The Veda and Sri Aurobindo's Light

O Flame, O ray in our limited existence, bring for us an illumination full of utter energy, by an all-encompassing felicity cleave forward our path towards the plentitude.

- Hymn to Agni (Rig Veda)

She of the vision of knowledge, she of its flowing inspiration, she of its vastness, three goddesses who give birth to the Bliss, they who stumble not, may they take their seats at the alter strewn of the sacrifice.

- Hymn to Agni (Rig veda)

The Rig Veda rises out of the ancient dawn with the sound of a thousand-voiced hymn lifted from the soul of man to an all creative Truth and an all- illumining Light.

-Sri Aurobindo

Those in this world are unfortunate who have not had the touch of Sri Aurobindo’s mind. In him the East and the West found the best meeting ground. He was in every inch a realist and in the perfectly integral sense of matter, a materialist per se. He never followed anything with any preconceived idea or whose veracity lied only on customary belief. He had a mind of a scientist who never accepts anything without verification of its reality. So he was not warmly welcome to the majority of religious persons of India –the country, perhaps best explored in his spiritual mission as a land of Divine Presence. To the atheists he remains to be accepted as a great thinker or philosopher but is summarily refused for his vision of a future of mankind in a higher consciousness, notwithstanding his irrefutable logical explanations for such an unalterable destiny. Actually the materialists also follow a religion like the believers. The difference is that they are not aware that their system of seeking is also based on their absolute faith in the system itself –the system, Mind works with, under an integral process in evolution. The believers here in India are deeply rooted in Mayavada of Shankaracharya. So some believers even think of him as an atheist for his taking up of matter as something in the scheme of his sadhana.

If there can be any incarnation of the aspiration of modern man, then Sri Aurobindo was definitely an incarnation. He accepted with due regard all the positive progressive elements of modern man. So he assured his devotees that he had tested his every spiritual realization more rigorously than a scientist testing his result before declaring it to be true. He never accepted anything which he had not personally realized.

He was a pedant in the general sense of the term. But he never accepted that he would go to be known as a savant or philosopher. He wrote on many things of human activities. But to any serious reader he appears to be telling from his own understanding and solid realization. Sri Aurobindo –was not a scholar in the mechanical and current sense of the term. But if he felt a need to know anything for some purpose he studied the subject and became a master of it. But he didn’t study in the usual way. Whenever he took up something seriously –he went on researching on the matter. In this matter his characteristic inclination was more akin to western scientific researchers. He never insisted people –whenever he required addressing people outside his own spiritual community in the Ashram, he expected them to be rigorous in finding the real and the system must be secure and fool-proof.

So had there been no Sri Aurobindo –the hymns of the Veda still remain to be “the sacrificial compositions of a primitive and still barbarous race written around a system of ceremonial and propitiatory rites, addressed to personified Powers of Nature and replete with a confused mass of half-formed myth and crude astronomical allegories yet in the making.” Now it is for Sri Aurobindo with his scholarly and scientific efforts the secrets have been revealed before people. He refuted with his irrefutable light, Sayana and the later western scholars. Though there were three modern Indian contributions viz. Tilak, T.Paramasiva Aiyar and Swami Dayananda Saraswati but-none of them were free from conjectural opinions and can stand the rigorous tests that are essential in the matter.

Sri Aurobindo had –in his early period accepted without much interest the conclusions of European Scholarship ‘both as to the religious and and as to the historical and ethnical sense of the ancient hymns.” He had regarded as he had knew about the Rig Veda in modern translation as “an important document of our national history, but seemed of small value or importance for the history of thought or for a living spiritual experience.”

So what transpired Sri Aurobindo to be interested in The Vedas? In his own words he had regarded the Upanishads ‘as the most ancient source of Indian thought and religion-the true Veda, the first Book of knowledge’. He had been made to learn that “the Veda for the priests, the Vedanta for the sages”. Let us know how Sri Aurobindo had been drawn into the secret realms of the Vedas in his own words.

