Merry Christmas

క్రిస్మస్ శుభాకాంక్షలు
2009

What is dharma? What is mukti?

What is dharma? Dharma is that which makes us seek for happiness in this world or the next. Dharma is established on karma, and it impels us day and night to run after and work for happiness.

What is mukti? That which teaches that even the happiness in this life is slavery, and the same is true of the happiness in the life to come, because neither this world nor the next is beyond the laws of nature... Again, happiness, wherever it may be, being within the laws of nature, is subject to death and will not last ad infinitum. So we must aspire to become mukta. We must go beyond the bondage of the body. Slavery will not do.

From "The East and the West," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 5.446.

Everybody wants to be a leader

Here in India, everybody wants to be a leader, and there is nobody to obey. Everyone should learn to obey before he can command. There is no end to our jealousies; and the more important the Hindu, the more jealous he is. Until this absence of jealousy and obedience to leaders are learnt by the Hindu, there will be no power of organization. We shall have to remain the hopelessly confused mob that we are now, hoping and doing nothing.

Interview in The Hindu. Chennai, 1896. Complete Works, 5: 216.

శ్రీ కౌముది డిసెంబర్ 2009

Our Tendencies

Our tendencies are the result of past conscious actions. A child is born with certain tendencies. Whence do they come? No child is born with a tabula rasa--with a clean, blank page--of a mind. The page has been written on previously. The old Greek and Egyptian philosophers taught that no child came with a vacant mind. Each child comes with a hundred tendencies generated by past conscious actions. The child did not acquire these in this life, and we are bound to admit that it must have acquired them in past lives.

Talk given at Unity Hall, Hartford (Connecticut), USA, on March 8, 1895, as reported in "Hartford Times" (March 11, 1895). Complete Works, 1.320-21.

Infinite Freedom

In whom is the universe, who is in the universe, who is the universe; in whom is the Soul, who is in the soul, who is the soul; knowing that Truth--and therefore the universe--as our Self, alone extinguishes all fear, brings an end to misery, and leads to infinite freedom.

Written by Swami Vivekananda in March 1899, to be included in the prospectus of the Advaita Ashrama at Mayavati in the Himalayas. Complete Works, 5.435.

A nation can ignore its minorities only at its peril

Excerpt from the speech of Home Minister P. Chidambaram

"A nation can ignore its minorities only at its peril. The golden rule in a democracy is that it is the duty of the majority to protect the minority, be it religious, racial or linguistic. It is a self-evident rule. It is a rule that is firmly rooted in the universality of human rights," Chidambaram said at the conference being organised by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind.

He condemned all manifestations of communalism and said: "The worst kind of communalism is unleashing communal violence. Violence and violent means to achieve any objective is the antithesis of a civilised society governed by the rule of law.

కౌముది నవంబర్ 2009

Caste in a new mould

The Other Side | Mrinal Pande

The usual definition of caste oppression can no longer explain emerging patterns of dominance

Actually, the traditional characteristics and power of the Brahmins in the traditional upper caste hierarchy (high learning, arrogance and clever use of a certain elite language to build firewalls around knowledge and information to keep it away from the commoners) are now much more visible among India’s upper middle-class professionals, whatever their caste. Whether backward, Dalit or forward, successful children of the new dominant classes no longer acquire their basic knowledge, skills and networking abilities in Brahminical Sanskrit, but in English. Likewise, the power of the old-style, landowning Thakur (Kshatriya), who killed a thousand tigers and routinely torched Dalit huts, has been usurped by today’s political class, who ride lal batti cars with similar disregard for laws, sirens blaring and black cat commandos in tow. They hold power dialogues with neighbouring warlords, make and break treaties—not the princes and nawabs who, if they have not become penniless, have turned hoteliers and protectors of wildlife. The traditional merchant class, thanks to family-based businesses, may have retained some part of their old glory, but in the global arena they are now heavily dependent on the neo-Brahmin: the Indian Institute of Management-trained, multinationalized manager, banker and expat consultant, who strides the global village and carries vital knowledge in his laptop, as a Brahmin once carried in his almanac.

All caste systems need a cleaning class. They are today the invisible and unorganized freelancers. Moving from job to job, they help mop up the night soil of the global village and provide the paymasters with linguistic bridges into the vernacular heartland, where the markets are also the votes.

