Outrageous Bollywood

Depraved Bollywood 

After Jackpot’s blast Bollywood has just released Ragini MMS 2 with a bang! Lots of news -- titillating and riveting to prod the bodily desire. Thanks to Sunny Leone’s past profession, the film-makers are pointedly cashing in on it, as obviously understood. Hardly any newspapers now miss to add epithets to this vivacious lady as adult-star or porn-star to make the readers more inquisitive.  For about past two years we all have been unfailingly updated about her tidbits and gossips. Thus, the bestiality of porn has now been forced into the inner sanctum of the Indian households.

Do we want our children to know about pornography?  Given the manners and styles Sunny Leone is being presented by the electronic media – are we not uncomfortably confused that our children now might see this woman also as their role model? Won’t they become tempted to emulate a porn-star who receives so much of appreciation and warm welcome with even privileges to grace the key public events? What could be the height of bizarreness that this lady is ever mobbed by a swarm of media crews? To them she is a Goddess from the heaven descended down to bless us all. What messages does it send out to our children, can anyone guess dispassionately?

Well, make a sneaky peek into Sunny’s  facebook page – it unfolds a whole lot of unspeakable things. Just find out how many million fans’ likes she has earned from INDIA alone, and analyze their opinions, perception plus our naughty silence in respect to her raunchy flicks – of both Bollywood and the other-world.

 The number of her fans began to shoot astronomically when she was invited to jazz up Bigg Boss about 2 years ago. No denying, the majority of masses in INDIA were not aware of what exactly porn-world is all about until her ground-breaking entry into the country. Till just a year or two ago the policemen would swing into action to pounce upon any suspects with obscene literature or digital CDs. But now the lustful roar is coming out from Bollywood itself for the mass consumption. Media and Bollywood are hand in glove in this unprecedented scheme for the success. It’s not that there is any absence of a voice of protest against the porn-star. But the media seldom give such coverage however vehemently the public disapprove of.

Well, by now many must have been sufficiently grown curious to know who this over-discussed bold lady is and what she does and so on and so forth. Just googling on the net will flood us with the unmentionable things that we had never known or

could ever have imagined existed.

A good many may have been already pulled down into the whirlpool of this murky underworld. And some might have sorely been afflicted by its addiction syndrome --- the most damning malady ailing a chunk of the western population. It’s long been acknowledged that this voyeurism has drastically shattered the millions of the households, their marital relationships, contaminating their sacred thoughts and ruining their personal values, as often been revealed in hundreds of journals published across the world after the exhaustive surveys. Another question, how long will the masses lust after all this immodest sensuality? Has not the strength of sex-juice, as nature given for some reasons, becoming less appealing with the time by losing all its intrinsic charm, grace, and purity?

 ‘A true strength of sex and its purity and purposes have drastically gone down these days. The marital bond is dismally slack. An easy access to pornography and sex are the contributing factors’, quips Dr Naresh Patel, a psychologist and writer from Mumbai.

Again one academician from Delhi opines ‘I strongly believe that many unsuccessful models or film-stars in INDIA have already been tempted to follow in the footstep of Sunny Leone. Very soon they will boldly claim that they are porn-stars vying for Bollywood opportunity as Sunny Leone. And, some young girls will now have less qualm to join this bandwagon of pornography – the sacred sex will be taken very casually and which is degrade the society very fast.’  

My honest questions -- are we not becoming unclear of what is right and wrong for the society? What is good and bad for the households? What is virtuous and sinful for our inner selves? Further, are we truly serious about pondering over the ominous repercussion of such pornographic thoughts that are fast taking space in the mindset of our grown up children, let alone the matured adult? Will not the perverse thoughts make way for perverse indulgences that will take its toll on their studies and later in their marital lives, adversely affecting family values and society at large?

Have we not become a bit dithery to say no to this windfall of wanton exhibitionism? Should the blatant female objectification in the entertainment world not raise our eye-brows and awaken our inner sensibility anymore? Have we not witnessed the enough instances of cold-blooded rapes, sexual violence against women and a host of other perverse sexual activities in the society? A prostitute may harm a few individuals while the pornography can destroy the soul of a whole generation and the next.

