Issue 8.5 - Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

Let noble thoughts come to us from every side - Rigv Veda, 1-89-i
Festivals of
the month
The rise and rise
of Yoga in
Australia
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
“The whole world is but one family”
Life | Literature | Culture
Nov 2010 | Vol 8 No.4 | ISSN 1449 - 3551
www.bhavanaustralia.org
Wellbeing
& Holistic
lifestyle

The First
Aussie Saint
Mary MacKillop
The recognition of Mary MacKillop as a Saint fills
Australia with pride and joy. This is the first time they
have an Aussie one. However, what does it mean?
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church a
Saint is a disciple who has lived a life of exemplary
fidelity to the Lord. Just as Mary did and demonstrated
it. Her example of life captivates the admiration of
Australians and everybody who know her.
Mary was born on 15 January 1842 in Melbourne.
Her parents were Alexander MacKillop and Flora
MacDonald, both were Scottish immigrants. She
was the eldest of eight children. Due to
unsuccessful ability for business of her father she
assumed the responsibility of her family
sustentation. Her parents provided their sons with
good home education and faith. She started
working when she was 14 years old as clerk in a
stationery company she remained there for four
years. Then she worked as governess in Penola and
later as a teacher.
She met Fr Julia Woods while she was working as a
governess. He became her spiritual director. Both
saw the need of education for the children of the
region. They started running a transformed stable
into a school in Penola in 1866.
On the feast of St Joseph, 19th March 1866 Mary
appeared in a black dress and since that was
known as Sister Mary of the Cross. On 15 august
1867 Mary MacKillop officially took vows.
Her name honoured her, because she had to face up
different kind of crosses. The management of the
congregation was one of the main ones. As it was
recommended that each convent would be under
2 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
the authority of the local priest; which was contrary
with Mary’s ideal. Due to her concerns about it, she
was excommunicated for five months. The proposal
of the congregation becoming part of a Diocesan
one instead of having a central authority remained a
challenging confrontation. The importance of formal
approval led Mary to travel to Rome, where she
stayed 21 months until the constitution was
approved. This meant the institution would be
governed by the Superior General and her council.
After the fist General Chapter in 1875, Mary was
elected the First Superior General, even though, this
lasted for a while. Trials and difficulties came up
during the congregation’s life. Mary accepted them
with humility, faith and an extreme confidence in
God. She kept working in new foundations, schools
and giving new Sisters spiritual training. In 1898 she
was elected again Superior General. Even her health
was deteriorating, she was re-elected in 1905. The
Lord called her to his side in 8th August 1909.
“Never see a
need without doing
something about it”
Mary MacKillop, 1871
She is a pioneer in Catholic education in the
country. She started with a humble stable which
was the seed of all the fruits nowadays. Thousands
of children, specially the working class and the
poor ones, have received high quality education by
Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. Her legacy

has gone overseas in New Zealand, East Timor,
Brazil, Ireland and Scotland.
Mary is a role model of a virtuous woman for all
people. In addition, she is a warrior as she worked
firmly and overcame adversity for her mission
always with her eyes and heart in Jesus. A Saint is
another Christ in the world who teaches us that is
feasible to follow God, learning and showing love in
all aspects of life, therefore, to see ourselves as tools
of his work. As Paul said: nevertheless I live; yet not I,
but Christ liveth in me. She shows us that it is real
and it can happen in Australia. It is possible to truly
live a life of love, compassion and service by God’s
name. Therefore, this demonstrates to us that men
can strive for their holiness, it is our choice.
Mary and the Youth
Due to her canonization many activities were
organized. One of them was a festival held in Notre
Dame University on Tuesday 12th October. It was
an opportunity to celebrate the first Saint of
Australia with a great combination of music, talk
and friends.
In the Benedict Hall several Catholic organizations
gathered to present their mission, work and
activities in the city. It is so interesting to find there
are many organizations with different goals
however their core occupation is inspired and led
by God.
During the afternoon there was an encounter with
God through the mass. After it, people shared nice
talks.
This festival expressed the spirit of Young people
to join together and celebrate the meaning of
having an example of tenancy, courage and love in
Mary MacKillop.
Priscila Molina M.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 3

Chairman
Wellbeing
Well-being describes our happiness, confidence, physical condition
and general outlook on life. It is about feeling good and taking care
of yourself; responsibilities that can often be neglected when
juggling the rigorous demands of every day living in the 21st
century.
Well-being and healthy living go hand-in-hand. Healthy living goes
beyond eating a balanced diet, taking regular exercise and avoiding
illness. It also reflects the mental, emotional and social aspects of
an individual’s life. The key aspects of healthy living can be broken
down into the following elements. World Health Organization states:
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being,
and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Our Body
Maintaining good health by preventing or reducing the risk of
disease and by being more aware of personal safety is an important
feature of well-being. Of course, many aspects of our health are
beyond our control and are related to factors such as family history,
genetic make-up and the natural consequences of growing old. That
said, there are steps we can take to improve our health so that we
lead more active and fulfilling lives and increase our chances of
living longer. By avoiding activities such as smoking and excessive
“If we could give every
individual the right amount of
nourishment and exercise, not too
little and not too much, we
would have found the safest
way to health.” Hippocrates
drinking, we can significantly reduce the risk of certain diseases
(e.g. heart disease, some types of cancer and respiratory problems)
and improve the quality of our lives. By getting involved in routine
monitoring of cholesterol levels and blood pressure, we can also
make necessary changes to our lifestyle before these potential
problems become serious.
Our Diet
“You are what you eat.” Adopting a balanced and varied diet is vital
to a person’s well-being and can have a major impact on how we
4 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010

look and feel about ourselves. Many of us are fortunate enough to
have a wide range of foods available and the key to a well balanced
diet is selecting a combination of foods to meet our body’s nutrient
needs. We are advised to maintain a healthy body weight, eat plenty
of fresh fruit and vegetables, reduce fat and salt intake and
generally not over-indulge. At the same time, it is important that we
enjoy our food. Eating a meal can be a social experience; a time to
talk to others and relax.
Our Daily Routine
Regular physical exercise should form part of everyone’s daily
routine and is particularly important for young people. Exercise
helps to build up stamina and strength and manage body weight.
We may even enjoy ourselves in the process! Walking, cycling,
jogging and swimming are all ways of staying fit, and some people
enjoy the added social benefits of team sports. Getting involved in
community activities and cultural events can also be stimulating
and rewarding, particularly in terms of our mental and emotional
health. And offcourse Yoga!
Our State of Mind
“Healthy body, healthy mind.” Maintaining a positive outlook, by
interacting with others and getting involved in continuous
education and training, can contribute to well-being. Try to reduce
the levels of stress in your life. Meditation, relaxation and effective
organization at work can all help us deal with stress.
Our Environment
Whilst our financial status, employment, housing and access to
health and leisure facilities are sometimes out of our control, we
can take steps to make the most of what we have. It is vitally
important to be aware of the impact that your environment has on
you and others around you, particularly your children.
“The quality of a life is
determined by its activities”
Aristotle
By sticking to these basic principles and adopting a healthy attitude
to life, we can improve our quality of living. Well-being is not just
about avoiding illness and staying fit. It also depends on us making
sound choices, remaining in control of our lifestyle and above all,
enjoying ourselves!
Gambhir Watts
Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 5

Contents
54
Mary Mackillop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Festivals of the Month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
All Souls Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Believe in Yourself Surendralal Mehta . . . . . . . . . .17
Guru Nanak Jayanti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Foundation . . . . . . . . . . .33
Indira Gandhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
Faith alone can save the Human Race . . . . . . . . . .36
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN AUSTRALIA
Office Bearers:
Chairman Gambhir Watts
President Surendralal Mehta
Executive Secretary
and Director General Homi Navroji Dastur
Other Directors:
Abbas Raza Alvi, Shanker Dhar, Catherine Knox, Mathoor
Krishnamurti, Rozene Kulkarni, Palladam Narayana Sathanagopal,
Kalpana Shriram, Jagannathan Veeraraghavan, Moksha Watts
Patron: Her Excellency Mrs Sujatha Singh
High Commissioner of India in Australia
Honorary Life Patron: His Excellency M Ganapathi,
Currently High Commissioner of India in Mauritius
(Founder Member/Director of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia)
6 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
34
64
Rise and Rise of Yoga in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
When Illiteracy is a Vested Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Santa Claus Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
The Big Blink Raghuram Rajan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Nada Yoga The Yoga of Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Need of the Hour Global Organisation for Divinity 64
Nirad C. Chaudhuri.doc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Bipin Chandra Pal.doc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
Twilight--Prof Dharam Pal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
Publisher & General Editor:
Gambhir Watts
president@bhavanaustralia.org
Editorial Committee:
Shanker Dhar, Parveen Dahiya,
Sridhar Kumar Kondepudi
editors@bhavanaustralia.org
Design:
The Aqua Agency - 02 9810 5831
www.aquaagency.com.au
Advertising:
info@bhavanaustralia.org
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia
Suite 100 / 515 Kent Street,
Sydney NSW 2000
The views of contributors to Bhavan Australia are
not necessarily the views of Bhavan Australia or
the Editor. Bhavan Australia reserves the right to
edit any contributed articles and letters submitted
for publication. Copyright: all advertisements and
original editorial material appearing remain the
property of Bhavan Australia and may not be
reproduced except with the written consent of the
owner of the copyright.
Bhavan Australia: - ISSN 1449 – 3551

