SOCIAL HARMONY

SOCIAL HARMONY

It is painful to see in any multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual society a kind of social   disharmony which has no rationale. God has given us one sun, one moon, one sky and one earth and all the human beings have similar physical and mental structures.  Their emotions, feelings and aspirations are also similar. If faiths are different, they are for the purpose of variety, not for mutual strife and hatred. At best they aim at unity in diversity. None of them becomes superior by breeding hatred for the followers of a different faith which, in fact, is only superficially different. At bottom, all faiths, like all rivers, flow towards the same spiritual ocean. Emperor Akbar the Great rightly said that ‘there are sensible men in all religions, and abstemious thinkers and men endowed with miraculous powers among all nations. Each person, according to his condition, gives the supreme being a name, but in reality to name the unknowable is vain.’        

According to American physicist and Nobel Prize Winner, Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953) the change from the individual life of ever-expanding complexity as our scientific civilization advances, would obviously be impossible unless the individual learned in ever-increasing measure to subordinate his impulses and interests to the furtherance of the group life.  

But the question is who teaches the individual to subordinate his impulses and interests to the furtherance of the group life. The answer is the enlightened souls like great poets writers, statesmen and spiritual leaders whose thoughts and ideas have a long-lasting impact.   

Given below are three extracts which inspire the readers to shun social discrimination and embrace all-inclusive unity.

FIRST EXTRACT:

The concluding lines of a narrative poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ written by the English poet S.T.Coleridge in 1798:

O Wedding Guest! This soul hath been

Alone n a wide wide sea:

So lonely ‘twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be….

Farewell, farewell! But this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loved us,

He made and loveth all.”

THE SECOND EXTRACT

Is a speech by Shylock, a Jew, who is otherwise a despised business man. It is taken from Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ (Act III, Scene I). Shakespeare’s purpose here is to create sympathy against the unfair treatment meted out to the Jews by the Christians.

“He (Antonio, his Christian rival) hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies, and what’s  his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?  Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and I shall go hard but I will better the instruction. ”

THE THIRD EXTRACT

IS BAHA’U’LLAH’S ADVICE TO HIS APOSTLES:

‘O Children of Baha! Have intercourse with all the peoples of the world, with the disciples of all religions in the spirit of complete joyfulness.  Remind them of what is good for them all, but beware of making the word of God the stumbling block of friction or the source of mutual hatred.  If ye know what the other does not know, tell him, with the tongue of friendliness and love. If he accepts it and takes it up, then the aims has been attained, if he rejects it, pray for him and leave him to himself,; ye may ever importune him’. (Quoted by Dr.S.Radhakrishnan in Eastern Religions And Western Thought, OUP 1939, Page 340.)

In the book referred to above, Dr, S. RadhaKrishnan holds that  Dara Shikoh , the eldest son of Shah Jahan, is the author of a  treatise designed  to prove  that  the differences between Hindu and Muslim were matters only of language and expression. Kabir, Nanak, Dadu, and a host of others point to a blend of Hindu and Muslim religious doctrines. Bahaism stands up for a free religious fellowship.

30^th April 2020                                                              G. R. KANWAL      

MOTHER INDIA

MOTHER INDIA

The whole world celebrated Earth Day on 22^nd April.  It was an annual affair and the purpose was to emphasise the necessity of keeping mother earth absolutely neat, clean and  pollution-free.  Unfortunately, this necessity has been criminally ignored by mankind and the results in terms of bad health and disagreeable hygiene are disastrous in almost every part of the world.

“Mother India” is a poem written by a Bengali poet, playwright and musician D.L.Roy also known as d D.L.Ray.  He was born in Krishnanagar on 19^th July 1863 and passed away on 17^th May 1913. He composed more than 500 songs and authored a number of plays.  By his mental inclination, he was a Hindu mythologist and nationalist.

The poem that follows shows his love for Mother India. It was translated into English by Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950) more than one hundred years ago. Its relevance today is undeniable when Mother India like other countries of the world is afflicted with the incurable Corona Virus known as Covid-19.

D.L.Ray loved India most enthusiastically and most spiritually. In fact, every patriotic person possesses a natural urge to think seriously  about the welfare of his country both in good and bad times. Anyone who lacks this urge is more of a brute,  than  human being,

Sri Aurobindo’s translation of D.L.Roy’s poem reads as under:

“India, my India, where first human eyes awoke to heavenly light, all Asia’s holy place of pilgrimage, great Motherland of might! World-mother, first giver to humankind of philosophy and sacred lore, knowledge thou gav’st to man, God-love, works, art, religion’s opened door.

India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity’s grace today? Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirit’s inward ray!

To thy race, O India, God himself once sang the Song of Songs divine, Upon thy dust Gouranga danced and drank God-love’s mysterious wine Here the Sannyasin Son of Kings lit up compassion’s deathless  sun, The youthful Yogin, Shankar, taught the gospel: “I and He are one.”       

India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity’s grace today? Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirit’s inward ray!

