Yoga - an anti-Christian practice

Recently a commission report was prepared by the Pala diocese Bishop, Kerala, which was later on approved by the Syro Malabar church synod. It is interesting to note that the report states, “Yoga doesn’t bring about any improvement in any person.” It also adds, “The RSS and other sangh parivar groups are trying to promote yoga all over India. So laity and church heads should take care to avoid paying attention to yoga and other spiritual movements which are totally against the catholic faith. The yoga and other ‘anti-Christian practices’ do not encourage the official teaching of the church.” 

On the one hand the whole world acknowledged the importance of yoga and to even celebrate its virtue declared 21 June as world yoga day while on the other hand there are these people who have the courage to link yoga with some culture. Plus have the audacity to declare it anti-Christian. What I don’t understand is what is anti-christian in practicing yoga? What makes a community to say that any sensible person should not encourage such practices? 

Just because the roots of yoga and meditation are found in India, it suddenly became a threat and something which should not be practiced at all. Doesn't a way to meditate, a way to attain peace should be universal? Don’t you feel instead of trying to find cultural or so called communal issues in it, we should rather be focusing on how to promote it to create a stress free society? When even western science is understanding the importance of yoga, isn’t it baffling to hear that only sangh or so-called Hindu organisations are trying to promote yoga? Is yoga or ways to mediate patented by RSS? How by practicing yoga, a way of exercise, a person would be unfaithful to his own culture or community? 

I want to highlight here that even science says yoga improves health, reduces stress and elevates mood. In a 2005, German study, women who described themselves as “emotionally distressed” took two yoga classes a week for three months. The control group maintained their normal activities—which did not include exercise or stress reducing techniques. At the end of the three months, the women in the yoga classes reported improvements—depression scores improved by 50%, anxiety scores by 30%, and overall well-being scores improved by an incredible 65%. Headache, backache, and poor sleep quality complaints also decreased more often in the yoga group than in the control. 

So what kind of vigilance is report asking for? And how a practice to have a good health against catholic faith? I do not intend to mock or insult anyone’s culture or beliefs but I do wish to get answers to my questions. Because these kinds of report not only misleads innocent minds but also in some way winds communal tension. These reports should be studied carefully before approving because they can factually wrong and may also hurt someone’s beliefs. Anyone influential should understand what difference their word could make before speaking or stating any item. They should also realise what kind of message world be interpreted by their statements. 

Some people have already raised voices against this report. I hope their voices would build pressure on the makers to amend the same. 

India and loneliness minister

Recently an article published in Times of India with an interesting heading, “ Do we need a loneliness minister?” It is an intriguing question to ask. The article talked about how we are so engrossed in our digital social circle that we have lost all connection and contact with the outside world. Where we have thousands of friends on our Facebook list but none to have a shoulder to cry on. The modern age of living has surely made people come closer but has also made people feel lonely.

According to the article published, “Loneliness is more dangerous than smoking 15 cigarettes a day and raises the risk of heart problem and diabetes.”

Loneliness has nothing to do with social acceptance or family condition, it is basically the state of mind. In the digital era where everything is counted by number of likes and followers, somewhere we have lost the inner sense of satisfaction, the inner peace.

The united kingdom understood the seriousness of this matter and literally appointed a minister of loneliness! Recently in Madhya Pradesh a similar step was taken forward. A whole research team was called up to measure the happiness index of the state.

India is one of the leading nation where teenagers and youngsters are in depression due to various reasons. According to the statistics 1 IN 5 people in India needs psychological treatment and the number of people living in depression has increased by approximately 18.4% in last few years. It comes as a shock to know that even in a country like India, we have students feeling lonely or depressed and we need measure the index of happiness. A place where yoga took birth, where mediation evolved, where from starting we have discussed about inner peace, talked about getting over superficial material, we came on to the stage where people are not finding contentment.

What have we done to reach a state where we have artificial intelligence but in the race of achieving it we somewhere lost emotional intelligence (EI).

There was a so called prudent saint who was master of all knowledge. Once he hired a boat to cross a river. While he was on the boat he asked the boatsman,“Do you know philosophy?” The poor boatsman said,“No”. The saint, with great grief said,“Oh you wasted one-third of your life.” The boatsman got little nervous.

After a little while the saint asked,“Do you have knowledge ofof sociolo?” The boatsman said no in a very low voice. Saint smirked and said,“you fool, you wasted half of your life.” Saint asked few more questions and finally declared the three-fourth of boatman’s life futile.

Just when boatsman was about to break down by the sudden realisation of his wasteful life, a storm erupted in the river. Both boatsman and saint got petrified. Now, the boatsman asked the saint, “Do you know how to swim?” The saint said no with dread in his eyes. Boatsman smiled and said,“My three-fourth life may have been wasted but now your whole life would drain in the spate of this river.