Rabindranath Tagore’s
Geetanjali
Sleep
In the night of weariness
let me give myself up to sleep without struggle,
resting my trust upon thee.
Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.
It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day
to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening.
Lamp of Love
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 love with thy life.
Dungeon
He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon.
I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into
the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.
I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand
lest a least hole should be left in this name;
and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.
Who is This?
I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.
He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;
but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 7

Diwali Message
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia
5 November 2010
I am very pleased to send my good wishes to all those in
Australia and around the world who will be celebrating
Diwali, the Festival of Lights.
Diwali is a time when families, friends, and communities
come together to celebrate the victory of good over evil.
Diwali is a reminder of the diversity and variety that
enriches life in Australia today. Across the country many
thousands of Australians will gather to pray, enjoy
delicious food, and exchange gifts. It is a joyous and
colourful occasion.
Wherever you are with your friends and families, I wish
you a happy Diwali.
Ode to Australia
Australia is also known as the ‘HiraNmaya
Khanda’ meaning, its tectonic plates are made of
gold and coral reefs. This land is also known as
the ‘manidweep bhoomi’ implying "the land of
Jems". Various varieties of pearls, zirconia, opals
and other precious stones are found in
abundance here. A plethora of flora rich in
medicinal value is also found on this land.
Approximately, sixty rivers flow through this
country. Water flowing in these rivers is
impregnated with metals and alloys.This place
was home to a large species of marsupials, of
which a few such as Kangaroos, Wallabies and
Koalas can still be seen in the wild.
Indigenous inhabitants of this land revere the
five elements and venerate fire (Agni)
‘yagneeshwara’ understanding its importance for
mankind and hence are called Shivaganas.
Through dot paintings they depict various states
of mind. These paintings are a spiritual
representation of the mother earth on a higher
8 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
plane. The Indigenous people have created their
own vocal instrument called Didgeridoo that
reverberates OmKara and are experts in the use
of a specialised weapon called Boomerang.
Uluru, a sacred place in this land is also the
normative icon of this country. This is a stable
land in the middle of the vast ocean affluent with
rich minerals, diverse flora and fauna.
The rich exuberance of colours, red at the centre
Uluru, white on the peaks of Snowy Mountains, blue
on the Mountains, colourful extravagance of the
Reef and top end bordered by the green oceans,
makes this land an abode of peace and serenity.
I salute this great country with its plethora of
colours, natural resources, flora, fauna, art,
culture and people.
Commentary on Sanskrit Poem by Dr Meenakshi
Srinivasan, Principal, Sydney Sanskrit School

Diwali
Festivals of
the Month
Diwali (Dipavali, Divali or Deepawali), also known
as ‘the festival of lights’, is an Indian festival that
brings a series of festivals with it. The people of all
age groups and classes celebrate Diwali throughout
India with equal zeal and enthusiasm. They put on
new clothes and participate in the various
activities that are related to Diwali celebrations.
Diwali falls on the day of ‘Amavasyaa’ usually in the
month of October or November. On this day, people
light tiny diyas (earthen lamps) to illuminate their
homes with bright light and create lovely designs
all around their home with colourful rangoli art.
Diwali is a five-day long festival, each day being
significant in its own terms. The celebrations
commence on Aswayuja Bahula Chaturdashi and
culminate on Kartika Shudha Vijaya. The first day
of this festival is called ‘Dhan Trayodashi’ or
‘Dhanteras’, wherein people worship Goddess
Lakshmi and purchase utensils made of silver. The
second day of Diwali is called ‘Narak Chaturdashi’,
which is popular as ‘Chhoti Diwali’. The third day
of Diwali, which is also called ‘Badi Diwali’, is the
main day of the celebrations of the festival. People
perform Lakshmi Puja (worship of divine Goddess
Lakshmi) on this day and offer prayers to her, to
bless them with wealth and prosperity.
The fourth day of Diwali is devoted to Govardhan
Pooja (worship of Lord Govardhan Parvat). The
fifth day of the Diwali is Bhai Dooj, the time to
honour the brother-sister relationship. Bursting
crackers, social gatherings, exchange of greetings,
sweets and gifts with loved ones are also part of
the festival. During the festival, people following
Hinduism offer prayers, and worship their favourite
deity. Worshipping of Goddess Lakshmi, worship of
Lord Ganesha, worship of Mother Kali, worship of
Lord Chitragupta and worship of Govardhan Parvat
is considered very auspicious for the occasion. In
2010 Diwali falls on 5th November.
Significance
Deepavali, the very name of this festival reveals its
meaning. The festival is all about the lighting diyas.
Diwali, the Indian festival of lights falls on the day
of ‘Amavasyaa’, when the moon does not rise and
there is darkness all around. Light, being symbol of
hope and positive energy, indicates the victory of
good over evil. By spreading light in every corner
of our premises, we try to destroy the reign of
darkness, on the night of Diwali. People decorate
their premises with diyas, electric bulbs and other
decorative electric lighting fixtures, to make their
surroundings filled with colourful light and to make
it bright and beautiful.
Dhanteras
The first day of Diwali celebration is marked by
Dhanteras. According to the legends, during the
churning of ocean by the Gods and the demons,
Dhanvantari, the Physician of the Gods came out of
the ocean on the day of Dhanteras, with a pot of
Amrita that was meant for the welfare of the
humankind. This day also marks the arrival of
Goddess Lakshmi, which is celebrated by drawing
small footprints of the deity, with rice flour and
vermilion powder.
The festival of Dhanteras is also known as
Dhantrayodashi and Dhanvantari Trayodashi
(Dhanwantari Trayodashi). This festival marks the
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 9