Here our silence against the breeding of vices is akin to the acceptance. This could well-mean that our inner strength of morality has become weak and feeble that it fails now to prompt us to stand upright against the evil.
Phew, our silence might make the lustful holler of the decadence still shriller!

The writer may be contacted at: Email: sgewali@gmail.com

--- Salil Gewali,
Shillong 

­­­My Discovery of INDIA

T. S.  Eliot

Indian philosophers’ subtleties make most of the great

European philosophers look like schoolboys.

-           T. S.  Eliot,

               

                Firstly it's my great love for the country. Secondly, I learned much about the Indian wisdom when I was introduced to the works of Swami Vivekananda by my father from early age. Frankly speaking, Vivekananda, Sri Aurovindo, Paramhansa Yogananda and Mahatma Gandhi were my initial eye-openers and inspirations. Their works embedded deeply in my heart inspired me to read more and explore more. I fondly treasured those boyhood days, I was not even 10 years then, when a small booklet 'Call to the Nation' by Swamiji I would read as and when I would have free time. It wholly changed my perspective to look at the country and even the life we live in this mundane world. The Bhagavat Gita and Upanishads were other books I was quite drawn to read again and again and ponder over the higher meanings of life.

Here let me narrate how the seed of inspiration sown and how it germinated which now has taken root to grow into a tall standing tree.

           

               It was a winter day in 1988, when I was traveling to Delhi I had picked up a book 'The Discovery of India'  by Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru from a newsstand in Guwahati Railway station. I had heard a lot about this work of Pundit Nehru. It contained the wealth of knowledge/ information as to the country and about the significance of her ancient heritage. I read it very attentively throughout my journey of over 56 hours. What amazed me most was a few of the quotes in the book by the world-famous western scholars and philosophers. Those quotes were in deep appreciation of the Indian ancient wisdom, its language and culture. For months together I felt much haunted by those words of western luminaries.

           

                The second book that fascinated me again was 'Autobiography of a Yogi'  by Paramhansa Yogananda. Here even I had come across such profound opinions by great thinkers like Ralph Emersion and Schopenhauer  who were close to my heart. These quotes had left deep imprints – both in my inner mind and heart. I have begun to realize that this country is far more than what we have known or made to be known as.

            But the turning point happened when I read a book entitled 'We are not the first'  by an UFO scientist Tomas Andrew where I encountered incredible facts based on Modern science. I clearly saw that great many discoveries of the modern times had already mentioned in the ancient scriptures of India. I got the vivid references and precise theoretical illustration of atomic structures and the time scales which are far inconceivable to the scientists of even the early 19th century. My science background immensely helped me to go deeper into the subject. 

            I strongly felt then, these western scientists would not have applauded and approved of those ancient wisdom and knowledge had there not been any scientific validity and significance. I gradually got to know that scientists like Schrödinger, Neils Bohr, Julius Oppenheimer, David Bohm, Heisenberg, David Josephson, etc had sufficiently got the ideas relative to Quantum Physics from Upanishads and Vedas. It dawned upon me that the ancient treatises had greatly emboldened those scientists to plunge deeper into the atom, moreover into the inner core of the Quantum Mechanics. Here are the words of approval by Werner Heisenberg – 'After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.'  All these facts consequently strengthened my conviction about the infallibility of ancient literary archives from my early age.

            I kept reading, peering through the pages. I was constantly on the lookout where I might stumble upon the 'great words of great minds'. I rummaged through the pages of probably over 100 more such books on the ancient philosophy. The works on linguistic, astronomy, astrology, spiritualism, Ayurvedas, mostly written by the western scholars also captivated me, intrigued me. Well, the books like 'The Tao of Physics'  by a famous American physicist Fritzof Capra, 'Indian and the world Civilization'   by DP Singhal, 'Hinduism Invades America', by Wendell Thomas , 'Mathematics for Million'  by Thomas Hogben, 'The Great Secret'  by Maurice Maeterlinck and so on and so forth added to firming up my determination to do something unprecedented and substantial for the country. I saw this great country being much neglected and also underestimated and undervalued by her own children. With the time I grew more inquisitive and felt that I should know my Mother before I develop kinship with others mothers. 

