| Should I cross over for those millions? |  |  |  |
| Posted by admin | |
| Tuesday, 03 June 2008 08:25 | |
| You will die satisfied that you have not sold your soul to any other party in whose ideology you actually do not subscribe to. These 'party jumpers' have no clear intention, just clear benefits for themselves. Azly Rahman dr.azly.rahman@gmail.com That is a two million ringgit question. MCPX  How much does one get for 'crossing over' these days? I do not know. But if there are millions of ringgit involved, this nation will continue to rot as corrupt politicians continue switching allegiances, getting appointments to good positions, and making horror decisions for you and your children. We must destroy this culture and heal anew. We were convinced things will be better after the elections. We were sure that the revolution was going to benefit the masses and no party hopping would occur. We are wrong. Things are getting more complex, in a complex time of rising prices. This is my template letter to anyone on the verge of party hopping for money: Dear sir/madam, Don't make this mistake. Don't do it if it's for two million ringgit. Stay to be free, and speak up against internal party corruption. You will die satisfied that you have not sold your soul to any other party in whose ideology you actually do not subscribe to. These 'party jumpers' have no clear intention, just clear benefits for themselves. Principles not resource If resource is the issue, think of how you can take your party to newer heights without more money. Make your party appeal to the younger generation. Know your party's roots and make it dynamic. You may not have the money, machinery, and the media at your disposal as means to influence the masses, however you have the will. Focus on helping people and problem solving at the grassroots level. 'Small is beautiful' Think about the 'class' struggle we are in. Prevent a generation of our children from the dehumanisation of a new class system. Worker rights need championing in this globalised economy and you can win them their minimum wage for starters. Figure out how to deliver what you promised and will promise, and find your place in the party's equation. Phenomenological questions that can help you understand your existence and purpose. Without it you are just part of a game of hypocrisy. Don't flatter yourself with state honours and your finer language. You are not meant to be a 'yes man/woman' for powerful people and make others beg for your favour. Politics is about doing societal good not Machiavellian scheming. A simple life is a virtuous life. Love others and commit yourself to good. On the question of limited financial resources, here are some thoughts. Leverage the Internet as a cheap and powerful tool of your campaign, while leaning on traditional methods of appeasing your constituency. Also the SMS system to mirror 'multilevel marketing' for effective campaigning. Brainstorm with the young. Be creative. The greatest tool of human progress is the two pound universe one carries around - the human brain. Past wisdom The great soul MK Gandhi did not have much at his disposal yet he brought down the British empire. He was armed with a deep sense of spirituality and the principle of satyagraha. Comments (98)  ... written by krising1, June 03, 2008 09:24:07 The good doctor makes many fine points. It is going to difficult to change a culture which was nutured by Tun ***** for 22 years. It has become a culture where the first question is : "what is there for me in it?" report abuse disagree 1 agree 27 ... written by frankenstein1, June 03, 2008 09:38:57 1970 Q : What is your ambition? A : To become a politician Q : Why? A : To serve the nations and to bring the country to the next era. 2008 Q : What is your ambition? A : To become a politician Q : Why? A : To make a lot of money. If u r on the opposition side, u will be offered at least 2 million. Well if u are in BN you get to spend RM70k to RM100k within 3 months and if you get to be a minister, you will earn much much more. report abuse disagree 3 agree 25 ... written by Jan, June 03, 2008 10:08:51 If you are a full time politician and on the opposition side you are unlikely to have a stable income and with the rising cost of living it will be hard not to be tempted with money especially a tax-free 2 million bucks. Ezam may be in this category and he is not be the first nor the last. Remember the Kapar candidate from PKR? Why did he withdraw at the last minute and found to be holidaying instead of explaining his actions to party leaders? Any fool will know what's going on. report abuse disagree 1 agree 11 ... written by Thamipoh, June 03, 2008 12:00:13 Dr. Asly, greetings. May I ask whether you believe in honorable hopping ie MPs crossingover for the sake of the betterment of the rakyat. The whole political situation after March12 is completely different. NO! morality is not in the foremost priority in the political arena. If you think that the outcome of your jumping is beneficial to the public at large, by all means do so. You may also choose to declare your assets after jumping. report abuse disagree 1 agree 5 ... written by Taufique, June 03, 2008 12:00:28 I dont know if these politicians will even bother. The son of one strong politician, who lost out recently, is a long time "friend" of mine, and the son openly told some of us that "they might as well make use of the opportunity to make as much money as possible". With my own eyes, I saw this particular family go from being very moderate to ULTRA rich in 2 terms. Forget the politician, even the son's filthy rich from the nature of his father's position. report abuse disagree 1 agree 10 ... written by New Frontier, June 03, 2008 13:27:07 Do like the Kelantanese did, take the money kick them out. report abuse disagree 1 agree 6 ... written by shiokguy, June 03, 2008 15:47:15 I will crossover Give me my 2 Millions and I can use the money for my niece education since she failed to get PSD Scholarship. The rest will used to serve the Rakyat. After that I crossed back again! Every cross = 2 Million, surely I will an expert in doing so.. Shiok Guy http://shiokguy.blogspot.com/ report abuse disagree 3 agree 3 ... written by hakuna, June 03, 2008 16:52:13 Dr.Azly - you definitely are a selfless person. The country needs people like you and the likes of RPK to take the lead not only through articles and blogs but to be in the forefront as leaders.People like you give hope to all Malaysians. The majority of present politicians are there merely to make $$$$ and this is very glaring. If one steps up to serve then it is to 'serve others and not him/her self".Might as well they traffic drugs and take the risks - if caught then the beautiful neck will have garland place around it , if not then $$$$ is their gift. At present our politicians are worst than all scumbags put together because they are murdering and torturing not only us but the future generations of this country. report abuse disagree 1 agree 4 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 22:19:41 please forgive me sir..mahatma was not a great soul,nor was he a spritual man...and he did not bring down the british empire..mahatma was a follower of tolstoy,and his sponsers were the tata,birla billiionares(mahatma used to travel in a green rolls royce,sponsered by his billionares..rabindranth's santineketan was having cash flow problems in the 40's n it was gandhi who told his billinaories backers to give rabibu the Rs60,000 he needed )..mahatma was a european/christian in a hindu body,and he was a dictator.. report abuse disagree 5 agree 3 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 22:23:50 ethics has little got to do with spirituality..sri krishna demanded arjuna kill his relatives in d battle of kurusetra..and nabi muammad himself had to go to war to fight falsehood...and sri aurobindo,and vivekananda were revolutionaries... report abuse disagree 3 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 22:41:51 the ahamd boestamams,the pak sakos,the dr.burhanuddins were nationalists..gandhi was never a nationalsit or swarajists..and as a result,he fought bitterly with subhas bose...nehru's fahter motital yes,was a swarajist..subahas,motilal,deshbandhu chittaranjan das,bal gangadhar tilak....they were all swarajist/nationalists..very great leaders mereka semua report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 22:55:01 Gandhi and the myth of non-violence Alec Kahn The ideas of Mahatma Gandhi have enjoyed a resurgence. The non-violent non-cooperation tactics used in the struggles against the Franklin Dam in Tasmania and the Greenham Common missile base in England owed their inspiration directly to him. Richard Attenborough's Academy Award winning film "Gandhi" further revived the myth that his pacifist tactics won India its independence. Yet socialists have always been quite scathing about Gandhi. Read for example, what George Orwell had to say about him: Gandhi has been regarded for twenty years by the Government of India as one of its right hand men. I know what I'm talking about-I used to be an officer in the Indian police. It was always admitted in the most cynical way that Gandhi made it easier for the British to rule India, because his influence was always against taking any action that would make any difference. The reason why Gandhi when in prison is always treated with such lenience and small concessions sometimes made when he has prolonged one of his fasts to a dangerous extent, is that the British officials are in terror that he may die and be replaced by someone who believes less in "soul force " and more in bombs.[1] In this pamphlet, we will outline Gandhi's Indian campaigns to show just what Orwell meant. We will argue that Gandhi failed to launch any non-violent campaigns that remained non-violent, at least on his terms. We will argue that when these campaigns started to threaten the interests of the Indian capitalist class, Gandhi always called them off. And we will argue that the British left India for reasons of their own, not anything that Gandhi can take credit for. report abuse disagree 2 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 22:55:39 Early days Gandhi's social views were always reactionary, in the most literal sense of the word. In 1909 he expressed them as follows: It is not the British people who are ruling India, but it is modern civilisation, through its railways, telegraphs, telephone, and almost every other invention has been claimed to be a triumph of civilisation ... Medical science is the concentrated essence of black magic ... Hospitals are the instruments that the Devil has been using for his own purpose, in order to keep his hold on his kingdom ... If there were no hospitals for venereal diseases or even for consumptives, we would have less consumption, and less sexual vice amongst us. India's salvation consists in unlearning what she has learnt during the past fifty years or so. The railways, telegraphs, hospitals, lawyers, doctors and such like all have to go.[2] But it is Gandhi's political strategy that we are mainly concerned with here. Gandhi developed his methods of non-violent non-cooperation, or "satyagraha" (literally "way of the righteous heart") to fight for civil rights for Indians in South Africa. In this first campaign, he met with some success largely for two reasons. He made considerable use of strike action by Indian workers, and the Indians, being a somewhat peripheral minority in South Africa, could be afforded concessions by the white ruling class that could never be granted to the blacks. Even during this campaign - Gandhi's most creditable effort - the limitations of his pacifism became obvious. In an episode passed over by Attenborough's film, Gandhi recounts how he called off the struggle at one stage, rather than join cause with a "violent" general strike by European workers, and this won the gratitude of the South African ruling class: In the course of the satyagraha struggle in South Africa, several thousands of indentured Indians had struck work. This was a satyagraha strike, and therefore entirely peaceful and voluntary. Whilst the strike was going on the strike of the European miners, railway employees, etc. was declared. Overtures were made to me to make common cause with the European strikers. As a satyagraha, I did not require a moment's consideration to decline to do so. I went further, and for fear of our strike being classed with the strike of the Europeans in which methods of violence and use of arms found a prominent place, ours was suspended, and satyagraha from that moment came to be recognised by the Europeans of South Africa as an honourable and honest movement, in the words of General Smuts, "a constitutional movement".[3] report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:11:47 Recruiting for the British When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, his qualms about violence suddenly disappeared. He went out recruiting volunteers for the British Army from the Indian population, under the slogan "20 recruits for every village". Gandhi apparently believed that by recruiting cannon fodder to defend the Empire, he could impress the British with Indians' loyalty and thus earn independence. He seemed to have regarded it as a victory that he made recruiting speeches in Hindustani! Gandhi explained his actions, which went against much of the rest of the independence movements thinking, by saying. "I discovered the British Empire had certain ideals with which I have fallen in love." Later, defenders of Gandhi were to justify his recruiting drive by saying that he "only" raised troops for the medical corps. But of course, medical corps are a vital part of any military machine, and Gandhi's actions freed other recruits for the front line fighting. He certainly made no attempt to raise medical corps for the Germans or Turks, so even if there were elements of misguided humanitarianism in Gandhi's thinking, it was very conveniently one-eyed. During the years 1917 to 1920, Gandhi made some very important friends amongst the wealthy business families of West India. These included the Sarabhais, textile magnates in his home state of Gujarat, and the Birlas, the second largest industrial group in India. For the rest of his career, Gandhi regularly consulted with them, and they made sure that he never lacked money. This is not to say that Indian capitalists created Gandhi. But his commitment to the pacifist action suited their interests perfectly. They wanted a limited mobilisation of the masses to drive out the British so that they could run India instead. They had seen the Russian revolution just to the north, and they realised how important it was to stop the workers and peasants getting arms, or mobilising against their local exploiters as well as the British. Gandhi was also committed to a capitalist India. He regarded Indians as one big family, exploiters and exploited alike. "I do not regard capital to be the enemy of labour," he said. "I hold their co-ordination to be perfectly possible." Gandhi came up with a justification of the capitalist's role that many capitalists themselves would smile on as ingenious. He called them "trustees" for the people, and urged the workers and peasants to peacefully persuade "the land-owners and employers to behave ethically as trustees of the property they held for the common good". Why did Gandhi so quickly gain a mass following in India? The popular impression, reinforced by Attenborough's film, is that it was due to his simple, humble life-style, combined with the work he did with the peasants' and millhands' grievances. These may have helped, but there were far deeper reasons as well. