Republic Day - Presidential Speech

Source : http://presidentofindia.gov.in/

ADDRESS TO THE NATION BY THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA DR. A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM ON THE EVE OF THE 58TH REPUBLIC DAY - 2007

Presentation: [PPS_Part1 (Size: 10.2 MB)] [PPS_Part2 (Size: 9.54 MB)] [PPS_Part3 (Size: 5.19 MB)] [Part4 (Size: 892 KB)] [PPS_Part5 (Size: 2.55 MB)]

25-01-2007

What can I give to my Nation?

Dear Citizens, on the eve of the 58th Republic Day of India, my greetings to all of you in the country and those living abroad. I convey my special greetings to the members of our Armed Forces and the Paramilitary Forces, who guard our frontiers on the land, the sea and the air and also the central and state level police including the internal security forces.

Friends, when we are celebrating the 58th Republic Day, I was thinking what thoughts I can share with you. Shall I talk to you on what message I got during my visits to various parts of our country and my interactions with the people particularly the youth with their dreams or shall I talk to you about the proud feeling I had when the farmers in Punjab succeeded in doubling the seed

cotton productivity in tune with the world record or shall I talk to you how a village in north-eastern state has become prosperous by developing its core competence in native silk production or shall I talk to you about the elation of the Gujarat farmers celebrating the arrival of electricity to all the villages in the State or shall I talk to you about many great human beings whom I met in various parts of the country such as, one great soul providing the leadership for transforming a polluted rivulet into a clean river in Punjab through the efforts of pilgrims themselves, or about another divine soul who has connected the hearts of people of Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu through the flow of water or about another divine personality, building a bridge connecting the peninsular region to the mainland near Kochi over the backwaters of the Arabian Sea in the Tsunami affected area or shall I talk to you on how 65 villages with a population of one lakh in Tamilnadu have generated a self-sustaining economy through PURA or shall I talk to you about the way that the judicial system of the State became a partner for on the spot disbursal of compensation to the victims of an earthquake in J&K for ensuring timely compensation to the right persons, or shall I talk to you about the bravery of our armed forces. I have already shared with you about these and other beautiful experiences that have made the Indian Republic proud. Such beautiful events and people have been changing the fabric of the nation.

What can I give?

In the eighties, children always used to ask me questions such as “When can I sing the Song of India?” Today, the youth are asking me, “What I can give to India?” This shows that the nation is on a positive growth trajectory. The change in pattern of the questions is indicative of the transformation which has taken place over the years. Also, I receive many e-mails and letters asking me “what I can give to India, my country?” When I study the letters, messages and mails that I have received and also the personal interactions with the people, I can clearly see abundant opportunities in which every citizen can contribute. I thought of sharing this with you: My topic of this address will be “What can I give to my nation?

Ambience in the Nation 2007

In the Indian history, our nation has come across a situation, all at a time, an ascending economic trajectory, continuously rising foreign exchange reserves, increasing domestic investment with investors’ confidence rising steadily, global successes of Indian managerial and entrepreneurial talents, global recognition of the technological competence, energy of 540 million youth, umbilical connectivities of more than 25 million people of Indian origin in various parts of the planet and the interest shown by many developed countries to invest in our engineers and scientists through setting up of new R&D centers in India. The distinction between the public and the private sectors and the illusory primacy of one over the other is vanishing. Also, there is a trend that many young people are opting for creating new enterprises instead of being mere employees.

Providing leadership for the one billion people with multi-cultural, multi-language and multi-religious background is indeed the core competence of our nation. Our technological competence and value systems with civilizational heritage are highly respected by the world community. Also, Foreign Institutional Investors find investing in India attractive as the returns are high and assured. Indian industrialists are also investing abroad and opening new business ventures. Our Gross Domestic Product which stands at seven hundred and twenty nine billion US dollars is poised to grow at 10% annually which along with various other concurrent actions, will enhance the welfare of the farmers, workers, professionals and unleash the creativity of the entrepreneurs, business persons, scientists, engineers and all other constituents of the society. Today due to the open sky policy and competitiveness the air travel has become affordable by the growing middle class. Railways have introduced many improvements and people can book tickets through internet. The revolution in travel has not only connected people but also boosted tourism and economy. Tele-density in the country has gone up to 18%. Mobile telephones are reaching the common man and serving their needs. One India plan has made calling across the country easy and affordable. Our ICT sector is exporting more than twenty four billion US dollars and the Indian Pharma industry is ranked 4th in the world and exports nearly four billion US dollars of products. Our forty four billion US dollars automobile industry is growing at the rate of 17% per annum. Our total export in the last 8 months has crossed eighty billion US dollars.