Voltaire

            The thing that pricked my conscience incessantly was one question. Why in my over 16 years of academic studies in several prestigious institutions I could not find even the sporadic references to these amazing facts. Why have these proud truths about the ancient knowledge of the country never been taught to our Indian students while their minds are stuffed with rather controversial information that only leaves behind negative impression about the country and her ancient heritage? I startled to know that Pythagoras from Greece came to India to learn Geometry and spiritualism, not from any of my textbooks, nor even from mathematics books published from the home country, but from the work of one of the greatest thinkers of all time Francois Voltaire.

Ralph Emerson

          

  Perhaps the majority of our literate folks have heard about Ralph Emerson. But barely a few know this world-renowned poet had written a solemn poem 'Brahma'  inspired by our ancient wisdom. I sense many things amiss in the country. Yes, we in India swell our chest to quote TS Eliot but hardly we take our cue from his world famous poem 'The waste land' that ends in Sanskrit word 'Shanti, Shanti Shanti', and finally speaks of cardinal truths as expounded in Brihaddaranyaka Upanishad. One wonders why Indians never get to learn such higher facts about the country and her rich heritage from the prescribed academic books. It's bewildering, such profoundly lofty data are missing from the textbooks. So, it's no strange now our children grown to have less respect for our own heritage and values.

Erwin Schrödinger

            Well, to me nothing would be more intriguing than to know that Erwin Schrödinger (the Nobel laureate, the father Quantum Mechanics), David Josephson and Robert Julius Oppenheimer (father of Atomic Bomb), Jack Sarfatti --- who held the Indian literature in the highest esteemed, had studied Upanishads, besides the Bhagavad Gita  deeply and had drawn lots of ideas pertaining to Modern physics and other research works.  Schrödinger had even supported his theory in his revolutionary work on Quantum Mechanics by the phrases of Upanishads. He boldly pointed out in his famous work 'My view of the World' – ' In all world there is no kind of framework within which we can find CONCIOUSNESS in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction.... The only solution to this conflict in so far as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the UPANISHADS.' Thanks to the works of Ravindranath Tagore whose Vedantic wisdom spellbound even Albert Einstein, while Vivekananda's speeches bewitched  Nicholas Tesla, Romain Rolland, Ella Wilcox, J. D. Salinger and the like.

Julius Oppenheimer with Albert Einstein

            Of course I started casually collecting such quotes about 22 years ago. But making a book occurred to me while reading the world famous books – 'The Tao of Physics' and 'Uncommon Wisdom' by Frijtof Capra for the second time in 1995. Yes, it really put me in the most pensive mood and got me lost in the depth of thoughts for years together when I had come upon Oppenheimer's bombshell-like quote -- 'What we shall find in Modern Physics is an exemplification, an encouragement and a refinement of old Hindu wisdom.' This statement so deeply touched me wherein I clearly saw great messages by the 'father of Atomic Bomb' --- not only for the modern scientists but for the whole mankind. I deeply felt that this must be spread among every citizen of India who is less aware of the higher truths about the ancient treasure troves. At least to make the citizens aware, who otherwise tend to dismiss the ancient literature as a load of myths and superstition or irrelevant to the modern time, as often depicted --- as being scientific, universal and secular to the core. Paul Deussen has rightly eulogized 'Whatever maybe the discoveries of the scientific mind, none can dispute the eternal truths propounded by the Upanishads'.

            The years 1996-98 saw me frantically preoccupied. I exhaustively worked for this compilation. I would regularly visit a number of libraries of Shillong like State Central library, RK Mission library, St. Anthony Library, NEHU library and the like. Because, I didn't have enough money to buy books.  I can't miss to mention here, apart from our own bookstall where I got to read many kinds of books, how I would frequent the junk yard – a popular a second hand  market just near our shop in Shillong. This was my preferred rendezvous. I had come across a rare collection of books here. I had chanced upon to read  rare books of great intellectuals -- like the translated works of, Voltaire, Gottfried Herder, Sir William Jones, Friedrich Hegel, Max Muller, Henry David Thoreau from a few shops in this shabby market at Bara Bazar, Shillong.