Are thou not she, that India, where the Aryan Rishis chanted high, The Veda’s deep and dateless hymns and are we  not their progeny , Armed with the great tradition we shall walk the earth with heads unbowed, O Mother, those who bear that glorious past may well be brave and proud.

India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity’s grace today? Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirit’s inward ray!

O even with all that grandeur dwarfed or turned to bitter loss and maim, How shall we mourn who are thy children and can vaunt thy mighty name? Before us still there floats the ideal of those splendid days of gold: A new world in our vision wakes, Love’s India we shall rise to mould.   

India, my India, who dare call thee a thing for pity’s grace today?  Mother of wisdom, worship, works, nurse of the spirit’s inward ray!”

28^th April 2020                                    G.  R. KANWAL

SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPT OF MAN

            SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPT OF MAN

English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare was born on 23^rd April 1564. He also died on the same date in 1616. Though he wrote in England, God inspired him to write for all mankind and for all ages. The universality of his thoughts, feelings and emotions couched in an amazingly powerful language makes him one of the few immortal writers of the world.

            Given below are two extracts which express his Concept of Man through the speeches of Hamlet, the tragic hero of a play of the same name.

                                 

                                     First Extract

“What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!  in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me , what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither . . .”

(Source: Hamlet, Act II, Scene II).

                                   Second Extract

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings of arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patent merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will.

And makes us rather bear  those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry.

And lose the name of action…..”

           

            Source: Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.

27^th April 2020                                   G. R. KANWAL           

THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY

                            THIS TOO SHALL PASS AWAY     

              “This Too Shall Pass Away” is the title of a poem written by an American poetess Lanta Wilson Smith (1856-1939).

It is indeed one of those great poems of faith and immortality which find a permanent place in world literature.  It has been quoted repeatedly ever since it was first recited by its author.  Even today it is on the lips of quite a large number of people who are thinking or writing about the dreadful Corona virus and feel low-spirited. In this sense, it is a morale booster.  

            The core idea of the poem is that nothing is permanent in this world.  Everything has its limited span of life. Nothing stays, everything passes away.  Change is the law of nature and will remain so for aeons to come.  Human life itself is in flux.   It passes through many stages and many versions from infancy to old age.  All the discoveries and inventions of mankind have been a wonder of the hour. Nothing has emerged here to stay forever. It appears for a while, shows its inner and outer reality, its meaning and purpose, as also cause and effect and soon passes into history. The fate of Corona is no different. It too will have its short stay and then pass away. So then why to worry? But also why not to face it with the invincible spirit of man and make preparation to battle with another virus waiting to come.  All viruses threaten and threaten human and animal life and then disappear leaving behind a sad memory, a memory which man uses to re-strengthen himself for another trial of his overpowering faculties in this phenomenal world.   

                        English writer Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) puts the above-mentioned idea in these beautiful words: “Today is not yesterday. We ourselves change. How then, can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same. Change, indeed, is painful, yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope. “

                        Don’t we see that people who are gloomy today become cheerful tomorrow, and the defeat of an army at a particular moment changes into victory  shortly after?

According to American author Washington Irving (1783-1859), the law of change is very strong. “History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust.”

Finally here is Smith’s poem:

WHEN some great sorrow, like a mighty river,

Flows through your life with peace-destroying power,

And dearest things are swept from sight forever,

Say to your heart each trying hour:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

  

When ceaseless toil has hushed your song of gladness,

And you have grown almost too tired to pray,

Let this truth banish from your heart its sadness,

And ease the burdens of each trying day:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

When fortune smiles, and, full of mirth and pleasure,

The days are flitting by without a care,

Lest you should rest with only earthly treasure,

Let these few words their fullest import bear:

“This, too, shall pass away.”   

When earnest labor brings you fame and glory,

And all earth’s noblest ones upon you smile,

 Remember that life’s longest, grandest story

Fills but a moment in earth’s little while:

“This, too, shall pass away.”

18^th April 2020                                           G. R. KANWAL

“ I SHOULD POINT TO INDIA”

“ I SHOULD POINT TO INDIA”

It was Urdu poet-philosopher Dr. Sir Mohammed Iqbal (1873-1938) who said that India is the best of all the countries.  This poetical statement carries no exaggeration and will remain eternally true despite all the ups and downs which the march of world history, culture and civilization may witness for centuries to come.   

Small practices like hand-washing, face-covering and social distancing, which we are being asked to adopt today have been a part of our culture from time immemorial.    

 Given below is a short extract from one of the lectures delivered by the most distinguished indologist Friedrich Max Muller.  He was born in Dessau, Germany, on 6.12.1823 and passed away in U. K. on 28, 10.1900. He studied in U.K., became a British national, but earned distinction as a German scholar of comparative languages, religions and mythology. His specialty was Sanskrit philology and the religions of India. As an author, he is particularly known for “The Sacred Books of the East. “

Indian English writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri (23-11-1897 ---1.8.1999) wrote Max Muller’s biography under the title: “Scholar Extraordinary”.  It was first published by Chatto & Windus in 1974.