Our aerospace and aeronautical achievements are commendable. Six remote sensing satellites of various resolutions and spectral bands are providing valuable services in monitoring and management of natural resources. These have been further complemented with CARTOSAT-II launched

on 10th January 2007 by PSLV-C7 along with Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) and two other foreign satellites. SRE after performing micro gravity experiments in orbit, has since been successfully recovered in Indian waters, leading to another technological milestone. Today, we have nine geo-stationary satellites in orbit including an exclusive EDUSAT for education. The country has successfully used the advances in space technology and telecommunication towards creating the tele-education as well as tele-medicine networks and village resource centres. SAKSHAT: One Stop Education Portal has been launched by the Government to serve the

quality education needs of the 11th and 12th class students spread in any part of the country. Broadband has reached up to the block level in all the Districts. Students from abroad are coming to India for academic programmes, training and internship and many foreign institutions have started collaborating with Indian universities and academic institutions. India’s experience has resulted in providing the

Pan African e-Network connecting the 53 countries. The country has operationalized two strategic missile systems. A state-of-the-art super sonic cruise missile system has also entered into commercial production with an international partner.

The number of people living below poverty line has come down to 22% and our literacy rate will soon touch 75%. Our unemployment is around 9% of the employable population of 400 million people. The Central Government has launched a

comprehensive rural development programme called Bharat Nirman Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme with substantial outlays for bringing the fruits of development equitably to all sections of the society irrespective of where they reside. Implementation of PURA programmes has been undertaken by number of state governments and private institutions in the country resulting in a number of operational PURAs. Central Government is planning to introduce two PURA Clusters in each district across the country as a first phase. People from all walks of life can be guiding forces and they can be partners in executing national development programmes and ushering in a good way of life. The State Governments have also launched a number of missions including rural and infrastructure development activities towards realizing the goals of Vision 2020.

Against this backdrop, I would like to discuss with you the ambience in 2020 for which we as a nation have to work.

Ambience in 2020

If we perform in an integrated way with development politics as the focus, in mission mode with transparency, I visualize even before the year 2020, a prosperous India is possible. We expect the people below poverty line to come to near zero and our literacy must be nearly 100%. Human Development Index of India will be less than 50 against the present 127. Every Indian will have either a good university degree or quality training with globally competitive employable vocational skill. E-governance would be in position for all Government to Government (G2G) and Government to Citizens (G2C) transactions making the governance system transparent with National ID card in position. Tele-density will reach over 75%. All our villages will have reliable, uninterrupted quality electric power supply. The interlinking of the rivers and water bodies and use of technology for water collection, water recycling and water management will result in equitable distribution of water for drinking, irrigation, industry, navigation and as natural beauty. There will be no shortage of water in any part of the country nor there will be disasters due to floods, water logging etc. India would have realized energy security and will be working towards energy independence. Good sanitation facilities will be available at homes in every part of India and for all Indians and tourists. We will be using more of renewable energy such as solar energy, wind power, bio-mass, mini and micro Hydel and thorium based nuclear reactors, adding less to the pollution. Through responsive and innovative venture systems and entrepreneurial training both in schools and colleges, we will have more enterprises leading to large number of employment generators rather than employment seekers. A pro-active healthcare system delivered through innovative schemes will provide quality healthcare access at an affordable cost to all the people of the country including those living in remote areas. Everyone will have an opportunity to take up and complete courses of choice in higher education. I am sure you will all see prosperity in the country, which will replace scarcity and control. In addition to the above economic, social and human development, India will also have a visible global presence in strategic sectors and will contribute to world peace. All our technological and economical advances while enhancing our prosperity would embed our value system derived from our civilizational heritage. This unique combination will make our growth robust and sustainable and will lead to a peaceful, secure, happy and prosperous society.

To achieve these goals, a national movement of development is essential. In this movement, every citizen, every constituent of our democracy has to participate. What can be the profile of people’s participation in this development movement? The citizens participation can be in many important areas like Reaching the unreached, Feedback on service to the people, Human Resource Development, Entrepreneurship, Role of Home makers, Environment development, Youth participation in political system with the focus on developed India,

Reaching the unreached

The Government has doubled the credit availability to the agriculture sectors in 2005-06 keeping 2004-05 as a base. NABARD and the banking and financial institutions have to work together to find hassle-free methods of providing micro credit and micro investment to the needy farmers so that they are weaned away from the clutches of elements who exploit them. Simultaneously, agricultural researchers, extension workers from academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and the industry should work closely with the farmers and enable them to increase the productivity, storage, food processing and marketing. In addition, they should facilitate the farmers to undertake non-farm tasks on the lines of “one product per village cluster” scheme to promote export of products based on the core-competence of the village for increasing the sustainability of the rural sector as a whole. The Insurance companies have to come forward with micro insurance, crop insurance and cattle insurance, apart from low cost medical insurance for providing risk cover to the farmers. Similarly, units like mobile diagnostic clinics as in Uttarakhand may be operated in all the districts to reach Medicare to the unreached. Recently, I have come across a number of initiatives by our judicial systems at various levels for fast delivery of justice such as legal aid clinics, mediation and conciliation, mobile court and lok-adalat and increasing the number of days and number of hours of working per day. These initiatives can be reinforced by having mobile courts reaching the village to deliver justice at the doorstep of the rural citizens. Corporate sector may also think of reaching the unreached as an essential component of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. In a world dominated by communication, extending the communication from the privileged to include the connectivity to the unreached should be part of our technological upheaval.