            Life is not always a bed of roses. The dreams one cherishes often meet with stumbling block of adversaries. No matter however I tried I could not save enough money to publish the book for many years though the compilation was ready in 1998 itself. Family responsibilities had begun to weigh heavily on me. However, I never had lost my heart. I would do lots of Xerox of those compiled quotes and share with anyone whom I believe would appreciate.  Some would get awestruck and also shed a few tears, some would remain indifferent, while some would just become critical. I would feel something wrong in them as because they find uncomfortable when their own heritage, their great Motherland, being appreciated by none other than the western thinkers whom they so far held them in highest esteem as men who brought significant changes to the world. 

            At last my weary and dreary wait of over 11 years brought a sunny light of hope. Yes, with a little improvement in my economy I could see my treasured dream fulfilled. At last I published the book entitled “Great Minds on INDIA” in glossy format in 2009. I was delighted, the book was instantly gloried, – so appreciated that the Governor of Meghalaya heartily consented to release it in the most fitting manner.

            I have reasons to feel blessed. The work immediately caught the attention of the scholars from across the world which I hardly expected. A shower of compliments began to pour in. To my immense delight I received phone-calls even from great many eminent scholars, writers throughout the world. I was too thrilled when Prof. A. V. Murali, an eminent NASA scientist, called up me to express his gratitude for the work. He remarked – "This compilation is simply outstanding! I never knew that such a compilation exists and we all should be thankful to the researcher! These great quotes should be embossed on plaques and displayed on the walls of our Parliament, State Assembly Halls, and at all our educational institutions. Most importantly, the material should be made a compulsory reading for all the school students (elaborating more on 'who is who' and the monumental contributions of these intellectual giants)."

-- Prof. A. V. Murali, Ph. D

Former NASA scientist, Houston, Texas

            Lastly my sincere prayer -- may this ancient wisdom of the country evoke awe and reverence among the intellectuals. Let no children of the country speak ill of the mother whose womb gave birth to those mystic rishis whose works mesmerized even the great minds like Voltaire, Hegel, Goethe, Einstein.

 Writer may be contacted at: sgewali@gmail.com

Lord Shiva and Modern Science

I am Without any Variation, and Without any Form,

I am present EVERYWHERE
as the underlying Substratum of EVERYTHING,
and behind all Sense Organs,

Neither do I get Attached to anything, nor get Freed from anything,

 I am the Ever-Pure-Blissful-Consciousness;
 I am Shiva, I am Shiva,

The Ever-Pure-Blissful-Consciousness.

- Sri Adi Shankaracharya

                       A science student might know what it means by CERN. At least now when the shocking news about the existence of particles (Neutrinos) that run faster than the light was announced by the CERN scientists. The whole science fraternity had swirled in whirlpool of confusion then, as that would have dealt  a big blow to a long-held assumption. Could bring major upheavals in the theories expounded even by Albert Einstein and the like. But a big sigh of relief, the claim was later refuted by the same bunch of scientists.

                       

 Werner  Heisenberg

Well, CERN stands for ‘European Organization for Nuclear Research’, situated in Geneva. This  world largest physics lab can boast of having been run by 2400 full-time employees and 7931 scientists and engineers representing 608 universities and research facilities and 113 nationalities. The Nobel  laureate and co-founder of Quantum Physics  Werner Heisenberg was also one of the co-founders of this particle research centre.

                         But believe or not, this  awesome international science centre houses a huge statue of Natraja, the symbolic depiction of Lord Shiva who performs his cosmic dance to destroy the decrepit universe making way for the Lord Brahma to re-start the new creation. The statue was a gift presented by the Indian government  in 2004.