Excerpt from Mrinal Pande's column

Was it corruption that destroyed India from within in the past?

Mother India

Atanu Dey on India's Development ...

9 October 2009

Will Durant (1885 - 1981) was an American historian, writer and philosopher. His most famous work is the 11-volume “The Story of Civilization”, published between 1935 and 1975. In a 1931 work, “The Case for India“, he had this to say about India.

India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
[Wikiquote]

It is hard to reconcile today’s India with the great civilization that India once was. Something must have gone wrong. Durant wrote, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

Was it corruption that destroyed India from within in the past? And is it now in its final phase being totally destroyed by corruption?

Religion is a constitutional necessity of the human mind

Religion is a constitutional necessity of the human mind. The proof of one religion depends on the proof of all the rest. For instance, if I have six fingers, and no one else has, you may well say that is abnormal. The same reasoning may be applied to the argument that only one religion is true and all others false. One religion only, like one set of six fingers in the world, would be unnatural. We see, therefore, that if one religion is true, all others must be true. There are differences in the non-essentials, but in essentials they are all one.

Talk given at Unity Hall, Hartford (Connecticut), USA, on March 8, 1895,
as reported in "Hartford Times" (March 11, 1895). Complete Works, 1.318.

A perfect sannyāsin

I am a disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a perfect sannyāsin whose influence and ideas I fell under. This great sannyāsin never assumed the negative or critical attitude towards other religions, but showed their positive side--how they could be carried into life and practiced. To fight, to assume the antagonistic attitude, is the exact contrary of his teaching, which dwells on the truth that the world is moved by love.

Interview. London, 1896. Complete Works, 5.190.

కౌముది అక్టొబర్ 2009

DNA Survey of Indian Heritage

Indian ancestry revealed in massive study

IANS
First Published : 25 Sep 2009 03:19:58 PM IST
Last Updated : 25 Sep 2009 03:58:48 PM IST

LONDON: The largest ever DNA survey of Indian heritage has revealed that the population of India was founded on just two ancient groups that are as genetically distinct from each other as they are from other Asians.

The findings of the study, conducted by a group of top international geneticists, have strong implications for health and medicine, and reveal important new information on caste in India.

The study shows that most Indian populations are genetic admixtures of two ancient but genetically divergent groups, which each contributed around 40-60 percent of the DNA to most present-day Indians, Nature magazine reported Wednesday.

One ancestral lineage - genetically similar to Middle Eastern, Central Asian and European populations - was higher in upper-caste individuals and speakers of Indo-European languages such as Hindi, the researchers found.

The other lineage was not close to any group outside the Indian subcontinent, and was most common in people indigenous to the Andaman islands, says the study conducted by a team led by David Reich of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Lalji Singh of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India.

Nature said that although India makes up around one-sixth of the world's population, it has been "sorely under-represented" in genome-wide studies of human genetic variation.

The Indian Genome Variation database, launched in 2003 to fill the gap, has so far studied only 420 DNA-letter differences, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), in 75 genes.

In sharp contrast, the study reported by Nature has probed more than 560,000 SNPs across the genomes of 132 Indian individuals from 25 diverse ethnic and tribal groups dotted all over India.

The researchers also found that Indian populations were much more highly subdivided than European populations. But whereas European ancestry is mostly carved up by geography, Indian segregation was driven largely by caste.

"There are populations that have lived in the same town and same village for thousands of years without exchanging genes," said Reich.

The authors of the study said the new genetic evidence refutes the claim that the Indian caste structure was a modern invention of British colonialism.

"This idea that caste is thousands of years old is a big deal," said Nicole Boivin, an Oxford University archaeologist.

"To say that endogamy (the practice of marrying within a caste, community or tribe) goes back so far, and that genetics shows it, is going to be controversial to many anthropologists.

"The study also suggests that Indian populations, although currently huge in number, were founded by relatively small bands of individuals - a finding that has clinical implications.

"There will be a lot of recessive diseases in India that will be different in each population and that can be searched for and mapped genetically," Reich said.

"That will be important for health in India."