Feedback of Services

Though India is known to be one of the best destinations for outsourcing of many of the service and knowledge products, within our society we are yet to grow to appreciate and pay for the services. However, developed nations are gauged by the quality of service the citizens get from the government and from the corporate with which they do business. One mechanism by which we can continuously increase the quality of service is through feedback. This should be done by everyone without fear or bias. This feedback will enable all service providers to constantly improve the quality of service irrespective of what the service is. We will see a substantial increase in the services such as electricity, water, telephone, gas, transportation, education, insurance, banking, legal and police. The service providers whether they are in Government or in private sector have to take the feedback in the right spirit and provide customer satisfaction both in the short-term and in the long-term. Customers should also acknowledge positive developments and celebrate improvements. This scenario should lead to the pride of service and competitiveness.

Websites and Portals have all along been the best source for receiving feedback from the public, apart from meeting the people directly. I have been visiting the Government websites of many agencies. If the website does not provide the latest information its utility diminishes and loses the purpose for which the government department’s websites were created. It is necessary that these websites are constantly updated so that they provide the latest information and opportunities for feedback. The website may also be used to provide the information on the action taken about a particular suggestion. It is essential that service providing organization create a user forum and meet them regularly for proactively improving the quality of service through a monitoring mechanism. Government officers should make use of the e-governance portal and e-mail to stay continuously connected with the people and take necessary actions. The recent step of the government to introduce Right To Information Act is a positive step towards transparency in the governance.

Global Human Resources Cadre

Presently our university education system is contributing 3 million graduates and post graduates every year and the students seeking employment after completion of 10th class and 10+2 class are around 7 million per year. Thus nearly 10 million youth are injected into the employment market every year. In the 21st century, India needs large number of talented youth with higher education for the task of knowledge acquisition, knowledge imparting, knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. At present India has five hundred and forty million youth under the age of 25.

This will continuously be growing till the year 2050. Keeping this resource in mind, the Universities and educational systems should create two cadres of personnel: (1) a global cadre of skilled youth with specific knowledge of special skills (2) another global cadre of youth with higher education. These two cadres will be required not only for powering the manufacturing and services sector of India but also will be needed for fulfilling the human resource requirements of various countries. Thus, the universities and secondary school education system will have to work towards increasing the through put of the higher education system from the existing 11% to 20% by the year 2015, 30% by the year 2020 and 50% by the year 2040. The other Indians who are not covered by the higher education system should all have world class skill sets in areas such as construction, carpentry, electrical systems, repair of mechanical systems, fashion design, para-legal, para-medical, accountancy, sales and marketing, software and hardware maintenance and service, software quality assurance to name a few. No Indian youth should be without either a world class higher education or without world class skill sets. This is an important task in which all universities, academic specialists, colleges, vocational training institutions, certification agencies, banking systems and industrial enterprises can contribute in terms of assessing correct numbers, designing courses related to nation building tasks, assessing and providing infrastructural requirement, improving the quality of teachers, ensuring teachers-students ratio, complimenting the class room education with virtual class rooms through tele-education and above all ensuring that the students are able to face international competition in employable skills. Systems must be designed in such a way that no aspiring competent student should be denied quality education. The system of education must be able to maintain the required output quality. These are examples of what the Government have to do to give the enabling environment and how those who operate education systems have to give to our youth. Then, our youth can give their knowledge skills in making the nation prosperous.

Entrepreneurship Development

Orientation for entrepreneurship has to start right form the schools. Teachers need to teach the role of entrepreneurship on national development in the schools. During college education, the students must be exposed to business development opportunities and must be trained towards creation of new enterprises. Parents should encourage their children to take up new ventures after their education. We should cultivate a mind set that “Idea is wealth”. Government must create a facilitating environment for provision of venture capital for innovative ideas without collateral security. Universities, Engineering and Management institutions should work with banks and other funding agencies towards simplifying the procedures and working with the entrepreneurs till the project becomes self-sustaining and viable. The procedures in the Government should facilitate the spotting and recognition of new Indian talents and small entrepreneurs by creating a level playing filed for healthy competition. Citizens who can afford could turn themselves into angel investors or start venture capital organizations to fund such ventures. Big and small industries need to have a mind to encourage and partner with young entrepreneurs.

Role of Home Makers

Home makers have an important role to play in addition to shaping the family. They can equally contribute to societal upliftment. I have come across a project called “Siruthuli” which has been taken up in Coimbatore. This project on large scale rain water harvesting and activating the water bodies, aforestation, sewage/waste water treatment and solid waste management, integrates large number of people from different walks of life. A home maker is providing the leadership to this project. Many of the Panchayats across the country have women members who have been giving leadership in various rural development initiatives. Imagine the difference which can be made in the six hundred thousand villages with such actions.