                          Strange, how a Hindu God found a place in the science centre, a seat of rationalism and reasoning? The atheist may fume at the idea. No strange, they have proclivities to shrug aside any religious symbols and rituals as a load of superstitions, --- irritant hurdles on the way to progression and liberalism in the free thinking world.  But alas, their rational fathers and men of letters and intellect are now thinking hard on the other way around. They are turning towards the wisdom of India. Striving to dig deeper into the ancient archives.

Fritjof  Capra

                           In the year 1975 an eminent American physicist Dr Fritjof Capra had come up with the most epoch-making book entitled  ‘The Tao of Physics’.  Besides his four other International bestsellers, this book has now been published in 23 languages across the world.  Dr Capra scientifically connects  here the rhythmic pulsation of subatomic particle  with the Cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. He asserts 'every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also “is an energy dance”';  a pulsating process of creation and destruction, without end. For the modern physicists, then Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena." He further adds "Modern physics pictures matter, not as passive and inert, but as continuously dancing and vibrating. This is very much like the Eastern mystics description of the world. Both emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically. It structures are not static, rigid ones, but should be seen in terms of dynamic equilibrium.”

 

                          The most astounding aspect of the book is that it corroborates Eastern’s interconnection of the entire objects in the universe, animate or inanimate and the rest. Capra writes : ‘The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves and grows and changes continually. Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognized that this web is intrinsically dynamic.’

                        Yes, the present scientists are beginning to think in the same line what Rishis in India did and put down in the series of Upanishads ages ago. So the glorification of Natraj by the nuclear scientists in the CERN is never impertinent. Rather inspirational, providing fuel for further exploration.

 Erwin Schrodinger

                         Erwin Schrodinger, -- whose Schrödinger equation is considered to be one of the greatest achievements of 20th century, had long taken the refuge in. His deep love for Upanishads are evident in his world famous work – “What is life?” which was later credited by the Francis Crick for his key insight leading to the revolutionary discovery of DNA code.   Schrodinger was so convinced about the wealth of wisdom in Indian literature he made a fervent proclamation --- ‘In all world there is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction. The only solution to this conflict in so far as any is available to  us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.’

Science now agrees that the seers of Indian sub-continent had seen the higher truths, the science of higher dimension and subtleties. These very subtleties which Nobel laureate

 Jack Sarfatti

               
         
              Schrodinger was not alone. David Bohm, Eugene Wigner, Oppenheimer, David Josephson, Archibald Wheeler, Charles Townes, Jack Sarfatti, John Hagelin, John Bells, Carl Sagan had already made attempts to plunge headlong into the cosmic sea of Upanishadic’s Consciousness --- after the pulsating vibration, as the ultimate answer. The man behind the ‘Black Hole’ and ‘Worm Hole’   John Archibald Wheeler become so awestruck with the knowledge of the East, he remarked ---‘One has the feeling that the thinkers of the East knew it all, and if we could only translate their answers into our language we would have the answers to all our questions.’

                      Finally, here comes the boldest prediction by Robert Julius Oppenheimer “What we shall find in Modern Physics  is an exemplification, an encouragement and a refinement of old Hindu wisdom.”

                     The thing may sound quite staggering to the skeptical but the science has long been kneeling down before the Eastern wisdom. Beware the atheist, the science is returning to Hinduism. Not the religion, but all pervasive  DIVINITY.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/salil-gewali/lord-shiva-and-modern-science/263835020323864

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36498555/What-is-India#fullscreen:on