He wrote in his The Secret of the Veda,-“My first contact with Vedic thought came indirectly while pursuing certain lines of self-development in the way of Indian Yoga, which, without my knowing it, were spontaneously converging towards the ancient and now unfrequented paths followed by our forefathers.” During this period of his sadhana he had been experiencing regularly, in him, figures of three female energies, Ila, Saraswati and Sarama-representing ‘severally three out of four faculties of the intuitive reasons,-revelation, inspiration and intuition’. He wrote that two of these names had not been well known to him as names of Vedic goddesses. He knew that they were connected rather with the current Hindu religion or with old Puranic legend, Saraswati, goddess of learning and Ila, mother of the Lunar dynasty. He went on “But Sarama was familiar enough. I was unable, however, to establish any connection between the figure that rose in my mind and the Vedic hound of heaven, who was associated in my memory with the Argive Helen and represented only an image of the physical Dawn entering in its pursuit of the vanished herds of Light into the cave of the Powers of darkness.” Thus had been the beginning of his search and subsequent research in the seclusion of his lone room in Pondicherry.

But before that he had been struck with some of his observation during his stay in Southern India for political activities which ultimately intensified his involvement with the secret of the Veda. It is always better to read in his own words, his own experiences. He wrote “Two observations that were forced on my mind, gave a serious shock to my second-hand belief in the racial division between Northern Aryans and Southern Dravidians. The distinction had always rested for me on a supposed difference between the physical types of Aryan and Dravidian and a more definite incompatibility between the northern Sanskritic and the southern non-Sanskritic tongues. I knew indeed of the later theories which suppose that a single homogeneous race, Dravidian or Indo-Afghan, inhabits the Indian peninsula; but hitherto I had not attracted much importance to these speculations. I could not, however, be long in Southern India without being impressed by the general recurrence of northern or ‘Aryan’ types in the Tamil race. Wherever I turned, I seemed to recognize with a startling distinctness, not only among the Brahmins but in all cases and classes, the old familiar faces, features, figures of my friends of Maharashtra, Gujerat, Hindustan, even, though this similarity was less widely spread, of my own province, Bengal. The impression I received was as if an army of all the tribes of the North had descended on the South and submerged any previous populations that may have occupied it. A general impression of a southern type survived, but it was impossible to fix it rigidly while studying the physiognomy of individuals. And in the end I could not but perceive that whatever admixtures might have taken place, whatever regional differences might have been evolved, there remains, behind all variations, a unity of physical as well as of cultural type throughout India. For the rest, this is a conclusion to which ethnological speculation itself has an increasing tendency…………

“And there was always the difference of language to support the theory of a meeting of races. But here also my preconceived ideas were disturbed and confounded. For, on examining the vocables of the Tamil language, in appearance so foreign to the Sanskritic form and character, I yet found myself continually guided by words or by families of words supposed to be pure Tamil in establishing new relations between Sanskrit and its distant sister, Latin, and occasionally, between the Greek and the Sanskrit. Sometimes the Tamil vocable not only suggested the connection, but proved the missing link in a family of connected words. And it was through this Dravidian language that I came first to perceive what seems to me now the true law, origins and, as it were, the embryology of the Aryan tongues. I was unable to pursue my examination far enough to establish any definite conclusion, but it certainly seems to me that the original connection between the Dravidian and Aryan tongues was far closer and more extensive than is usually supposed and the possibility suggests itself that they may even have been two divergent families derived from one lost primitive tongue. If so, the sole remaining evidence of an Aryan invasion of Dravidian India would be the indications to be found in the Vedic hymns.”

So with this ‘double interest’ Sri Aurobindo took up for the first time studying the Veda in original. After not a very long time he discovered that the Vedic indications of a distinction between Aryans and Dasyus and the identification of the latter as indigenous Indians was not as solid as Sri Aurobindo had supposed earlier. Interestingly, he discovered that a ‘considerable body of profound psychological thought and experience lying neglected in these ancient hymns.’ On this he continued with profound interest, “ And the importance of this element increased in my eyes when I found, first, that the mantras of the Veda illuminated with a clear and exact light psychological experiences of my own for which I had found no sufficient explanation either in European psychology or in the teachings of Yoga or of Vedanta, so far as I was acquainted with them, and, secondly, that they shed light on obscure passages and ideas of the Upanishads to which, previously, I could attach no exact meaning and gave at the same time a new sense to much in the Puranas.”