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:12:28 Before Gandhi, the Indian independence movement had suffered from two major weaknesses. Its leaders tended to be strongly identified with particular regions, and its activity was hopelessly elitist. One wing busied itself with terrorism, the other with sterile motion-passing, Gandhi had established a national reputation for himself through his South African campaign, and thus was able to give the movement a national figurehead that transcended petty regional divisions. And to his credit, he also gave the movement a mass orientation at a time when, inspired by the Russian Revolution to the north and the Turkish nationalist movement to the west, the masses were ready to go into action. But why should Gandhi's "non-violence" have had such particular mass appeal? Leon Trotsky provides a shrewd insight. Trotsky observed exactly the same phenomenon in the early stages of the Russian Revolution. Non-violence, Trotsky argued, reflected the low development of class struggle in the countryside and the peasants' resulting lack of confidence: If the peasants during the first period hardly ever resort to open violence, and are still trying to give their activities the form of legal pressure, this is explained by their insufficient trust in their awn powers ... The attempt to disguise its first rebel steps with legality, both sacred and secular, has from time to time immemorial characterised the struggle of every revolutionary class, before it gathered sufficient strength and confidence to break the umbilical cord which bound it to the old society. This is more completely true of the peasantry than any other class ... From the milieu of the nobility itself there arise preachers of conciliation. Leo Tolstoy (the novelist) looked deeper into the soul of the muzhik [peasant] than anybody else. His philosophy of non-violent resistance was a generalisation of the first stages of the peasant revolution. Mahatma Gandhi is now fulfilling the same mission in India ... report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:13:22 The 1919 hartal In 1919 the British passed the Rowlatt Acts, which extended wartime powers of arbitrary arrest, to keep the independence movement in check. There was massive resentment throughout India, and in February Gandhi formed a Satyagraha League and announced a "hartal" (day of general suspension of business) for April 6. The response amazed everyone. Through March and April, there was a wave of mass marches, strikes, some rioting and violent repression by the British. The April 6 hartal was a huge success. It was accompanied by sporadic riots in Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmedabad and elsewhere. In Amritsar, the British massacred 379 people at a rally with machine-gun fire and wounded another 1200. The British were clearly alarmed by the upsurge. ‘The movement assumed the undeniable character of an organised revolt against the British Raj", in the view of British official opinion.[4] Just as alarmed was Gandhi. Condemning the violence, not of the British but of rioters on his own side who had gone beyond pacifist action, he declared that he had committed ... a blunder of Himalayan dimensions which had enabled ill-disposed persons, not true passive resisters at all, to perpetrate disorder.[5] Within a week, Gandhi suspended passive resistance just as the movement was reaching its height. He subsequently explained in a letter to the Press on July 21 that "a Civil resister never seeks to embarrass the government".[6] To defuse the movement, Gandhi turned his attention to the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms passed by the British Parliament, which set up puppet legislatures in India operating on a limited franchise. Gandhi won the Congress Party around to supporting the Reforms against sharp opposition. He urged the national movement "to settle down quietly to work so as to make them a success."[7] report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:14:19 The 1920-22 campaign The movement did not "settle down quietly". The first half of 1920 saw a huge strike wave. So Gandhi switched over to rejection of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, and evolved the plan of "non-violent non-cooperation" to once again take the head of the movement. The Congress Party was to give leadership but the price of that leadership was once again to be non-violence. Gandhi had learned from 1919 that mobilising the workers and peasants through a hartal was an explosive business. So this time, despite the more ambitious demand of "swaraj" (self-rule), Gandhi focussed the action entirely on the middle class. Voters boycotted elections to the new assemblies - only one third of those eligible under the income rules to vote did so. Students boycotted colleges en masse. An attempt to get lawyers to boycott the courts and set up local arbitration sittings met with much less success. The only role for the masses of workers and peasants in all this was to be the "constructive task" of "hand-spinning and hand-weaving" A proposal of a tax boycott was held in reserve until "a time to be determined". Gandhi was extremely vague on how these tactics were to gain victory, or even on what son of gains he was after. Subhas Bose. a future leader of the Congress Party Left, tried to get a clear picture from Gandhi of the strategy. What his real expectation was, I was unable to understand. Either he did not want to give out all his secrets prematurely or he did not have a clear conception of the tactics whereby the hands of the government could be forced[8]. Nehru also had his doubts about Gandhi's goals. It was obvious that to most of our leaders Swaraj meant something much less than independence. Gandhi was delightfully vague on the subject, and he did not encourage clear thinking about it either.[9] Despite Gandhi's attempts to limit the campaign to the middle class, mass struggles erupted throughout 1921 to accompany it ... the Assam-Bengal railway strike the Midnapore No-Tax Campaign, the Moplah rebellion in the South, and the militant Akali movement in the Punjab. By the end of 1921, all Congress leaders except Gandhi were behind bars. Amidst all this struggle and enthusiasm. Gandhi got cold feet. Some activists, especially amongst the Muslims, were demanding the abandonment of "non-violence". Gandhi declared that swaraj stank in his nostrils. In early 1922, various districts began demanding a No Tax campaign. Due to a misunderstanding, Guntur District began one without permission. So great was the enthusiasm of the peasants that less than 5 percent of taxes were collected. Then Gandhi heard of it and ordered that tax-paying resume immediately. Finally, Gandhi decided to embark on "mass civil disobedience" ... in one tiny district. Bardoli where he had taken special care to ensure "non-violent" conditions. His mass civil disobedience" to win release of the 30,000 political prisoners was to involve the 87,000 people of the district - just one four-thousandth of the Indian population! report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:15:09 The Chauri Chaura backdown Before the token Bardoli campaign could take off, angry peasants at the village of Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces burned a police station, killing 22 policemen. Gandhi, who five years earlier had happily recruited cannon fodder for Britain to try and win independence, "deplored" the violence and cancelled, not just the Bardoli campaign, but the entire campaign of civil disobedience across the country. Gandhi's decision created fury and dismay in the Congress Party. Subhas Bose recalls: To sound the order to retreat, just when public enthusiasm was reaching the boiling point was nothing short of a national calamity. The principal lieutenants of the Mahatma, Deshbandhu dos, Pandit Morilal Nehru and Lala Lajpat Pal, who were all in prison, shared the popular resentment. I was with the Deshbandhu at the time, and I could see that he was beside himself with anger and sorrow.[10] Motilal Nehru and Lajpat Rai sent Gandhi long letters of protest. Gandhi coldly replied that men in prison were "civilly dead" and had no say over policy. Apologists for Gandhi later claimed that the decision was necessary because the movement was "going to pieces."[11] In the sense that Gandhi was losing control, this was true. But the British did not think it was dissipating. The Viceroy cabled London just three days before Gandhi's decision describing the numerous areas of unrest, and concluding: The Government of India are prepared for disorder of a more formidable nature than has in the past occurred, and do not seek to minimise in any way the fact that great) anxiety is caused by the situation.[12] Lord Lloyd, then Governor of Bombay, later recounted how Gandhi had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory: He gave us a scare! His program filled our jails. You can't go on arresting people forever, you know not when there are 319 million of them. And if they had taken his next step and refused to pay taxes! God knows where we should have been! Gandhi's was the most colossal experiment in world history, and it came within an inch of succeeding. But he couldn‘t control men's passions. You know the rest. We jailed him.[13] report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:15:43 The motion that Gandhi got through the Working Committee at Bardoli calling off the campaign suggests the real reason Gandhi backed down. No less than three of its seven points ordered peasants to pay taxes to the government, and respect landlords' rents and rights. Gandhi was clearly worried that the No-Tax campaign would take off and spread into a No-Rent campaign as well. Neither of these can be classed as "violence" in any way. but they could have turned the movement into a wholesale struggle against the Indian landlords as well as the British. Chauri Chaura only confirmed the increasing restiveness of the peasants. So although not the first outbreak of violence during the campaign, it provided a convenient pretext for Gandhi to call hostilities off before a full-scale class war broke out. The movement demoralised Gandhi's back down flattened the national movement for several years. The Congress Party, demanding an alternative course, moved to the right and stopped boycotting the puppet assemblies. Communal divisions grew. The active non-co-operators of 1921 now emerged as spokespersons for this and that community. Muslim or Hindu. Violent clashes broke out as the movement turned in on itself and, despite the temporarily soothing effect of a protest fast by Gandhi, continued over time. Since Gandhi had refused to polarise the movement on class lines, in the demoralised atmosphere after 1922 it polarised on religious lines instead. But a section of the movement took a more radical direction. During the 1920s the working class emerged as an important force. Unions grew, and the All-India Trade Union Congress formed. Many of its leaders turned to radical anti-imperialism. The Workers and Peasants Party formed, and along with other radical nationalists began to demand complete independence rather than mere self-rule. Against Gandhi's opposition, the Congress Party also took up the demand of complete independence, or Puma Swaraj, in the late 1920s. Gandhi was forced to change his stance, at least on paper. But, as time would show, he was to sign the demand away again at the first opportunity. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:16:16 Salt Satyagraha At the end of 1929, the Congress Party decided to take action for Purna Swaraj. Passive demonstrations on January 26. 1930 took a pledge to struggle for complete independence. But Gandhi already had other ideas. On January 9. he told the New York World that "the independence resolution need frighten nobody", a claim he repeated to the Viceroy in a letter in March.[14] And on January 30. he offered Eleven Points to the British for which the Congress Party's civil disobedience campaign would be called off. These Eleven Points fell way short of independence, or even home rule. The most radical demands were for the release of political prisoners, a halving of military expenditure. a tariff on foreign cloth, and licences for firearms for self-defence. There were no demands for workers or peasants, except a call for the halving of land tax. Clearly. Gandhi saw the demand for independence as just an opening gambit in a haggle for reforms. When it came to strategy. Gandhi defeated a move by the left wing of Congress to set up a parallel government in the country and mobilise workers and peasants behind it. Instead he launched the Salt March, a three-week march by Gandhi and 78 of his disciples to the sea, where they defied the British monopoly on salt by boiling seawater. Gandhi then called on each village to do the same. All this was very spectacular for the press. But it was even more carefully limited than his previous two campaigns. The initial action was confined to 78 handpicked disciples. The ensuing tactic of producing salt provided no role whatsoever for the industrial working class. The peasants' attention was turned away from conflicts with their landlords to producing illegal salt in their villages, and burning and boycotting foreign cloth - a move that mainly benefited Indian textile magnates, a number of whom happened to be on close terms with Gandhi. Nevertheless, the Salt March sparked another upheaval, way beyond Gandhi's expectations. Strikes and mass demonstrations erupted. Demonstrators raided a police armoury at Chittagong. Peasants launched No-Rent movements, especially in the United Provinces, where, true to form, the Congress Party tried to mediate for a 50 percent payment of rents. The Gahrwali mutiny The most sensational incident took place in Peshawar. After the arrest of local leaders, a crowd burned an armoured car. its occupants escaping unhurt. Troops opened fire on the crowds, killing and wounding hundreds. Two platoons of Gahrwali Hindu troops refused to fire on a Muslim crowd. They broke ranks and fraternised with them, several handing over their guns. The police and military immediately withdrew from Peshawar, and the city was in the hands of the people for ten days until a powerful British force with air support retook it without resistance. One might think that Gandhi would have hailed the events in Peshawar as a triumph for "non-violence". But on the contrary, he later condemned the troops/or refusing to fire on the crowds! In an interview with a French journalist in 1932, Gandhi said in reply to a question about the Gahrwali men who had been savagely sentenced after a court-martial: A soldier who disobeys an order to fire breaks that oath which he has taken and renders him self guilty of criminal disobedience. I cannot ask officials and soldiers to disobey; for when I am in power I shall in all likelihood make use of the same officials and those same soldiers. If I taught them to disobey I should be afraid that they might do the same when I am in power.[15] This amazing statement was no momentary aberration. In the Irwin-Gandhi Agreement of 1931, the clause on release of prisoners specifically excluded the Gahrwali soldiers. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:16:48 Hoping to restore Gandhi's fast-fading control over the movement, the British arrested him to re-focus attention on him. Instead, the country exploded. A massive demonstration by textile and railway workers in Bombay forced the police to quit the streets. In Sholapur the workers seized the town and replaced the police with their own administration for a week, until martial law was declared. Hartals and strikes took place all over India. The British dropped 500 tons of bombs on rebellious Pathans in North-West Frontier Province, to little avail. The newly formed Red Shins, a militant North-West Frontier organisation, soared in membership from a couple of hundred to 80,000. A militant Muslim party sprung up in the Punjab. Despite 60.000 political arrests, innumerable baton charges and continual firing, upon unarmed crowds, the movement raged through 1930. At demonstrations in Bombay, the centre of the industrial working class, red flags began to proliferate and even outnumber Congress flags at mass demonstrations. Alarmed. British businessmen began to demand self-government for India on a Dominion basis. But once again, Gandhi was just as alarmed as the British at the direction the movement was taking. Professor H.G. Alexander. Professor of International Relations at Selly Oak College in Birmingham, visited him in jail in September 1930 and reported: Even in the seclusion of his prison he is acutely conscious that such embitterment is developing, and for that reason he would welcome a return to peace and co-operation as soon as it could be honestly obtained ... his influence is still great, but more dangerous and uncontrollable forces are gathering strength daily.[16] report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:17:47 Self-rule from within" In January 26, 1931, the British released Gandhi as a "goodwill gesture". After a month of negotiations, Gandhi then signed an agreement with Viceroy Irwin. The Irwin-Gandhi agreement did not concede one of Gandhi's Eleven Points. It did not even break the British monopoly on salt. But Gandhi agreed to end civil disobedience and take part in the Round Table Conference of British colonies in London, which Congress had sworn to boycott. Angry resolutions from youth conferences and organisations condemned the deal. Outraged Bombay workers even staged a demonstration against Gandhi on his departure for the Round Table Conference. Jawaharlal Nehru, whose job it was to move the Agreement to the Congress Party, admitted that he could not do so "without great mental conflict and physical distress". "Was it for this," Nehru asked later, "that our people had behaved so gallantly for a year?" He felt, however, that it would only be "personal vanity" to express his dissent.[xvii] Gandhi later admitted the movement had shown no signs of breaking up. "The suggestion of the impending collapse of our movement is entirely false: the movement was showing no signs of slackening," he said.[xviii] Instead, he justified his deal with Irwin with the amazing statement to the press on March 5, 1931, that ‘The Congress has never made a bid for victory."[xix] Gloated The Times the next day: "Such a victory has seldom been vouchsafed to any Viceroy." The next day, Gandhi argued to the press that Puma Swaraj really meant "disciplined self-rule from within"![xx] When Gandhi returned empty-handed nine months later from the RoundTable Conference, the British immediately rearrested him, banned Congress and its press, and seized its funds and property. Gandhi's response was to issue orders against secret organisation of Congress (the only possible way of proceeding under illegal conditions) and to assure the landlords that no campaign would be approved against their interests, Gandhi then took up the untouchables' cause, which in the circumstances could only be a diversion. Delighted, the British released him. Gandhi finally closed down the struggle in early 1934, by announcing that from then on, since the masses have not yet received the message of satyagraha, ..., [it] needs to be confined to one qualified person at a rime. In the present circumstances only one, and that myself, should far the time being bear the responsibility of civil disobedience.[xxi] In other words, a one-man campaign for national independence! As one left-wing critic put it, "such was the final reductio ad absurdum of the Gandhist theory of ‘non-violent non-cooperation' as the path of liberation for the Indian people."[xxii] Gandhi was to launch two more campaigns, in 1940-41 and again in 1942. In the meantime, with the collapse of the struggle, Hindu-Muslim rioting again intensified. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:18:31 Individual Satyagraha Under wartime conditions in 1940. Gandhi launched a campaign of "individual satyagraha." This was in response to the left in Congress, which wanted the party to launch another mass movement for independence while Britain was tied up by the war. Arguing against causing any discomfort to Britain, Gandhi replied: There is neither the warrant nor atmosphere for mass action. That would be naked embarrassment and a betrayal of non-violence. What is more, it can never lead to independence.[xxiii] Gandhi's "campaign" consisted of individuals, where possible selected by himself, getting up in public places, making token statements against the war and for independence, and being arrested. At the same time, Gandhi discouraged mass meetings. When the campaign finally fizzled out in 1941, 25,069 of Gandhi's followers had been convicted without making any impact, either on the British or the general population. Quit India Despite his anxiety not to cause the British "naked embarrassment", pressure from the left forced Gandhi to launch his Quit India campaign in 1942. Subhas Bose. a militant nationalist from Bengal and long-time critic of Gandhi inside the Congress Party, had split from Congress and launched the Indian National Army. Gandhi feared that if the Japanese, who were using the slogan "Asia for the Asians", invaded, Subhas Bose might align with them against the British and win mass support. So Gandhi launched his Quit India campaign on August 8, 1942. This time, the British moved immediately. In the early hours of August 9, they arrested Gandhi and the entire Congress leadership. When peaceful protest demonstrations gathered, the British fired on them or broke them up with baton charges. Wholesale rioting broke out within 12 hours. Despite Gandhi's pleas for calm from his prison cell, 70 police stations were burnt down, 550 post offices attacked, and 85 courthouses and symbols of state authority besieged across the country. The British Army held firm, firing on crowds and even machine-gunning them from the air. Public hangings were introduced for the first time in generations. With Congress refusing to lead or organise armed resistance, and the Communist Party taking a position to Gandhi's right by supporting the British/Russian war effort, the British were able to crush the uprising. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:19:02 The Bombay naval mutiny After the war in 1946, the sailors of Bombay, led by the young naval communications ratings, mutinied and seized their ships. Their main aim was to hand the ships over to the Congress leaders until the British quit. A leader of the mutiny. B.C. Dutt. recounted: The streets of Bombay resounded to our slogans calling for national unity. It was a strange sight for the people of Bombay. The ratings marching through the streets with party flags of the Congress and the Muslim League tied together to symbolise national unity. But Gandhi was horrified by the mutiny. He said he was following it with "painful interest" and denounced the sailors as "setting a bad and unbecoming example for India."[xxiv] He ordered Patel, the most right-wing leader of Congress, to deal with the ratings. Gandhi's rejection of the mutiny was the signal the British needed. They broadcast the message to the mutineers on February 22 that. "Only unconditional surrender will be accepted." The working class of Bombay exploded in sympathy with the mutineers. Irrespective of caste or religion, they fought the police and army with rocks and knives. Like the ratings, they carried the two flags tied together. Two hundred of them died in the fighting. Gandhi's response was to denounce this display of militant unity. This mutiny in the navy and what is following is not, in any sense of the term, non-violent action ... A combination between the Hindus and the Muslims and others for the purpose of violent action is unholy and it will lead to and probably is a preparation for mutual violence - bad for India and the world.[xxv] In the end, the ratings were forced to surrender. But the mutiny signalled to the British that no longer could they even rely on their own "sepoys" to keep order for them. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:20:32 Why did the British leave? Gandhi's last significant campaign had peaked in 1931. It certainly wasn't his "non-violent non-cooperation" that drove the British out sixteen years later. So why did the British leave in 1947. if they had the measure of Gandhi and the nationalist movement? Barry Paiver, writing in the British Socialist Review, provides the most plausible explanation: Firstly, the positive reasons for British rule vanished. The economic basis of the Indian empire was the hard currency surpluses earned by the export of commercial crops to other industrial countries. These surpluses were then transferred to London to support the pound. The Depression cut the prices of these crops in half and the surpluses vanished, never to return. For the British state (as opposed to individual companies) this turned India into an economic liability. India's other imperial role was the military foundation of the empire east of Suez. In both world wars the Indian Army fought for the British in the Middle East. But in 1942 the Japanese smashed British power in the East. The British were only saved by American victories in the Pacific. India s military role vanished.[xxvi] Paiver argues that there were several pressing reasons for the British to actually leave. Apart from the Bombay Naval Mutiny, the end of the war had seen a general resurgence of anti-British feeling. The trial of officers of the Indian National Army who had fought alongside the Japanese took place in 1945. They got so much support that Congress leaders were forced to assist in their defence. Nehru even donning lawyer's robes for the first time in thirty years. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 03, 2008 23:21:07 The myth of non-violent action Militant peasant struggles led by the Communist Party had also been giving the British trouble since the early 1940s. But the dominant issue after 1945 was religious communalism, which had festered each time Gandhi aborted the mass struggle of earlier days. After 1945, the Muslim League gained overwhelming support in Muslim areas for its demand for a partition and a Muslim state. This enabled them to disrupt the traditional government to gain their way, which in turn sparked a series of horrendous communal riots. Given the disappearance of any positive reason for staying, and the other pressures on them to leave, the British had no desire to try and keep the peace in such circumstances. In the end, they practically ran away. Conclusion Mahatma Gandhi made a major contribution to the Indian independence movement in 1919 by turning it to a mass orientation. But his strategy of non-violence soon became a major obstacle to the movement's further development and remained so for the rest of his career. Gandhi's philosophy of "satyagraha" and his dream of a big happy family of Indian capitalists, land owners and exploited may have appealed to his predominantly middle-class and rich peasant devotees. They certainly suited his upper-class backers who wanted a limited mass mobilisation to win concessions and ultimately independence from the British. But Gandhi's non-violent campaigns rarely ran along the course he had mapped out for them. The oppressed - the workers and poorer peasants - invariably took the campaigns much further than Gandhi intended. They moved towards confronting their own Indian exploiters as well as the British. When the British used force to repress them, they often responded in kind. Gandhi's pacifism led him to react in an elitist fashion. He would call off the struggle, censuring the masses for failing to come up to his own pious standards. He would then restrict the active role in the next phase of the campaign to an ever-diminishing circle whom he felt he could trust Gandhi's non-violent strategy did not drive the British out of India. His last important campaign peaked in 1931-16 years before the British left. The British clearly had Gandhi's measure, and left for reasons of their own. Gandhi cannot take credit for the departure of the British, but he probably can take some credit for the wretchedly unequal society that they left behind. For by ruining the popular worker/peasant upsurges of the 1919-1934 period, he guaranteed that the Indian capitalist class would remain intact to receive the reins of power from the British. They continue to wield those reins ruthlessly to this day, invoking Gandhi's name as they go. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol 2, p. 136 [2] M.K. Gandhi, Hind report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by xKazman, June 04, 2008 08:36:23 I think Malaysia, i already ready for total revamp, e.g :- for god sake we cant be riding the 50 year old car in which we have already have to listen to the car and make adjustment as how it runs, this does not work anymore. With a brand new car, you can almost do what ever you want, i mean the way you drive it. The car listens to you. We Malaysians have already been blinded for 50 years, who ever we vote for, they are our sevant, they serve for us, and not we who serve for them, that is what is called Democracy, as clean and successful goverment would not want their rakyat to suffer, now the people are suffering, nations cash flow has gone down, businesses are suffering and the cronies are dominating the contracts and big businesses, there is no transparancy at all, for every since bit of rice we eat today Syed Mokthtar Albukhary profits from is because he controls the rice market, and for every sip of teh tarik we drink today Robert Kuok is profiting because he controls the sugar market. Enough is enough, Malaysia is a gifted country, stategically located in asia, centre spot for ideal travel to asia, with many natural resources, but are stupid enough to get it robbed by big time elusive mafias. These mafias they dont carry guns, their weapon is hard cash money, with the money they buy every damn politican around to pave way for them to make a good rippoff from us. report abuse disagree 1 agree 2 ... written by renoir, June 04, 2008 12:37:24 Excellent posting on Gandhi, SUV. Having read Dr. Azly for over a year, I don't think we need worry about any points of disagreements with him. As I see it, he would at times repeat the general view of things, but not necessarily insist that the particular view is his or his alone. Further, unless I'm wrong, he's a Bakhtinian through and through - non-closure is his motto. Some observations: 1.Regarding things not mentioned in the movie "Gandhi," that's probably natural since the movie was inspired AND financed by the Congress government. He who pays the piper calls the tune. 2. In addition to what's stated above, the British release of India should be seen within the world context: if the 19th century was the Age of Imperialism, the 20th was one of the Age of Anti-Imperialism. India's giant neighbor China had already overthrown the monarchy, and with it the inevitable, eventual confrontation with the West, whether the country was ruled by the Kuomintang or the Communists. The direct spark to Asian resistance, however, was caused by the rise of Japan - it was the first colored country to show that the West could be defeated militarily. There were also lots of interactions and the feelings of comradeship among Asian intellectuals. Tagore was a major inspiration to many Chinese scholars, just as Dr. Sun was to inspire other Asian revolutionaries. All this occurred when the British empire had been taking fatal hits by the Germans in Europe. Thus, while the British still hoped to retain some foothold east of Suez, it just didn't have the military nor economic resources to hold on to them. The Anglo-French retreat against the forces of Nasser showed how weak the former colonial powers were. In Malaysia, the British knew that the Communists would bleed it to death if they didn't hand over the reins to some local chaps, just as the French decided to call it a day after Dien Bien Phu. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, Sukarno was hard at work driving out the Dutch from the Malay archipelago. And in the midst of all the above, there looms a rising Soviet Union, recognized by the world as the other Superpower. By 1949, its ally China was sweeping the mainland under Mao Zedong. Leftist movements were swarming all over Asia, including India. There was no way the British could control 300 million angry Indians who'd lost respect for their colonial masters. 3. Regarding Gandhi's legacy - leaving a nation under Indian capitalists and a large group of compradors/Anglophiles - we might call that Plan B of the British. That's exactly how the British slipped in by the back door in many of her former colonies (a process now known as neo-colonialism). The Brits might not have the formal trappings of power, but in many of her colonies Britain continues to play a significant role not merely through the British Commonwealth, but also through her social, cultural, political, and military connections. That's why, even today, we've ministers who say they're as comfortable in London as in Kuala Lumpur, not to mention the increasing numbers of Malaysians speaking with a fake British accent. Finally, it wasn't only the Indian working class who were betrayed by the Anglophiles - working class in all the former Western colonies were similarly betrayed. How else could we explain that, over half a century after WW2, the vast majority of most countries are still living from hand to mouth? LChuah report abuse disagree 2 agree 4 ... written by SUV, June 05, 2008 12:06:36 renoir, india has 2 evils..gandhism n poisonous traditions n superstitions such as the caste system...and oh gandhi vs nik aziz..nik aziz wins hands down..no contest report abuse disagree 2 agree 3 ... written by renoir, June 05, 2008 16:42:23 About Gandhi and Nik Aziz...well, India is much larger and a much more complex country than Malaysia. I would agree, however, that Nik Aziz has the common people at heart, whereas Gandhi was basically an elitist. So as a man, Nik Aziz is more to my liking. But whether we agree with Gandhi or not, he's - from published writings - the greater intellectual. LChuah report abuse disagree 1 agree 3 ... written by SUV, June 06, 2008 11:37:08 gandhi's mumbo jumbo hybrid hindu kristo ahimsa tolstoy falsampah makes no sence at all..and just like his politics,semua tak masuk akai,langsung tak praktikal... report abuse disagree 1 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 06, 2008 11:49:23 haha..tun mahade said in 1990,nik aziz n his kelante gomen will collapse within 3 months..haha..look who is having the last laugh...nik aziz has poven time and again,dat he is not only a pious man,but oso a very able administrator... sure,india is a "complex" country..but,we must oso remember dis,india n her penghunis r very ancient,and this land is the center of many many pelik things..they dicovered highest laws of life,and created unique ,harmonious societies,and absords all kinds of influence n "indianise" them later...but 2 day,it's a functioning anarcy..why?frm north 2 south,east 2 west,n neighbouring countries like pakistan,bangladesh,sri lanka,macam macm affliction plagueing them...ya,vivekananda dah cakap,the day,bharatians tak kira bangsa n ugama discover thier swadharma,barulah bharat oleh rise up..dats the peculiar charaestic of the indian pipul...they have 2 rediscover their true self..and dis swadaharma is not pigi tokong,tiroolar... report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 06, 2008 11:57:12 renoir, remember when dat setengah naked crafty gujarati loyar buruk was spreading his bullsh!t,there were also supreme personalites quietly doin their work...masaalahnya,we have forgotten the true giants,n continue to priase poison dwarfs like semi naked gandhi report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by renoir, June 06, 2008 12:21:00 Haha! I love the "falsampah" part, and in a sense it's almost inevitable in a politician. I just thought that in each of the sampah some interesting thoughts - obviously inspired from a number of sources, as you say - did emerge. Are they practical? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: he didn't have a chance to put them into practice. The American Founding Fathers, especially people such as Jefferson, John and Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, Richard Henry Lee, John Dickenson, James Wilson, Madison, George Mason, etc., etc., had been likewise accused of sins such as a lack of originality, superficiality, and even mediocrity and confusion in their thoughts. They WERE influenced by Greek philosophy, and more contemporary ones such as Rousseau and Locke, but there was no "ordered theory." And with all their theorizing, they finally ended up with the Confucian stance that, ultimately, it's human virtue that makes good government. So yes, certainly the critics of those early Americans have their points, but then we also have to remember that out of the hodge-podge of the American falsampah came not only the beautiful American Declaration of Independence, but also other documents such as the Constitution with the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. I would agree with the charge that America has never lived up to its ideals, its possibilities, but the fact that such ideals and possibilities do exist, at least on paper, does say much, I think, of the genius of the Founding Fathers. LChuah report abuse disagree 1 agree 3 ... written by renoir, June 06, 2008 12:34:31 There were indeed great thinkers and doers besides Gandhi, but as your posting suggests Gandhi was the one who could move an entire nation. The idea of self-cultivation is common to both Indian and Chinese civilizations - the problem is where and how could one do so in the environment that exists today. The practical need to survive is a big problem in much of Asia. Here the Marxist contention of changing the socio-economic base is most important: the superstructure, thoughts, philosophy, etc, - the proper consciousness of a people - cannot exist separately from their material base. LChuah report abuse disagree 1 agree 3 ... written by kavidibaku, June 06, 2008 17:17:14 I thought many will jump from umno to pkr but look what has happened. This is DIRTY POLITICS. I doubt except for mahatma, no one else in this world can serve the WHOLE COMMUNITYregardless of race and religion. report abuse disagree 0 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 14:06:56 the problem with asia,n asians is dat we have lost our sense of identity,due to a long period of colonisation..as a result,we swing ,macam pendulum..we either become 1st kelas mat salleh ciplak or cling to a distant past which has no longer any values...due 2 arrested development,n sense of loss..we chase after western values such as "democracy"(ala west),"ada lui ada power maaaaaah",and "long live ramrajya",taliban hududism,n "jews r the chosen race,u freakin goyims aint got no right to dethrone we the jews the chosen pipul"... report abuse disagree 1 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 14:16:42 asians have adopted macam macam isms frm the west..marxism,socailism,capitalism..but ..the prob is we tiru bulat bulat...without thinkin,wheter or not asian temperment betui betui sesuai with those isms..asians afterall,gave birth to democracy..in asia,it has always appeared in d form of spritual/religion...vedanta and islam for intance...the equality mentioned in those 2 spritual religious movements r not based on mental gymnastics..the source is based on supreme spritual realities..its well known in india dat there is no divison at at all in brahman...all is ONE..dat truth reappaered in d middle east in d form islam...of course there r far greater truths that needs to b SPREAD OUT..BUT,THE THING IS DIS,IN ASIA,SOCIETY,LIFE WATEVER IS BASED ON SPRITUAL/RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT.. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 14:26:13 Charles Le Gai Eaton, Former British Diplomat .... http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/161/ report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 14:51:53 we are to make our society perfect and the nation is to live again, then we must revert to the earlier and fuller truth. We must not make life a waiting for renunciation, but renunciation a preparation for life; instead of running from God in the town to God in the forest, we must rather plunge into the mountain solitude in our own souls for knowledge & joy & spiritual energy to sustain any part that may be given to us by the master of the Lila. If we get that strength, any society we build up must be full of the instinct of immortal life and move inevitably towards perfection. As to the precise way in which society will be reconstructed, we have hardly yet knowledge enough to solve the problem. We ought to know before we act, but we are rather eager to act violently in the light of any dim ray of knowledge that may surprise our unreflecting intellects, and although God often uses our haste for great and beneficial purposes, yet that way of doing things is not the best either for a man or a nation. One thing seems to me clear that the future will deny that principle of individual selfishness and collective self-interest on which European society has hitherto been based and our renovated systems will be based on the renunciation of individual selfishness and the organisation of brotherhood, – principles common to Christianity, Mahomedanism and Hinduism. (Essays Divine and Human, p. 58.) Sri Aurobindo report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 15:37:24 mari kita pikiq...  155. There is only one soul and one existence; therefore we all see one objectivity only; but there are many knots of mind and ego in the one soul-existence, therefore we all see the one Object in different lights and shadows. 168. The Cross is in Yoga the symbol of the soul and nature in their strong and perfect union, but because of our fall into the impurities of ignorance it has become the symbol of suffering and purification. 169. Christ came into the world to purify, not to fulfil. He himself foreknew the failure of his mission and the necessity of his return with the sword of God into a world that had rejected him. 170. Mahomed's mission was necessary, else we might have ended by thinking, in the exaggeration of our efforts at self-purification, that earth was meant only for the monk and the city created as a vestibule for the desert. 171. When all is said, Love and Force together can save the world eventually, but not Love only or Force only. Therefore Christ had to look forward to a second advent and Mahomed's religion, where it is not stagnant, looks forward through the Imams to a Mahdi. 172. Law cannot save the world, therefore Moses' ordinances are dead for humanity and the Shastra of the Brahmins is corrupt and dying. Law released into Freedom is the liberator. Not the Pandit, but the Yogin; not monasticism, but the inner renunciation of desire and ignorance and egoism. 173. Even Vivekananda once in the stress of emotion admitted the fallacy that a personal God would be too immoral to be suffered and it would be the duty of all good men to resist Him. But if an omnipotent supra-moral Will and Intelligence governs the world, it is surely impossible to resist Him; our resistance would only serve His ends and really be dictated by Him. Is it not better then, instead of condemning or denying, to study and understand Him ? 174. If we would understand God, we must renounce our egoistic and ignorant human standards or else ennoble and universalise them. 175. Because a good man dies or fails and the evil live and triumph, is God therefore evil ? I do not see the logic of the consequence. I must first be convinced that death and failure are evil; I sometimes think that when they come, they are our supreme momentary good. But we are the fools of our hearts and nerves and argue that what they do not like or desire, must of course be an evil! 176. When I look back on my past life, I see that if I had not failed and suffered, I would have lost my life's supreme blessings; yet at the time of the suffering and failure, I was vexed with the sense of calamity. Because we cannot see anything but the one fact under our noses, therefore we indulge in all these snifflings and clamours. Be silent, ye foolish hearts! slay the ego, learn to see and feel vastly and universally. 177. The perfect cosmic vision and cosmic sentiment is the cure of all error and suffering; but most men succeed only in enlarging the range of their ego report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 15:47:20 199. Religion and philosophy seek to rescue man from his ego; then the kingdom of heaven within will be spontaneously reflected in an external divine city. 200. Mediaeval Christianity said to the race, "Man, thou art in thy earthly life an evil thing and a worm before God; renounce then egoism, live for a future state and submit thyself to God and His priest." The results were not over-good for humanity. Modern knowledge says to the race, "Man, thou art an ephemeral animal and no more to Nature than the ant and the earthworm,—a transitory speck only in the universe. Live then for the State and submit thyself antlike to the trained administrator and the scientific expert." Will this gospel succeed any better than the other ? 201. Vedanta says rather, "Man, thou art of one nature and substance with God, one soul with thy fellow-men. Awake and progress then to thy utter divinity, live for God in thyself and in others." This gospel which was given only to the few, must now be offered to all mankind for its deliverance. 202. The human race always progresses most when most it asserts its importance to Nature, its freedom and its universality. 203. Animal man is the obscure starting-point, the present natural man the varied and tangled mid-road but supernatural man the luminous and transcendent goal of our human journey. 