Moral - It doesn’t matter how much knowledge you posses or how much wealth you have acquired. Important point is know how to live. How to satiate your soul, your own self.

If we wont learn the art of living, if we wont learn the basic law of life, we will keep getting tangled in this peripheral world of facebook and Instagram. While we have different mediums to fulfil our living needs, we need to do something for the fulfilment of our soul, from somewhere we need to arrange the soul food for deep sense of self satisfaction in life.

It is the demand of the time to go back to our actual ethics and values to understand the worth of our life. Its time to start reading Bhagvat Geeta again to unlock the secret of our lives.

As stated by Geeta everything around you is tranquil, everything around you is transient and one day everything would get demised. To attain peace and get away from the feeling of loneliness we need to fathom this truth.

-Soumya

Jouhar - a heroic deed or an insult to feminism

After a long struggle Padmaavat (Padmavati as called before) got a release and even after a longer wait I got a chance to watch it. I know everyone around me including myself am tired of the whole Padmaavat controversy. From the invasion of Karni Sena at the sets of Padmaavat to biding on who would cut Deepika’s nose to Swara Bhaskar’s open letter. There was a lot said and a lot heard.

After so much of debate and discussion I really don’t have anything more to pen down nor I find myself very much eligible to question Sanjay Leela Bhansali or the actress Swara Bhaskar. Because where both are phenomenal artists, I am just a budding writer. 

The screenplay, the set, the music was without any doubt splendid. It indeed looked like a Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movie. The look of Deepika Padukone surely takes away your breath, Ranveer singh’s portrayal of Allaudin Khilzi makes you believe him as a monster and of course, the Rajpootani pride in Shahid Kapoor eyes is uncanny. 

I have no right to answer Swara Bhaskar because whatever she said was at some point logical and have been well answered by the people to whom the letter was concerned. But I have few questions to ask her. Starting with, the whole movie talked and celebrated the wisdom that Padmavati had then how did the actress Swara Bhaskar or anyone arrive on the conclusion that it only talked about vaginas? Whatever director Bhansali made is a different issue, but what made anyone believe that Jouhar or self-immolation was nothing but the mass suicide act because they didn’t have rightful owners of their vaginas. Don’t you think it has something do with honour, pride, dignity of a lady and more than that respect for your birth place. 

We belong to a nation who’s history has seen Maharani giving precious advice in the matter of Raajnitti (Padmavti) on the other hand had the caliber to raise a warrior like Shivangi (JIja mata). Yet, somehow in the fire of feminism we find the courage to call Jouhar an act to protect vagina. Have we gone that shallow? On what grounds are we actually fighting and the bigger question is what are we even fighting for? There is this storm of feminism where everything said, made or talked about comes down to so called freedom of a girl, a lady.

I am not anti-feminist but I do believe our history has respected women because they respected themselves. They had the courage to turn into a warrior when enemies were at door (Rani Laxmi Bai) and when the time demanded burn in the fire of self respect  to protect the honour of their mother nation. But narrowing these great women and their actions just to vagina does not doom their dignity or bravery, but it surely questions our thinking process. 

Try to learn from these women who made our history glorious instead of holding the flag of feminism. Doing something rightful for your nation or family wont take away your liberation or make you anywhere less than a man. These women are not being worshipped because of their of their husbands but because of their fearless and heroic deeds. 

- Soumya Tare 

....none will remember you.

I was reading a book lately, written by John Green. Somewhere in the book there was a line which opened the doors of infinite questions. The line read - 

“i shall say you that you would die and none will remember you.”

When I read this line there was a sudden heart ache inside caused due the true fact written by the writer. Now the question arises, Why he must have written this line? There could be two possible answers, either he himself is petrified about his own existence or he is someone who knows the universal and spiritual truth very well. 

This small line questions the whole existence of us in this universe. It mocks on our stupidity of earning name and fame. It keeps all we have, all we want to acquire at stake. If I am going to die and no one would even remember about my existence, then why am I running in a circle again and again to achieve something that would be just gone away without anyone’s notice.

But if we put more thought into it we realise that the line has some deeper meaning in it. Maybe the sentence is trying to communicate that since no one will remember you, so there’s no point wasting your energy on something that is just superficial. Theres no point devoting your time on some wordily relationships or work. Its written that you will die one day no matter what, then why not invest your whole energy into your own self, into the awakening of your own consciousness. 

A similar text was written by Swami Ramdas in his work known as Manache Shloka. 

It said, “मरे एक त्याचा दुजा शोक वाहे अकस्मा- त तोही पुढे जात आहे, पुरेना जाणीई लोभ रे क्षोभ त्याते, म्हण- ूनी जाणीई मागुता जन्म घेते”

Which means when someone dies, the mourners don't realise that even they too are heading towards death. It is the greed, be it of name, fame or to be remembered till eternity, that pushes us into the cycle of birth and death.