Environment

Environment can become clean and upgraded only through the country wide active participation of citizens. People as a team can participate in cleaning the environment like the cleaning of Kali Bein River. Spiritual leaders can play a very important role in persuading the devotees in the clean environment movement which will promote the evolution of beautiful minds. Local groups can be formed to demonstrate and teach about cleanliness in the local residential areas. Welfare associations, NCC Cadets, Scouts, Guides and NSS Volunteers can proactively form these groups. Industrialists should follow the prescribed norms for environmental standards in all their institutions and make the buildings friendly to differently challenged people. Government employees should keep their offices and their environment clean as they would like to keep their homes. Parents and teachers should teach about the need for environmental friendly requirements to the younger citizens. Citizens can plant trees and nurture them in their neighbourhood every year as a mission. Our public infrastructure, airports, railway stations, bus stations, sea ports and Hospitals form the face of the nation in the global environment. It is the responsibility of all the stakeholders including the citizens to promote cleanliness in all these public facilities.

Youth Participation in the political system towards Developed India

Youth should take up politics as their career in large numbers. Political Science should form part of the curriculum from secondary to college level for all students with development politics as focus. Citizens should proactively cast their votes to select candidates of known performance with honesty as the focus. Legal personalities, experts and professionals should educate the citizens on the political process, constitution, procedures, their rights and responsibilities.

Similarly there are many more important tasks like making education accessible to every citizen, uplifting citizens below poverty level through a focused mission and accelerating the agriculture reforms. In the same way, there can be a movement in the judiciary for time bound clearance of pending cases in district courts and high courts within the next 3 years. Judiciary and bar should ensure that the common citizen gets speedy justice with nobility. While citizens demand that our police force has to be transparent and action oriented, it is also essential that the police stations are electronically connected and simultaneously they should be empowered with better quality of life, like proper housing, sanitary facilities, medical cover and children’s education. This will enable them to concentrate in their work with peace of mind and thereby output from the police increases. Above all our women folk constitute fifty percent of our population. Their dignity should be protected and they should get proper representation in all the decision making institutions like Panchayat systems. Our Panchayat boards really represent the village citizens and they should ensure that all development funds allotted for the rural development in their area are properly utilized for the intended purpose without dilution. Dear friends, there are many more areas in which citizens can participate towards the national development movement. Now let me focus on national security.

National Security

Our Armed Forces and Paramilitary Forces, day or night, are awake guarding our borders in the land, air and sea and remain vigilant to counter any threat and facilitate unhindered progress of national development. This I have experienced personally, when I visited the Siachen Glacier at an altitude of 17,000 ft. The temperature at minus 35 degree centigrade with heavy winds, did not deter our courageous Jawans. When, I was in the submarine, I saw the young sailors and naval officers, functioning efficiently and vigilantly in the silent sea keeping all round vigil on their mission in the Indian ocean. I was with 20 Squadron of the Indian Air Force, I experienced how our fighter pilots can meet any challenge of multi-targets through radar missiles and EW systems. We cherish the valour, commitment and devotion to duty of these gallant personnel of our Armed Forces. Our Police Forces and Intelligence agencies compliment each other and provide safety and security to our citizens from unscrupulous elements, criminals and extremists. Many persons from these forces have laid down their lives for protecting the nation, the flag and people. We salute them all. Our colleges and universities must not only generate excellent entrepreneurs, researchers but also generate the best soldiers for our country. Parents should encourage their children to participate in the national security missions.

Children are our Wealth

Some recent incidences of crime against children have shocked the whole nation and left deep scars in all of us. Children are our national wealth. Cruelty to children is against the fabric of the society which cannot be tolerated at any cost. Concerted action by all concerned in the society such as watchful neighbours, fast action oriented police machinery, vigilant media and speedy exemplary punishment to the perpetrators of crime by the judicial system is the need of the hour. In addition, as a preventive action we have to identify the people who have such tendency in the society through modern psychological test aids. Eradication of cruelty towards children should be the mission of every Indian since they are our future.

Conclusion

Developed India by 2020 is a mission of a billion people. Every one of us has a role to play. It will be a reality if everyone “Gives – What I can give”, through individual, societal and nationwide participation in a national movement facilitated by the Government. My interactions with our citizens in India and abroad, particularly the youth demonstrate to me the positive energy flowing from individuals which make them eager to give all they can to make India developed. The attitude of giving by every citizen and each group will definitely be an enriching factor for the whole nation leading to accelerated development process.

When the nation marches towards its missions, many challenges will come on the way. Courage is a very important trait for all sections of the society in overcoming these challenges. I would like to narrate one incident. On 8th June 2006, I was in the flight of Su-30-MKI. The captain of the aircraft was Wing Commander Ajay Rathore. The duration of the flight was 40 minutes; I participated in all flight actions. When I landed, there were many youth and media personnel. One young man asked me a question, “Mr. President, please tell me, since you have flown in the supersonic fighter aircraft at the age of 74, were you afraid anytime during the flight.” I told the young man, “All the 40 minutes of the flight, I was busy on the control and the instruments, and experiencing the “g” build up. I was advised by the captain to track the targets and also look at the ground using the synthetic aperture radar. In addition, I was observing the performance of the instruments developed indigenously. I was continuously busy in the flight operations and I didn’t have time to allow the fear to enter into me.” Now, dear young friends who have assembled in front of me and the nation, I have a message of Courage for you.