The Man Of The Mass-Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy

"Don't count the years you want to live. Ask yourself how much you have done for society at large with whatever opportunities the Almighty has provided you", are the words of Dr.Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy. The dynamic political leader who proved the worth of his words with his undying spirit of service especially for the downtrodden, met a sad death in a helicopter crash on top of Rudrakonda Hill, 40 nautical miles from Kurnool.

Read the rest of the story by Priya Devi R

కౌముది సెప్టెంబర్ 2009

If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it's worth living?

PLAYBOY: If life is so purposeless, do you feel that it’s worth living?

KUBRICK: Yes, for those of us manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make then – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

Excerpt from : "Stanley Kubrick: interviews By Stanley Kubrick, Gene D. Phillips"

I claim no supernatural authority ....

My teaching is my own interpretation of our ancient books, in the light which my Master shed upon them. I claim no supernatural authority. Whatever in my teaching may appeal to the highest intelligence and be accepted by thinking people, the adoption of that will be my reward.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5.186.

All religions have for their object the teaching either of devotion, knowledge, or yoga, in a concrete form. Now, the philosophy of Vedanta is the abstract science which embraces all these methods, this it is that I teach, leaving each one to apply it to their own concrete forms. I refer each individual to their own experiences, and where reference is made to books, the latter are procurable, and may be studied by anyone. Above all, I teach no authority proceeding from hidden beings speaking through visible agents, any more than I claim learning from hidden books or manuscripts. I am not an exponent of any occult society, nor do I believe that good can come of such bodies. Truth stands on its own authority, and truth can bear the light of day.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5.186-87.

I had a deep interest in religion and philosophy from my childhood, and our books teach renunciation as the highest ideal to which we can aspire. It only needed the meeting with a great Teacher--Ramakrishna Paramahamsa--to kindle in me the final determination to follow the path he himself had trod, as in him I found my highest ideal realized.

Interview, October 23, 1895. Complete Works, 5: 186

Concentrating the powers of the mind is the only way to knowledge. In external science, concentrating the mind is--putting it on something external; and in the internal science, it is--drawing towards one's Self. This concentration of mind we call Yoga.

Conversation at Harvard, 1896. Complete Works, 5.299.

All morality can be divided into the positive and the negative elements. It says either "Do this" or "Do not do this." When it says, "Do not," it is evident that it is a check to a certain desires which would make us slaves. When it says, "Do," its scope is to show the way to freedom and to the breaking down of a certain degradation which has already seized the human heart.

Written in answer to a question put by a Western Disciple. Complete Works, 8.147.

Those who depend upon the world for enjoyment are the "bound" (tāmasika). Then there are the "egotistical" (rājasika), who always talk about "I," "I," "I." They do great work sometimes and may become spiritual. But the highest are the "introspective" (sāttvika), who live only in the Ātman.

Retreat given at the Thousand Island Park, USA. June 25, 1895. Complete Works, 7.12.

When you give something to a man and expect nothing--do not even expect the man to be grateful--his ingratitude will not affect you, because you never expected anything, never thought you had any right to anything in the way of return. You gave him what he deserved. His own karma got it for him, your karma made you the carrier thereof. Why should you be proud of having given away something? You are the porter that carried the money or other kind of gift, and the world deserved it by its own karma. Where is then the reason for pride in you? There is nothing very great in what you give to the world.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 3, 1896. Complete Works, 1.90.

కౌముది ఆగస్ట్ 2009

కౌముది జూలై 2009

Truth and Sannyasa

Truth is of two kinds: (1) that which is known through the five ordinary senses and by reasoning based thereon; (2) that which is known through the subtle, supersensuous power of yoga.

Knowledge acquired by the first means is called science; and knowledge acquired by the second is called the Vedas.

From "Hinduism and Sri Ramakrishna," originally written in Bengali. Complete Works, 6.181.

Sannyāsa is recognized in the Vedas without making any distinction between men and women. Do you remember how Yājñavalkya was questioned at the court of King Janaka? His principal examiner was Vācaknavī, the maiden orator--Brahmāvadinī, as the word of the day was. "Like two shining arrows in the hand of the skilled archer," she says, "are my questions." Her gender is not even commented upon. Again, could anything be more complete than the equality of boys and girls in our old forest universities? Read our Sanskrit dramas--read the story of Śakuntalā, and see if Tennyson's "Princess" has anything to teach us!

