From: kanuparmar420@hotmail.com
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
Date: Sat, 4 May 2013 11:25:50 +0000
Dear Moderator,
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To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: kamalctgu@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 07:59:30 +0600
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
After long time my hotmail account has been restored.Please renew my account and send messages as soon as possible.
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To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: kamalctgu@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 07:59:30 +0600
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
T. B. Macaulay was not smart enough to find the similarity among the Greek and the Hindu deities. But Toynbee appreciated Hinduism on the whole, in spite of it's weakness and inability to hold the society together. He even expressed his desire to become a Hindu if the conversion did not lead him to become a Sudra. Many leading theologians follow Hopkins and consider India as the origin of all religions. Even the Missionary activities were invented by Ashoke the Great to spread Buddhism, which is a little more than an offshoot of Hinduism. The 'Missionary assault' is not over yet. It did not succeed not due to the 'combined strength and self confidence' of Indian Hindus and Muslims, but due to the vast mass of the 'heathens'. When the Europeans arrived, Muslims constituted an insignificant monotheistic minority and hence their conversion was not considered important.
On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> wrote:
It was the combined strength and self-confidence of Indian Hindus & Muslims that resisted the Missionary assault on India. Otherwise India could very well have ended up like Africa. This ground-level resistance to conversion to Christianity was the root cause of many colonial administrative policies adopted by the British. One was the Indian education system installed after the recommendation of Macaulay's "Minutes on Indian Education", Feb. 1834.
Failure to Christianize India was a big sore point since a lot of British missionary money and energy were expended towards that goal. Hence all the energetic, and vindictive critiquing of Indian religions, and its social organizations such as caste system. That is why I wrote the following:
Critiquing of religions is a futile exercise, and in fact, a diversionary tactics. WHAT judgmental comments Macaulay, Toynbee, et al made on Indian religions is of very little substance, most historians now agree. WHY they engaged in critiquing Indian religions as if religions are static, monolithic and divorced from the flow of historical developments had to do with their innate racist agenda. There was, of course, evangelicalism, the ever-present handmaiden to European Imperialism.
Vivekananda picked up the missionary platitudes and began feeding off them creating an unassailable Eastern spiritualism v. Western materialism discourse. He began striking poses. Narasingha Shil diagnosed in Vivekananda's famous photograph how he adopted the posture of Napoleon.
Farida
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: kamalctgu@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 08:29:31 +0600
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
"serving the poor as serving the God"- It is essentially an attitude of the Christian missionary and by no means an invention by the Swami. By such tricks, the Church conquered Africa. The Africans lament, when they came with the Bible, we had the land, after a while the possession was reversed, i.e., they had the land and we had the bible.
On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 4:24 AM, Jiten Roy <jnrsr53@yahoo.com> wrote:
…. serving the poor as a substitute for serving God (God lives among the poor and those who have lost every thing.
The phrase "serving the poor as serving the God" is the same as – help thy neighbors in need. All these mean help whoever needs helps, irrespective of rich and poor. Obviously, the poor surely need help, but – rich may need help also. If someone does not help a rich in need of help, he/she would commit bad karma.