COURAGE TO GIVE

Courage to think different,

Courage to invent,

Courage to discover the impossible,

Courage to travel into an unexplored path,

Courage to share the knowledge

Courage to remove the pain

Courage to reach the unreached

Courage to combat the problems

And Succeed,

Are the unique qualities of the youth.

As a youth of my nation, I will work and work with courage to achieve success in all my missions.

My dear citizens, let me once again wish you a very purposeful and happy Republic Day.

May God bless you.

India -- Republic Day Parade

Windows Media Format(For Dial up, this page has an option)

Real Player Format(For Dial up, this page has an option)

Did you miss India's Republic day parade in New Delhi on 26th January 2007? Don't worry. Here in a website our government has put up a live webcast for us. Please click on the above images to see the parade.

Also please visit My India My Pride Website and download the badge into your website. Thank you.

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches VI - Paper on Hinduism IV

Paper on Hinduism IV

Continued from previous post.

See the video from 2min 45 sec to cohere with the text here.
If a man can realize his divine nature with the help of an image, would it be right to call that a sin? Nor, even when he has passed that stage, should he call it an error. To the Hindu, man is not travelling from error to truth, but from truth to truth, from lower to higher truth. To him all the religions from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the Infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of these marks a stage of progress; and every soul is a young eagle soaring higher and higher, gathering more and more strength till it reaches the Glorious Sun.

Unity in variety is the plan of nature, and the Hindu has recognized it. Every other religion lays down certain fixed dogmas and tries to force society to adopt them. It places before society only one coat which must fit Jack and John and Henry, all alike. If it does not fit John or Henry he must go without a coat to cover his body. The Hindus have discovered that the absolute can only be realized, or thought of, or stated through the relative, and the images, crosses, and crescents are simply so many symbols - so many pegs to hang spiritual ideas on. It is not that this help is necessary for everyone, but those that do not need it have no right to say that it is wrong. Nor is it compulsory in Hinduism.

One thing I must tell you. Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths. The Hindus have their faults, they sometimes have their exceptions; but mark this, they are always for punishing their own bodies, and never for cutting the throats of their neighbors. If the Hindu fanatic burns himself on the pyre, he never lights the fire of Inquisition. And even this cannot be laid at the door of his religion any more than the burning of witches can be laid at the door of Christianity.

To the Hindu, then, the whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent, says the Hindu. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures.

It is the same light coming through glasses of different colors- And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns.
The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna:

’I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there. ‘ And what has been the result? I challenge the world to find, throughout the whole system of Sanskrit philosophy, any such expression as that the Hindu alone will be saved and not others. Says Vyasa, ‘we find perfect men even beyond the pale of our caste and creed.’ One thing more. How, then, can the Hindu, whose whole fabric of thought centers in God, believe in Buddhism which is agnostic, or in Jainism which is atheistic?

The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son bath seen the Father also.

This, brethren, is a short sketch of the religious ideas of the Hindus. The Hindu may have failed to carry out all his plans, but if there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these. and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being from the lowest grovelling savage, not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.

Offer such a religion and all the nations will follow you. Asoka’s council was a council of the Buddhist faith. Akbar’s. though more to the purpose. was only a parlor meeting. It was reserved for America to proclaim to all quarters of the globe that the Lord is in every religion.

May He who is the Brahman of the Hindus, the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Buddha of the Buddhists, the Jehovah of the Jews, the Father in Heaven of the Christians, give strength to you to carry out your noble idea! The star arose in the East; it traveled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world, and now it is again
rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the Sanpo(1), a thousand fold more effulgent than it ever was before.

(1) A Tibetan name for the Bramaputra River

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches V - Paper on Hinduism III

Paper on Hinduism III

Science is nothing but the finding of unity. As soon as science would reach perfect unity, it would stop from further progress, because it would reach the goal. Thus chemistry could not progress
farther when it would discover one element out of which all others could be made. Physics would stop when it would be able to fulfill its services in discovering one energy of which all the others are hut manifestations, and the science of religion become perfect when it would discover Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, One who is the only Soul of which all souls are but delusive manifestations. Thus is it, through multiplicity and duality, that the ultimate unity is reached. Religion can go no farther. This is the goal of all science.

All science is bound to come to this conclusion in the long run. Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today; and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language and with further light from the latest conclusions of science.

Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion of the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, one will find the worshipers applying all the attributes of God, including omnipresence. to the images. It is not polytheism, nor would the name henotheism explain the situation.
’The rose, called by any other name, would smell as sweet.’ Names are not explanations.
I remember, as a boy, hearing a Christian missionary preach to crowd in India. Among other sweet things he was telling them was, that if he gave a blow to their idol with his stick. what could it do? One of his hearers sharply answered, ‘If I abuse your God, what can He do?’ ‘_ou would be punished,’ said the preacher, ‘when you die.’ ‘So my idol will punish you when you die,’ retorted the Hindu.

The tree is known by its fruits. When l have seen amongst them that are called idolaters, men, the like of whom, in morality and spirituality and love, I have never seen anywhere, l stop and ask myself, ‘Can sin beget holiness?’

Superstition is a great enemy of man, but bigotry is worse. Why does a Christian go to church? Why is the cross holy? Why is the face turned toward the sky in prayer? Why are there so many images in the Catholic Church? Why are there so many images in the minds of Protestants when they pray? My brethren, we can Do more think about anything without a mental image than we can live without breathing- By the law of association the material image calls up the mental idea and vice versa. This is why the Hindu uses an external symbol when he worships. He will tell you. it helps to keep his mind fixed on the Being to whom he prays. He knows as well as you do that the image is not God, is not omnipresent. finer all, how much does omnipresence mean to almost the whole world? It stands merely as a word, a symbol. Has God superficial area? If not, when we repeat that word ‘omnipresent’, we think of the extended sky. or of space - that is all.

As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the image of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the ideas of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. But with this difference that while some people devote their whole lives to their idol of a church and never rise higher, because with them religion means an intellectual assent to certain doctrines and doing good to their fellows, the whole religion of the Hindu is centered in realization. Man is to become divine by realizing the divine. Idols or temples or churches or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood; but on and on he must progress.

He must not stop anywhere. ‘External worship, material worship’ ?,’ say the scriptures, ‘is the lowest stage,’ struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realized., Mark, the same earnest man who is kneeling before the idol tells you, ‘Him the sun cannot express, nor the moon, nor the stars, the lightning cannot express Him, nor what we speak of as fire; through Him they shine.’ But he does not abuse anyone’s idol or call its worship sin. He recognizes in it a necessary stage of life. ‘The child is father of the man.’ Would it be right for an old man to say that childhood is a sin or youth a sin?

Continued in the next post...

I am INDIA

This film is a journey through emerging India," the fastest growing free market democracy in the world". It celebrates the relentless spirit of the people of India, who through their karma give it a place amongst the leading economic nations of the world. Conceived and produced by Bharatbala Productions (BBP) for India Band Equity Foundation (IBEF).

Hakuna Matata

[TIMON]
Hakuna Matata!
What a wonderful phrase

[PUMBA]
Hakuna Matata!
Ain't no passing craze

[TIMON]
It means no worries
For the rest of your days

[TIMON AND PUMBA]
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!

[TIMON]
Hakuna Matata!

[YOUNG SIMBA]
[spoken] Hakuna Matata?

[PUMBA]
[spoken] Yeah. It's our motto!

[YOUNG SIMBA]
[spoken] What's a motto?

[TIMON]
[spoken] Nothin'! What's-a-motto with you?!

[PUMBA]
[spoken] Those two words will solve all your problems.

[TIMON]
[spoken] That's right. Take Pumbaa here
[sung] Why...when he was a young warthog

[PUMBA]
When I was a young warthog

[TIMON]
[spoken] Very nice

[PUMBA]
[spoken] Thanks.

[TIMON]
He found his aroma lacked a certain appeal
He could clear the savannah after ev'ry meal

[PUMBA]
I'm a sensitive soul though I seem thick-skinned
And it hurt that my friends never stood downwind

[PUMBA]
And, oh, the shame
[TIMON]
Oh, the shame!
[PUMBA]
Thought of changin' my name
[TIMON]
What's in a name?
[PUMBA]
And I got downhearted
[TIMON]
How did ya feel?
[PUMBA]
Ev'rytime that I...

[TIMON]
[spoken] Hey, Pumbaa! Not in front of the kids!

[PUMBA]
[spoken] Oh, sorry.

[TIMON AND PUMBA]
Hakuna Matata!
What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata!
Ain't no passing craze

[YOUNG SIMBA]
It means no worries for the rest of your days

[ALL]
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!
Hakuna Matata! Hakuna Matata!
Hakuna Matata! Hakuna Matata!
Hakuna Matata! Hakuna Matata!
Hakuna Matata! Hakuna --

[(OLDER) SIMBA]
It means no worries for the rest of your days

[ALL]
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata! [repeat]

[PUMBA]
I say "Hakuna"

[TIMON]
I say "Matata"

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches IV - Paper on Hinduism II

Paper on Hinduism II

Continued from previous post.