eginning of the Diwali celebrations and that is
why, it is considered the first day of five days long
festivities of Diwali. The term ‘Dhanteras’ consists
of two factors ‘dhan’, which means wealth and
‘teras’, which means thirteenth. Thirteenth is
meant to indicate the day ‘Trayodashi’, i.e. the
thirteenth day of the month on which Dhanteras
falls. Dhanvantari Trayodashi (Dhanwantari
Trayodashi) is celebrated on the thirteenth lunar
day of Krishna Paksha, of the Hindu month of
Kartik, which is two days before Diwali.
Dhanteras Celebrations
People worship Lord Yamaraj, the God of death, on
this day and light a ‘Yama-Diya’ in the night to offer
prayers to him to bless them with prosperity, wellbeing
and protection. They also purchase a new
utensil, silver or gold coin or some other precious
metal as a sign of good luck on the day of
Dhanteras. The day of Dhanteras has great
importance for the mercantile community of
Western India. In Maharashtra, there is a peculiar
custom to lightly pound dry coriander seeds with
jaggery and offer as Naivedya. In the rural areas the
cultivators worship their cattle because they form
the main source of their income and livelihood.
Legends
Another story famous about Dhanteras is related to
the son of King Hima and his intelligent wife. It was
predicted about King Hima that he would die on the
fourth day of his marriage and the reason behind his
death would be snakebite. When his wife came to
know about such a prediction she decided not to let
her husband die and for this she made a plan. On the
fourth day of their marriage she collected all the
jewellery and wealth at the entrance of her husband’s
boudoir and lighted lamps all around the place and
started telling stories and singing songs one after
another in order to not let her husband sleep.
10 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
In the mid night Lord Yama, the God of death
arrived there in guise of a snake. The bright lights
of the lamps lit by the wife of the king’s son blinded
his eyes and he could not enter their chamber.
Therefore, Lord Yama found a place to stay
comfortable on top of the heap of the jewellery and
wealth and kept sitting there for the whole night
waiting to get a chance to bite the king’s son but as
the wife of the king’s son kept telling stories and
singing songs for the whole night therefore he
could not get any chance and in the morning he left
the place quietly. Thus, the wife saved her
husband’s life from the cruel clutches of death.
Since then the day of Dhanteras is also known as
the day of ‘Yamadeepdaan’ and it has become a
tradition to light a diya on Dhanteras and to keep it
burning throughout the night in reverential
adoration of Lord Yama, the God of death.
Narak Chaturdashi (Chhoti Diwali)
One famous story behind the celebrations of Diwali
is about the demon king Narakasur, who was ruler
of Pragjyotishpur, a province to the South of Nepal.
During a war, he defeated Lord Indra and snatched
away the magnificent earrings of Mother Goddess
Aditi, who was not only the ruler of Suraloka, but
also a relative of Lord Krishna’s wife, Satyabhama.
Narakasur also imprisoned sixteen thousand
daughters of Gods and saints in his harem. A day
before Diwali, Lord Krishna killed Narakasur,
released the jailed daughters and restored the
precious earrings of Mother Goddess Aditi.
Diwali and Shri Ram
The most famous legend behind the celebrations of
Diwali is about the prince of Ayodhya Nagri, Lord
Shri Ram. According to the legend, the king of
Lanka, Ravan, kidnapped Lord Ram’s wife, Sita. Ram
attacked Lanka, killed Ravan and released Sita. He
returned to Ayodhya with his wife Sita and younger
brother Lakshamana after fourteen years.
Therefore, the people of Ayodhya decorated their
homes as well as Ayodhya, by lighting tiny diyas, in
order to welcome their beloved prince Shri Ram
and Devi Sita. It was the day of ‘Kartik Amavasyaa’
when they also celebrated the victory of Shri Ram
over the King of Lanka, Ravan. Ram is considered
the symbol of good and the positive things and
Ravan represents the evils. Therefore, Diwali is
considered the festival, which establishes the
victory of good over the evil. On the night of Diwali,
people light diyas, an icon of positive energy to
conquer darkness, the symbol of negative energy.
Lakshmi Pooja
Lakshmi Pooja is one of the most important
features of Diwali celebrations. Lakshmi, who is
considered the goddess of light, beauty, good
fortune and wealth, is worshipped on the occasion
of Diwali to bring prosperity in the family. She is
also worshiped to achieve success and fortune. It is

however said that she does not reside long with
anyone who is lazy and untidy or desire her only as
wealth. That is why before the Lakshmi Pooja,
people actively clean their home and worship her
with immense devotion.
Lakshmi is said to be the daughter of the sage
Bhrigu. Legends say that she took refuge in the
ocean of milk when the gods were sent into exile.
Lakshmi was reborn when Lord and Demon
churned the ocean to get ‘Amrut’, the drink of
immortality. However as the God had a glimpse of
Lakshmi, they all fell in love with her mesmerizing
exquisiteness. First of all, Shiva claimed Lakshmi as
his wife, but as he had been given the Moon,
Lakhsmi’s marriage was performed with Vishnu,
preferred choice by the Goddess.
The Pooja
Lakshmi Pooja is done in a very specific manner.
First of all the entire place for the pooja is cleaned
and a higher platform with a new cloth over it is
made ready for deity’s establishment. A kalash
(pitcher) made of gold, silver, copper, or terracotta
is then placed over it with handful of grains at the
base. Three-fourth of the kalash is then filled with
water and a betel nut, a flower, a coin, and some
rice is placed in it. The Kalash is then decorated
with mango leaves and covered with a plate
containing rice grains. It is auspicious to draw a
lotus with turmeric powder (haldi) over the rice
grains and then place the idol of goddess Lakshmi
over it, along with coins.
Once the Goddess is established the Pooja is
started in the presence of entire family. At most of
the places, Lord Ganesha is also worshipped along
with the Goddess. It is said that worshipping two of
them together is very auspicious and it brings
wisdom and wealth together. The idol of Ganesha is
placed in front of the kalash, on the right (South-
West direction). It is said that placing ink and books
related to business or occupation on the platform
in front of Him brings wisdom and knowledge.
The Pooja begins in the presence of entire family by
lighting a lamp or diya. The deities are offered
haldi, kumkum, and flowers to the platform on
which the kalash is placed. Then Goddess Lakshmi
is invoked by reciting the Vedic mantras addressed
to her. It is said that even if we do not remember
mantras we can also invoke the Goddess by simply
closing our eyes and remembering Her with full
devotion. Like other god and goddesses, we can
also offer Her flowers and bathe her in panchamrit,
a mixture of milk, curd, ghee or clarified butter,
honey, and sugar). It is considered auspicious if
Goddess Lakshmi is offered some gold ornament or
a pearl.
To do an extensive Pooja we offer sandal paste,
saffron paste, perfume (itr), haldi, kumkum, abeer,
and gulal to the goddess along with a garland of
cotton beads. Flowers specially marigold and
leaves of Bel, wood apple are also considered to be
the favourite of Goddess Laksmi. Along with
earthen lamps, we can also light an incense stick,
dhoop and perform an elaborate havan. At the end,
the aarti for goddess Lakshmi is performed.
Govardhan Puja
The fourth day of Diwali celebrations is ‘Padwa’ or
‘Varshapratipada’. In the North India, it is called as
Govardhan Puja. This Pooja is performed with great
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 11

zeal and enthusiasm in the states of Punjab,
Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In this Pooja,
there is a tradition of building cow dung hillocks,
which symbolize the Mount Govardhan, the
mountain which was once lifted by Lord Krishna.
After making such hillocks people decorate them
with flowers and then worship them. They move in
a circle all round the cow dung hillocks and offer
prayers to Lord Govardhan.
Legends
‘Govardhan’ is a small hillock situated at ‘Braj’,
near Mathura. The legends in ‘Vishnu Puraan’ have
it that the people of Gokul used to worship and
offer prayer to Lord Indra for the rains because
they believed that it was he who sent rains for their
welfare but Lord Krishna told them that it was
Mount Govardhan (Govardhan Parvat) and not
Lord Indra who caused rains therefore they should
worship the former and not the latter. People did
the same and it made Lord Indra so furious that the
people of Gokul had to face very heavy rains as a
result of his anger. Then Lord Krishna came
forward to ensure their security and after
performing worship and offering prayers to Mount
Govardhan lifted it as an umbrella on the little
finger of his right hand so that everyone could take
shelter under it. After this event Lord Krishna was
also known as Giridhari or Govardhandhari.
Anna-Koot
The fourth day of Diwali celebrations is also
observed as Anna-Koot, which literally means
‘mountain of food’. On this auspicious day the
people prepare fifty-six or one hundred and eight
different varieties of delicious dishes to offer Lord
Krishna as ‘Bhog’. In the temples, specifically in
Mathura and Nathdwara, the deities are given milk
12 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
bath, dressed in new shining attires and decorated
with ornaments of dazzling diamonds, pearls,
rubies and other precious stones and metals. They
are worshipped, offered prayers and bhajans and
also offered delicious sweets, fruits and eatables
that are ceremoniously raised in the form of a
mountain before the idols.
Padwa
The day following the ‘Amavasya’ is ‘Kartik Shuddh
Padwa’, which is also the day when the King Bali
would come out of the ‘Patal Lok’, the nether land
and rule the ‘Bhoo Lok’, the world as per the boon
given to him by ‘Batu Waman’, Lord Vishnu.
Therefore this day is also known as ‘Bali Padyami’.
‘Padwa’ or ‘Varshapratipada’ also marks the
coronation of King Vikramaditya as ‘Vikaram-
Samvat’ was started from this Padwa day.
Gudi Padwa
The day of Gudi Padwa has special significance for
the Hindu families. There is a custom in which on
this holy day the wife applies the ‘Tilak’ on the
forehead of her husband, garlands him, performs
his ‘Aarti’ and also prays for his long life. Then the
husband gives her a gift in appreciation of all the
tender care that his wife showers on him. Thus the
Gudi Padwa is festival of celebrations and respect
of love and devotion between the wife and the
husband. People invite their newly married
daughters with their husbands on this day of Gudi
Padwa for special meals and give them gifts.
Bhai Dooj
According to the legends, Lord Yamraj, the God of
Death, visited his sister Yamuna on the ‘Shukla
Paksha Dwitiya’ day in the Hindi month of ‘Kartik’.