Thus was the beginning of the journey of Sri Aurobindo to the world of truth of the Veda. He discovered the truth of the Veda-the earliest literature (spiritual or otherwise) of the world. In deciphering the words he had to discover the identities of the Rishis and their time. So he took up the entire Veda in original and discovered the meaning of the mantras, comparing the root-words with Greek and Tamil, hitherto unknown to the world or known in ignorant and derogatory sense as some barbarians’ appeasing the unknown powers of Nature for material benefits. My intention here is not to discuss the secret meanings of the mantras but to highlight what Sri Aurobindo discovered in his research about the differences of so called Aryans and Dravidians and the North-South divide that have been supposed to breed an impression that there was no fundamental link between the two different tongues and races (Sri Aurobindo perhaps liked to use the word ‘ethnicities’). Sri Aurobindo studied philology and in his own way tried to conceive the intents of the mantras. He wrote that Comparative Philology helped a lot but in the present state of this science it was yet to attain maturity. He wrote,” Modern Philology is an immense advance on anything we have had before the nineteenth century. It has introduced a spirit of order and method in place of mere phantasy; it has given us more correct ideas of the morphology of language and of what is or is not possible in etymology. It has established a few rules which govern the the phenomena of the detritions of language and guide us in the identification of the same word or of related words as they appear in the changes of different but kindred tongues. Here, however, its achievements cease. The high hopes which attended its birth, have not been fulfilled by its maturity. It has failed to create a Science of Language and we are still compelled to apply to it the apologetic description given by a great philologist after some decades of earnest labour when he was obliged to speak of his favourite pursuits as ‘our petty conjectural sciences’. But a conjectural science is of no Science at all.”

So Sri Aurobindo had to depend on his own understanding based on his irrefutable logic and his overriding wisdom-still unparallel in this realm of the Veda.

I have had to relate all this to those who have not read Sri Aurobindo’s voluminous book-“The Secret of the Veda”. I have had to inform them the basic problems of discovering the secret of the Veda in absence of any recorded history of that far ancient era of human civilization and the absence of a well-formed and matured Science of Language. Surprisingly, a very recent revelation from The Indian Genome Variation (IGV)’s mammoth effort to analyse genetic variation across the Indian population has erased the dividing lines that separate caste and religious groups. The study by a consortium of six Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories and the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta has arrived through the process of their research studies that Dravidian lineages have mixed with Indo-Europeans, Austroasiatics have mingled with Dravidians, and bridge populations in central India are blends of Dravidian, Indo-European and Himalayan groups. Their analysis also shows that Kashmiri Pundits and Kashmiri Muslims are genetically similar and share genetic similarities with Dravidian groups. It is also said that some Dravidian speaking population groups have Indo-European lineage.

I have cited only the relevant portion of the above scientific findings to show that it proves what Sri Aurobindo, first through his intuition and then through his intensive studies of Tamil and the Vedic vocables (and through his sadhana) firmly established that there exists no such distinctively separate physical roots that may divide the Dravidians and the northern Aryans. From this it becomes evident that the two seemingly different tongues-Tamil and Sanskrit may have ancient links (as Sri Aurobindo showed in his Secret of the Veda) hidden in the formation of Vedic words.

After this startling revelation –the Science of Languages requires to be a true and mature Science (free from conjectures) as advised by Sri Aurobindo almost hundred years ago.

Finally I like to quote a portion of Sri Aurobindo’s letter to the editor of The Hindu dated 26^th August, 1914 in response to criticism of the opening chapter of The Secret of the Veda. Sri Aurobindo wrote,”…My point was that such knowledge, when it expressed a developed philosophy and psychology, stood in need of historical explanation,-a very different matter. If we accepted the European idea of an evolving knowledge in humanity,-and it is on that basis that my argument proceeded –we must find the source of the Brahmavada either in an extraneous origin such as a previous Dravidian culture-a theory which I can not admit, since I regard the so called Aryans and Dravidians as one and homogenous race-or in a previous development, of which the records have either been lost or are to be found in the Veda itself.” But I can not see any possibility of the coming of the seer and scientist-philologists in near future. Sri Aurobindo –himself already prepared a ground for them and indicated many results he discovered for the posterity. I’ll conclude with Sri Aurobindo’s comment on his own work.