By this Swami Ramdas tries say that instead of mourning or rushing towards unsatisfied needs, everyone should indulge themselves to attain peace and then ultimately salvation. 

I m sure the writer didn’t advocate that all the relationships or all of your work is just some futile exercise. It is of course important and should be done with all integrity and hard work. 

As the famous Shloka from Bhagwat Geeta goes, “"कर्मणये वाधिकारस्ते मां फलेषु कदाचन । मां कर्मफलहेतुर्भू: मांते संङगोस्त्वकर्मणि" ।।”

Which means, You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty.” Its should be noted that Geeta emphasis on on the word prescribed duty.

As the Geeta tell us, I m sure writer did also try to say that these all actives no matter how important they seem are just the path to achieve something bigger. These are all just your (prescribed) duties which needs to be fulfilled without any attachment or emotions. Wordily exercise cannot ever be your final destination, they could surely be the path to achieve your ultimate aim i.e. “self actualisation”. Because my friends, you would die and none will remember you. 

- Soumya Tare

Biggest loss - Loss of HUMANITY

Today the biggest question to be addressed is, where have we lost all our humanity? What led to this stage where we all have lost sense of empathy? Where did we gave up our emotions in our pity arrogance. How did we lose the sympathy we had for each other in the dust of ignorance?

The news which made the headline today in the newspaper  was the gang rape case of Bhopal. Rape is the most hideous crime anyone could commit. These rapist should be hanged in the middle of the road in front of everybody. Yes! I agree with all the girls voicing up for the capital punishment for such crimes. 

But today when I write this article I don’t want to talk about what should be done to these criminals rather talk about what happened to  our society and the people living in it. A girl gets dragged in front of them and no one cares to notice it. The rape victim, after collecting all her strength that is left in her, after the physical trauma she goes through comes to the police station for aid, instead of filing her complaint, the police makes her and her parents run between three police stations. Have we really lost all the love and compassion that we talk about in our scriptures or they are just the mythological stories we like to chant. 

We always tend to blame Pitamaha Bishma, when we talk about the epic Mahabharatat, why didn’t he say word when Dropadi called out for his help. That Girl must have called out for succour, why didn’t we do something. When she and her parents went to the police, why did police came into the role play of Dhritarashtra closing all eyes and ears.

Today, I was sitting with one of my friend in canteen who belongs to a very small town. During the conversation he was telling me the benefit of living in small town is, people are very much compassionate towards each other. If you are going through any financial crisis, your neighbour will make sure you manage through your month. 

Then, what is the advantage of being so developed? What is the benefit of this artificial development, if we lose the essence of our true Indian nature where we talk about “vasudhev Kutumbakam” or “sarve bhavantu sukhinah”. 

Even today when someone dies in a village of India, the whole community living in that area gathers up just to help the family. Here, in a developed city, a state capital, a girl gets raped and so called prudent police, who is here to help the society does even care to give her tragedy a ear. Tell me what did we achieved by this wordlly progress, maybe just height of insensitivity. 

Strict punishment for the rapist should definitely be decided soon. But the penance for ourself, as the part of the this society who allowed this incident and many more to take place needs to be decided by us.

Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshastriya Adhyayan

Dr. Ankur Pare : Book Review of “ Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshastriya Adhyayan ”


Author - Dr. Ankur Pare
Country -   India
Book -   Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshastriya Adhyayan
Language - Hindi
Publisher - Sunrise Publication, New Delhi (India)
Publication Year - 2017
Media Type - Print (hardback)
Pages - 183
ISBN - 978-93-80966-70-0
Price - Rs. 800

INTRODUCTION –
Dr. Ankur Pare is a famous young sociologist and author. Many important research papers have been published by him at International and National research journals. His major research work was displacement, resettlement and rehabilitation.






PLOT –

The author Dr. Ankur Pare has done a scientific research study of the problem of displacement in his book " Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshastriya Adhyayan ". Economic development is essential in all countries but positive and negative effects of development projects also emerge. Displacement is a global catastrophic problem. Displacement due to development has emerged as an international and national problem. At the global level Tehri project in Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Ghana, Indonesia and India, Uttarakhand, Bisalpur project ( Himachal Pradesh), Sardar Sarovar project (Gujarat), Kudankulam project (Tamil Nadu), Narmada project (Madhya Pradesh), etc due to these projects the problem of displacement occurred. The proper implementation of development projects can be done. Dr. Ankur Pare in his book “ Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshashtriya Adhyayan ” has interpreted applied research regarding displacement.

EDITION –

The book of Dr. Ankur Pare, " Visthapit Parivaron ka Samajshastriya Adhyayan ", is published in the year 2017 by India's leading publication, Sunrise Publication, New Delhi (India), ISBN 978-93-80966-70-0.

