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YUVA BHARATI 3 NOVEMBER 2006 YUVA BHARATI Vol. 34 No.4 A Vivekananda Kendra Publication VOICE OF YOUTH Founder Editor 04 Editorial P.Parameswaran MANANEEYA EKNATHJI RANADE Editor: P. PARAMESWARAN 10 Yathecchasi Tatha Kuru M.Lakshmi Kumari Editorial Office: 14 Sister Nivedita N.Krishnamoorti 5, Singarachari Street Triplicane, Chennai - 600 005 19 Sakthi Dr.K.Subrahmanyam Ph:(044) 28440042 Email:[email protected] 23 Hymn To Durga Sri Aurobindo Web: www.vkendra.org 26 A Brief Life Story -- SingleCopy Rs. 7/- Annual Rs. 75/- 33 Charaiveti! Charaiveti!! Satish Chowkulkar For 3 yrs: Rs. 200/- Life(20Yrs)Rs.800/- 42 V.K.Samachar - (Plus Rs. 30/- for outstation Cheques) -- Swami Vivekananda àawRna INVOCATION YUVA BHARATI 4 NOVEMBER 2006 the greatest Sadhana for every one at this precious moment in the life of our nation. This motherland of ours has been charting her course to guide the humanity in spite of hundreds of years of persecution and nearly a thousand year of foreign rule and oppression. At every time of need, the deep conscience or the ethos of our Spiritually Motherland responded to the peculiar situation or problem by bringing up a Oriented Service great personality or an organisation. Therefore each national, cultural and 9 November - the birth spiritual organization of this land anniversary of Mananeeya represents a specific response of 1 Eknathji, founder of Mother India. Hence, to carry out the Vivekananda Kendra, is celebrated purpose of each organization, its in Kendra as Sadhana Diwas. This Karyakartas have to understand what day is utilized by the Kendra role they have to play and what ‘need’ Karyakartas to thoroughly understand they have to fulfill. the thoughts of Eknathji about this In this respect it would be worthwhile movement and internalize the same. to see how Eknathji understood this This is the day on which each need and how he placed the same karyakarta takes up a specific before the Karyakartas of responsibility in the Kendra Karya Vivekananda Kendra. He said, and all through the year puts forth his/ “People of our country are, by her best efforts to fulfill it. Each citizen tradition, religion-minded and this needs to understand the mission of country is therefore described as a our nation and strive hard to merge land of religion and spirituality. his individuality with it to make it the Swami Vivekananda used to say that mission of his/her own. This alone is the soul of our country is in religion. YUVA BHARATI 5 NOVEMBER 2006 The highest and the ultimate goal, or degradation are also in the Purushartha, aspired for by the ascendant. How is this paradox to be people of our country is Mukti… explained? “If going to temples, visiting places of “…Any discerning mind will be able pilgrimage, participating in Bhajans, to see that a distorted conception of Yagnyas and Anusthanas as also religion is the root cause of most of listening to philosophical and our ills for the last several centuries, religious discourses by millions of which persist even today. It is rightly people, or the presence of numerous said that religion is the soul of our religious teachers, gurus and such country. But, as that itself is blurred, other men of God all over the country we have the sorry spectacle of are the manifestations of a growing deterioration all round. religiosity, our country is, perhaps, “Religious awakening means more religious today than it ever was experiencing the presence of God in at any time in the past. one’s own self and in the world. That “But, unfortunately, the natural impact makes one conscious of the divine of this apparent God-wardness of the within and urges him to work for its general society is little in evidence unfoldment and enables him to grow today. Purposeful living, discipline, spiritually. Simultaneously, it character, truthfulness, fellow-feeling, generates in him a sense of oneness fearlessness, subordination of the with God’s creation and, self and a zest for works of public consequently, an intense fellow- good, which are some of the traits feeling for the members of his own that develop in a God-ward society species – the human race – and and which, we have enough evidence prompts him to work with zest for to say, existed in good measure in our human welfare and progress… If, and country in the past, are seen fast as long as, the religious awakening disappearing from our midst. intensifies on these lines, it is Ironically enough, with the apparent dynamic and full of tremendous religious fervour presently on the potentialities for the transformation of increase, general corruption, in- humanity into higher and higher discipline and other kinds of moral planes of existence. But, if