In its very essence, it is flee, unbounded, holy, pure, and perfect. But somehow or other it finds itself tied down to matter and thinks of itself as matter. Why should the free, perfect, and pure be thus under the thraldom of matter, is the next question. How can the perfect soul be deluded into the belief that it is imperfect? We have been told that the Hindus shirk the question and say that no such question can be there- Some thinkers want to answer it by positing one or more quasi-perfect beings, and use big scientific names to fill up the gap. But naming is not explaining. The question remains the same. How can the perfect become the quasi-perfect; how can the pure, the absolute change even a microscopic particle of its nature? But the Hindu is sincere. He does not want to take shelter under sophistry. He is brave enough to face the question in a manly fashion; and his answer is: ‘I do not know.’ I do not know how the perfect being, the soul, came to think of itself as imperfect, as Joined to and conditioned by matter.’ But the fact is a fact for all that. It is a fact in everybody’s consciousness that one thinks of oneself as the body. The Hindu does not attempt to explain why one thinks one is the body. The answer that it is the will of God is no explanation. This is nothing more than what the Hindu says, ‘I do not know.’

Well, then, the human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of center from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and death to death.



But here is another question: Is man a tiny boat in a tempest, raised one moment on the foamy crest of a billow and dashed down into a yawning chasm the next, rolling to and from at the mercy of good and bad actions – a powerless, helpless wreck in an ever-raging, ever-rushing, uncompromising current of cause and effect - a little moth placed under the wheel of causation, which rolls on crushing everything in its way and waits not for the widow’s tears or the orphan’s cry? The heart sinks at the idea, yet this is the law of nature. Is there no hope? Is there no escape? - was the cry that went up from the bottom of the heart of despair. It reached the throne of mercy, and words of hope and consolation came down and inspired a Vedic sage, and he stood up before the world and in trumpet voice proclaimed the glad tidings: ‘Hear, ye children of immortal bliss! even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One who is beyond all darkness, all delusion: knowing Him alone you shall be saved from death over again. ‘Children of immortal bliss’

• what a sweet, what a hopeful name! Allow me to call you, brethren, by that sweet name -heirs of immortal bliss - yea, the Hindu refuses to call you sinners. We are the Children of God, the sharers of immortal bliss, holy and perfect beings. _e divinities on earth - sinners! It is a sin to call a ma. so; it is standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.

Thus it is that the Vedas proclaim not a dreadful combination of unforgiving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of matter and force, stands One, ‘by whose command the wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain and death stalks upon the earth.’



And what is His nature?

He is everywhere, the pure and formless One, the Almighty and the All-merciful.

‘Thou art our father, Thou art our mother, Thou art our beloved friend, Thou art the source of all strength; give us strength. Thou art He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear the little burden of this life.’ Thus sang the Rishis of the Veda.




And how to worship Him? Through love. ‘He is to be worshiped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this and the next life.’

This is the doctrine of love declared in the Vedas, and let us see how it is fully developed and taught by Krishna whom the Hindus believe to have been God incarnate on earth.

He taught that a man ought to live in this world like a lotus leaf, which grows in water but is never moistened by water; so a man ought to live in the world - his heart to God and his hands to work.

It is good to love God for hope of reward in this or the next world, but it is better to love God for love’s sake; and the prayer goes:

‘Lord, I do not want wealth nor children nor learning. If it be Thy will, I shall go from birth to birth; but grant me this, that I may love Thee without the hope of reward - love unselfishly for love’s sake.’




One of the disciples of Krishna, the then Emperor of India, wag driven from his kingdom by his enemies and had to take shelter with his queen, in a forest in the Himalayas and there one day the queen asked how it was that he, the most virtuous of men, should suffer so much misery. _udhishthira answered,

‘Be hold, my queen, the Himalayas, how grand and beautiful they are; I love them. They do not give me any- thing but my nature is to love the grand, the beautiful, therefore I love them. Similarly, I love the Lord. He is the source of all beauty, of all sublimity. He is the only object to beloved; my nature is to love Him, and therefore I love. I do not pray for any- thing; I do not ask for anything. Let Him place me wherever He likes. I must love Him for love’s sake. I cannot trade in love.’



The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery- And this bondage can only fall off through the mercy of God, and this mercy comes on the pure. So purity is the condition of His mercy. How does that mercy act? He reveals Himself to the pure heart; the pure and the stainless see God, yea, even in this life; then and then only all the crookedness of the heart is made straight. Then all doubt ceases. He is no more the freak of a terrible law of causation. This is the very center, the very vital conception of Hinduism. The Hindu does not want to live upon words and theories, If there are existences beyond the ordinary sensuous existence, he wants to come face to face with them. If there is a soul in him which is not matter, if there is an all-merciful universal Soul, he will Rota Him direct. He must see Him, and that alone can destroy all doubts. So the best proof a Hindu sage gives about the soul, about God, is: ‘I have seen the soul; I have seen God.’ And that is the only condition of perfection. The Hindu religion does not consist in struggles and attempts to believe a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing - not in believing, but in being and becoming.

Thus the whole object of their system is by constant struggle to become perfect, to become divine, to reach God, and see God; and this reaching God, seeing God, becoming perfect even as the Father in Heaven is perfect, constitutes the religion of the Hindus.