God lives among the poor is incorrect interpretation, I believe. Rich and poor are all created by the same God. In fact – it is more logical to think that God lives/likes the rich much more than the poor; how else could they become rich. I believe someone coined the phrase 'God loves the poor' as a consolation for the poor. It's not a logical argument. Helping the peole in need is always a good karma, and God would undoubtedly be pleased whoever serves that duty.Jiten Roy
From: subimal chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami VivekanandaTo: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>Date: Saturday, September 29, 2012, 12:11 AM
Cc: "bangladesh-progressives@googlegroups.com" <bangladesh-progressives@googlegroups.com>
I have in my collection a book titled "Chintanayak Vivekananda". It is a compilation of articles on Vivekananda by distinguished scholars like R.C. Majumdar, Suniniti Chatterjee, Gandhi, Nehru, Zakir Hossain, and others. The writers have shed light on various aspects of Viveknanda's life and works. Obviously Vivekananda was a not a little man. He has been praised by Tolstoy, Romain Rolland, Rabindranath, Aurobinda, and many other great people. He was a multifaceted genius. I have read his prose that one may confuse with Rabindranath's prose used in "Chhinnapatra". Any way, let me come to the point. The book I have referred to has mentioned that when he passed his B.A examination, he was in acute financial distress. His family also was going through some sort of trouble. In order to overcome economic crisis he went to Kali mandir to pray. He was at that time 21. Ramkrishna assured him that he would help him overcome the crisis. He got a job in an attorny's office. He also started translating books. Probably he never forgot the economic crisis he went through. That is one of the reasons why his religion and philosophy mainly centered around the poor and the weaker sections of the society. Rabindranath said to Romain Rolland: If you want to know India, know Vivekananda. Every thing in him is positive, nothing is negative. I would not be surprised if Rabindranath was influenced by him in writing poems that emphasised on serving the poor as a substitute for serving God (God lives among the poor and those who have lost every thing).From: Shah Deeldar <shahdeeldar@yahoo.com>
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "bangladesh-progressives@googlegroups.com" <bangladesh-progressives@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 7:04 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
Why not talk about how Vivekananda faced starvation right after his graduation from Calcutta University? Is that your own fantasy or you read that in somebody's fictional work? Answer the question or get lost, you pos!
-SD
"All great truths begin as blasphemies." GBSFrom: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
Read any standard biography on Vivekananda, and stop posting internet materials like a Muslim fundamentalist does in this forum. Such writings are worth no more than toilet papers. No saint sues his mother for a share in paternal property, as Vivekananda did. But many follow his example of getting laid with female devotee.On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 6:38 AM, Shah Deeldar <shahdeeldar@yahoo.com> wrote:
It sounds pretty odd to me that an newly graduated young man from an aristocratic family faced starvation because he could not find a suitable employment? Who has been feeding you with such information?-SD"All great truths begin as blasphemies." GBSFrom: Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com>
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2012 1:33 AM
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
"All doors were open to him when he graduated from Calcutta University."
- Not really, he tried to find an employment, and didn't find any. Starvation and other deprivation was a common experience to him. He visited Dakshineswar to have a free meal. Ultimately, he found out, no business is as good as the one with religion. He wasn't much of a saint. His relation with Sister Nivedita had been questioned during his lifetime by the monks of his own congregation. Besides, he used to brag about relishing non-traditional food forbidden among his coreligionists. Though there is no scope of avatar, according to the Veda, he declared Ramakrishna as the best of them.On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 11:18 AM, Kamal Das <kamalctgu@gmail.com> wrote:
Rishi Bankim, however, irrelevant here, was not much more than another overblown icon.
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 3:44 PM, Farida Majid <farida_majid@hotmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the mention of this important book. I have not read the book, but I have heard Narasingha Shil present a pre-publication paper at the Bengal Studies Conference (held that year at SUNY) on Vivekananda which convincingly exploded all the myths surrounding this con-man god-man. Narasingha is a great iconoclast, intelligent and funny, and a terrific 'adda-baj'. We became friends, and at another BS Conference he presented another hit at another Bengali icon -- Rishi Bankim. I later told him that, unlike Vivekananda, Bankim did not consciously or dishonestly create his own Rishi image. His Rishi-ization and even the hinduization of Bande Mataram were done by communal politics long after his death. Narasingha accepted my explanations, and later, when he read my own completed article criticizing Gauri Vishwanathan book with evidences cited from Bankim, he praised it profusely in an e-mail, and stopped criticizing Bankim.