204. Life and action culminate and are eternally crowned for thee when thou hast attained the power of symbolising and manifesting in every thought and act, in wealth getting, wealth having or wealth spending, in home and government and society, in art, literature and life, the One Immortal in this lower mortal being. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 15:51:26 178. Men say and think "For my country!" "For humanity!" "For the world!" but they really mean "For myself seen in my country!" "For myself seen in humanity!" "For myself imaged to my fancy as the world!" That may be an enlargement, but it is not liberation. To be at large and to be in a large prison are not one condition of freedom. 179. Live for God in thy neighbour, God in thyself, God in thy country and the country of thy foeman, God in humanity, God in tree and stone and animal, God in the world and outside the world, then art thou on the straight path to liberation. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 15:54:49 319. Governments, societies, kings, police, judges, institutions, churches, laws, customs, armies are temporary necessities imposed on us for a few groups of centuries because God has concealed His face from us. When it appears to us again in its truth and beauty, then in that light they will vanish. 320. The anarchic is the true divine state of man in the end as in the beginning; but in between it would lead us straight to the devil and his kingdom. 321. The communistic principle of society is intrinsically as superior to the individualistic as is brotherhood to jealousy and mutual slaughter; but all the practical schemes of Socialism invented in Europe are a yoke, a tyranny and a prison. 322. If communism ever reestablishes itself successfully upon earth, it must be on a foundation of soul's brotherhood and the death of egoism. A forced association and a mechanical comradeship would end in a worldwide fiasco. 323. Vedanta realised is the only practicable basis for a communistic society. It is the kingdom of the saints dreamed of by Christianity, Islam and Puranic Hinduism. 324. "Freedom, equality, brotherhood," cried the French revolutionists, but in truth freedom only has been practised with a dose of equality; as for brotherhood, only a brotherhood of Cain was founded—and of Barabbas. Sometimes it calls itself a Trust or Combine and sometimes the Concert of Europe. 325. "Since liberty has failed," cries the advanced thought of Europe, "let us try liberty cum equality or, since the two are a little hard to pair, equality instead of liberty. For brotherhood, it is impossible; therefore we will replace it by industrial association." But this time also, I think, God will not be deceived. 326. India had three fortresses of a communal life, the village community, the larger joint family and the orders of the Sannyasins; all these are broken or breaking with the stride of egoistic conceptions of social life; but is not this after all only the breaking of these imperfect moulds on the way to a larger and diviner communism ? 327. The individual cannot be perfect until he has surrendered all he now calls himself to the divine Being. So also, until mankind gives all it has to God, never shall there be a perfected society. 328. There is nothing small in God's eyes; let there be nothing small in thine. He bestows as much labour of divine energy on the formation of a shell as on the building of an empire. For thyself it is greater to be a good shoemaker than a luxurious and incompetent king. 329. Imperfect capacity and effect in the work that is meant for thee is better than an artificial competency and a borrowed perfection. 330. Not result is the purpose of action, but God's eternal delight in becoming, seeing and doing. 331. God's world advances step by step fulfilling the lesser unit before it seriously attempts the larger. Affirm free nationality first, if thou wouldst ever bring the world to be one nation. 332. A nation is not made by a common blood, a common tongue or a common religion; these are only important helps and powerful conveniences. But wherever communities of men not bound by family ties are united in one sentiment and aspiration to defend a common inheritance from their ancestors or assure a common future for their posterity, there a nation is already in existence. 333. Nationality is a stride of the progressive God passing beyond the stage of the family; therefore the attachment to clan and tribe must weaken or perish before a nation can be born. 334. Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu's three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted. 335. With the present morality of the human race a sound and durable human unity is not yet possible; but there is no reason why a temporary approximation to it should not be the reward of strenuous aspiration and untiring effort. By constant approximations and by partial realisations and temporary successes Nature advances. 336. Imitation is sometimes a good training-ship; but it will never fly the flag of the admiral. 337. Rather hang thyself than belong to the horde of successful imitators. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:47:41 ini sulat banyak intelesting... SRI AUROBINDO Writings in Bengali Translated into English A Letter to Barin Pondicherry Date unfixable [April 1920] Dear Barin, I have received your three letters (and another one today), but up till now I have not managed to write a reply. That now I sit to write is itself a miracle, because I write letters once in a blue moon, especially letters in Bengali. This is something I have not done even once in the last five or six years. If I can finish the letter and post it, the miracle will be complete. First, about your yoga. You want to give me the charge of your yoga, and I am willing to accept it. But this means giving it to Him who, openly or secretly, is moving me and you by His divine power. And you should know that the inevitable result of this will be that you will have to follow the path of yoga which He has given me, the path I call the Integral Yoga. This is not exactly what we did in Alipur jail, or what you did during your imprisonment in the Andamans. What I started with, what Lele gave me, what I did in jail — all that was a searching for the path, a circling around looking here and there, touching, taking up, handling, testing this and that of all the old partial yogas, getting a more or less complete experience of one and then going off in pursuit of another. Afterwards, when I came to Pondicherry, this unsteady condition ceased. The indwelling Guru of the world indicated my path to me completely, its full theory, the ten limbs of the body of the yoga. These ten years he has been making me develop it in experience; it is not yet finished. It may take another two years. And so long as it is not finished, I probably will not be able to return to Bengal. Pondicherry is the appointed place for the fulfilment of my yoga — except indeed for one part of it, that is, the work. The centre of my work is Bengal, but I hope its circumference will be the whole of India and the whole world. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:48:43 Later I will write to you what my path of yoga is. Or, if you come here, I will tell you. In these matters the spoken word is better than the written. For the present I can only say that its fundamental principle is to make a synthesis and unity of integral knowledge, integral works and integral devotion, and, raising this above the mental level to the supramental level of the Vijnana, to give it a complete perfection. The defect of the old yoga was that, knowing the mind and reason and knowing the Spirit, it remained satisfied with spiritual experience in the mind. But the mind can grasp only the fragmentary; it cannot completely seize the infinite, the undivided. The mind's way to seize it is through the trance of samadhi, the liberation of moksha, the extinction of nirvana, and so forth. It has no other way. Someone here or there may indeed obtain this featureless liberation, but what is the gain? The Spirit, the Self, the Divine is always there. What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and in the collectivity — to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not synthesis or unify the Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as an illusion or a transient play of God. The result has been a diminution of the power of life and the decline of India. The Gita says: utsИdeyurime lokА na kuryАМ karma cedaham1, "These peoples would crumble to pieces if I did not do actions." Verily "these peoples" of India have gone down to ruin. What kind of spiritual perfection is it if a few ascetics, renunciates, holymen and realised beings attain liberation, if a few devotees dance in a frenzy of love, god-intoxication and bliss, and an entire race, devoid of life and intelligence, sinks to the depths of darkness and inertia? First one must have all sorts of partial experience on the mental level, flooding the mind with spiritual delight and illuminating it with spiritual light; afterwards one climbs upwards report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:49:50 Unless one makes this upward climb, this climb to the supramental level, it is not possible to know the ultimate secret of world-existence; the riddle of the world is not solved. There, the cosmic Ignorance which consists of the duality of Self and world, Spirit and life, is abolished. Then one need no longer look on the world as an illusion: the world is an eternal play of God, the perpetual manifestation of the Self. Then is it possible fully to know and realise God — samagraМ mАМ jЬАtuМ praviШТum, "to know and enter into Me completely", as the Gita says. The physical body, life, mind and reason, Supermind, the Bliss-existence — these are the Spirit's five levels. The higher we climb, the nearer comes a state of highest perfection of man's spiritual evolution. When we rise to the Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Bliss. The status of indivisible and infinite Bliss becomes firmly established — not only in the timeless Supreme Reality, but in the body, in the world, in life. Integral existence, integral consciousness, integral bliss blossom out and take form in life. This endeavour is the central clue of my yogic path, its fundamental idea. But it is not an easy thing. After fifteen years I am only now rising into the lowest of the three levels of the Supermind and trying to draw up into it all the lower activities. But when the process is complete, there is not the least doubt that God through me will give this supramental perfection to others with less difficulty. Then my real work will begin. I am not impatient for the fulfilment of my work. What is to happen will happen in God's appointed time. I am not disposed to run like a madman and plunge into the field of action on the strength of my little ego. Even if my work were not fulfilled, I would not be disturbed. This work is not mine, it is God's. I listen to no one else's call. When I am moved by God, I will move. I know that Bengal is not ready. The spiritual flood which has come is for the most part a new form of the old. It is not a real change. But it too was needed. Bengal has been awakening within itself all the old yogas in order to exhaust their ingrained tendencies, extract their essence and with it fertilise the soil. First it was the turn of Vedanta: the doctrine of non-dualism, asceticism, the Illusionism of Shankara, and so forth. Now, according to your description, it is the turn of the Vaishnava religion: the divine Play, love, losing oneself in the delight of spiritual emotion. All this is very old and unsuitable for the new age. It cannot last, for such excitement has no lasting power. But the Vaishnava way has this merit, that it keeps a certain connection between God and the world and gives a meaning to life. But because it is a partial thing, the connection and the meaning are not complete. The sectarianism you have noticed was inevitable. This is the law of the mind: to take one part and call it the whole, excluding all the other parts. The realised man who comes with an idea keeps, even if he leans on the part, some awareness of the whole — although he may not be able to give it form. But his disciples are not able to do this, because the form is lacking. They are tying up their bundles — let them. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:50:59 When God descends completely on the country, the bundles will open of themselves. All these things are signs of incompleteness and immaturity. I am not disturbed by them. Let the force of spirituality have its play in the country in whatever way and through as many sects as there may be. Afterwards we shall see. This is the infancy, the embryonic state, even, of the new age, just a hint, not yet the beginning. Then about Motilal's group.2 What Motilal got from me is the first foundation, the base of my yoga — surrender, equality etc. He has been working on these things; the work is not complete. One special feature of this yoga is that until the realisation has been raised to a somewhat elevated level, the base does not become solid. Motilal now wants to rise higher. In the beginning he had a number of old fixed notions. Some have dropped off, some still remain. At first it was the notion of asceticism — he wanted to create an Aurobindo order of monks.3 Now his mind has admitted that asceticism is not needed, but the old impression in his vital being has still not been thoroughly wiped out. This is why he advocates renunciation and asceticism while remaining a part of the life of the world. He has realised the necessity of renouncing desire, but he has not fully been able to grasp how the renunciation of desire can be reconciled with the experience of bliss. Moreover, he took to my yoga — as is natural to the Bengali nature — not so much from the side of knowledge as from the side of devotion and service. Knowledge has blossomed out a little; but much more is yet to come, and the fog of sentimentality has not been dissipated, though it is not so thick as it used to be. He has not been able to get beyond the limitations of the sattwic nature, the temperament of the moral man. The ego is still there. In a word, his development is progressing, it is not complete. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:51:55 But I am in no hurry. I am letting him develop according to his own nature. I do not want to fashion everybody in the same mould. The real thing will be the same in all, but it will take many aspects and many forms. Everyone grows from within; I do not wish to model from outside. Motilal has got the fundamental thing; all the rest will come. You ask, "Why is Motilal tying up his bundle?" I will explain. First, some people have gathered round him who are in contact with him and with me. What he received from me, they too are receiving. Secondly, I wrote a small article in Prabartak4 called "About Society"5 in which I spoke about the saЪgha or community. I do not want a community based on division. I want a community based upon the Spirit and giving form to the unity of the Spirit. This idea Motilal has taken up under the name deva-saЪgha (divine community). I have spoken in my English writings of the "divine life". Nolini has translated this as deva-jИvana. The community of those who want the deva-jИvana is the deva-saЪgha. Motilal has begun an attempt to establish this kind of community in seed-form in Chandernagore and to spread it across the country. If the shadow of the fragile ego falls upon this sort of endeavour, the community turns into a sect. The idea may easily creep in that the community which will be there in the end is this very one, that everything will be the circumference of this sole centre, that all who are outside it are not of the fold or, even if they are, that they have gone astray, because they are not in accord with our current line of thinking. If Motilal is making this mistake — he may have some tendency to make it, though I do not know whether he has done so or not — it will not do much harm, the mistake will pass. Much work has been done and continues to be done for us by Motilal and his little group — something nobody else has been able to do up till now. The divine power is working in him, there is no doubt about that. You will perhaps ask, "What is the need of a saЪgha? Let me be free and fill every vessel. Let all become one, let all take place within that vast unity." All this is true, but it is only one side of the truth. Our business is not with the formless Spirit only; we have to direct life as well. Without shape and form, life has no effective movement. It is the formless that has taken form, and that assumption of name and form is not a caprice of Maya. The positive necessity of form has brought about the assumption of form. We do not want to exclude any of the world's activities. Politics, trade, social organisation, poetry, art, literature report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:55:46 all will remain. But all will be given a new life, a new form. Why did I leave politics? Because our politics is not the genuine Indian thing; it is a European import, an imitation of European ways. But it too was needed. You and I also engaged in politics of the European style. If we had not done so, the country would not have risen, and we would not have had the experience or obtained a full development. Even now there is a need for it, not so much in Bengal as in the other provinces of India. But now the time has come to take hold of the substance instead of extending the shadow. We have to awaken the true soul of India and to do everything in accordance with it. For the last ten years I have been silently pouring my influence into this foreign political vessel, and there has been some result. I can continue to do this wherever necessary. But if I took up that work openly again, associating with the political leaders and working with them, it would be supporting an alien law of being and a false political life. People now want to spiritualise politics — Gandhi, for instance. But he can't get hold of the right way. What is Gandhi doing? Making a hodgepodge called satyАgraha out of "Ahimsa parama dharma"6, Jainism, hartal, passive resistance, etc.; bringing a sort of Indianised Tolstoyism into the country. The result — if there is any lasting result — will be a sort of Indianised Bolshevism. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:58:02 I have no objection to his work; let each one act according to his own inspiration. But it is not the real thing. If the spiritual force is poured into these impure forms — the wine of the spirit into these unbaked vessels — the imperfect things will break apart and spill and waste the wine. Or else the spiritual force will evaporate and only the impure form remain. It is the same in every field of activity. I could use my spiritual influence; it would give strength to those who received it and they would work with great energy. But the force would be expended in shaping the image of a monkey and setting it up in the temple of Shiva. If the monkey is brought to life it may grow powerful, and in the guise of the devotee Hanuman do much work for Rama — so long as the life and strength remain. But in the temple of India we want not Hanuman but the Godhead, the Avatar, Rama himself. I can associate with everyone, but only in order to draw them all onto the true path, while keeping the spirit and form of our ideal intact. If that is not done we will lose our way and the true work will not be accomplished. If we are spread out everywhere as individuals, something no doubt will be done; if we are spread out everywhere in the form of a saЪgha, a hundred times more will be accomplished. But the time has not yet come for this. If we try to give it form hastily, it will not be the exact thing I want. The saЪgha will at first be in a diffused form. Those who have accepted the ideal, although bound together, will work in different places. Afterwards, bound into a saЪgha with a form like a spiritual commune, they will shape all their activities according to the Self and according to the needs of the age. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 21:59:43 Not a fixed and rigid form like that of the old Aryan society, not a stagnant backwater, but a free form that can spread itself out like the sea with its multitudinous waves — engulfing this, inundating that, absorbing all — and as this continues, a spiritual community will be established. This is my present idea; it is not yet fully developed. What is being developed is what came to me in my meditations at Alipur. I shall see what shape it finally takes later. The result is in God's hands — let his will be done. Motilal's little group is just one experiment. He is looking for the means to engage in trade, industry, agriculture, etc. through his saЪgha. I am giving force and watching. There may be some materials for the future and some useful suggestions to be found in it. Do not judge it by its current merits and demerits or its present limitations. It is now in a wholly initial and experimental stage. Next I will discuss some of the specific points raised in your letter. I do not want to say much here about what you write as regards your yoga. It will be more convenient to do so when we meet. But there is one thing you write, that you admit no physical connection with men, that you look upon the body as a corpse. And yet your mind wants to live the worldly life. Does this condition still persist? To look upon the body as a corpse is a sign of asceticism, the path of nirvana. The worldly life does not go along with this idea. There must be delight in everything, in the body as much as in the spirit. The body is made of consciousness, the body is a form of God. I see God in everything in the world. Sarvam idaМ brahma, vАsudevaХ sarvamiti ("All this here is the Brahman", "Vasudeva, the Divine, is all") — this vision brings the universal delight. Concrete waves of this bliss flow even through the body. In this condition, filled with spiritual feeling, one can live the worldly life, get married or do anything else. In every activity one finds a blissful self-expression of the divine. I have for a long time been transforming on the mental level all the objects and experiences of the mind and senses into delight. Now they are all taking the form of supramental delight. In this condition there is the perfect vision and experience of Sachchidananda — the divine Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. Next, in reference to the divine community, you write, "I am not a god, only some much-hammered and tempered steel." I have already spoken about the real meaning of the divine community. No one is a god, but each man has a god within him. To manifest him is the aim of the divine life. That everyone can do. I admit that certain individuals have greater or lesser capacities. I do not, however, accept as accurate your description of yourself. But whatever the capacity, if once God places his finger upon the man and his spirit awakes, greater or lesser and all the rest make little difference. The difficulties may be more, it may take more time, what is manifested may not be the same — but even this is not certain. The god within takes no account of all these difficulties and deficiencies; he forces his way out. Were there few defects in my mind and heart and life and body? Few difficulties? Did it not take time? Did God hammer at me sparingly — day after day, moment after moment? Whether I have become a god or something else I do not know. But I have become or am becoming something — whatever God desired. This is sufficient. And it is the same with everybody; not by our own strength but by God's strength is this yoga done. It is good that you have taken charge of Narayan. The magazine began well, but later it drew a narrow sectarian line around itself, fostered feelings of faction and began to rot. At first Nolini wrote for Narayan, but later he was obliged to turn elsewhere, because it gave no scope to free opinion. There must be the free air of an open room, otherwise how can there be any power of life? Free light and free air are the primary nourishment of the life-force. At present it is not possible for me to contribute anything. Later I may be able to give something, but Prabartak also has its claim on me. It may at first be a little difficult to satisfy calls from both directions. We shall see when I begin to write in Bengali again. At the moment I am short of time; it is not possible for me to write for anything except the Arya. Each month I alone have to provide 64 pages; it is no small task. And then there is poetry to write; the practice of yoga takes time; time is also needed for rest. Most of "On Society", which Saurin has with him, has probably appeared in Prabartak. The rest of what he has must be a draft; the final revision has not been done. Let me have a look at it first. We shall see then whether it can be published in Narayan. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:09:55 You write about Prabartak that people cannot understand it, it is misty, a riddle. I have been hearing the same complaint all along. I admit that there is not much clear-cut thinking in Motilal's writing; he writes too densely. But he has inspiration, force, power. In the beginning Nolini and Moni wrote for Prabartak and even then people called it a riddle. But Nolini's thinking is clear-cut, Moni's writing direct and powerful. There is the same complaint about the Arya; people can't understand it. Who wants to give so much thought and consideration to his reading? But in spite of this, Prabartak was doing a lot of work in Bengal, and at that time people did not have the idea that I was writing for it. If now it does not have the same effect, the reason is that now people are rushing towards activity and excitement. On one side there is the flood of devotion, on the other side the effort to make money. But during the ten-year period that Bengal was lifeless and inert, Prabartak was its only fountain of strength. It has helped a lot in changing the mood of Bengal. I do not think its work is over yet. In this connection let me tell you briefly one or two things I have been observing for a long time. It is my belief that the main cause of India's weakness is not subjection, nor poverty, nor a lack of spirituality or religion, but a diminution of the power of thought, the spread of ignorance in the birthplace of knowledge. Everywhere I see an inability or unwillingness to think — incapacity of thought or "thoughtphobia". This may have been all right in the mediaeval period, but now this attitude is the sign of a great decline. The mediaeval period was a night, the day of victory for the man of ignorance; in the modern world it is the time of victory for the man of knowledge. He who can delve into and learn the truth about the world by thinking more, searching more, labouring more, gains more power. Take a look at Europe. report abuse disagree 1 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:11:32 You will see two things: a wide limitless sea of thought and the play of a huge and rapid, yet disciplined force. The whole power of Europe is here. It is by virtue of this power that she has been able to swallow the world, like our tapaswis of old, whose might held even the gods of the universe in terror, suspense, subjection. People say that Europe is rushing into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions, all these upsettings are the first stages of a new creation. Now take a look at India. A few solitary giants aside, everywhere there is your simple man, that is, your average man, one who will not think, cannot think, has not an ounce of strength, just a momentary excitement. India wants the easy thought, the simple word; Europe wants the deep thought, the deep word. In Europe even ordinary labourers think, want to know everything. They are not satisfied to know things halfway, but want to delve deeply into them. The difference lies here. But there is a fatal limitation to the power and thought of Europe. When she enters the field of spirituality, her thought-power stops working. There Europe sees everything as a riddle, nebulous metaphysics, yogic hallucination — "It rubs its eyes as in smoke and can see nothing clearly." But now in Europe not a little effort is being made to surmount even this limitation. Thanks to our forefathers, we have the spiritual sense, and whoever has this sense has within his reach such knowledge, such power, as with one breath could blow all the immense strength of Europe away like a blade of grass. But power is needed to get this power. We, however, are not worshippers of power; we are worshippers of the easy way. But one cannot obtain power by the easy way. Our forefathers swam in a vast sea of thought and gained a vast knowledge; they established a vast civilisation. But as they went forward on their path they were overcome by exhaustion and weariness. The force of their thought decreased, and along with it decreased the force of their creative power. Our civilisation has become a stagnant backwater, our religion a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of intoxication. So long as this state of things lasts, any permanent resurgence of India is impossible. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:13:34 It is in Bengal that this weakness has gone to the extreme. The Bengali has quickness of intellect, a capacity for feeling, intuition. In all these qualities he is the foremost in India. Each of these qualities is necessary, but they are not in themselves sufficient. If there were added to them depth of thought, manly force, heroic audacity, proficiency and delight in prolonged labour, the Bengali would become the leader not only of India, but of the world. But the Bengali does not want this; he wants to pick up things the easy way — knowledge without thought, results without labour, spiritual perfection after an easy discipline. He relies on emotional excitement, but excessive emotion devoid of knowledge is the very symptom of the disease. What has the Bengali been doing from the time of Chaitanya onwards, from long before that, in fact? Catching hold of some easy superficial aspect of spiritual truth and dancing about for a few days on waves of emotion; afterwards there is exhaustion, inertia. And at home, the gradual decline of Bengal, the ebbing away of her life-force. In the end, what has the Bengali come to in his own province? He has nothing to eat and no clothes to wear, there is wailing on every side. His wealth, his business and trade, even his agriculture begin to pass slowly into the hands of outsiders. We have abandoned the yoga of divine power and so the divine power has abandoned us. We practise the yoga of love, but where there is no knowledge or power, love does not stay. Narrowness and littleness come in. In a narrow and small mind, life and heart, love finds no room. Where is there love in Bengal? Nowhere else even in this division-ridden India is there so much quarrelling, strained relations, jealousy, hatred and factionalism as in Bengal. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:15:02 In the noble heroic age of the Aryan people there was not so much shouting and gesticulation, but the endeavour they set in motion lasted many centuries. The Bengali's endeavour lasts for a day or two. You say what is needed is emotional excitement, to fill the country with enthusiasm. We did all that in the political field during the Swadeshi period; everything we did has fallen in the dust. Will there be a more auspicious outcome in the spiritual field? I don't say there has been no result. There has been; every movement produces some result. But it is mostly in an increase of possibilities. This is not the right way to steadily actualise the thing. Therefore I do not wish to make emotional excitement, feeling and mental enthusiasm the base any longer. I want to make a vast and strong equality the foundation of my yoga; in all the activities of the being, which will be based on that equality, I want a complete, firm and unshakable power; over that ocean of power I want the radiation of the sun of Knowledge and in that luminous vastness an established ecstasy of infinite love and bliss and oneness. I do not want tens of thousands of disciples. It will be enough if I can get as instruments of God one hundred complete men free from petty egoism. I have no confidence in guruhood of the usual type. I do not want to be a guru. What I want is for someone, awakened by my touch or by that of another, to manifest from within his sleeping divinity and to realise the divine life. Such men will uplift this country. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:17:05 Do not think from reading this lecture that I despair of the future of Bengal. I too hope for what they are saying — that this time a great light will manifest in Bengal. But I have tried to show the other side of the shield, where the defects, failings and deficiencies lie. If these remain, that light will not be great, nor will it endure. The saints and great men you have written about appear to me rather dubious. Somehow I do not find in them what I am looking for. Dayananda7 has all sorts of wonderful powers. Illiterate disciples of his do remarkable automatic writing. All right, but this is only a psychic faculty. What I want to know about is the real thing in them and how far it has progressed. Then there is another — he stirs a person to his depths just by touching him. Very well, but what does that thrill lead to? Does the person become by this touch the kind of man who can stand like a pilar of the new age, the divine Golden Age? This is the question. I see you have your doubts about this. I have mine too. I laughed when I read the prophecies of those saints and holymen — but not a laugh of scorn or disbelief. I do not know about the distant future. The light God sometimes gives me falls one step ahead of me; I move forward in that light. But I wonder what these people need me for. Where is my place in their great assembly? I am afraid they would be disappointed to see me. And as for me, would I not be a fish out of the water? I am not an ascetic, not a saint, not a holyman — not even a religious man. I have no religion, no code of conduct, no morality. Deeply engrossed in the worldly life, I enjoy luxury, eat meat, drink wine, use obscene language, do whatever I please — a Tantrik of the left-hand path. Among all these great men and incarnations of God am I a great man or an incarnation? If they saw me they might think I was the incarnation of the Iron Age, or of the titanic and demoniac form of the goddess Kali — what the Christians call the Antichrist. I see a misconception about me has been spread. If people get disappointed, it is not my fault. The meaning of this extraordinarily long letter is that I too am tying up my bundle. But I believe this bundle is like the net of Saint Peter, teeming with the catch of the Infinite. report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 07, 2008 22:18:27 I am not going to open the bundle just now. If it is opened too soon, the catch may escape. Nor am I going back to Bengal just now — not because Bengal is not ready, but because I am not ready. If the unripe goes amid the unripe, what can he accomplish? Your Sejdada8 report abuse disagree 1 agree 1 ... written by teo siew chin, June 08, 2008 14:59:14 wohhhhh SUV - your comments are longer than the doc's article lah! not a gandhi fan are you. i had tot he was kinda cool with his calls for non-violence and such. sigh, now have to chuck out the window. is nothing sacred anymore!! as for your cosmic doodah - the ordinary folks are struggling with the basics of feeding and watering themselves and all the zen in the world will not put food on their table! unless you are aiming at the powers-that-be in which case ... anyways thank you much for all your comments - very enlightening. same goes for those of Renoir's. keep it up! report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by renoir, June 09, 2008 04:07:08 teo siew chin wrote: >the ordinary folks are struggling with the basics of feeding and watering themselves and all the zen in the world will not put food on their table!]] Yes, that's why I said: "The practical need to survive is a big problem in much of Asia. Here the Marxist contention of changing the socio-economic base is most important: the superstructure, thoughts, philosophy, etc, - the proper consciousness of a people - cannot exist separately from their material base." Nevertheless, it's not difficult to see the despair of folks (including SUV) who've seen where pure materialism, particularly its obsession with externalities, have brought us into, and who thus advocate a much greater role for mental/spiritual development. This, again, isn't new to many of us oldies who're familiar with the titanic and often desperate struggles of China to survive as a nation from the onset of the Opium Wars to 1950. For well over a century, the debate was framed within binaries such as spiritual versus material development, tradition versus modernization, Chinese versus Western, and predictably, a bit of the opposites within each continuum. For example, people like Hu Shih, Liang Chi-chao, and several other scholars were all for the preservation of Confucianism, but also thought that its place was historical and that what China needed was modernization largely along Western lines. One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Tu-Hsiu, was very Western in his belief in individualism, civil rights, and most stuff we associate with current Western ideology. Like many Indian philosophers, Chen also valued self-enlightenment. Of the many intellectuals who surfaced around the turn of the 20th century, Liang Chi-Chao was probably most realistic in thinking that one needed a nation in order to talk about national progress, self-cultivation, etc., etc. And the nation, during Liang's time, was fast disappearing under the heels of the Japanese. To some extent, China was lucky that Liang's fellow Guangdong compatriot, Dr. Sun, had at least managed to overthrow the Ching government. Otherwise, it was possible that the Ching would've lost more territories to the Japanese. Of course, by the 1940s it was another fella who would, through guerilla attacks, make life miserable for the Japanese Imperial Army - the man who said straight to everyone's face that "political power comes out from the barrel of a gun" - Mao Zedomg. And yet, for all his no-nonsense approach to national liberation, Mao too was known to have been an admirer of Liang Chi-Chao. To sum up; while the spiritual is certainly important, power is still needed in order to effect real changes on society or a nation. Power isn't everything. Yet without it, nothing could be done. Despite our grievances with the BN government, we do have a modicum of democracy which allows us a chance to effect some changes through peaceful means. Now with PR in control of 5 states, perhaps we can spend some of our time on Aurobindo.  LChuah report abuse disagree 0 agree 4 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 12:43:43 teo san aah..wit or wit out zippity dodaah zen, ordinary folks now is the got d difficulty of finfing vitamin m to feed imself n is familylah..is it possible our present mindset/lifestyle is out of rythem with true pricipals of life which is resulting in food crisis,price hikes,recessions..ini semua man made disasters kan?  report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 12:47:54 renor, the reason i "taroh' Sri Aurobindo bcos,si gandhi tu muncul lagi...tak boleh tahan si capati eating bapuji...what Sri Aurobindo and THE MOTHER did n doing..fooh weeh....itu certa lain... report abuse disagree 0 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 12:50:52 now i sedar the lil experiment in chandernagore has now turned in2...http://www.auroville.org/ report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 13:05:05 sri aurobindo was doing yoga when he was err..bikining terrorist activities..hehe ...his brudder lagi gila gila oh...vivekandas brudder oso involved...many other interesting thing oso they do one..like play play wit oija board ...sri aurobindo dapat bramanic nirvana within 3 hali(under the instructions of bhaskar lele,a yogi)..d other interesting fact is, the revolutinionaries had links with gurus,yogis..vivekanadas influence was very big..when sri aurobido was in alipore jail,it was vivekanada's spirit that came n for 15 days ajar,kasi direction 2 sri auribindo towards supermind report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 14:33:16 non violence is the way..true...n malaysin senyap revolusi very unique.. report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 14:42:05 there was one chinese disciple @ SABDA(Sri Aurobindo Ahsram) who translated Sri Aurobindo's works..Hu Tsu,if i m not mistaken,n believe it or not,he invented chinese letters to terjemah sri aurbondo's works... report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 14:59:39 ini perbualan saya sikali lagi taroh... sa=sri auroindo p:he asks how the distinction is made in the life divine between being and non being.does the non being come after overmind or before it? sa:why is he particular about the non being?you arrive at the non being by followingthe negative path.that is to say,when you start frm mind,i mean the spritual mind,you come or open yourself to the experince of nirvana.this nirvana is the negation of all that the mind can affirm as the being but it is only a gate of entry into the absolute.from this nirvana you can either take up the negative or affirmative path.by the negative path you reach the non being or what the gita calls anirdesham9indeterminate).this non being is the buddhist nirvana or the chinese tao.the buddhist consider it as shunya(void),while to the taoists this void contains everything.again this nirvana is not the same as the brahma nirvana of the gita.by following the affirmative path you arrive at the supermind and pass through it to satchitananda(existance,conciousness,bliss).in my own ecase,i passed to the supermind frm a nirvana with a most indispensable positive.the goraknath prople also follow this affirmative way.from the point of view of realisation,there are 3 aspects of brahman-atman or self,purusha or soul,ishwara or god.the adwaitins negate both purusha and ishwara and arrive at the unity of atmn and brahman.the buddhists negate all the 3 aspects and arrive at the non being report abuse disagree 0 agree 2 ... written by SUV, June 09, 2008 15:17:40 p:did you say the other day that by following the fafirmative way one arrives at the non being?i was not very clear about it. sa  with a surprised look):no.by the negative path you arrive at the non being or what the gita calls the indeterminate.as i said it is the same thing as in taoism and buddhism.but it is not really nohing.what we can say is that no attribute of being can be posited of it.taosim says that non being is everything rather than nothing.by the affirmative path you come through supermind to satchitananda which is both static and dynamic,while through the negative path you come to non being,p:then the negative path doesnt come to satchitananda? sa:no n:is non being the final stage of the negative path or does one pass through it to something else? sa:non being is only a term of the mind to express the supreme existence.it is the buddhist's way of expressing the supreme they contact.in reality it is nothing but an aspect of the supreme.what is called the indeterminate is not really indeterminate.it can be called so because it is incapable of any determination.that is what i have i tried to show in the life divine. p:in fact it is the souce of infinite determination.how is it non being correlated to supermind,etc,of the affirmative way? sa:both are the gates to the absolute.non being is an aspect of the absolute.when you enter the absolute,you cant decribe it. report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by renoir, June 11, 2008 19:44:25 >.the buddhist consider it as shunya(void),while to the taoists this void contains everything.....this nirvana is not the same as the brahma nirvana of the gita.by following the affirmative path you arrive at the supermind ....what we can say is that no attribute of being can be posited of it.taosim says that non being is everything rather than nothing.]] Yes, the Tao is everything and nothing. We might thing of "nothing" in terms of Socrates' "Forms" - something that has an absoluteness and is itself an ultimate reality. Thus, from this Taoist "nothing" comes everything - everything because only an absolute nothing ("kung") could contain its vastness. Chinese philosophy is ultimately practical, and the practicalness of nothing is illustrated by the explanation that "four walls make a room, yet the utility lies within the empty space." The importance of nothing is signified in the the Chinese "zero," which was noted by an empty space. Thus 101 was written with an empty space between two ones: - -, and a thousand and one would be written as - - (Chinese "1" is written as "-"). So we can see the great difference created by "nothing" just by the spaces in a million and one: - - (five blank or empty spaces). Of course, the Indian (or Arabic) "0" is easier to read and later adopted by the whole world. About reaching the supermind by following an affirmative path, if I recall rightly, this would be quite similar to bakti yoga, which allows us to believe in any god to attain enlightenment/salvation. LChuah report abuse disagree 0 agree 2 ... written by renoir, June 11, 2008 21:30:26 >...and a thousand and one would be written as - - (Chinese "1" is written as "-").]] That didn't turn out right after posting. Perhaps I should put it thus: "and a thousand and one would be written as one with two spacings and then ends with another one." LChuah report abuse disagree 0 agree 2 ... written by teo siew chin, June 12, 2008 09:53:15 "..our present mindset/lifestyle is out of rythem with true pricipals of life..." -------------------- Suv-san ah, you mean the big kaboom macam iceage, dinosaur kaput age,now man-a-gonna age coming? man on self-destruct mode? culling of the specie? que sera sera report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 13:55:26 teo san, aah no lah...i is d meaning we have adiadopted western materialistic model as a way of life,as a result we oso get negetip n postip results af dat modellah..wall strett *hacoo*,we oso screwed..recession in uncle sam country..we oso screwed....we asian pipul not forwarded any alternative model for over 100 years...actually there is,but,we r,well...terlampau seronok with bling bling culture..and regarding boom chi ka boom doomsday scenarion,dat has been reversed..hehe... report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:00:57 bakti yoga,which mean devotion,surrender,aspiration opens up the horizontal n (so above the kipala)thru d pyschic center..it's oso mentioned in the quran.. rupam rupam pratirupo bhavubahn(every form is d divine) report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:05:42 wat happens to a person,when tuhan embraces dat person... HOUND OF HEAVEN by Francis Thompson (1859 - 1907) A failure for so-long; a one-time opium addict; died of tuberculosis. His poems, mainly religious, are rich in imagery and poetic vision. I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter; Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat — and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised, with intertwining charities (For, though I knew His love Who followed, Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside); But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars; Fretting to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:06:31 I said to dawn: Be sudden; to eve: Be soon; With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover! Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in the constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged His chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet— Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat— "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me." I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But He still within the little children's eyes Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:07:59 Come then, ye other children, Nature's-share With me" (said I); "Your delicate fellowship; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses, Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured dais, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring." So it was done: I in their delicate fellowship was one— Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. I knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise, Spumed of the wild sea-snortings; All that is born or dies Rose and drooped with; make them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine— With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. For ah; we know not what each other says. These things and I; in sound I speak— Their sound it but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The breasts o' her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, And past those noised Feet A Voice comes yet more fleet— "Lo! naught contents thee, who contents not Me." Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers I shook the pillaring hours and pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years— My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream; Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth, with heavy griefs so overplussed. Ah; is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? Ah; must— Designer infinite! — Ah; must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind; Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:09:39 Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrents slowly wash again. But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-encrowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields Be dunged with rotten death? Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing, Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited— Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come." Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me." report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by teo siew chin, June 13, 2008 14:11:02 Suv-san hahahaahah boom chi ka boom dah reversed? ya ke? macam mana dat happened? "man" reversed it ah... hehe?  asian pipul dah followed the pied-piper too long .. now pipe bocor ... maybe ada harapan for new model. report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by teo siew chin, June 13, 2008 14:16:42 Dear SUV Can you puhleeeees write regular! Why must you go 'under-cover' in such a way? You Otak Udang in disguise ah? Just so you know, i used to look forward to Otak Udang's posts too. Have a good weekend! report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:17:24 “Sri Aurobindo had already realized in full two of the four great realizations on which his Yoga and his spiritual philosophy are founded. The first he had gained while meditating with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realization of the silent, spaceless and timeless Brahman gained after a complete and abiding stillness of the whole consciousness and attended at first by an overwhelming feeling and perception of the total unreality of the world, though this feeling disappeared after his second realization which was that of the cosmic consciousness and of the Divine as all beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarpara. To the other two realizations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind, he was already on his way in his meditations at the Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as the principle of his Sadhana to rely wholly on the divine and his guidance alone both for his Sadhana and for his outward actions.” [On Himself, by Sri Aurobindo] The most important of the major spiritual discoveries of Sri Aurobindo is the Supermind. ‘The Aurobindonian Supermind is not an entirely new discovery,' says K D Sethna (Amalkiran, disciple of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother). In the Veda and some of Upanishads and the Gita, there is mention of the plane of consciousness, beyond and above mind, which is named Supermind by Sri Aurobindo; let us see what K D Sethna has said in this regard : ” As early as the Vedas, there was the vision of it as Satyam Ritam Brihat - the True, the Right, the Vast - and it was symbolized as the Sun of Knowledge in the highest heaven. But either it was experienced in deep trance from which its whole import could not be transmitted or what was seized was its reflection in the several grades between it and the mental level - grades distinguished by Sri Aurobindo from that level [mental level] upwards as Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition, Overmind. …” http://barinchaki.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/09/sri-aurobindo-2.htm report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:22:55 SRI AUROBINDO Letters on Yoga Volume 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PART FOUR Section One The Triple Transformation: Psychic – Spiritual – Supramental -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II III IV V The fundamental realisations of this yoga are: 1. The psychic change so that a complete devotion can be the main motive of the heart and the ruler of thought, life and action in constant union with the Mother and in her Presence. 2. The descent of the Peace, Power, Light, etc. of the Higher Consciousness through the head and heart into the whole being, occupying the very cells of the body. 3. The perception of the One and Divine infinitely everywhere, the Mother everywhere and living in that infinite consciousness. *** You know the three things on which the realisation has to be based: (1) on a rising to a station above the mind and on the opening out of the cosmic consciousness; (2) on the psychic opening; and (3) on the descent of the higher consciousness with its peace, light, force, knowledge, Ananda etc. into all the planes of the being down to the most physical. All this has to be done by the working of the Mother's force aided by your aspiration, devotion and surrender. That is the Path. The rest is a matter of the working out of these things for which you have to have faith in the Mother's working. *** When one speaks of the divine spark, one is thinking of the soul as a portion of the Divine which has descended from above into the manifestation rather than of something which has separated itself from the cosmos. It is the nature that has formed itself out of the cosmic forces – mind out of cosmic mind, life out of cosmic life, body out of cosmic Matter. For the soul there are three realisations: – (1) the realisation of the psychic being and consciousness as the divine element in the evolution; (2) the realisation of the cosmic Self which is one in all; (3) the realisation of the Supreme Divine from which both individual and cosmos have come and of the individual being (Jivatma) as an eternal portion of the Divine. report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 13, 2008 14:23:44 for more,sini masuk.. http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/22-24/eng_3_1.htm report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by teo siew chin, June 13, 2008 15:13:31 wohhhhhhh SUV-san ah, you sprinkle that load on us and you wonder why we prefer the bling bling culture most will only get into the soul-train dat's got rythm & blusssss  report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 14, 2008 21:19:59 soul train eh..bootsy collins syok tak? report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 14, 2008 21:34:41 dis book boleh tolong siki.. Sri Aurobindo, or the Adventure of Consciousness (Paperback) by "Satprem" (Author) -------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful: Synthesis, May 8, 2001 By Tony Criscuolo "Cristolfo" (Swansea, UK) - See all my reviews This review is from: Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness (Paperback) The writings of Aurobindo are enormous. As much as one might wish to bathe in the wisdom of this extraordinary man, the task is too much for most of due to the massive tomes we would confront. However, Satprem has magnificently synthesised the life work of Aurobindo. Not only has he accomplished this task well, but the subtelty, the depth of vision that Satprem manages to convey, says to me that he is himself someone who has great insight, has great life experience and spiritual maturity. report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 14, 2008 21:36:45 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-L8KnXiTzw report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by teo siew chin, June 15, 2008 15:40:40 hahahaha no wonder Suv-san so cooool . dah yoga-lised .me, i gotta google de boots collins i kungfu-panda person page still very blank!heeeeyarrrrrr report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 15, 2008 21:54:02 everybody luvs kungfu fighting..hah!!remeber dis song,teo san? not yoga lised..yogi bearised... . report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by teo siew chin, June 15, 2008 22:16:33 wooo hoooo suv-san! luv dat kungfu song and luvvvvv yogi bear ahem, methinks we've hijacked de doc's article enuf. have a good week ahead report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 17, 2008 12:15:35 yalah,we have hijacked doc's article..sorry doc..teo san..enjoy ur evening listenin 2 fly n d family stones...  report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 17, 2008 12:28:09 actually aah,integral yoga means surrendering to divine via yoga,n becoming slave of the divine...the holy quran mentions,we must become hamba ALLAH..see the pattern?and it's also important to note that in the quran,it mentions the opening of the heart center...dis oso very crucial in integral yoga..bcos dis is the "rumah" of the psychic being..our divine self.... report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by SUV, June 17, 2008 12:33:59 integral yoga lagi..mmm...even demands our cells n tissues becoming hamba ALLAH...if we examine our body,nature,we see the charaectistics of the supreme..for example,apart frm sound,everything else is so quiet..look at our tulang..almost immortal...yes...we r waat actaully? report abuse disagree 0 agree 1 ... written by teo siew chin, June 18, 2008 09:12:42 "...we r waat actaully? ..." ------------------------------- SUV-san ah, we are 90percent H2O and 10percent H2S report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 18, 2008 22:28:38 10percent H2S --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ..aduh... report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 ... written by SUV, June 25, 2008 15:35:48 The one who had proclaimed himself as the Lord of the Nations, the Asuric power of Falsehood, had found in Hitler his perfect instrument in the gruesome task of annihilation of the world. Here was Mahatma Gandhi with the ethico-religious mind recommending submission to the Falsehood that was at the basis of this dark creation. The Times letter in July 1940 addressed to the Britishers runs as follows: “I want you to fight Nazism without arms, or, if I am to retain the military terminology, with non-violent arms. I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.” Putting such an ultra-Christian doctrine on the highest pedestal of ethical excellence, making it an eminent principle of administration in the daily mode of life of the individual as well as of a whole society is not only to dwarf them; in fact, in its cruellest sense it is to turn all towards anti-humanity. And what is the efficacy of such a doctrine in its functioning? It sucks away the life-blood of a nation; it strangles the spirit of freedom and happy enterprise; it kills with a dark knife the very soul of man. A great humane and respectable virtue meant for another kind of pursuit is converted into a deadly weapon of destruction to push everything into the abyss of spiritual oblivion, into the sunless worlds that are enveloped in blind gloom, andhena tamasavratah , as the Isha Upanishad would declare. Was the Mahatma promoting the Rule of the Asura? It seems so, if not consciously and deliberately but unwittingly. Did not the same thing happen at the time of Cripps's Mission in 1942? Woe be to the nation who turns its blind eye to the Rishi dedicated to the Divine cause. http://www.auromusic.org/online books/articles/RYDeshpande/niroddasTwelveYears.htm report abuse disagree 0 agree 0 Write comment This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment. You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet. |
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Many years ago a nation from Africa were in trouble many die of starvation, so the leaders travel around the world asking for donations. Imaging the leader come in private jet and with many bodyguards. Asking the world to help his people but he cannot get rid of his jet first. What kind of leader is that?
Which of our leader do not know that by pampering the Malays will get them (Malays) nowhere and yet they still do it. I am sure our leaders are not that stupid until they don't realize that a pampered child will not grow up to be independent. They (the leaders) still want the Malays to be dependent on them that is why they still want 'Ketuanan Melayu' to continue to have their personal gain. They don't care if the Malays actually become 'layu'.