The series of lectures delivered by Max Muller was entitled: “India, what can it teach us’.

The extract selected by me reads as follows:

            “If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power and beauty, nature can bestow, in some parts a very paradise on earth, I should point to India.  

 “If I were to ask under what sky the human mind has fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant ------ I should point to India.

“And if I were to ask myself from what literature, we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively at the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semite race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life, again I should point to India.”

10^th April 2020                                               G. R. KANWAL  

WHERE IS THE LIGHT?

WHERE IS THE LIGHT?

Light is both a literary and religious symbol. Some of its  connotations are: knowledge, intelligence, understanding, comprehension, illumination, enlightenment, goodness, love, life,  hope, grace, wisdom, holiness, spiritual awakening, , elevation of  inner powers, insight into ultimate reality and a fair view of the unknown.  

Men of literature and religion use this symbol very frequently in their writings and speeches.

Light is not the comprehensive opposite of darkness, especially when related to daybreak , sunrise and the one generated by candles, lamps, lanterns, torches, sparks, tapers and matches.

As a symbol light is used metaphorically and the meanings are those which the user wants to convey contextually.  They may sometimes be difficult to discover. So in such cases, the user throws some hints to dispel total obscurity.

Very briefly, let me add that everybody in this world is in search of light. And his attempt to find it continues till the end of his existence. It is also a hard fact that leaving aside some Buddhas, hardly anybody succeeds in his search. Enlightenment in this sense is Nirvana, that is liberation from the cycle of births and deaths and re-confinements in this elemental world. 

Given below is a song taken from Tagore’s Gitanjali.  It is on the theme of light with a few connotations of light as a symbol. For Tagore, light stands for victory over darkness, freedom from bondage and the demystification of biological life. However, the light referred to by him cannot be achieved without ‘the burning fire of desire.’

 TEXT OF THE SONG:

“LIGHT, oh where is the light? Kindle It with the burning fire of desire!

There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame, -----is such thy fate, my heart! Ah death were better by far for thee!

Misery knocks at thy door, and her message is that thy lord is wakeful and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.

The Sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless. I know not what this is that stirs in me, -----I know not its meaning.

A moment’s flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight, and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of the night calls me.

Light, oh where Is the light!  Kindle it with the burning fire of desire! It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void. The night is black as a black stone. Let not the hours pass by in the dark. Kindle the lamp of life with thy life. “  

It is e clear from  the symbols of ‘ flickerless lamp, gloom, darkness, misery,  night, overcast sky,  thunder, the screaming wind and music ’  that the journey from darkness to light is extremely difficult and is impossible to  be covered without ‘the burning fire of  desire.’

4^th March 2020                                                                  G. R. KANWAL

       

         

               

LIFE AT STAKE

                                      LIFE AT STAKE

Corona Virus is the latest in the list of viruses that is now threatening life in every part of the world.

So far there is no medical antidote to this human malady. That is why thousands of people are losing their life each day and night.  Precautions are there but they are only a possible check on the aggravation of the pandemic. They is no killer of the virus itself. So, at the moment, it is the virus which has the upper hand.

It is heartening to note that the medical scientists of the world are busy round the clock to evolve a perfect vaccine which will ultimately defeat this biological enemy.  There is no doubt that in the long run, it is Man who will succeed and the virus will have to face its surrender.    

Man has proved himself as a conqueror since hundreds of centuries ago.  His cycle of conquests over the adversaries of his life is not yet over.  It will perhaps never be over.  New diseases will continue to raise their heads and wait for the axe of Man to shatter them.

Whereas God’s help and mercy are always a supplementary force to defeat any wicked enemy, the knowledge of His laws and their application to solve any current or recurrent problem are indispensible.  Science, rather than superstition, is the power that ultimately subdues the causes of all the ailments and all sorts of other problems.

It is sensible to subscribe to the view that we don’t die; we kill ourselves.  It is also sensible to support the belief that he lives long that lives well; and time misspent is not lived, but lost. These are scientific truths based on the principles of cause and effect; stimulus and response; action and reaction.  In these enlightened times, it is better to put our eggs in the baskets of these scientific principles than in those of myths and blind beliefs.   

True religion is different from what is preached by the so-called god-men.  Reliable divine knowledge has been delivered to us by the great prophets whose different paths show unity of destination rather than separation of ways.   

Finally and old poem entitled:  A HYMN OF TRUST – written by the American poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894):

“O LOVE divine, that stooped to share

Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear!

On thee we cast each earth-born care;

We smile at pain while thou art near.

Though long the weary way we tread,

And sorrow crown each lingering year,

No path we shun, no darkness dread,

Our hearts still whispering, thou art near.

When drooping pleasure turns to grief,

And trembling faith is changed to fear,

The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf,

Shall softly tell us, thou art near.

On thee we rest our burdening woe,

O Love dine, for ever dear!

Content to suffer while we know,

Living and dying, thou art near.”

3^rd  April 2020                                          G. R. KANWAL