February 2006 Archives

At the very outset let me state that many theories have been propounded on this earth. Some of them survived for some time and then gradually passed out of existence; others emerged like meteors, exhibiting their dazzling radiance for a very short time, and then vanished into darkness. The mere existence of a theory is not the essential point; what is important is whether the theory promoted the welfare of all, the spiritual well-being of all -- otherwise its advent on this earth was quite useless. Such useless theories are not even worth mentioning.

Any theory will contain the seed of well-being if its firm foundation is sama-sama'ja tattva [principle of social equality]. It may survive for a very long period -- even for eternity - if it cherishes the ideal of forever promoting the welfare of all. This is the essential point.

I have already said several times, and I repeat, that while moving towards the inner world, human beings have to maintain equilibrium and equipoise in the external world. If some declare that "Brahma satyam' jaganmithya'" ["Only Supreme Consciousness is real and the world is false"], they will not be able to do anything in this "false" world. They are simply deceiving themselves - it is a sign of hypocrisy. An honest person should never resort to hypocrisy in any sphere of life; under no circumstances must he or she compromise with any unjust theory. This is the rule; this is correct. Propriety dictates this.

Let's not pretend that third world debt is about wise investment of borrowed money in order to develop a country's economy more quickly. If it were so, the countries which borrowed the most would be the ones doing well. Without getting into statistics, I'll just point out that debt is more often hurting these economies than helping them. Debt is there, though, so what can be done about it?

Where does starvation exist in the world today? What are some of the causes of world hunger? Are citizens of developed countries donating monetarily to the ongoing relief efforts? In this article I will address these questions with the hope that by creating an understanding of the current world hunger situation, morally conscious individuals will do their part in contributing to the eradication of this unseen suffering.

Culture is a vague term. It is the collective name for different expressions of life. People eat, enjoy hospitality, laugh on some occasions and shed tears on others, and thereby express life through various actions. The collective name of all these actions is culture.

Shrii P. R. Sarkar had a wonderful capacity to understand child's psychology. And that is why he was highly successful in producing juvenile literature: "In the Land of Hattamala", "More Stories of Hattamala", "The Golden Lotus of the Blue Sea" "Under the Fathomomless Depth of the Blue Sea" etc. are the few masterpieces of his wonderful juvenile literature. In taste and beauty in providing pure joy and imparting knowledge to the children the stories are unique and superb. To provide simple and innocent delight to the juvenile mind the author has rightly selected children's favourite subjects, such as the princes and princesses, the ghosts and elves, the giants and demons, cats, dogs, honeybees, chocolates, cake trees, golden lotus and a variety of dainties and delicacies. The acid test of an adroit juvenile litterateur lies in his masterly style of analyzing child psychology against an equally ideal setting. While introducing stories of ghosts, elves and witches, the author has used his pen so adroitly that not even an iota of fear is imprinted on the green leaf of the child's mind. On the contrary, the ghosts and witches are so simple, sincere and humane in behaviour that the little children feel highly inspired to make friends with them. The childhood is the proper time to plant seeds of knowledge of tree in children's minds. And the author is very cautious in this regard.

What is the democratic way of life? It includes faith in human relations, tolerance, respect for opinions even if contradictory, equal justice and rights for all, freedom of thought and expression, to act according to one’s conscience, to do one’s rightful duty without fear, to support a government which a person has a voice in making and dissolving, and to promote morality cause and advance proper reforms without fear of a repugnant reaction from the ruling class.

There is a general sense of exuberance that with the recent Nobel award going to a social welfare economist the trend away from financial markets being primary has been validated by the economics profession. It is thus heartening that the Nobel Committee has finally discovered the People's economy.

We say finally because it has been the people's economy for thousands of years that has nourished us, that has kept us alive. Whatever the historical era – shudra [laborers], kśattriya [warriors], vipra [intellectuals] or vaeshya [capitalists] - it is this level of the economy that has been most crucial, and it is this economy that those in power have been most concerned about dominating.

In this fight for independence, the Indian leaders committed a blunder. they should have engaged themselves in an economic fight instead of starting a political movement. The British took advantage of this blunder of the Indian leaders. They got the opportunity to divide India into two parts. They infused in the Muslims the idea that the Hindus formed the majority, and that therefore if the British quit India the government would naturally go into the hands of the Hindus, and the Muslims of the whole of India would remain as their subjects.

This shrewd policy yielded good results. A Hindu phobia grew among the Muslims. The Muslim leaders began to propagate this Hindu phobia at the top of their voices, and as a result of this anti-Hindu sentiment created out of Hindu phobia, a Muslim nation was again born in India in this twentieth century. Directed by this Hindu phobia, they demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim nation. It was not possible for the Hindus to resist this demand for a separate homeland, because at that time no nation which could be termed a Hindu nation was formed in India.