Significance of Indian philosophies in the words of western scholars

Endangered Mankind

Endangered Mankind
Modern Education: A Threat to Mankind

Study hard, get hold of enviable degree and kick-start the gorgeous career in the field of your choice and make money. The money, your want. By hook or by crook. Certainly, your primary need in life. Use your all wiles how best you can amass and manage it. Well, you are capable of that. Very early you will be flushed with the good amount. No point dillydallying, you may desire the choicest materials of comfort and luxury --------- palatial buildings, swanky cars, computer, ruby, diamond and lot more. You are given the choice of enjoying every moment by drawing the utmost pleasure being in the midst of your possessions; relish them to your heart’s content.
Why worry ? Make the best of your time; you are virtually accentuated with awesome profession. Set your heart on anything your money can purchase. You may drink to death. Visiting the night club and indulging yourself drooling at an enticing girl who unabashedly takes leave of her modesty, could be your new found passion. Yes, you may swing yourself into action by organizing the most sensational beauty contest ever held, that perhaps becomes an exciting event to watch and emulate from. Or, be adventurous and go around the globe to see the things of your interest. Or, take off to marvel at galas in Las Vegas, or scale the Mountain tops, or plod along the icy Antarctica------- these all are jolly fashionable crazes.
Please understand, in this age of sophistication, to make one capable enough to afford any desired stuff of pleasure and conveniences that satisfy his whim is seemingly a one-pointed goal in life. So, don’t hold back, go in with guns blazing to achieve them. Make your affluence as ostentatious as you wish. Yes indeed, it is the much touted education, as normally believed, which promises this glitzy world of opulence, entertainment and name and fame. The targeted aims of any wannabe doctor, engineer, politician, model, film star and so on are to achieve the brilliant profession and occupation and reputation and start quenching the thirst for ever insatiable sense gratification till ones breathe their last. Basic necessities apart, with the success their material wants and desires may swell up that could be in any form depending upon the mind-set. But be sure, there will never be the point of time when they find themselves absolutely content.
The definition of Education in modern day? Very crisp and direct. Be hot at your chosen area of studies available, the rest will unfold for you. No limitation, no restriction, no social stigma nor even inhibition. Darn the consequential chaos and upheaval and subtle loopholes, provided the disciplines chosen are materially roaring and smashing. Damn the ethical norms if they are overwhelmingly endorsed by the so-called modern day elites. No problem, you being bloody cunning, self-centered, uncompassionate, irreligious, undisciplined, violent, licentious if you can handle and elude them artfully.
Dr. X, a widely reputed surgeon of precision, is unkind, ill-tempered and a notorious womanizer. He refuses downright to operate on any underdogs if they cannot make hard payment that is fixed. But, he is a much-sought after Mr. Right who has mastered every part of your anatomy. Significantly, he can neatly deal with any organs of your body, so we have legally no right to question his personal flaws and morals. In his elaborate study of the science there is practically no references and emphasis that he must be morally acceptable before pursuing the profession.
Similar is the case with a lawyer. He can be a dangerously double standard fox. He may cook up crafty schemes for making money out of petty cases. He may make illiterate and poor lots his grazing ground. He can prove a wrong as a right and vice versa. Well, a heinous rapist gets away through his contrived design and skill. A heartless murderer gets acquitted if his only lust for money is fulfilled. Perhaps, to sum up, he is like the only Messiah of all evildoers.
No exaggeration, so is the case with the literate men of any trade and profession. But do not be critical, they are the blessed recognized people of letters and esteemed designation. Please update yourself, there are a colossal number of careers and employments put forth by the education of modern day. Why to waver, be a star on par with Aishwarya, all the splendour will be at your feet. Or, choose to ape the demeanour and sensuality of Britney Spears or Jennifer Lopez to entertain and stir the lust of the global masses. More? You may burn the midnight oil to acquire the exclusive art of Mariah Carey and practice how artfully you can drive the virile hawk into submission.
Why to shrink to do more exciting and impressive if you have gained mastery of the English, one of the most fashionable languages on earth. You can pick up a crap and discuss astutely till you feel jaded. Well, publish hot journals like Cosmopolitan by piecing together all the filths and sleazes which potentially set the reader on sensual fire. Hey think big, produce the movies that liberally and flagrantly shed light on how best one can flirt with the senses, the project will be an instant crowd puller and more gainful.

No worry about the sleaze factor at this cutting age of development, if you can competently defend yourself. Immodest Madonna has attended icon status, eccentric Michele Jackson has a great number of die-hard fans. Marilyn Monroe and Helen are legendary figures and a source of inspiration for the present world that swears by fashion and modernity. The leaders who are ruling us are not men of rectitude and scruples but devils of hell. They have no qualms about indulging in any sorts of immoral activities -------- kidnapping, murder, corruption, sex are some vile ornaments adorning their haughty souls.