Farida Majid
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: kamalctgu@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 07:45:37 +0600
Subject: Re: [mukto-mona] 'A Man among men...' -- Swami Vivekananda
One should read "Vivekananda Reassessed" - Narasingha P. Shil [Susquehenna University Press] to have a better understanding of him.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Sudhir-Architect <ar_sudhirkumar@yahoo.com> wrote:
'A Man among men...' -- Swami VivekanandaIt is appropriate to celebrate this great event through the month for a simple reason. While it is generally well-known that young Vivekananda had to sleep on a sidewalk in Chicago before being discovered and given a place to stay, what is less known is that his first lecture there on September 11, 1893, catapulted him to such a great stature that the organisers had to invite him to address the gathering every day during that fortnight!A participant of that conference said, "When the audience was bored with the tedious eloquence of some other speakers and became restive, the president of the conference found that the best means to get them into order was to announce that Vivekananda would be the next speaker again!"Among those present at that conference, Dr. Annie Besant later commented, "Off the platform, his figure was instinct with pride of country, pride of race – the representative of the oldest of living religions… India was not to be shamed before the hurrying arrogant West by this her envoy and her son. He brought her message, he spoke in her name, and the herald remembered the dignity of the royal land whence he came. Purposeful, virile, strong, he stood out, a man among men, able to hold his own. On the platform, another side came out. The dignity and the inborn sense of worth and power still were there, but all was subdued to the exquisite beauty of the spiritual message which he had brought, to the sublimity of that matchless truth of the East which is the heart and life of India…The huge multitude hung upon his words, not a syllable must be lost, not a cadence missed!"Profound impactAn agnostic-turned-monk, Swami Vivekananda accomplished in a life span of 39 years what is probably not possible for anyone living even for a couple of centuries. His contribution was not obscurantist revival but rejuvenating renaissance of Hinduism and the Indian ethos. His deep sense of nationalism had a profound impact on the Freedom Struggle. His worldview and success in the Western world revived India's self esteem in the context of the depressed mood of enslavement. Suddenly, here was a new Indian spiritual leader known to the entire literate world.His admirers included the likes of Leo Tolstoy and Max Mueller. Swamiji's personality combined the qualities of the Buddha, Mahavir, Adi Sankara, Ramanuja, and Chaitanya in a manner of syncretism. He was a great musician even as a teenager, attracting hundreds of people to his singing, a tradition which he continued all his life.Even his religious ideas were radical. He once declared, "I do not know the 30 crore deities of our pantheon. But I know the millions of my suffering fellowmen who are my gods to be served." He epitomised this sentiment on the lines "Nara Seva is Narayana Seva" (Service to Man is Service to God). He did not believe in salvation by constantly running away from the world to meditate in caves; he believed that such enlightenment was only a means to serve his fellowmen. So he created an Order of Monks at the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, who are dedicated to the uplift of the downtrodden through education, health care and such other activities. He laid the foundation for communal and religious harmony, expanding on the principle his Guru had demonstrated.The Tamil connectionHow can anyone belonging to Tamil Nadu forget the unique relationship this part of the country had with a young Bengali saint who became the world-renowned Swami Vivekananda? It is well known that as a parivrajakacharya (wandering monk), Vivekananda reached Kanyakumari, swam across the sea, reached a rock and sat there in meditation for a few days. Although he had heard that a World Parliament of Religions was to take place in Chicago and a few people in Western India had suggested that he should participate, he could not make up his mind for long.It was during his visit to Tamil Nadu that he decided to accept the challenge and proceed to America. Even then, he was debating with himself on whether he was genuinely interested in representing an ancient tradition of spirituality or was perhaps giving room to his ego to project himself. The enthusiasm of his disciples in Tamil Nadu led by Alasingar of Tiruvallikeni in Chennai helped him make up his mind.The decision was clinched when a letter of blessings came from Sri Sarada Mata in Kolkata urging him to proceed to Chicago. The funds collected for his trip by his Tamil devotees became the nucleus which was strengthened by the generosity of the Maharaja of Ketri.Half a century after the Chicago lecture, Rajaji said in simple words, "Swami Vivekananda saved Hinduism and saved India. But for him we would have lost our religion and would not have gained our freedom. We therefore owe everything to Swami Vivekananda. May his faith, his courage and his wisdom ever inspire us so that we may keep safe the treasure we have received from him!"(Dr. S. Krishnaswamy is a documentary and television film maker and founder of the recently launched Tamil/English Heritage Channel, KRISHNA-TV.)
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/history-and-culture/article3917843.ece?homepage=true#.UFskBIOkrlI.email
Thanks & Regards,
Sudhir Srinivasan
B.Arch, MSc.CPM, Dip.ID, Dip.CAD, Dip.PM, Dip.LD
| Architect |
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