When Yamraj reached Yamuna’s home, she
welcomed him by performing his aarti, applying
‘Tilak’ on his forehead and by putting a garland
around his neck. Yamuna also cooked varieties of
dishes, prepared many sweets for her brother and
offered all those to Him.
Lord Yamraj ate all those delicious dishes and
when he was finished, he showered blessings on
Yamuna and gave her a boon that if a brother visits
his sister on this day, he would be blessed with
health and wealth. This is why this day of Bhayya
Duj is also known by the name of ‘Yam-Dwitiya’.
Thus, it has become a tradition on the day of Bhai
Dooj, brothers visit their sisters’ home and offer
them gifts. Sisters also make various dishes for
their brothers and give gifts to them.
Diwali, the vibrant festival of lights, brings with it a
chance to revive relationships. The fifth day of the
five-day festival is especially dedicated to honour
the unique bond between brother and sister.
Known as Bhai Dooj or Bhaiya Duj, it falls on the
second day after Diwali, that is, on ‘Shukla Paksha
Dwitiya’ in the Hindi month of ‘Kartik’. Bhayya Duj
is the festival that marks the end of Diwali
celebrations. This festival is popular in different
regions with different names, such as ‘Bhai-Dooj’ in
north India, ‘Bhav-Bij’ in Maharashtra, ‘Bhai-Phota’
in Bengal and ‘Bhai-Teeka’ in Nepal.
Legends
After Bhagwaan Mahavir attained ‘Nirvana’, his
brother Raja Nandi-Vardhan became very sad. He
missed Bhagwaan Mahavir very badly. At that
moment, his sister Sudarshana comforted him.
Since then, the women have been revered during
this festival, by their brothers. Therefore, Bhai Duj
is not only significant for the people following
Hinduism, but also important for the Buddhists of
India. By celebrating Bhai Duj, they put an end to
the celebration of the Nirvana of Lord Mahavir.
Celebrations
On the auspicious day of Bhaiya-Dooj, brothers and
sisters get up early in the morning and get ready
for the day. On the arrival of their brothers, the
sisters perform ‘Aarti’ (of their brothers) and apply
a beautiful ‘Tilak’ or ‘Teeka’ on their forehead. The
sisters sweeten the mouth of brother with mouthwatering
eatables. Thereafter, the brothers and
sisters exchange gifts with each other. On the
auspicious day of ‘Yam-Dwitiya’, the people of
‘Kayastha’ community of Hindus celebrate the holy
function of worshipping Lord Chitragupta, the God
who maintains the records of life and death of the
living beings. The ‘Kayastha’ community also
worships the pen, paper and ink on this day, in the
honour of Lord Chitragupta.
Sikh Diwali
In the Sikh community, Diwali celebrations have
special importance as for them it is popular as the
day when their sixth Guru, Guru Har Govindji came
back from the captivity of the fort of Gwalior city.
The people illuminated lamps in the way to Shri
Harmandhir Sahib, which is known by the name of
‘the Golden Temple’, to honour and welcome their
beloved Guru.
Jain Diwali
For the Jain community, the festival of Diwali has
special significance. It is the day when the famous
Jain prophet Bhagvaan Mahaveer, the founder of
Jainism, attained ‘Nirvana’. Therefore, the people of
Jain community celebrate the festival of Diwali in
remembrance of Lord Mahavira.
Diwali, the blissful festival calls for the exchange of
gifts, sweets and heartfelt wishes. Fire crackers are
burst and people enjoy wearing new clothes, on the
auspicious day. Although the way of merrymaking
is different and the customs are different, the feel
among the people across the length and breadth of
the country remains the same, to spread good
cheer. It is the time to celebrate brotherhood.
Source: http://festivals.iloveindia.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 13

All Saints Day
The Feast of All Saints is a sacred day of the Church
worshiping all saints, recognized and unidentified.
While people have acquaintance of many saints, and
they tribute them on exact days, there are many
unidentified or unsung saints, who may have been
forgotten, or never been particularly honoured. On
All Saints Day, people rejoice these saints of the
Lord, and ask for their prayers and arbitrations. The
whole notion of All Saints Day is tied in with the
thought of the Communion of Saints. This is the faith
that all of God’s populace, on heaven, earth, and in
the condition of purification (called Purgatory in the
West), are associated in a communion. Catholic and
Orthodox Christians consider that the saints of God
are just as living as normal people. People’s
relationship with the saints in heaven is one
grounded in a tight-knit spiritual union.
“People rejoice these
saints of the Lord and
ask for their prayers and
arbitrations”
There are thousands of canonized saints, i.e. those
persons formally recognized by the Church as holy
men and women admirable of imitation. Miracles
have been linked with these people, and their lives
have been fully inspected and found holy by the
Church. They are major illustrations of sanctity,
and influential intercessors before God on people’s
behalf. There are also many supporter saints,
guardians or guardians of different regions and
states of life. Like, St. Vitus is the supporter saint
against oversleeping, and St. Joseph of Cupertino is
the supporter saint of air travellers. It may sound
wild to have a patron saint against oversleeping,
but keep the Church has something significant for
each region of our human lives. All of these saints
are renowned all throughout the year.
History
All Saints Day is when the Church honours all
saints, famous and strange. The eve of All Saints is
recognized as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. All
14 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Saints Day falls on November 1. Christians have
been adoring their saints and martyrs from the time
when the second century AD. The Martyrdom of
Polycarp, almost certainly written near the middle
of the second century, confirm to this reality.
At first the date book of saints and martyrs wideranging
from site to site, and many times local
churches honoured neighbouring saints. On the
other hand, steadily feast days turn into more
widespread. The first indication to a common
banquet celebrating all saints occurs in St. Ephrem
the Syrian (d. AD 373). St. John Chrysostom (d. AD
407) allocates a day to the feast, the first Sunday
after Pentecost, where in the Eastern Churches the
feast is notable to this day. In the West, this date
was perhaps originally used, and then the banquet
was moved to May 13th. The existing ceremony
(November 1) possibly commenced from the time
of Pope Gregory III (d. AD 741), and was likely first
implemented on November 1st in Germany.
Celebrations
The vigil of the Feast (the eve) has matured up as a
celebration in itself, All Hallows Eve, or Halloween.
While a lot of people consider Halloween pagan (and
in many occurrence the celebrations are for many), as
far as the Church is concerned the date is just the eve
of the feast of All Saints. Many traditions of Halloween
imitate the Christian faith that on the feast’s vigils
people ridicule evil, because as Christians, it has no
genuine power over them. Nevertheless, for a number
of people Halloween is used for vice motives, in
which many Christians experiment innocently. There
is a proper association between Christians and
Halloween. A variety of traditions have developed
associated to Halloween. In the Middle Ages, poor
people in the society requested for “soul cakes,” and
ahead receiving these doughnuts, they would agree to
plead for dead. The tradition of masks and outfits
developed to mock evil and maybe perplex the evil
spirits by dressing as one of their own. The day after
All Saints day is called All Soul’s Day, a day to
memorize and offer prayers up on behalf of all of the
truthful departed. In many civilizations it seems the
two days share many customs.
Source: www.altiusdirectory.com

All Souls Day
All Souls Day falls on November 2, just subsequent
to the All Saints Day and is an official public
holiday of the Catholic Calendar. It is a Roman
Catholic day of tribute for friends and loved ones
who have gone for their heavenly abode.
Feast of All Souls
All Souls Day is also recognized as the Feast of All
Souls, tribute of all the Faithful Departed. Catholics
consider that persons who die are not straight away
qualified for the beatific vision that is the
authenticity and decency of God and heaven and
need to be washed out of their sins. The Catholic
Church calls this refinement of the elect
“purgatory.” The Catholic Church uphold that: there
will be a distillation of the believers preceding to
entering heaven and the prayers and masses of the
authentic help those in the state of distillation.
Rituals
In All Souls Day the friends and relatives of the
departed souls pray and offer funeral hymn masses.
There are three Requiem Masses that are said by the
clergy to help the souls from Purgatory to Heaven:
one for the chief priest, one in favour of the departed,
and one intended for the pope. While the Feast of All
Saints is a day to memorize the magnificence of
Heaven and those there, the Feast of All Souls
reminds us of our responsibility to live lives on the
holy path and that there will be distillation of the
souls of those fated for Heaven. A candle is placed for
all departed soul, and they are decorated in some
manner. Anger is also often used, and memento,
photos, and other remembrances of the dead.
It is also habitual of playing Don Juan Tenorio in
various locations to see. Paper mache and sugar
skulls are trendy, as are cardboard coffins from which
a carcass can be made to leap out. Unusual masks are
also worn, permitting a person to attain a facial look
for which they believe they are lacking to achieve.
History
The Feast of All Souls has its commencement to
seventh century monks who determined to offer
the mass on the day after Pentecost for their dead
community members. Nevertheless, the choice of
the date, November 2, for All Souls Day is credited
to St. Odilo, the fifth Abbot of Cluny (city of France
famous for the Abby), since he wanted to pursue
the illustration of Cluny in offering special prayers
and singing the Office of the Dead on the day
subsequent to the banquet of All Saints.
“Friends and relatives
of the departed souls
pray and offer funeral
hymn masses.”
The current view of death is obtained in part from
Pre-Hispanic times. The Aztecs played a very
significant role in the expansion of this custom.
Through their record, this festival came out as one
with a lot of details and with a varied
understanding to it. According to the Aztec beliefs,
after a person’s loss his soul would go by nine
stages before they reached Mictlan—the place of
the dead. The Aztecs also supposed that a person’s
fate was established at birth and that the spirit of
that human being actually depends upon the kind
of death rather than the kind of life they lead. The
type of a person’s death would also decide what
region they would go to. Once they arrived to their
exact region, a person’s soul would either wait for
the alteration or remain, awaiting the next fate.
Source: www.altiusdirectory.com

