1 Renunciation : By Gopal Krishna <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
2 Freedom Fighters' Biographies : Lal Bahadur Shastri: By Gaurav <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
1 Renunciation : By Gopal Krishna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear brothers and sisters,
In this mail, Swami Vivekananda's thoughts on importance of renunciation for bringing social transformation are enunciated. It was Swami Vivekananda's book "Swami Vivekananda: His Call to the nation" which gave birth to our Mission: all of you are requested to buy and read this book to fully realise the spirit behind BM. ( available online here - http://www.advaitaonline.com/oct_shop/lpb_page1.htm )
Swami Ji said: We all want to become leaders without making the necessary sacrifice and the result is zero. No one listens to us. The leader is one who says, "Let me sacrifice my head first in this movement.
He exhorted all of us : Go from door to door, preaching the gospel of equality and universal oneness of whole humanity, entire existence and consciousness. Go from village to village, from town to town, doing good to humanity.
National Ideals of BM are service (selfless service of mankind) and renunciation (renunciation of lower self). BM is born out of these ideals and it will be alive as long we all follow these ideals without any compromise . "What our country needs are some young men who will renounce everything and sacrifice their lives for their country's sake. Only such men can do some real work. I too believe that India will awake again, if anyone could love with all his heart the people of the country - bereft of the grace of affluence, of blasted fortune, their discretion totally lost, downtrodden, ever-starved, quarrelsome, and envious. Then only will India awake, when hundreds of large-hearted men and women, giving up all desires of enjoying the luxuries of life, will long and exert themselves to their utmost for the well-being of the millions of their countrymen who are gradually sinking lower and lower in the vortex of destitution and ignorance". Let all of us purify ourselves for a life of service and renunciation.
In the book of Karma Yoga , Swami Ji has given a soul-elevating example to make us understand the meaning of renunciation. The idea of complete self-sacrifice is illustrated in the following story.
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After the battle of Kurukshetra the five Pandava brothers performed a great sacrifice and made very large gifts to the poor. All people expressed amazement at the greatness of the sacrifice, and said that such a sacrifice the world had never seen before. But, after the ceremony, there came a little mongoose; half his body was golden, and the other half was brown; and he began to roll on the floor of the sacrificial hall. He said to those around, "You are all liars; this is no sacrifice." "What!" they exclaimed, "you say this is no sacrifice; do you not know how much money and jewels were poured out to the poor and everyone became rich and happy ? This was the most wonderful sacrifice any man has ever performed."
But the mongoose said, "There was once a little village, and in it there dwelt a poor farmer with his wife, his son, and his son's wife. They were very poor and lived on whatever they got from farming on their small land. There came in that region a three years' famine, and the poor farmer suffered more than ever. At last when the family had starved for days, the father brought home one morning a little barley flour, which he had been fortunate enough to obtain, and he divided it into four parts, one for each member of the family. They prepared it for their meal, and just as they were about to eat there was a knock at the door. The father opened it, and there stood a guest. Now in India a guest is a sacred person; he is as a god for the time being, and must be treated as such. So the poor farmer said, "Come in, sir, you are welcome." He set before the guest his own portion of the food, which the guest quickly ate and said, "Oh, sir, you have killed me; I have been starving for ten days, and this little bit has but increased my hunger." Then the wife said to her husband, "Give him my share"; but the husband said, "Not so." The wife however insisted, saying, "Here is a poor man, and it is our duty to see that he is fed, and it is my duty as a wife to give him my portion, seeing that you have no more to offer him." Then she gave her share to the guest, which he ate, and said he was still burning with hunger. So the son said, "Take my portion also; it is the duty of a son to help his father to fulfil his obligations." The guest ate that, but remained still unsatisfied; so the son's wife gave him her portion also. That was sufficient, and the guest departed, blessing them. That night those four people died of starvation. A few granules of that flour had fallen on the floor, and when I rolled my body on them, half of it became golden, as you see. Since then I have been travelling all over the world, hoping to find another one; nowhere else has the other half of my body has been turned into gold. That is why I say this is no sacrifice."
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dear brothers and sisters, this is what is the meaning of national service; even at the point of death to help anyone, without asking questions; to live and die for one's ideals; to give whole body, mind and soul to the service of mankind.