“I do not claim that mine is the first attempt to give an adhyatmic interpretation of the Veda. It is an attempt –the first or the hundredth matters little-to give the esoteric and psychological sense of the Veda based throughout on the most modern method of critical research. Its interpretation of Vedic vocables is based on a re-examination of a large part of the field of comparative philology and a reconstruction on a new basis which I have some hope will bring us nearer to a true science of Language. This I propose to develop in another work, the “Origins of Aryan Speech”.

Blog Award

Satyajit Ray was a great film director nationally and internationally. He is still a known name to the Bengali children for another reason. Nobody before him in Bengal was as successful a writer for children as Satyajit Ray. He had interests in various matters apart from his creative talent in film making. I will not discuss about his other interests except his deep interest in writing for children. He inherited this taste for writing from his grandfather and his father-Sukumar Ray. Sukumar Ray is famous for his nonsense poems and even after three generations Sukumar Ray is still the only one in this category. He is unique and unparallel in Bengali literature, if not Indian literature as a whole. Satyajit Ray considerably added reputation to his renowned literary family. Ray wrote profusedly for children of Bengal. He wrote mainly on three following categories:

1. 1.Detective story 2. Short story 3. Science fiction

These are the main three areas that are very popular amongst the children of Bengal. He wrote on other matters in English and Bengali but I like to restrict my writing on his ‘Feluda’ episodes. But before that I must tell a little about this young detective. The official name of Feluda is Pradosh C. Mitter. Felu is his nick name but to Topse (Tapesh) –who is a cousin –he is Feluda. In Bengali da -when it’s suffixed with a name he is regarded as elder brother. Feluda lives with his uncle-Topse’s father in Calcutta. Topse is an adolescent boy very fond of Feluda and regarded him as his hero. In feluda episodes we find in Topse a Watson like assistant cum companion.

But let me watch Feluda and his creator-Ray. Feluda-is his later twenties now, very smart young man. He is extremely meticulous in his watching –whatever it may be-and perhaps follows Holmes as his Guru in this matter. He has many characteristics similar to Holmes. But in spite of the similarities he is distinctively a different person. For age, cultural difference, familial bond Feluda must have to be a different man. Moreover Ray wrote his Feluda stories mainly for children of Bengal. Holmes-stories are basically written with adult psychology and situations which can not be themes for children. Holmes is a queer and unsocial man. Holmes is addicted to cocaine and a confirmed bachelor and a homeless (not belonging to any family) person. Holmes is extremely intelligent but he likes to restrict his interest in such matters which he thinks necessary for his job as a detective. So, at times Holmes proves to be surprisingly an uneducated person when expressing his ignorance on planetary movements. On the contrary, Feluda is a well-informed man in matters of many things simply for the interest og the things themselves than any generally educated person. Feluda is a smoker. He smokes a cheap but strong brand of unfiltered cigarette- Charminar. Perhaps Ray told much about Feluda by naming this brand. It is the brand of intellectuals of Calcutta and especially of those who are mainly tough and cerebral type. Feluda is honest and very social. He is careful about his health and its strength and agility. So in the morning he has his regular yoga exercise. Unlike the general Bengalis Feluda speaks English perfectly like an English man. Externally, Feluda loves western etiquettes. But Feluda is not anglicized. He is neither a quintessentially Bengali in his manners, behaviors and interests. But he is inclined to be an aristocrat modern Bengali. In short Feluda is updated-modern and international Bengali who would rather be impetuous to study the dialects of different languages than to be inclined to write poetry.