Interview in the Prabuddha Bharata. December 1898. Complete Works, 5.230.

కౌముది: జూన్ 2009

కౌముది: మే 2009

The eternal fragrance of Mahakavi Sri Sri

How does one describe a poet, writer, lyricist, progressive thinker and a great personality like Sri Sri (Srirangam Srinivasa Rao)? It is best to describe him in his own words perhaps. He once said,“1930 daaka Telugu sahithyam nannu nadipinchindi. Aa tharvaatha nunchi daanni nene nadipisthunaanu (Till the 1930s, Telugu literature guided me, after that, I am guiding her). Even after his death in 1983, Sri Sri continued to guide Telugu literature. He would continue to do so, like Mahakavi Gurazada, as long as Telugu language and literature exist.

If the scriptures cannot help!!!

If the scriptures cannot help all people in all conditions at all times, of what use, then, are such scriptures? If the scriptures show the way to only the monk and not to the householder, then what need has a householder for such one-sided scriptures? If the scriptures can only help people when they give up all work and retire into the forests, and cannot show the way of lighting the lamp of hope in the hearts people of the workaday world--in the midst of their daily toil, disease, misery, and poverty, in the despondency of the penitent, in the self-reproach of the downtrodden, in the terror of the battlefield, in lust, anger and pleasure, in the joy of victory, in the darkness of defeat, and finally, in the dreaded night of death--then weak humanity has no need at all of such scriptures, and such scriptures will be no scriptures at all!

Sayings and Utterances. Complete Works, 5.420-21.

The day was memorable

Dalit voters taste freedom at last

By By Our Correspondent

Apr 27 2009

hyderabad

April 26: For Mrs D. Lakshmamma, a middle-aged labourer, April 23 was a day of triumph. She was able to cast her vote freely at last, enjoying a privilege which thousands of Dalits have been denied since Independence.

The day was memorable in another sense too. Mrs Lakshmamma, a resident of Bandameeda Harijanawada, a Dalit colony, walked across the main streets of Kalicherla village to reach the polling station. This too was a rare privilege.

The 2009 general elections will be remembered for many things. But for this group of Dalit families, it was a day when they tasted real freedom for the first time, braving the threat of feudal lords who had dominated them all their lives.

“After reaching the polling station I was doubtful whether they will allow me to vote because I don’t have a voter ID card,” said Mrs. Lakshmamma. However, the polling staff allowed her to vote since she had brought her ration card as proof of identity. It may be surprising to many, but in the politically vibrant Chittoor district, there are about 50 villages where Dalits and Muslims do not dare to cast their vote. Elections to local bodies will always be unanimous in these villages that fall in Chandragiri and Tamballapalli assembly constituencies. When elections take place for the Assembly or Parliament the voters’ lists will have the names of Dalits but they will never see a polling booth.

“Ironically, the polling percentage used to be 90 per cent in booths under which the Dalit colonies fell,” said the Chittoor district collector, Mr Ravichandra.

This time, the collector and the superintendent of police, Mr K. Lakshmi Reddy, took the initiative to instill courage among Dalits after some organisations complained to the chief electoral officer, Dr I.V. Subba Rao, about the stranglehold of feudal lords. But the arrogant feudal lords brazenly said that they would spend Rs 1 crore to ‘manage’ the authorities.

To restrain them, the collector ordered the police to slap cases under SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act against those who tried to stop Dalits from voting.

The Dalits are happy at getting the right to vote but are also afraid of retaliation. The district collector has assured them that he would keep a continuous vigil to prevent this.

కౌముది: ఏప్రిల్ 2009

Email in Indian Languages

When you compose a new mail in Gmail, you should now see an icon with an Indian character, as the screenshot below shows. This feature is enabled by default for Gmail users in India. If you do not see this function enabled by default, you will need to go the "Settings" page and enable this option in the "Language" section.

When you click the Indian languages icon, you can type words the way they sound in English and Gmail will automatically convert the word to its Indian local language equivalent. For example, if a Hindi speaker types "namaste" we will transliterate this to "नमस्ते." Similarly, "vanakkam" in Tamil will become "வணக்கம்." We currently support five Indian languages -- Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam -- and you can select the language of your choice from the drop-down list next to the icon.