Are you prepared for such a life: the freedom that we enjoy today have been attained only by such sacrifices. Do you know the story of our martyr Jatindra Nath Das : he was a revolutionary of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He was tried in Lahore Conspiracy Case along with Bhagat Singh and his comrades.
In the Lahore jail, Jatin Das, along with other prisoners, started a hunger strike demanding jail reforms and rights of prisoners and undertrials. This memorable hunger strike started on 13 July 1929 and lasted 63 days. The jail authority took many measures to feed Jatin, including attempts to feed forcefully. However, Jatindra did not eat. He died, hunger strike unbroken, on 13 September.As his body was carried from Lahore to Kolkata by train, thousands of people rushed to every station to pay their homage to the martyr. A two-mile long procession in Kolkata carried the coffin to the cremation ground.
The hunger strike of Jatin Das in prison was one crucial moment in the resistance against illegal detentions, and highlighted cold-hearted brutality of British colonialism.
Such was the courage and idealism shown by our patriots in resisting oppression and injustice :
if you think that the present India does not need such courage, please read below mail
ref: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bharatudaymission/message/2092
to know the miseries of crores of unprivileged brethren of our country .
dear brothers and sisters, this is no sentimentalism, but a reality that BM needs supreme renunciation of thousands of youths, who will devote whole life to the Mission, giving no thought to any personal goal; youths who will join BM fulltime after fulfilling their crucial family responsibilities in next 3-6 years . If you are one such youth whose heart is filled with the fire of renunciation for the nation and humanity and who is willing to dedicate fulltime to the Mission after few years , we welcome you to be a part of BM_fulltime group : the group of all "future fulltime members" : please join it by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and please enter your details here :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bharatudaymission/database?method=addRecord&tbl=14
This mail is not for motivating anyone: this is addressed to those who are already motivated with supreme courage, conviction and "do-or-die spirit" for the nation and humanity.
May God bless BM with thousands of "Patriotic Monks" , thousands of "fulltime members" - may we all develop such purity and inner convictions to dedicate our entire lives at the altar of motherland to sanctify the glorious legacy of service and renunciation for the nation, which has been bequeathed to us by our countless sages and martyrs.
"We have only one passion,
The rise of a great nation."
Vande Matram,
Gopal Krishna
B. Tech Computer Science
IIT Kanpur
2 Freedom Fighters' Biographies : Lal Bahadur Shastri: By Gaurav <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Lal Bahadur Shastri-"Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan"
Lal Bahadur Shastri (born 1904) succeeded Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister of India in 1964. Though eclipsed by such stalwarts of the Congress party as Kamaraj (the Kingmaker) and Morarji Desai, Finance Minister in Nehru's government, Shastri emerged as the consensus candidate in the midst of party warfare. He had not been in power long before he had to attend to the difficult matter of Pakistani aggression, along the Rann of Kutch; and though a cease-fire under the auspices of the United Nations put a temporary halt to the fighting, the scene of conflict soon shifted to the more troubled spot of Kashmir. While Pakistan claimed that a spontaneous uprising against the Indian occupation of Kashmir had taken place, India charged Pakistan with fomenting sedition inside its territory and sending armed raiders into Jammu and Kashmir from Azad Kashmir. Shastri promised to meet force with force, and by early September the second Indo-Pakistan war had commenced.
Though the Indian army reached the outskirts of Lahore, Shastri agreed to withdraw Indian forces. He had always been identified with the interests of the working class and peasants since the days of his involvement with the freedom struggle, and now his popularity agree. But his triumph was short-lived: invited in January 1966 by the Russian Premier, Aleksei Kosygin, to Tashkent for a summit with General Muhammad Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan and commander of the nation's armed forces, Shastri suffered a fatal heart attack hours after signing a treaty where India and Pakistan agreed to not meddle in each other's internal affairs and "not to have recourse to force and to settle their disputes through peaceful means. Shastri's body was brought back to India, and a memorial, not far from the national memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, was built to honor him. It says, in fitting testimony to Shastri, "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan" ("Honor the Soldier, Honor the Farmer"). He is, however, a largely forgotten figure, another victim of the engineering of India's social memory by Indira Gandhi and her clan.
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Thanks and Regards,
Saurabh Bharat
09826959161
Co-ordinator
Information Management Team
(Bharat Uday Mission)
"We have only one Passion
The Rise of a Great Nation."
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