it remains YUVA BHARATI 6 NOVEMBER 2006 limited to rituals, forms of worship and around us, the Virat (Janata offerings to God, or prayers and Janardan) When we have praises addressed to Him, it worshipped this, we shall be able to becomes static and has hardly any worship all other gods.” role to play in human advancement. A Two-pronged Movement: The Need “Swami Vivekananda was the of the Hour: The remedy for the ills of foremost among the modern religious our country, therefore, lies in teachers who strove to take out launching a mighty movement of right religion from that static condition into thought sweeping the entire country. which it had degenerated over the It has to be a two-pronged move. On centuries, and drew the attention of the one hand, it is to be aimed at (1) the people to its real role. He pointed transforming our people’s inherent out in no uncertain terms that God-wardness into the right spiritual ceremonies and forms are not the urge rising out of the teachings of the essence of religion but that it lies Upanishads, namely, (a) each soul is rather in the realization of a higher life. potentially divine and (b) faith in God, He said, ‘We may study all the books in turn means faith in one’s self, i.e. that are in the world, yet we may not in one’s potentiality to rise to divine understand a word of religion or of heights. On the other hand, it is (2) to God. …Religion is not in doctrines or convert the spiritual fervour thus dogmas, nor in intellectual released into works of national argumentation. It is realisation in the reconstruction”. heart of hearts; it is touching God; it Vivekananda Kendra works with the is feeling, realising that I am a spirit twin ideals of Man – making and in relation with Universal Spirit and all Nation-building. Man-making means its great manifestations.’ To those giving confidence to a person to rise who lost themselves only in forms and to divine heights and work for the rituals, turning their back on the nation with a feeling of Oneness. people and the misery that had Nation building is possible only by befallen them, he said, ‘What vain creating teams of such men who gods shall we go after and yet cannot would take up the work of national worship the god that we see all reconstruction to fulfill her mission of YUVA BHARATI 7 NOVEMBER 2006 guiding the world in spirituality. Thus, is the soul of this nation. But, if our the service activities of Kendra do not understanding of Dharma gets limited depend on the occurrence of to lifeless outer forms then the nation cyclones, earthquakes, poverty etc. declines and the society becomes Mananeeya Eknathji says in ‘Sadhana callous and indifferent. Its of Service’, “If we are merely a assertiveness is affected. Therefore, service-oriented organization, we will the need is to stress the right meaning have to pray to God to create of Dharma, to imbibe the life giving cyclones, floods, famines and principles of Sanatana Dharma accidents to provide us opportunities embedded in Upanishads, so that our of service. Service with a spiritual life is transformed and our energies orientation results in man making, are channelised for rebuilding the which is invariably and inseparably nation. What are the sublime connected with nation building. It is principles of Sanatana Dharma? The the core of all our thoughts behind this whole existence is the expression of organization.” Real service is the Divine and hence, the family, awakening a person to his potential society, nation and the whole creation divinity and making him realise the - ever expanding circles of purpose of life. The purpose of life Consciousness - are linked to each also has to be the fulfillment of the other. Each soul is potentially divine mission of this nation. The mission of and the goal of life is to manifest that this nation has been to evolve an Ideal divinity. This manifestation is Social Order based on the vision of possible through Yoga - the time- Oneness seen by the sages of our tested science. This thought of Yoga nation. This spiritually oriented - the way of life - is therefore to be service is what Kendra intends to do. propagated. There is another dimension of Yoga means uniting with the ever spiritually oriented service too. expanding, larger dimensions of our Vivekananda Kendra is also Self. It is integration with our nation. considered as a thought movement. Making Yoga the core of each activity Which thought does Kendra want to of Kendra means awakening the work out as an organisation? Dharma confidence in one’s own divine nature YUVA BHARATI 8 NOVEMBER 2006 and in channelising the energy thus and honestly to the best of our ability released for national reconstruction. with an attitude of being a tool only.