We built this new feature using Google's transliteration technology, which is also available on Google India Labs, Orkut, Blogger and iGoogle. I hope you find this feature useful to communicate with those of your friends and family who prefer to write in their native language, and it will be available soon to businesses and schools using Google Apps. Now back to replying to all those Hindi emails I got from my family and friends today!

Posted by Chandramouli Mahadevan, Software Engineer

Don't -touchism

What do you consider to be the function of your movement as regards India?
Vivekananda: To find the common bases of Hinduism and awaken the national consciousness to them. At present there are three parties in India included under the term "Hindu"--the orthodox, the reforming sects of the Muslim period, and the reforming sects of the present time. Hindus from North to South are only agreed on one point, viz. on not eating beef.

With which of these three parties do you identify yourself, Swamiji?

Vivekananda: With all of them. We are orthodox Hindus, but we refuse entirely to identify ourselves with "Don't-touchism." That is not Hinduism: it is in none of our books; it is an unorthodox superstition which has interfered with national efficiency all along the line.

Interview in the Prabuddha Bharata. September 1898. Complete Works, 5: 226

Karma Yoga

Here are two Sanskrit words: Pravṛtti, which means revolving towards, and the other is Nivṛtti, which means revolving away. The "revolving towards" is what we call the world, the "I and mine"; it includes all those things which are always enriching that "me" by wealth and money and power, and name and fame, and which are of a grasping nature, always tending to accumulate everything in one center, that center being "myself." That is the Pravṛtti, the natural tendency of every human being; taking everything from everywhere and heaping it around one center, that center being our own sweet self.

When this tendency begin to break, when it is Nivṛtti, or "going away from," then begin morality and religion. ... Nivṛtti is the fundamental basis of all morality and all religion, and the very perfection of it is entire self-abnegation, readiness to sacrifice mind and body and everything for another being. When we reach that state, we have attained to the perfection of Karma Yoga.

Class on Karma Yoga. New York, January 3, 1896. Complete Works, 1.85-86.

ఎంసిఎక్స్ స్టాక్ ఎక్స్ఛేంజి

MCX SX launches Telugu website

ఎంసిఎక్స్ స్టాక్ ఎక్స్ఛేంజి (ఎంసిఎక్స్—ఎస్ఎక్స్) దిగుమతిదారులు, ఎగుమతిదారులు, పెట్టుబడిదారులు, కార్పోరేషన్లు మరియు బ్యాంకులు వారి ద్రవ్య ప్రమాదావకాశాలను తక్కవ ధరలో మరియు గొప్యత పారదర్శకతతో మరియు భద్రతతో హెడ్జ్ చేయుటకు వీలు కల్పిస్తుంది. పెద్ద సంఖ్యలే బ్యాంకులు, కార్పోరేటే మరియు బ్రోకరేజ్ హౌస్లు వారి ట్రేడింగు సభ్యులుగా, ఉండడం వలన ఎంసిఎక్స్—ఎస్ఎక్స్ ఆశించిన ప్రమాణాలలో లిక్విడిటీ మరియు డెప్తును అన్ని వర్గాలు వాడకందార్లకు ఎక్కువగా అందజేస్తుంది. ఇంకా, ఎంసిఎక్స్—ఎస్ఎక్స్ అన్ని వ్యవహారాలకు పూచీకర్తగా ఉంటూ ప్రతీవాది వలన కలుగు ఇబ్బందుల నుండి తొలగిస్తు అన్ని వ్యవహారాలకు భద్రతను కలిపిస్తుంది. పెద్ద వాడకందార్లకే కాకుండా, ఎంసిఎక్స్—ఎస్ఎక్స్ చిన్న మరియు మధ్య తరహా వ్యాపారస్థులకు (ఎస్ఎంఈ లకు) మరియు భారతీయ నివాసులకు, ద్రవ్య మార్పిడి మార్కెట్ ను అందుబాటులోకి తెస్తూ ఇదివరకంతగా లభించని ధరనిర్ణయించే సామర్థ్యానికి పెంపొందించి ప్రయోజనము చేకూరుస్తుంది.

కౌముది: మార్చ్ 2009

Indian Railways

Read story ... A Very Good Indian Railways Documentary by Nat Geo.

కౌముది : ఫిబ్రవరి 2009

సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

Koumudi: January 2009