Thirty farmers in Andhra Pradesh commit suicide -- ironically, by consuming the same poisonous pesticides which were partly responsible for the loss of their crops. Over one hundred thousands farmers demonstrate furiously in Meerut ... in Gujarat restive farmers burn buses ... in Maharashtra they stop rail and road traffic. Underground water sources are being drained dry, fertile agricultural lands are becoming wastelands at an ever-increasing rate, crops are being blighted with mysterious diseases--and overall production has stagnated over the past two years. To paraphrase Hamlet, "Something is rotten in the state of Indian agriculture."

The next image of the future which is increasingly gaining adherents is that of global collapse. This image is constituted in various discourses. The first is the economic. In this perspective, the world economic system's inability to deal with increasing levels of inequity (within nations and between nations), the international debt load, and rising speculation in the global stock markets will lead to a global collapse of epic proportions. Areas integrated into the world capitalist system will be particularly hard hit; those areas that are self-reliant will manage, though. This image is also constituted in the language of the return of the Vengeful God. Because Man has tampered with nature (through technological development--genetic engineering, space exploration, overindustrialization), nature is now striking back--we can't escape our collective karma. What will result is environmental catastrophes such as the Greenhouse effect, earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns, water shortages, and other wonderful things one can ponder while one falls asleep at night. Religious groups, in particular, are eagerly awaiting this event, or series of events. For many it is the Armageddon, the return of Christ, the Madhi, or Amita Buddha. It is the collapse of the hope and promise of the science and technology revolution, of the rationality of the enlightenment, and of liberal democracy. While some imagine this collapse as leading to the arrival of heaven on earth, most see this world as that of the rise of the worst of humans, a post-nuclear society ruled by the mighty.

In olden times, when the Aryans came to India, there was no compact social order in the land of India. The population of India consisted of small or big tribes of Austric, Dravidian and Mongolian origin.

A few days ago a journalist asked me my views about the destructive effectiveness of atom bombs and their future reaction on the human race. Ordinarily, I do not have any contact with journalists. But I did give a reply to this question. I said, "Human strength is much more powerful than the strength of atom bombs." Therefore, to think that atom bombs will annihilate the human race is nothing but to defame human intellect and psychic power because atom bombs are the creation of human beings. Human beings are the creators of atom bombs, so how can atom bombs destroy human beings?

Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the Palestinians and "other nations" will eventually remove Israel from the region.

Addressing a mass demonstration in Tehran - one of many organized throughout Iran to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic revolution - he once again questioned the Holocaust "fairy tale".

It is well-known to all that whoever tries to make a change in this world in any field, be it spiritual, social, cultural, economic or political is subjected to face the merciless tortures from the evil and conservative forces. Shrii P. R. Sarkar was also not an exception. The C.B.I. concocted false charges against him and arrested him on 29th December 1971 at 06:00 am. He had to face tremendous tortures in the jail and not only that he was injected with poison in the name of medicines on 12th February 1973. As the reaction of that poison he lost his eye sight permanently. With a demand of full scale enquiry into this incident he started a fast from 1st April of the same year. That unequaled fast lasted for about five years and six months until his release from the jail by proving himself innocent of all those false allegations against him on 2nd August 1978. Soon after he started that historical fast he wrote a petition to the Governor of Bihar state (India) copied to the President of India and to the General Secretary of UN. The following was the letter he wrote the above mentioned national and international authorities to make them aware about his decision and the reasons for that.

In attempting to unravel the mysteries of history in imputing order to the seemingly disorderly currents in the human past, in reaching out to the future, Sarkar has joined the august company of Toynbee, Marx, Hegel, Spengler, Wells, among many others; and in erudition and breadth of vision, he is not excelled by any. Quite a few scholars have endeavored to detect in the chaos of history a certain rhythm, and imperceptible harmony that complies with certain natural laws, but their peers, suspicious of anything conferring rigor on past trends, have criticized and scoffed at them. Sarkar's contribution, however, belongs to a different genus. It is immune at least to those strictures to which other theories of historical determinism have been subjected.

Agartala, February 11: Altogether seven Congress candidates were kidnapped by CPI (M) [Communist Party of India, Marxist - eds.] cadres during the past one- week to ensure victory of the party in the coming Village Committee elections [in the northeast Indian state of Tripura - eds.].

While the vision above presents Sarkar's thinking, it does not place it in the context of other images of the future. By placing Sarkar's vision in the context of other images we will better be able compare his thought. We use as our points of comparison, the images developed by futurist James Dator.³²

"Liberation from exploitation is impossible when the exploiters themselves find shelter in the philosophy. The co-existence of the exploiters and the exploited can never lead to a society free from exploitation."