Annaprasan
Annaprasan literally is ‘putting solid food or rice
into a child’s mouth for the first time’. Anna means
‘food’, especially ‘boiled rice’. Prashana means
‘eating, feeding’, and specifically ‘the first feeding of
a child’. The ceremony ritualizes the start of a
nursing child’s additional solid nourishment from
the age of six or seven months. This Sanskara
developed out of the physical need of the child for
more nourishment. It also established a point in the
child’s development at which the mother should
consider beginning to wean him.
The Ceremony
After a Muhurta has been selected for the
ceremony, friends and relatives are invited. Food is
cooked to the chanting of appropriate Vedic
mantras. The father feeds the child as the priest
recites the Mahavyahritis. The child is then placed
on kusha grass before the fire. Next, the father
offers oblations to Agni praying that the child
should be strong and well spoken. He also prays for
a long, happy and contented life, for fame, and for a
broad vision for the child.
After this, according to the Markandeya Purana, the
child is placed amongst tools and articles used in
various crafts and occupations. It is believed that
16 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
the article that he touches first decides his future
occupation. When this has been done, the
Brahmins invited for the occasion and relatives are
fed food specially cooked for the occasion. The
Brahmins are also given gifts.
Grihyasutras
According to the Grihyasutras, Annaprashana
should be performed when the child is between six
and seven months old. For a weak child, it can be
postponed further. However it should not be
performed before the child is four months old
because he will not be able to digest food before
then. Nor should the ceremony be performed after
he is a year old because delaying additional
nourishment could retard the child’s natural
growth and development. Some people believe that
it should be performed after the child’s first teeth
come out as this is a sure sign that he will be able
to digest solid food.
Sushruta
According to Sushruta, the food given to the child
during Annaprashana should be easy to digest. He
should be fed different foods with different flavours.
A mixture of honey, yogurt, and ghee or meat is
offered to the child. The meat of every animal and
bird is believed to have a different quality,
which is imparted to the child. Like, fish
is believed to give swiftness. The
Markandeya Purana recommends
milk, rice, ghee and honey.
The concept of Annaprashana
existed among the Aryans
before they came to India.
This view is supported by
the presence of a similar
ceremony among the
Parsis. It became a
religious ritual by the time
of the Sutras.
Source: www.gurjari.net

From the President
Deepavali - The National Festival
Figuratively speaking only when a worm is happy can
the world be happy. Being otherwise insensate, the
only happiness for a worm is food and more food.
When the Rain God smiles, it pours. Good rains
mean the plants and trees sprout more foliage and
that means more food for the worm, more food also
for birds and other voracious insects that feed on
worms and so on down the cycle of interdependent
system of life on earth.
This year the rains have been fairly widespread,
except for some areas, and hence the harvest of
grains is also expected to be bountiful.
The festival season is basically a season of
thanksgiving. Usually, all notable festivals of India
occur during the Dakshinayana.
Incidentally, all these major festivals in our country
are festivals in which people participate, irrespective
of caste, creed and religion, together with the
primary participants of the festival concerned.
There is camaraderie and harmony, Ramzan, Ganesh
Chaturti, Navaratri, Dusshera, Deepavali and
Christmas are festivals in which all people zealously
participate and exchange greetings and goodwill.
Deepavali is celebrated throughout the country
and is indeed a festival of all our people.
Interestingly, Deepavali, popularly known as the
festival of lights, is a collage of independent
festivals, celebrated on consecutive days.
It begins on the 14th day of Krishna Paksha or the
dark half of the month of Asvina. It is on this day
Narakasura was killed by Satyabhama, consort of
Lord Sri Krishna.
Mortally wounded, he sought a boon from the Lord.
He requested that this should be a day of celebration
and joy for all his people and that he should be able to
visit and observe them being happy and contented.
This day of prayer and sharing is largely people’s
way of expressing their esteem and affection for a
king who loved them.
In southern India, particularly in Tamilnadu, only
Naraka Chaturdasi is celebrated as Diwali.
The next day Amavasya, is the day when Lakshmi Puja
is performed. This function is also one of expression
of gratitude to Goddess Lakshmi for favours granted
and for seeking continuation of her benevolence.
For the trading community it is an auspicious day and
is considered as commencement of the New Year.
It is also celebrated to commemorate the
homecoming of Lord Ram to Ayodhya after
fourteen years of exile.
The first day of Shukla Paksha of Kartika which
follows is known as Bali Bhadrapada. This is also a
day when people remember yet another great King,
Bali, though he was an Asura.
Lord Vishnu, in the form of a diminutive Brahmin
seeks from him land which can be measured by
taking only three steps and the king promptly grants
it. Lord Vishnu grows in size, measures all the land
of the king with only two steps and the king offers
his own head for the Lord to place his feet upon. He
too asks to be permitted to visit his people and
observe them being happy and contented.
In fact in the state of Kerala this festival is observed
with great enthusiasm during the month of August
when its people believe King Bali would visit their
homes. This festival is also an expression of
thankfulness to a king how loved his subjects.
The second day of Sukhla Paksha of Kartik is
observed as Yama Dvidiya. On this day brothers
meet their sisters. The sisters perform arati and
feed their siblings with sweets and express their
gratitude and affection. The brothers reciprocate
with gifts and express their continuing affection
and support.
The entire spirit of Diwali festival is one of prayer,
expression of gratitude and one of sharing and
giving. People also help the poor and needy. The
social aspects are more prominent than the
religious significance. Deepavali is now a National
Festival of all our people.
Surendralal G. Mehta, President Bhavan Worldwide
Source: Bhavan’s Journal October 31, 2010
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 17

Celebrating International
Non Violence Day
2nd October 2010, Parramatta City Council Library
The Gandhi Peace Centre Australia and Parramatta
City Council Libraries jointly organized a weeklong
celebration of UN declared “International Day of
Non Violence” observed Mahatma Gandhi’s 141st
birth Anniversary. Local Community Centers in
Harris Park and Parramatta area, general public,
newly elected Lord Mayor of Parramatta Council
Hon. John Chedid, Councillor Prabir Maitra,
Council Officials and children participated and
supported the event. Parramatta City Council has
organized a week long exhibitions of Mahatma
Gandhi books and Posters in its six branches of
Parramatta, Dundas Valley, Ermington, Granville,
Guildford and Constitutional Hill Libraries Lord
Mayor Hon. John Chedid who was just elected two
days ago said “It was a matter of pride and honor
for me to attend my first Public function after my
election to Mayor of Parramatta City Council.” He
further said “Parramatta City is the cauldron of
multicultural communities and Gandhi’s Peace and
Harmony programs take a prime position in
promoting Peace and Harmony in the City.” Lord
Mayor John Chedid pledged his ongoing support to
promote further activities of Gandhi Peace Centre.
18 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Lord Mayor thanked Gandhi Centre for contributing
$500 worth of books to the libraries giving and
insight into the Gandhian values and culture as
practised by the Indian Saint.
An hour long inaugural event was held in the
Parramatta City Library. Parramatta City library staff
had organized a well decorated display of Gandhi
books, Peace messages and Gandhi life posters in a
enclosed glass structure in the Library. Mahatma
Gandhiji’s life posters have been displayed for
Public at the ground floor level of Parramatta
Library. Other five branches of Parramatta Libraries
have displayed Gandhi Books and Peace messages
those were easy access and informative to the
Public. It has been heartening to note that
Parramatta City Council has acknowledged the
relevance of Mahatma Gandhi’s Peace and Harmony
teachings and community contributions promoted
by Gandhi Peace Centre, other Organisations and
individuals in and around Parramatta. Christina
Steiner from Parramatta City Library services stated
that Parramatta Library has been so much
appreciative of the programs put up by the Centre

