Uttishth Bhārat

I often think that this species of bipedal creatures called Humans is an intriguing one. It puts on a piece of cotton and compliments a mate on it, it is the human species alone which resorts to songs and stories to achieve a sense of belongingness.  As it might be with many, there are particular tunes, couplets, images, smells which are so deeply impressed upon our hearts that a faint reference to a miniscule of that song or poem pulls us into that domain which the human calls Nostalgia.  It was during the testing times of pandemic and subsequent lockdown that I had the chance to glance into arenas hitherto non existent to me. भारतीय अभिजात संगीत was one of them.  As Mallikarjun Mansur precisely pinned down that this genre of Music gets onto one's nerves like a snake's venom..  ~'हे गाणं चढ़तं' .  Just as we came to the closure of Jyesth Purnima, the banyan city woke up to thundering blues and refreshing breezes.  Came down a magnificent बरखा w...

Let us relive the life of a village, moving and progressing at its own pace and passion. A hath yogi welcomes the Surya with an arduous Namaskar while his learned guru offers his prostrations to the Kaal bhairav . ____________________________________        ( A Vigrah of 'Bhairav' found @ Karnataka - Hoysala Dyansty ) ____________________________________ Children gather under a tree for their morning lessons while the Garbha - grha of the temple sings the praise of Bhairavi . A young man sits in the Mandapam of the temple and does magic with his fingers . Entire village full of energy and vigour hopes of a great day ahead. A young lady named Pushpachandrika , somewhere deep inside the jungle, strikes a chord on her  Veena as the deers and hare encircle her.  ____________________________________ ( A 16th - 17th century painting of a lady playing the 'Been'. ) ___________________________________ The yogi sits down with his Ektara to c...

This is a story of a psychologist unhappy with his job and grieved by the condition he sees around him. He is in conversation with someone, perhaps the author. A psychologist, an analyst, and an M.D., he was plump, with a large head and serious eyes. He had come, he said, to talk over several points; however, he would not use the jargon of psychology and analysis, but would keep to words with which we were both familiar. Having studied the famous psychologists, and himself been analyzed by one of them, he knew the limitations of modern psychology, as well as its therapeutic value. It was not always successful, he explained, but it had great possibilities in the hands of the right people. Of course, there were many quacks, but that was to be expected. He had also studied, although not extensively oriental thought and the oriental idea of consciousness. “When the subconscious was first discovered and described here in the West, no university had a place for it, and no publisher ...

“When I use the word 'global problem', aren't you as a human being, whether man or woman, representative of all mankind? Please understand this question; this is a very serious question - aren't you, as a human being, representative of all humanity? Because your problems are the problems of every other man - economic, social, moral, private, personal. And whether he is an American, or Russian or Chinese or this country, your problems are shared, are common to every man because you suffer, you are anxious, uncertain, insecure, confused, caught up in a world of utter insanity, madness. This is the problem of every human being in the world. There is fear of death. They want to find out what is meditation, how to go beyond and be utterly free of all fear, to find out the full significance of existence. And to find out also a way of living that is true, not hypocritical. This is the common problem of every human being in the world and so you represent the common fac...

The crisis is not in economics, politics, religion, but the crisis is in our consciousness - why we are, what we are after thousands and thousands of years - that's where the crisis is. And merely to solve the economic crisis or the political crisis or the brutality of ideologies and wars, it's not only there but it's much deeper. So we are going to enquire first, because they're all related, all problems are related to each other, they are not separate. If we can solve one problem completely, then we have solved all other problems because there is no separate problem. Let us start from the beginning, from the point which we call ‘past’. Can we say that we are the past? It is so because the same past meets ‘present’ to modify it into ‘future’. If I am self-centered today, I will surely be the same tomorrow. Also was I the same in late past. So, can we say that what we refer to as past, present and future are essentially the same? Then there exists no psychologi...