Yes, succumbing to the devilish heat of lust, anger, greed, desire and ego, thus perspires and stinks the rumpus world of decadence and illusion. The cloud of illusion seems so thick that the mankind has almost lost the sight of immutable truths. Further, in pursuance of exploring the ways and means for better and easier life it has merrily gone blind to the most subtle facts about human psychology, function and behaviour of the bossy five senses. To make the matter worse, perhaps being overwhelmed by the startling ambience of advanced conveniences and luxury, the so-called academic pundits in delusion have virtually omitted the moral values from the recipe of education. Needless to say, the mother Nature sternly requires a man to live within the periphery of morality and sensibly control his senses in order to lead a sane and peaceful life or else they (the senses) will drive his mind turbulent rendering him physically and mentally feeble and stressful that may, in course of time, culminates in complete degeneration of the self.
But regrettably, the mainstream education has apparently never taught us to regulate the senses for self purification and realization of inner joyfulness. No strange, we normally find ourselves ceaselessly engrossed and obsessed with the thought of short-living sense gratification and desire fulfilment or anxiety, fear, envy and anger. I am afraid, while having been unable to control the nagging mind, we have increasingly become a mere meek slave to it being ever preoccupied in the task of supplying more tempting sense objects to the senses as dictated by the former. Please note, gradual weakening of the faculty of intellect, memory and creativity is because of one being engulfed by mental agony caused by excessive indulgence in sense pleasure and high expectations from the things pertaining. Therefore, here it seems the modern education has been obviously working as a catalyst in the laboratory of the glossy world where evils alone are precipitating. Maybe, being intensely apprehensive of the impending nightmarish situation, the great thinker Albert Einstein had also warned us as saying ------ ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’, ------here the religion means that which teaches us, besides about the existence of the omnipresent Almighty, moral values and significance of humanity. And therefore I firmly believe, the true education is that which teaches first the ways and skills how best one to control those bullying five senses and mind with a sole aim to enable the inherent divine virtues to be blossomed . Once that is achieved the enlightenment and inner joyfulness come on its on accord, as teaches the Gita. In essence of this long discussion let me conclude thus------ Education is the vehicle for self-development, righteous action its fuel, intelligence the driver, must ply on the road of morality to reach the light of eternal knowledge that opens up the landscape of blissfulness and divinity.


Salil Gewali

email :sgewali2000@yahoo.co.in

Should we not know the significance of Indian philosophies in the words of western scholars ? ----

Albert Einstein

"We owe a lot to Indians who taught us how to count, without which
no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."



Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition. The land that men with intellectual bent desire to see and having seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined."





-------- T. S. Eliot

" Indian philosophers' subtleties make most of the great European philosophers look like schoolboys."


George Bernard Shaw, (1856-1950) Dramatist, Nobel Laureate in Literature

"The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We western veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creators hand. "
Francois Marie Voltaire (1694-1774) France's greatest writers and philosophers

" I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganga --- astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc."
" It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganga (Ganges) to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe..."



H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English author and political philosopher

There is space in its philosophy for everyone,
which is one reason why India is a home to every single religion in the world.

Sir William Jones, English philologist

"Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion of infinity presents itself."





Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American author, essayist, lecturer, philosopher, Unitarian minister
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."



,
George Bernard Shaw

"This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it."

Professor F. Max Muller , German philosopher and philologist

"In the history of the world, the Vedas fill a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his intellectual development, a study of the Vedic literature is indeed indispensable."




Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer

"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life; and it will be the solace of my death. They are the product of the highest wisdom."

Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Nuclear physicist, philosopher

"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries."







Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher

"India has created a special momentum in world history as a country to be searched for knowledge."


Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher

"It strikes everyone in beginning to form an acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest order of thought..."

Roger-Pol Droit French philosopher, and Le Monde journalist,

"The Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad-Gita". There is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that the Greeks knew all about Indian philosophy."