But perhaps I am missing the points by miles for the matter I have thought of writing here. Feluda, as I have said, has many qualities but contrary to the general Bengali –he is not emotional, sentimental, romantic and soft in his inner nature and external demeanour. In his stories he appears to be tough and dependable as we see him through Topse. Feluda has all the qualities of a successful detective.

Now let me see Soumitra Chatterjee who played the role of Feluda in all those Feluda-films –directed by no other person than the creator of Feluda-Satyajit Ray. Ray like all the first graded film directors had the quality of selecting the right persons for the roles of his film characters. No film director in India before him and after him till date had such brilliant eyes to choose the exact person for his film. He was a perfectionist. In his Pather Panchali –I wonder if any actor or actress can be replaceable! All seem to have been born as the characters of Pather Panchali and they can not have other identities than we find them in the film. It’s true of all his films-even of those films whose stories were of his writings. But pardon me, my readers, if I tell that his choice for Soumitra Chatterjee for the role of Feluda was not proper. No doubt –Soumitra was then a great actor and in every Ray-film he equaled just the person he was chosen for. We must remember here that it was Ray who brought Soumitra in films. I have found that Santosh Datta was never as excellent in other films by other directors as Lalmohan Ganguly in Feluda films. It was because of Ray. Ray had the capability to pick up the right persons for his characters and had also the talent to mould them to fit to the characters they were chosen for.

So when Ray himself picked up Soumitra for the role of his own popular detective character-Feluda-it was, by all that was said above, definitely the right thing he did. But I can never accept Soumitra wearing the garb of Feluda. It must be added here that I am an admirer of Soumitra as a film actor. He was extraordinary in Apur Sansar. Then?

Basically-Soumitra is a quintessentially a Bengali. His demeanour gives an impression that he is soft, romantic, shy, a lover of poetry and belongs very much to family. He is very handsome –but in a Bengali way. Actually, Soumitra is just what he looks. Whenever Soumitra wore beard and moustache in some films –he was able to hide his so called ‘not so smart’ countenance. It is evident from his roles in Jhinder Bandi, Abhjan etc. Feluda and Soumitra in their basic personalities are completely different. they belong to different genre and Soumitra could never be able to hide his nature as Feluda. Soumitra acted just the way it should be desired to do justice to Feluda. But he was helpless with the tone of his voice and his smiling face that can not fit to Feluda.

It can never be an issue to write on, at least for me –if it were not that perfectionist Ray choosing Soumitra for a character –he himself created with extreme care and love. Ray created Feluda in his own image. Ray endowed Feluda with his likes and dislikes, his preferences, his taste for some foods/snacks, his love for cigarette, his keen interests in peculiar and queer matters and above all his western demeanour. Ray also was never an anglicized Bengali. He was like Feluda, a modern, international but with an aritrocratic Bengali core within him. On the other hand the very appearence of Soumitra is representative of a Bengali -who is left in politics, a poet, romantic, shy and inclined to cultural activities. Ray might have, I am not sure, the same characteristic dispositions of Soumitra; but the gait and countenance of Ray was just the opposite of Soumitra. It was Ray and only Ray who could create his detective

Perhaps none in Bengal will come to my support in this matter. The most invincible logic against me can easily be derived from Ray’s own judgment.

In that case I may defend myself with slightly changing the old saying “To be biased is human”. And especially the erring comes from human weakness. Ray personally was biased for Soumitra.

THE FIFTH ESTATE

The term blog came from ‘web log’. It is useless to write here as to what a blog is all about. There are millions of bloggers in today’s world. There is no such matter of human interest that does not have a place in this or that blog. With each day passed the voices of the bloggers are getting stronger. Somebody has recently commented that the bloggers as a whole is the conscience of the world. Blogs have come into existence as historical necessity just as once the fourth estate came into being. As per novelist Jeffery Archer in his work The Fourth Estate –that in May 1789 Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the ‘Estate General’. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, “Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all”. We can not think of modern state without this Fourth estate-Press. But more the civilization progresses, individuality of man urges to exceed his collective wrappings. The Press can not express the voices of individual anger, protest, anguish, love, dream, idea and all that are hidden in collectivity. They lie in the arena of art and literature. But they form a pressure to mould a future collectivity. In an ideal society each individual is listened. Let every individual be a yardstick to measure progress-in my opinion. King liar, Raskolnikov, Paul Bäumer, Romeo or Gafur (Mahesh by Sarat Ch. Chatterjee) will not speak to us as living beings but a blogger is always there beside you to tell his or her stories and you will instantly be in a position to know where lie the lapses in society. Moreover the Press –like the other three estates is inclining to be corrupt everywhere in the world. The press is not outside the corporate industry in modern world. Karl Marx or the communists are right in finding –the vested interest in modern press. It’s not for the people alone and for the truth only –the press speaks out. As a business house the foremost concern of the press is profit. News is commodity to the press. So the living truth that burns only in the mind and heart of an individual blogger becomes the first casualty.