that the Parramatta Library has decided to extend
the Gandhi Posters and books display for over a
month period in the Parramatta Library.
Mr. Susai Benjamin, the only Indian representative of
member Commonwealth Minority Council, whilst
speaking at the occasion stated that it was a matter
of Pride for us Indian and Australian in particular
that Gandhi Peace Centre has been promoting Values
of Peace and Non Violence messages of Mahatma
Gandhi. Mr. Abbas Alvi the Director of Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan and a staunch supporter of Gandhian
movement read out a Peace and Harmony poem. Mr.
Alvi stated that Gandhi is very much relevant to our
Society and his teachings and values are promoted
by the value based activities by Gandhi peace Centre.
Mr. Alvi commended the voluntary works of
members of Gandhi Peace Centre.
“...Gandhi is very
much relevant to our
Society and his teachings
and values are promoted
by the value based
activities by Gandhi
peace Centre.”
Councillor Prabir Maitra the only Councillor from
Bangladesh country of origin stated that Mahatma
Gandhi has been very close to his heart and that he
had taken the current event to the Council
members and persuaded them to celebrate this
noble event UN declared “International Day of Non
Violence, to celebrate every year.” The Council has
provided very positive and supportive responses
and within three weeks time organized the program
in liaison with Gandhi Peace Centre. Mr. Prabhu
Acharya who played a unique musical instrument
“Hang” shaped like a shield, captured the
imagination of the audience. Mr. Acharya said he
was born in the same state of Porbunder in Gujarat
where Gandhi was born and he spreads the
message of peace through the music.
Earlier, the hour long duration program begun with
Aboriginal Elder Des Dryer’s “Salutation to
Country” and lighting of the lamps at the Gandhi
Portraits and ongoing screening of Gandhi’s life
clips from Gandhi movies, music and peace
messages from the community leaders.
Mr. Ronnie D’Souza Director Gandhi Peace Centre
stated that promoting Gandhian value is a long
journey where people from all walks of live have
been extending their hands and building a chain of
Peace and Harmony in Australia. Local NGOs,
leaders from various religious groups, local
governments both at Council and State level,
various multicultural Organisations have journeyed
together. We all have believed in promoting Peace
and Harmony in the Western Sydney Region.
Upholding the values of Justice, equality and fair go
to make this place a better place to live. Once you
are in this chain you can not move out but you keep
on building upon and spreading the message of love
and compassion by your acts and deeds taking
forward the message of one community to foster
Peace, Tolerance and Harmony. Gandhi Peace
Centre has boldly taken up the difficult tasks of
promoting value systems in the community though
children and youth program, which has been
difficult to measure in term of statistical figures.
Mr. Ronnie D’Souza advised and acknowledged that
it was a matter of pride for us Australian that the
Consul General of India Mr Amit Dasgupta has been
instrumental in installing a bust of Mahatma Gandhi
at the ground of University of NSW and has
organised a 2nd October program of International
day of Non Violence in the City. It was
acknowledged that Bharatiya Vidhya Bhavan and
other organizations have also been celebrating
Gandhi Birth Anniversary in various parts of NSW,
including Parramatta. It was acknowledged in the
program that a few NGOs, individuals and MPs
NSWs could not attend the program due to their
prior commitment and also their attendance to the
similar programs occurring in Sydney
Report by: Ronnie D’Souza
Director, Gandhi Peace Centre
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 19

Guru
Nanak Jayanti
Guru Nanak Dev was the first Sikh Guru and the
founder of the Sikh religion. He was born on the full
moon day in the month of Kartik as per the Hindu
calendar. His birthday is celebrated as Guru Nanak
Jayanti. Guru Nanak was born in 1469 AD at Rai-
Bhoi-di Talwandi, some 30 miles from Lahore, in the
present Pakistan. The Sikhs visit Gurdwaras where
special programs are arranged and kirtans
(religious songs) are sung. Houses and Gurdwaras
are decorated and lit up to add to the festivities.
Guru Nanak Dev’s life served as a beacon light for
his age. He was a great seer, saint and mystic. He
was a prolific poet and a unique singer of God’s
laudation. A prophet of peace, love, truth and
renaissance, he was centuries ahead of his times.
His universal message is as fresh and true even
today as it was in the past and Sikhs all over the
world. Guru Nanak Jayanti in 2010 falls on the 21st
of November.
Guru Nanak
Guru Nanak Dev Ji was born into a Kshatriya
(warrior) family to Mehta Kalu Chand and Tripti
Devi. Mehta Kalyan Das Bedi, better known as
Mehta Kalu, was the accountant of the village and
an agriculturist as well. Since childhood, Nanak had
a mystic disposition and used to talk to Sadhus
about God. He had a pious nature and a
contemplative mind. He spent most of his time in
meditation and spiritual practices.
Early Life
Nanak got married to Sulakhani, daughter of Mula,
resident of Batala in the district of Gurdaspur. He
20 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
had two sons, Srichand and Lakshmichand. But he
left his family and went to the forests and lonely
places for meditation. Jai Ram, Nanak’s brother-inlaw,
took him to Rai Bular, the Zamindar of
Talwandi, who put Nanak in charge of his
storehouse. Nanak received provisions as his
salary for discharging his duties very satisfactorily.
However, Nanak gave up his duty and distributed
the goods among the poor. Disguised as a Fakir, he
lived in the jungles singing inspiring songs.
Mardana, a minstrel from Talwandi became Nanak’s
servant and faithful devotee.
The Preacher
Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj
By the age of 34, Nanak became a public preacher.
He preached “There is no Hindu, there is no
Mussulman”. His preachings highly impressed the
public. He toured Northern India along with
Mardana. He wandered from place to place. He
travelled throughout India from Sayyidpur to
Kurukshetra, Haridwar, Brindavan, Varanasi, Agra,
Kanpur, Prayag, Patna, Rajgir, Gaya and Puri. He
even made extensive tours to Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
Mecca, Medina, Turkey, Baghdad, Kabul, Kandahar
and Siam.
Two great miracles are associated with Guru
Nanak’s life. One is connected with Nanak’s visit to
Mecca. One time, the Mohammedans found Nanak
sleeping with his feet towards the Kaaba, the
direction towards which the Muslims prostrate
while performing their prayers. Kazi Rukan-ud-din
observed this and got angry. On remarking why he
turned his feet towards God, Nanak asked him to
turn his feet where God is not present. Kazi angrily
turned his feet to the opposite direction. To his