"There were four people – Somebody, Anybody, Everybody and Nobody. A task was to be done by Everybody. But he thought Somebody would do it. Somebody thought Anybody could surely do it. In  this game, Nobody did it." ____________________________________ Once we have realized that we ourselves are solely responsible to our deeds and the makings of this world, we can safely try to go deep into the cores of our existence. In this journey, there is no ‘outer’ and ‘inner’ world. It’s like a tide going out and coming in. So it's our responsibility, not to change the society but to see in our journey which we are going to take together, whether in that very movement of taking the journey there is a possibility of changing ourselves fundamentally, a psychological revolution, not a physical revolution. So let us go together. Let us illustrate this with an instance – The scientific innovations of mankind have enabled it practically to feed each and every one on this planet. St...

The Sufi Bayazid says this about himself:   “I was a revolutionary when I was  young and all my prayer to Almighty was- ‘Give me the energy to change  thy world.’ ”  “As I approached middle age and      realized that half my life was gone without my changing a single person , then I asked- ‘Give me the grace to change all those who come in contact with me. Just my  family and friends, and I shall be content.’ ”   “Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, I pray- ‘give me the grace to change myself.' Had  I prayed for this right from the start I should not have wasted my life.” ____________________________________ Right from the beginning we should make certain things very clear: this should be a serious dialogue, it is not an intellectual or emotional entertainment. Also one may point out; we are not trying to do any propaganda for any ideals, for any beliefs, for any conclusions, for any concepts. Together we are going ...

The Thinker  : A bronze statue of a man sitting on a rock and thinking is one of the finest sculptures ever produced. With 'The Thinker' as the central point, Films Division in 1981 released this short film for small children. Many of us might have seen this. It is requested to go through this film before proceeding with the post.  ________________________________ So, this is the saga of a child, a simple and innocent child. He thrives on earth since time immemorial, in a way he is eternal. He is learning from the smallest of small happenings on the planet. He observes the stars and is fascinated by the changing phases of Moon. He infact walks through many dimensions. Somewhere he builts a raft and crosses the Nile. He is an Austrian and also enjoys the freshness of the Himalayas, he navigates through the Atlantic and lives in the Steppes. This is the tale of that child. When the child was yet not born, as his peers presume, an unicellular organism, perhaps a bacte...

"A child is a beam of sunlight from the Infinite and Eternal, with possibilities of virtue and vice, but as yet unstained.” ____________________________________  It is difficult to precisely point out but whenever it might have happened, that our egocentrism might have receded thus expanding our range of thought from 'I' and 'Me', and we would have started actively interacting with the surrounding environment, we all might have had all sorts of aims, goals and purposes. They might have been as silly as procuring a chocolate or as serious as reforming the world, isn't it? The same goal with some polishing has evolved itself into Today to land us into Tomorrow.  Once upon a time even I had some crazy ideas swirling in my head. And one day I came across this line - "Avaghāchi Samsār Sukhāchā Karín, Ānande Bharīn Teenhi Lok" meaning "I hereby resolve to make this world a better place to live in, leaving all the three fields totally blissed out."...

" Finding of the Self by the Self in the Self..O Almighty Man. " ------------------------------------------------------------ In the last conversation, we had discussed about what this platform deals with, what would be the approach methodology, an attempt to concretise the central theme of the Blog was also made. It was also distinctly underlined that this is a forum where, through healthy discussions we would look at various spheres which have shaped and are shaping our lives actively. Putting a step in that direction here comes this episode as an extension to the previous post and a link to the upcoming one. At the same time, it should also be noted that these discussions are not, and hence should not become Universal Truths. It is possible that we might be heading in a wrong direction, isn' it? Untill and unless we don't detach ourselves completely from the desire of a solution we can never truly understand the problem and without understanding the problem no solu...

 " The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself. " --------------------------------------------------- Namaskar, Uttishth Bhārat is an effort to explore and look back onto the journey of this Creation, transformations and evolutions Humanity has gone through and is constantly going. It is an initiative to investigate and critically enquire into the major as well as minor junctions we have gone through and in the way take a glance at our own Legacy so formed. But, naturally a question arises - if the theme of the Study is the Journey of this existence as a whole, why consider only ' Bhārat ' as the very title of the Blog. Therefore let us be very clear before we commence with anything else, what is exactly meant by ' Bhārat ' ? The word Bhārat comprises of two Dhatus:- ' Bhā ' and ' Ratah '...literally meaning a chariot progressing towards Jyotih ( Bhā ) or Bright Light. Often it is (rather is) misunderstood as a name...