For the sake of perfecting democracy –the bloggers may help to a great extent. And there is no substitute for individual bloggers. Bloggers constitute the Fifth Estate. The role of the Fourth Estate will be better served with the Fifth.

The Press enjoys much freedom in a democratic state. But bloggers are not still safe from governmental attacks. In Singapore a blogger must register his blog with the government. In Liverpool Bloggers are being gagged by the Liverpool City Council. Kathy Sierra- a blogger says, “I’m saddened and angered at this horrible post.

I’ve been part of the blogging community for coming up on six years. I’ve seen fights, name calling and overall rude behavior, but I’ve never seen it get to the point where someone has death threats and dangerous and disgusting things said and posted directly at them. There are things you don’t joke about. Assault against women is one of those things at the top of the list. I’m speechless. I don’t know what else to say, but I had to get this out there.” So there are innumerable instances where bloggers are threatened and are compelled to change their way and also say.

So I think that bloggers all over the world must be united to come under a common umbrella –enforceable by international law. Blogs must be given the equal freedom as it is given in a democracy.

Time has come now so that we should also say in the words of Edmund Burke “Yonder sits the Fifth Estate, and they are more important than them all”

blogspot

I live in a state in India which is ruled by communists. Like every religion the communists are also of varied sects and hues. The communists who have been ruling my state for a long time are of that sect which supports China on every issue. So they would not say a single word against the tortures of the Tibetans by the Chinese Communist Party-which rules the People republic of China. Arunachal Pradesh is a state within India. But once Mao Zedong declared that the five lands –Sikkim, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh were representative of the five fingers of China’s palm. I do not know which palm he meant-right or left. Perhaps left-as they were created with the left hand of their creator. Among them Arunachal Pradesh is a state of India. China still holds her claim over this state. So here in India the Communists are also supportive of China’s Claim over Arunachal Pradesh. Mind that these very Communists are Indians! So this is natural that the communists of India are very much against the Tibetans struggling for their independence.

And what about the Government of India? The ruling coalition government is headed by the Indian National Congress or whatever is left as the dilapidated remnants of a great past. The Congress is ruling with the support of the communists. So this government would not say a single word against the Chinese tortures of the Tibetans. Even when the President of the IOC has chided the Chinese government on human right issue. Moreover there is none in this Congress like the undaunted Indira Gandhi-who –despite all her lapses, was a brave personality. In her time people would love to tell that there was only one man in her cabinet! But the bunch of politicians in the Congress now is afraid of China.

Tibet and India –from time immemorial were friends and there were spiritual bonds between these countries. Tibet was a religious state like the Vatican. And so she was more near to India spiritually than any other country in the world including China. Had Indira Gandhi been the first prime minister of India instead of her weak and visionless father she would not have supported Tibet’s forceful annexation with China.

Today there arise angers and protests from people in every place of the world against the cruel measures taken by the Chinese government to suppress the Tibetans’ struggle for freedom-India remains the exception thanks to the cowardice of the Indian National Congress –a party once a platform of voices of freedom raised by the great sons of India. The head of the states of the UK, Australia, South Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistsn, Georgia, Syria, Fiji, Serbia, Zambia, Sierra Leone and many other developed and developing countries have condemned China over her oppressive measures on the Tibetans. Raja Ram Mohan Roy while travelling in a ship got the news of American freedom from the colonial yoke and he became instantaneously ecstatic at that news and he celebrated the occasion. He initiated India with modernism. He was for liberty and freedom wherever it was suppressed whether it was in his own country or elsewhere. He would have been ashamed of today’s India or the India of Sonia Gandhi.