surprise, even the mosque started moving. Kazi
was shocked but recognized the glory of Guru
Nanak.
The second incident mentions about the visit of
Nanak to Hassan Abdal in the Attock district in the
North Western Frontier in 1520 AD Nanak sat under
a peepal tree at the foot of a hillock. Mardana used
to get water from a spring of water at the hilltop. A
Mohammedan saint named Vali Quandhari lived on
the hill and did not like this. He refused to give any
water to Mardana. On informing about this to
Nanak, he only said that God will help them. Soon,
the spring on the hilltop dried and a spring rose at
the foot of the hilltop. The saint got enraged and
hurled a big rock from the hilltop down to the place
where Nanak sat. Nanak stopped the rock with his
open hand. This surprised the saint and he
immediately prostrated at the feet of Nanak for
pardon.
Nanak preached purity, justice, goodness and love
of God. He composed beautiful mystic poems,
which are contained in ‘Japji’. Today, every Sikh
sings this at daybreak. Through ‘Japji’, Nanak has
given a vivid and concise description of the stages
that a man must pass through to reach the final
resting place or abode of eternal bliss. Nanak spent
the last days of his life in Khartarpur where his
entire family resided together for the first time. His
devotee, Mardana also lived with him. Guru Nanak
died in 1538 AD at the age of 69. He was succeeded
by Guru Angad.
Significance
Guru Nanak Jayanti is the most sacred festivals of
Sikhs, which commemorates the birthday of Guru
Nanak Dev. The birth anniversaries are associated
with the 10 Gurus of Sikhism. Guru Nanak was the
first Sikh guru and the founder of Sikhism. The
festival is celebrated with great religious fervour,
dedication and devotion across India, chiefly in
Punjab, Haryana and abroad. This holy occasion is
observed on the full moon day in the month of
Kartik as per the Hindu calendar. The celebrations
for this day are spread across three days. Read
through the following lines to know how Guru
Nanak Jayanti is celebrated across India.
Celebrations
The festive spirit of Guru Nanak Jayanti begins with
the reading of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book
of the Sikhs non-stop for 48 hours in the
Gurudwara. This recitation of the Guru Granth is
known as Akhand Path. The recitation ends on the
day of the festival. A day prior to Guru Nanak
Jayanti, a religious procession or Prabhat Pheri is
carried out in the early morning that is lead by the
Panj Pyares, the five armed guards. These guards
head the procession carrying the Sikh flag known
as the Nishan Sahib. They also carry the Guru
Granth Sahib that is well set in a Palki (Palanquin)
ornamented with flowers.
The procession starts from the gurudwaras and
proceeds towards the localities. The guards are
followed by local bands playing brass bands and a
team of singers singing shabads (religious hymns).
While the procession passes the local homes, the
devotees sing the chorus and offer sweets and tea
to the people in the procession. ‘Gatka’ teams
(martial arts) display mock-battles with the
traditional weapons. The route of the procession is
decorated with flags, flowers and religious posters.
Banners are also posted depicting various aspects
of Sikhism.
On the day of Guru Nanak Jayanti, celebrations
begin early in the morning at around 4 or 5 a.m.
Morning hymns, known as Asa-di-Var, and hymns
from the Sikh scriptures are sung, which are then
followed by Katha, or the exposition of the
scripture. This includes religious and historical
lectures and recitation of poems to honor the Guru.
The Gurudwara hall also conducts the Kirtan-
Darbars and Amrit Sanchar ceremonies. A special
community lunch, or Langar, follows next. This
lunch is organized by the volunteers at the
Gurudwara. The Sikhs consider distributing free
sweets and lunch as a part of seva (service) and
bhakti (devotion).
The food is served to all people irrespective of
caste or religion. Special pious food or Prasad
known as Kara Prasad is then offered to everyone
present in the Gurudwara. The gurudwaras and the
homes are decked with earthen lamps and candles
in the evening. Religious music played by local
bands, enthusiastic Bhangra dance (Punjabi dance
form) and the colorful folk drum players add to the
color of the festival. The guards perform fighting
skills and martial arts. The golden Temple in
Amritsar is the main attraction during this festival.
Preparations for the festival start well in advance.
The festival is generally a three-day fair. It starts off
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 21

with reciting the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book
of Sikhs, in the gurudwaras. The holy book is read
for 48 hours non-stop, known as Akhand Path. This
ends on the day before Guru Nanak Jayanti. A day
before the festival, a procession is carried out
starting early in the morning, called the Prabhat
Pheris. The procession starts from the gurudwara
and moves ahead towards the localities. Five armed
guards, representing the Panj Pyares lead the
procession carrying the Sikh Flag called Nishan
Sahibs. They even carry a Palki (palanquin) which
holds the Guru Granth Sahib placed firm and
decorated with flowers.
As the procession proceeds, the followers sing
shabads (religious hymns) while the local bands
play religious music. The day of Guru Nanak Jayanti
begins at around 4 or 5 a.m. with singing Asa-di-Var
(morning hymns) and hymns from the Sikh
scriptures. This is followed by Katha which
continues till noon. A lavish Langar or special
community lunch is served to the people present at
the gurudwara. People volunteer for this service as
they consider it to be seva (service) and bhakti
(devotion) towards Lord.
I am not the born; how can there be either birth
or death for me?
Let no man in the world live in delusion. Without
a Guru none can cross over to the other shore.
Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth
and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant
filled with the love of God.
God is one, but he has innumerable forms. He is
the creator of all and He himself takes the human
form.
Thou has a thousand eyes and yet n¬ot one eye;
Thou host a thousand forms and yet not one
form.
The lord can never be established nor created;
the formless one is limitlessly complete in
Himself.
Death would not be called bad, O people, if one
knew how to truly die.
There is but One God, His name is Truth, He is
the Creator, He fears none, he is without hate, He
never dies, He is beyond the cycle of births and
death, He is self illuminated, He is realized by the
kindness of the True Guru. He was True in the
beginning, He was True when the ages
commenced and has ever been True, He is also
True now.
From its brilliancy everything is illuminated.
Sing the songs of joy to the Lord, serve the Name
22 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
of the Lord, and become the servant of His
servants.
Through shallow intellect, the mind becomes
shallow, and one eats the fly, along with the
sweets.
He who shows the real home in this body is the
Guru. He makes the five sounded word
reverberate in man.
As fragrance abides in the flower
As reflection is within the mirror,
So does your Lord abide within you, Why search
for him without?
The True One was there from time immemorial.
He is there today and ever there you will find.
“Thou host a
thousand forms and
yet not one form.”
He never died nor will he ever die. ... Look within,
you will see Him there enshrined.
Whatever be the qualities of the man with whom
a woman is united according to the law, such
qualities even she assumes, like a river, united
with the ocean.
I don’t die... He who is merged with the
omnipresent is never gone.
The word is the Guru, The Guru is the Word, For
all nectar is enshrined in the world Blessed is
the word which reveal the Lord’s name But more
is the one who knows by the Guru’s grace.
Guru Nanak
Source: http://festivals.iloveindia.com

Jawaharlal
Nehru
In a few moments, India was to become
independent after centuries of colonial invasion
and rule:
“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and
now the time comes when we shall redeem our
pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very
substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour,
when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and
freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely
in history, when we step out from the old to the new,
when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation,
long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at
this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication
to the service of India and her people and to the still
larger cause of humanity.”
-Jawaharlal Nehru in his speech, “Tryst with
Destiny” address to the Constituent Assembly of
India in New Delhi on the night of August 14th and
15th, 1947.
Jawaharlal Nehru also known as Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, was one of the foremost leaders of Indian
freedom struggle. He was the favourite disciple of
Mahatma Gandhi and later on went on to become
the first Prime Minister of India. Jawahar Lal Nehru
is widely regarded as the architect of modern India.
He was very fond of children and children used to
affectionately call him Chacha Nehru.
Early Life
Jawahar Lal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889.
His father Motilal Nehru was a famous Allahabad
based Barrister. His mother’s name was Swaroop
Rani. Jawaharlal Nehru was the only son of Motilal
Nehru. Motilal Nehru had three daughters apart
from Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehrus were Saraswat
Brahmin of Kashmiri lineage.
Education
Jawaharlal Nehru received education in some of the
finest schools and universities of the world. He did
his schooling from Harrow and completed his Law
degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. The seven
years he spent in England widened his horizons
and he acquired a rational and skeptical outlook
and sampled Fabian socialism and Irish
nationalism, which added to his own patriotic
dedication.
Mahatma Gandhi
Jawaharlal Nehru returned to India in 1912 and
started legal practice. He married Kamala Nehru in
1916. Jawahar Lal Nehru joined Home Rule League
in 1917. His real initiation into politics came two
years later when he came in contact with Mahatma
Gandhi in 1919. At that time Mahatma Gandhi had
launched a campaign against Rowlatt Act. Nehru
was instantly attracted to Gandhi’s commitment for
active but peaceful, civil disobedience. Gandhi
himself saw promise and India’s future in the young
Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru family changed its family
according to Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings.
Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru abandoned western
clothes and tastes for expensive possessions and
pastimes. They now wore a Khadi Kurta and
Gandhi cap. Jawaharlal Nehru took active part in
the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920-1922) and
was arrested for the first time during the
movement. He was released after few months.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 23