And what becomes of a man when he attains perfection? He lives a life of bliss infinite. He enjoys infinite and perfect bliss, having obtained the only thing in which man ought to have pleasure, namely God, and enjoys the bliss with God.

So far all the Hindus are agreed. This is the common religion of all the sects of India; but then perfection is absolute, and the absolute cannot be two or three. It cannot have any qualities. It
cannot be an individual. And so when a soul becomes perfect and absolute, it must become one with Brahman, and it would only realize the Lord as the perfection, the reality, of its own nature
and existence, the existence absolute, knowledge absolute, and bliss absolute. We have often and often read this called the losing of individuality and becoming a stock or a stone.

’He jests at scars that never felt a wound.’

I tell you it is nothing of the kind. If it is happiness to enjoy the consciousness of this small body, it must be greater happiness to enjoy the consciousness of two bodies, the measure of happiness
increasing with the consciousness of an increasing number of bodies, the Rim, the ultimate of happiness, being reached when it would become a universal consciousness.

Therefore, to gain this infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison - individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am one with life, then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself, then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself; and this is the necessary scientific conclusion- Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter, and Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, Soul.

Continued in the next post...

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches III - PAPER ON HINDUISM - I

PAPER ON HINDUISM
Read at the Parliament on 19^th September 1893

Three religions now stand in the world which have come down to us from time prehistoric - Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. They have all received tremendous shocks, and all of them prove by their survival their internal strength. But while Judaism failed to absorb Christianity and was driven out of its place of birth by its all-conquering daughter, and a handful of Parsees is all that remains to tell the tale of their grand religion, sect after sect arose in India and seemed to shake the religion of the Vedas to its very foundations, but like the waters of the sea-shore in a tremendous earthquake it receded only for a while, only to return in an all-absorbing Hood, a thousand times more vigorous, and when the tumult of the rush was over, these sects were all sucked in, absorbed and assimilated into the immense body of the mother faith. From the high spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a
place in the Hindu’s religion.

Where then, the question arises, where is the common center to which all these widely diverging radii converge? Where is the common basis upon which all these seemingly hopeless contradictions rest? And this is the question I shall at- tempt to answer.

The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience, how a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honor them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the very greatest of them were women.



Here it may be said that these laws as laws may be without end, but they must have had a beginning. The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd-Therefore, there never was a time when there was no creation.

If I may be allowed to use a simile, creation and creator are two lines, without beginning and without end, zoning parallel to each other. God is the ever-active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time, and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day:

’The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and the moons of previous cycles.’

And this agrees with modern science.




Here I Stand and if I shut my eyes, and try to conceive my existence, ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I’, what is the idea before me? The idea of a body. Am I, then, nothing but a combination of material substances? The Vedas declare, ‘No’ I am a spirit living in a body: I am not the body. The body will die, but I shall not die. Here I am in this body; it will fall, bull shall go on living. I had also a past. The soul was not created, for creation means a combination, which means a certain future dissolution. If then the soul was created, it must die. Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health with beautiful body, mental vigor, and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable; some are without hands or feet; others again are idiots, and only drag on a wretched existence. Why, if they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a ôare one. Why should a man be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God?

In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel Rat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before his birth, to make a man miserable or happy and those were his past actions.


Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude? Here are two parallel lines of existence - one of the mind, the other of matter. If matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has been evolved out of matter; and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here.


We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a soul caused by his past actions. And a soul with a certain tendency would, by the laws of affinity, take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.

There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue; in fact, no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness; but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up. and you would be conscious even of your past life.

This is direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by the Rishis. We have discovered the secret by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up - try it and you would get a complete reminiscence of your past life.


So then the Hindu believes that he is a spirit. Him the sword cannot pierce - him the fire cannot burn - him the water cannot melt - him the air cannot dry. The Hindu believes that every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere but whose center is located in the body, and that death means the change of the center from holy to body. Nor is the soul bound by the conditions of matter.

Continued in the Next Post..

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches II

WHY WE DISAGREE

At The World’s Parliament of Religions
Chicago, 15^th September 1893

I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, “Let us cease from abusing each other,” and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.

But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course, the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story’s sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another flog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.

“Where are you form?”
“I am from the sea.”
“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how do you compare the sea with your little well?”
Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”
“What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”
“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”

That has been the difficulty all the while.

I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. l have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.

Continued in Next Post..

Swami Vivekananda - Speeches I

The World Parliament of Religions, Chicago

Swami Vivekananda’s Speeches

WELCOME ADDRESS - Chicago, Sept 11, 1893

Sisters and Brothers of America,

It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have

given us. l thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I

thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects. My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.

We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

“As the different streams having there sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:

”Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.”

Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

Continued in Next post

ఆనందం అర్ణవమైతే!! Advaitham - Sri Sri

అద్వైతం Advaitham - Sri Sri

ఆనందం అర్ణవమైతే!!
అనురాగం అంబరమైతే!!

అనురాగపుటంచులు చూస్తాం!!
ఆనందపు లోతులు తీస్తాం!!