancy that has been
established in the world today, and that is why there is a New Message
from God--to restore the clarity and the purpose of religion, the
meaning of spiritual practice and the nature of the Divine Revelation
that must happen within each person. It is not enough to celebrate a
great Teacher's revelation if you cannot find access to your own. It
is not enough to worship a great teacher or emancipator unless you can
find this power and this presence within your life, which will apply
itself in far more mundane and simple day-to-day circumstances.
Here the contrast is significant. Here the contrast is significant and
must be comprehended. If you want religion to be a thing, you will
lose its essence and its meaning and turn it into something that it
was never meant to be. If you want to turn religion into a set of
ideals or beliefs or a complex theology, you will lose what religion
really is and what it is for. To argue whether Jesus or Mohammed is
the greatest Teacher or provides the final word for humanity is so
utterly ridiculous and so far from the nature and intent of religion
as God intended it to be that it represents a kind of pathetic
diminishing and distortion of what religion really is.
To think that Mohammed gave the final Revelation is to misunderstand
God's purpose and presence, for God has many more things to say to the
world, particularly at this great turning point when humanity is
facing a declining world, a world of declining resources, when
humanity is facing the reality of contact with intelligent life in the
universe--two great events that none of God's previous Revelations are
meant to address or that can address sufficiently [and] reasonably.
Religion has become overlaid with ideas, beliefs, institutions, laws
and requirements that have become repressive to the people or
abhorrent to people who are more freedom loving. They do not meet the
deeper need of the soul. That is why you must come back to what is
essential, to what is real.
The temple, the mosque, the church and the tribal place of worship are
the places to honor the Mystery and to evoke the Presence and the
Power.
The Way of Knowledge, which is at the heart of all the world's
religions, must become its essential teaching, instead of a focus for
clerics and monastics and exceptional individuals only. This is the
challenge before you, or religion will be part of the problem for
humanity and not its essential means of reconciliation, inspiration
and a high ethical awareness. Let this be your understanding.

Link: www.newmessage.org/the-new-message-on-religion




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Posted by: Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com>


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Mukto Mona plans for a Grand Darwin Day Celebration: 
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http://mukto-mona.com/banga_blog/?p=585

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               -Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190





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