This new era, however, for Sarkar is not one that pits spirituality against science. Sarkar believes that technological development controlled by non-capitalists, by humanists, will lead to increased economic growth, intellectual development and social equality. Sarkar, in fact, sees the development of technology that will have "mind" in it, that is, technology that will have some level of self-awareness. Most likely this will result from developments in artificial intelligence. Sarkar also forecasts that once full employment is reached, and once the untapped potential of humans, individually and collectively, is increasingly realized, instead of massive unemployment because of productivity gains from robotics, we will simply reduce our work week, such that "one day, we may only work five minutes a week. Being not always engrossed in the anxiety about grains and clothes, there will be no misuse of mental and spiritual wealth. [We] will be able to devote more time to sports, literary discourses and spiritual pursuits."22 Struggle then will largely be in intellectual and spiritual realms; in the constant effort to reduce the gap between the finite and the infinite, between the present and the ideal future.

There are numerous divergent views regarding the exact interpretation of the term "nation". Some are of the opinion that the inhabitants of a particular state form a nation. Even if the terms "state" and "country" are taken to be synonymous, the controversy over "nation" does not end. Some people hold the view that the structure of a nation depends on language. Others are of the opinion that the foundation of a nation depends on one or more than one factor from among the following: similar manners and customs, similar mode of living, similar traditions, racial similarity, religious similarity, etc. But practical experience does not indicate that these factors are especially important.

"From ancient times human beings have struggled against their obstacles. Struggle is the essence of life. Those who cry for disarmament are enemoies of human beings. They are reluctant to fight even against criminals."

A section Bengali population of Tripura, who were drove out of their hearth and homes by the tribal militant outfits resume indefinite sit in demonstration in Agartala city (Tripura - India) on Monday. The evacuees have been agitating for rehabilitation and relief.

"Being inspired by a common ideology, when different individuals move towards the common goal and become active for its achievement, this can be called a society"

Shrii Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar is well known as a social philosopher, political revolutionary, poet, and linguist. He has also been described as the complete renaissance man.¹ These descriptions come as a result of his numerous books and articles in the fields of natural sciences, world history, art, health, and political-economy, his creation of the Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT) and his role as spiritual teacher of the social service, spiritual movement Ananda Marga.²

COPENHAGEN, Feb. 1 — Broadening a debate that has set Europe against the Islamic world, several European newspapers on Wednesday reprinted cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering light, supporting a Danish newspaper that had inspired a huge outcry in the Islamic world by publishing them in the first place.

"As a general rule human beings should not kill animals in any circumstances. The exception to this rule is when human life is in danger."

Sarkar has described the inner spirit of society as to “move together”. Society originated as a family in the early phase, and was strengthened subsequently under the guidance of group mothers and group fathers. Later, with growing social complexity, group leaders emerged as kings and queens. The emergence of classical religion made the social structure stronger under the dominance of the priestly class.

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't.

Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

The formation of a World Government will require a world constitution. A charter of principles or bill of rights should be included in such a constitution and encompass at least the following four areas:

For some it was a vile capitalist plot aimed at rewriting the recent history of half of Europe, transforming wartime resistance heroes into villains, and denying the laudable ideals and legitimacy of a great political movement.

For others it was a long-overdue denunciation of a couple of dozen thoroughly evil regimes who wrecked their nations' economies, tortured their citizens, and between them were responsible for up to 100 million deaths.

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Iran said the United Nations was being ``manipulated for political purposes'' in its first official observance today of the memory of the Holocaust.

The UN's 191 member governments agreed on Nov. 1 to make Jan. 27 the annual ``International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust.'' The decision was taken by consensus in the General Assembly, which means Iran didn't formally object or call for a vote on the resolution.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Dramatic differences emerged this week among Latin American leftists at Venezuela's World Social Forum, highlighting the region's diverse views.

About 1,000 marchers paraded through Caracas on Friday to call attention to causes ranging from land reform to anti-globalization. The crowd was dominated by supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but one small group calling itself Radical Critics held a sign accusing the Venezuelan president and other leaders of not taking a hard-enough stance against corporate capitalism.

Deseret Morning News: Last fall, Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones made headlines when he charged that the World Trade Center collapsed because of "pre-positioned explosives." Now, along with a group that calls itself "Scholars for 9/11 Truth," he's upping the ante.

"We believe that senior government officials have covered up crucial facts about what really happened on 9/11," the group says in a statement released Friday announcing its formation. "We believe these events may have been orchestrated by the administration in order to manipulate the American people into supporting policies at home and abroad."