Frederich von Schlegel, (1772-1829), German philosopher, critic, and writer, the most prominent founder of German Romanticism

"There is no language in the world, even Greek, which has the clarity and the philosophical precision of Sanskrit," adding that " India is not only at the origin of everything she is superior in everything, intellectually, religiously or politically and even the Greek heritage seems pale in comparison."



----- Voltaire, (1694-1774), France's greatest writers and philosophers

"the Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East."

The Upanishads
As is the human body, so is the cosmic body
As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.
As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm..
As is the atom, so is the universe.




Alfred North Whitehead, British Mathematician

The vastest knowledge of today cannot transcend the buddhi of the Rishis in ancient India; and science, in its most advanced stage now, is closer to Vedanta than ever before.




Dr. Fritjof Capra, American physicist

To the Indian Rishis the divine play was the evolution of the cosmos through countless aeons. There is an infinite number of creations in an infinite universe. The Rishis gave the name kalpa to the unimaginable span of time between the beginning and the end of creation.


Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German poet and novelist, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1946 says:
"The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life's wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion."




Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American Philosopher, writer, Unitarian, social critic, transcendentalist:

"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny."



Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919) famous American poet and journalist

" India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contains not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Veda.



Hans Torwesten, German philosopher and writer

The Vedas and the Upanishads are India's proudest and most ancient possessions. They are the world's oldest intellectual legacies. They are the only composition in the universe invested with Divine origin, and almost Divine sanctity. They are said to emanate from God, and are held to be the means for attaining God. Their beginnings are not known. They have been heirlooms of the Hindus from generation to generation from time immemorial.


Professor F. Max Muller, German philosopher , philologist

"The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education of the human race, to which we can find no parallel anywhere else."






Ella Wheeler Wilcox, (1850-1919) famous American poet and journalist

" India - the land of Vedas, the remarkable works contains not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all are known to the seers who founded the Vedas."



Jean-Sylvain Bailly, French Astronomer who calculated the orbit for the Halley’s Comet

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."






------ Aldous Huxley
“Hinduism, the perennial philosophy” that is at the core of all religions.


Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer

"How entirely does the Upanishad breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one, who by a diligent study of its Persian Latin has become familiar with that incomparable book, stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his Soul !”







Romain Rolland (1866-1944) French Nobel laureate, Historian

"Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief."


Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Nuclear physicist, philosopher, developer of the atomic bomb
“The Gita, the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”





H. G. Wells (1866-1946), English author and political philosopher
Hinduism is synonymous with humanism. That is its essence and its great liberating quality."

Lord Curzon (1859-1925) British statesman, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, and later became chancellor of Oxford University

" India has left a deeper mark upon the history, the philosophy, and the religion of mankind,
than any other terrestrial unit in the universe."


William Butler Yeats (1856-1939) Irish poet, dramatist, and essayist and Nobel Laureate

"It was only my first meeting with the Indian philosophy that confirmed my
vague speculations and seemed at once logical and boundless."


Mark Tully former BBC correspondent in India, author

But I do profoundly believe that India needs to be able to say with pride,
"Yes, our civilization has a Hindu base to it."




Paul William Roberts Professor at Oxford , award-winning television writer, producer, journalist, critic and novelist.

“India is the only country that feels like home to me,
the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing.”

Jean-Sylvain Bailly, French Astronomer who calculated the orbit for the Halley’s Comet

"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school... "The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge." the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge."



Pierre Simon de Laplace ( 1749-1827) French mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer, a contemporary of Napoleon. Laplace is best known for his nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system.
" It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value, a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Appollnius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity."


Why as yet we have not incorporated the these secular thoughts into the academic curriculum ? Is speaking truths about the mother land a treachery and unethical? Could you put your efforts such that these thoughts are taught in all the academic institutions ? Your efforts in this direction will be nothing but a great tribute to this ancient land of knowledge and spiritualism.
Forward it as much as possible !
Yours comments are warmly entertained. Compiled by:
SALIL GEWALI
Shillong, Meghalaya
Email: sgewali2000@yahoo.co.in

phone: 09863028358