CONCLUSION –

Sociologist Dr. Ankur Pare has done extensive scientific study of social, economic, cultural, religious and political effects of displacement. He recommended to follow " Minimum Displacement and Maximum Rehabilitation ".

Hindutav - meaning and perception.

The preamble of our country's constitution describes our nation as a secular one. Which surely is true and fair because we have infinite numbers of religion and beliefs. When we talk about the country like India, it’s really unfair to describe it as a secular in a written form because we belong to a nation, which has been secular in its practice since the ancient times. Secular state is a sate which neither supports religion nor irreligion. Now the big question arises what was the basic law in those times which allowed everyone to practice their own beliefs and culture. What was there in those times, which from our understanding we call undeveloped state, which allowed everyone to follow their own paths to reach the ultimate power. Answer would be hindutav. What today has been misinterpreted as something which divides our nation, which today has been misinterpreted as something which cultivates the seed of communalism. 
In context of today’s politics all the parties are trying to suppress rising party BJP on name of hindutav. Where every other party is trying proving themselves as the worshiper of secularism and equality while on the other hand t portraying BPJ as someone who is trying to cross the border line between Hindus and Muslims.
What exactly is hindutav is a necessary question and the question whose answer should be well perceived. Let’s first talk about from where did this term originated -  V.D sawarkar coined the term in his essay, Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? As an atheist, he took pains to emphasize that Hindutva was not synonymous with Hinduism. The addition of –ism links the term Hindu with all the cultural beliefs and norms. His concern was political; the political mobilization of Hindus into one nation. 
What is hindutav that RSS and BJP talks about? Hindutav was never related with cultural preferences or worshiping one god, it basically means a way of leading a life. Hindutav talks about “serve bhavantu sukhinah sarve santu niramaya” which means May all be happy, may all be healthy. It has a nature to nurture and respect every individual. Hindutav has dynamic concept which is above all spiritual goals. 
Another concept which is related to hindutav is known cultural nationalism which is widely spoken by RSS leaders. They urge on having one unique identity of our country. Which by all means is a Hindu nation. That simply doesn’t mean neglecting other cultures because most of it like Jain, Buddhist, Sikh took birth into it. Where on the other hand culture like Persian or Muslim were never part this holy land either they invaded or came as a guest to our country. Of course for most of them, as savakar quotes, “ it’s their birth land or say pitrbhu since they were born and bought up here but it will never be their holy land or as we say punyabhu. Anyone whose pitrabhu and punyabhu is India is a Hindu. 
India is not only the state where cultural nationalism is talked about. Cultural nationalism was and is the key topic of U.S.A. France identified itself as a cultural nationalist country though having different cultures within a nation though they do have developed respect for the other cultures present in it. But these all nations were smart enough to understand the importance of their languages, beliefs, and cultures. That is the main reason why as soon as they got independence, they fought for their nationalism and thus became the most developed nation of the world. France leaders always believed "their language is the key of their independence and prosperity". But the irony of India is, we didn’t understand the value of our identity back then nor today the so called leader’s of our country are trying to. 
When a Muslim community is given around 50 minutes off from their work hour to recite their prayers then how come chanting a bhajan gets communal. When a Christian is a proud Christian, when Muslim is a proud Muslim, then how it gets communal to be a proud Hindu. Being secular is different and neglecting our own tradition just to support someone else’s is different.
BJP and RSS leaders have always been very vocal about hindutav and always been alleged on destroying our country on the name of community by the opposition party. What baffles me is how being the one who exactly you are becomes the topic of controversy and debate. When a citizen of America is an American, then why the citizen of Hindustan, the land Hindus, can’t be a Hindu.
Usually the debates which run over and around the place are if we call it a Hindu nation what will happen to other religion who are residing in our country? How would they survive? Concerns are well made and well defined. But what I believe as I said above, need is to understand the meaning of hindutav by our dear politicians and byall the so called prudent secularists.
Recently an article was published in Times of Indian where the writer went on saying “hindutav in state through crack down on illegal slaughterhouses, setting up anti Romeo squad or ban on wearing jeans by govt. officers shows that in hindutav style govt. there little space for individual right and free will” now what I don’t understand is how we can relate the activity of closing down something illegal to hindutav, how making sure no girl gets eve teased on road can be related to a belief system and how a step of maintaining decorum in an office becomes hot topic of dispute about the free will of an individual. 
Modi government regime which tried on creating a national identity while focusing on the development of the nation has left the entire opposition spell bound and probably made their thinking capability inefficient. Maybe that’s the reason of making all flawed arguments by the opposition party members. Sab ka sath sab ka vikas in my belief is true picturisation of the most controversial subject “hindutav”.