I am deeply anguished at what are happening in Tibet. Incidentally I had the occasions of meeting the Tibetan refugees in south India some years ago. It is heart-rending-this state of living in a land where one’s identity goes by the name ‘refugee’.

I can only let the people of Tibet know that I’m also a helpless prisoner of my sincerest emotion for these hapless people of this world –which is also my shelter. My flames of anger will only be doused when Tibet would be ruled by the Tibetans.

THE ROAD TO LHASA As a token of my reverence to the holy struggle of the Tibetans against the Chinese, I have become the member of BUDDHISTS AWAKENING.

There is no room for excess in this world

If we want to live a happy life, we must change our life-style. I know it well that I’m writing in vain as there’s no authority in this world to compel us to live in an alternative world. But first we must know how we are living and what for. Actually there there is no ‘what for’ in our life because we do not care to know what this life has been created for. So let us concentrate on our living system. But it will be convenient for me to discuss my point if I compare our life with that of our life, say, four hundred years ago.

At that time we did not have craze for cars, cell-phones, dinner or lunch in five-star hotels, no airplane to carry us in any place of this world in miraculously little time. There are so many comforts and conveniences now which we could not think of at that time.

But at the same time we have lost some-if not many, vitally valuable things. The most important of them are pure air, vast soothing nature, less populous places and noiseless world. Cities were always noisy and populous in comparison with villages, but not to that horrible extent as we experience in New York or Tokyo and in many other places of our world.

But we had not antibiotics, steroids, telephones and swift conveyances. These things we can not do away with in exchange of calm world and pure air. So let the the fruits of science, that are life saving, may be separated out as an indispensible modernity.

But why there are so much noises and pollutions in this world? It’s because of population explosion. The increase in population has affected everything in this world and life. We need more land to live, more food to eat and more of everything than that we needed four hundred years ago. But this situation with more population and the more of everyday needs has consequently created the needs and necessities of more other things which we did not have, require or ever dreamt of many years ago.

We did not have cell-phones, colas, videos, air conditioners, ATM or Credit cards, five star hotels, airplanes and hundreds of things and facilities-which it is difficult to write with the help of memory. The world has not only bulged with plenty but it has been metamorphosed into another world. It is another world-not because of more and many but because of more different needs and demands created by mores themselves. We now require a factory of small cars in West Bengal because it will save the unemployment problem to some extent-as per the Chief Minister. We have to turn agricultural land for industry. We require more fertilizers as we have to grow more crops in less land to feed more people. China needs to oust all the old people from Beijing for her requirement of space as felt needed for Olympic-2008. We require more diesel and petrol for increasing numbers of vehicles everyday. And so George Bush required invading Iraq. This is to cite a few examples.

So, it is like cell-divisions. The more require more to be sustained.

But now this abnormally growing of mores like the abnormally growing cells makes life not so much happy as it should be with more. We have cleaned Germany and England of tuberculosis bacteria. But we have attracted AIDS. There was a phenomenal increase in diabetic patients in the world. We have to periodically check our cholesterol and triglyceride level as we are afraid of heart attacks-that are frequent in the developed countries. We have disturbed ecological balances and push thousands of people to suffer from death and diseases. The wild life now lives in showcases. Hundreds of people die or become crippled everyday in road or sky accidents. As there are more of everything, –so more appear there to snatch a portion as their shares. One is inclined to have more boyfriends and girlfriends and so stand the risk of being unfortunate getting a happy conjugal life. The cell- phones help us to contact persons in any place of this world instantaneously. These instantaneous connections help also the criminals to commit crimes successfully.

So what is the way out? I think we must detect the root of this cancerous life first. It is not difficult to detect but it will be difficult to accept. We must restrict our physical demands and comforts to the minimum. For this we must be aware of exactly what is more or excess. And we must check the population growth.

There is no room for excess in this world.