Freedom Struggle
In 1916, Nehru participated in the Lucknow Session
of the Congress. There, after a very long time,
member of both the extremist and moderate
factions of the Congress party had come. All the
members equivocally agreed to the demand for
“Swaraj” (self rule). Although the means of the two
sections were different, the motive was
“common”—freedom.
In 1921 Nehru was imprisoned for participating in
the first civil disobedience campaign as General
Secretary of the United Provinces Congress
Committee. The life in the jail helped him in
understanding the philosophy followed by Gandhi
and others associated with the movement. He was
moved by Gandhi’s approach of dealing with caste
and “untouchability”. With the passing of every
minute, Nehru was emerging as a popular leader,
particularly in Northern India.
In 1922, some of the prominent members including
his father Motilal Nehru had left the congress and
launched the “Swaraj Party”. The decision upset
Jawahar but he rejected the possibility of leaving
the Congress party. He was also elected as the
President of the Allahabad municipal corporation
in 1920.
Political Life
Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President of the
Allahabad Municipal Corporation in 1924, and
served for two years as the city’s Chief Executive.
This proved to be a valuable administrative
experience for stood him in good stead later on
when he became the prime minister of the country.
He used his tenure to expand public education,
health care and sanitation. He resigned in 1926
citing lack of cooperation from civil servants and
obstruction from British authorities.
From 1926 to 1928, Jawaharlal served as the
General Secretary of the All India Congress
Committee. In 1928-29, the Congress’s annual
session under President Motilal Nehru was held.
During that session Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas
Chandra Bose backed a call for full political
independence, while Motilal Nehru and others
wanted dominion status within the British Empire.
To resolve the point, Gandhi said that the British
would be given two years to grant India dominion
status. If they did not, the Congress would launch a
national struggle for full, political independence.
Nehru and Bose reduced the time of opportunity to
one year. The British did not respond.
Civil Disobedience Movement
In December 1929, Congress’s annual session was
held in Lahore and Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as
the President of the Congress Party. During those
sessions a resolution demanding India’s
independence was passed and on January 26, 1930
24 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
in Lahore, Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled free India’s
flag. Gandhiji gave a call for Civil Disobedience
Movement in 1930. The movement was a great
success and forced British Government to
acknowledge the need for major political reforms.
When the British promulgated the Government of
India Act 1935, the Congress Party decided to
contest elections. Nehru stayed out of the
elections, but campaigned vigorously nationwide
for the party. The Congress formed governments in
almost every province, and won the largest number
of seats in the Central Assembly. Nehru was elected
to the Congress presidency in 1936, 1937, and 1946,
and came to occupy a position in the nationalist
movement second only to that of Gandhi.
Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested in 1942 during Quit
India Movement. Released in 1945, he took a
leading part in the negotiations that culminated in
the emergence of the dominions of India and
Pakistan in August 1947.
Prime Minister
In 1947, he became the first Prime Minister of
independent India. He effectively coped with the
formidable challenges of those times: the disorders
and mass exodus of minorities across the new
border with Pakistan, the integration of 500-odd
princely states into the Indian Union, the framing of
a new constitution, and the establishment of the
political and administrative infrastructure for a
parliamentary democracy.
Architect of Modern India
Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role in building
modern India. He set up a Planning Commission,
encouraged development of science and
technology, and launched three successive fiveyear
plans. His policies led to a sizable growth in
agricultural and industrial production. Nehru also
played a major role in developing independent
India’s foreign policy. He called for liquidation of
colonialism in Asia and Africa and along with Tito
and Nasser, was one of the chief architects of the
non-aligned movement. He played a constructive,
mediatory role in bringing the Korean War to an
end and in resolving other international crises,
such as those over the Suez Canal and the Congo,
offering India’s services for conciliation and
international policing. He contributed behind the
scenes toward the solution of several other
explosive issues, such as those of West Berlin,
Austria, and Laos.
Nehru was the chief framer of domestic and
international policies between 1947 and 1964. It
was under Nehru’s supervision that India launched
its first Five-Year Plan in 1951. Nehru’s predominant
roles in substantiating India’s role in the foundation
of institutions like The Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) had surprised the then stalwarts of
international politics. He advocated the policy of

Non-Alignment during the cold war and India,
subsequently, kept itself aloof from being in the
process of “global bifurcation”.
An Idealist
Nehru embodied a synthesis of ideals: politically an
ardent nationalist, ideologically a pragmatic
socialist, and secular in religious outlook, Nehru
possessed a rare combination of intellect, breadth
of vision, and personal charisma that attracted
support throughout India. Nehru’s appreciation for
parliamentary democracy coupled with concerns
for the poor and underprivileged enabled him to
formulate policies that often reflected his socialist
leanings. Both as prime minister and as Congress
President, Nehru pushed through the Indian
Parliament, dominated by members of his own
party, a series of legal reforms intended to
emancipate Hindu women and bring equality.
These reforms included raising the minimum
marriageable age from twelve to fifteen,
empowering women to divorce their husbands and
inherit property, and declaring illegal the ruinous
dowry system.
“Long years ago we
made a tryst with
destiny, and now the
time comes when we
shall redeem our pledge,
not wholly or in full
measure, but very
substantially...”
The threat of escalating violence and the potential
for “red revolution” across the country seemed
daunting in the face of the country’s growing
population, unemployment, and economic
inequality. Jawaharlal Nehru induced Parliament to
pass a number of laws abolishing absentee
landlordism and conferring titles to land on the
actual cultivators who could document their right
to occupancy. Under his direction, the central
Planning Commission allocated resources to heavy
industries, such as steel plants and hydroelectric
projects, and to revitalizing cottage industries.
Whether producing sophisticated defence material
or manufacturing everyday consumer goods,
industrial complexes emerged across the country,
accompanied by the expansion of scientific
research and teaching at universities, institutes of
technology, and research centres.
Jawaharlal Nehru demonstrated tremendous
enthusiasm for India’s moral leadership, especially
among the newly independent Asian and African
nations, in a world polarized by Cold War ideology
and threatened by nuclear weapons. His guiding
principles were nationalism, ant colonialism,
internationalism, and nonalignment.
Panch Shila
He attained international prestige during his first
decade in office, but after the Soviet invasion of
Hungary in 1956—when New Delhi tilted toward
Moscow—criticisms grew against his inconsistency
in condemning Western but not communist
aggression. In dealing with Pakistan, Nehru couldn’t
formulate a consistent policy and was critical of the
improving ties between Pakistan and the United
States; mutual hostility and suspicion persisted as
a result. Despite attempts at improving relations
with China, based on his five principles (Panch
Shila—territorial integrity and sovereignty, nonaggression,
non-interference, equality and
cooperation, and peaceful coexistence)—war with
China erupted in 1962.
Final Days
The war with China was a rude awakening for Nehru,
as India proved ill-equipped and unprepared to
defend its northern borders. At the conclusion of the
conflict, the Chinese forces were partially withdrawn
and an unofficial demilitarized zone was established,
but India’s prestige and self-esteem had suffered.
Physically debilitated and mentally exhausted,
Nehru suffered a stroke and died in May 1964.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s legacy of a democratic, federal,
and secular India continues to present even today.
Source: www.culturalindia.net,
www.harappa.com, www.iloveindia.com,
www.indianchild.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 25

India:
No Longer
Handcuffed to
History
New Delhi: A recent court ruling has revealed
India’s strengths and limitations as it grapples with
its transformation from a land handcuffed to
history—ever since the Partition of 1947, which
carved Pakistan out of its stooped shoulders—into
a modern global giant.
The High Court of India’s most populous state,
Uttar Pradesh, finally decided a 61-year-old suit
over possession of a disputed site in the temple
city of Ayodhya, where, in 1992, a howling mob of
Hindu extremists tore down the Babri Masjid
mosque. The mosque was built in the 1520’s by
India’s first Mogul emperor, Babur, on a site
traditionally believed to have been the birthplace
of the Hindu god-king Ram, the hero of the 3,000year-old
epic, the Ramayana. The Hindu zealots
who destroyed the mosque vowed to replace it
with a temple to Ram, thereby avenging 500 years
of history.
India is a land where history, myth, and legend
often overlap; sometimes Indians cannot tell the
difference. Many Hindus claim that the Babri
26 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Masjid stood on the precise spot of Ram’s birth and
had been placed there by Babur to remind a
conquered people of their subjugation. But many
historians—most of them Hindu—argue that there
is no proof that Ram ever existed in human form,
let alone that he was born where believers claim.
More to the point, they argue, there is no proof that
Babur demolished a Ram temple to build his
mosque. Thus, to destroy the mosque and replace
it with a temple was not righting an old wrong but
perpetrating a new one. The Archaeological Survey
of India, however, reported the existence of ruins
beneath the demolished mosque that might have
belonged to an ancient temple. The dispute
remained intractable, and dragged interminably
through the courts.
To most Indian Muslims, the dispute is not about a
specific mosque. The Babri Masjid had lain unused
for a half-century before its destruction, as most of
Ayodhya’s Muslims had emigrated to Pakistan after
Partition. Rather, the issue was their place in Indian
society.

For decades after independence, Indian
governments guaranteed Muslims’ security in a
secular state, permitting the retention of Islamic
“personal law” separate from the country’s civil
code and even subsidizing pilgrimages to Mecca.
Three of India’s Presidents have been Muslim, as
have been innumerable Cabinet Ministers,
Ambassadors, Generals, and Supreme Court
Justices, not to mention cricket Captains.
Indeed, until at least the mid-1990’s, India’s Muslim
population was greater than that of Pakistan
(which has since pulled ahead, thanks to its
soaring birthrate). For many years at the cusp of
the new century, India’s richest man (the
Information-Technology Czar Azim Premji) was a
Muslim. The destruction of the mosque thus felt
like an utter betrayal of the compact that had
sustained the Muslim community as a vital part of
India’s pluralist democracy.
But the Hindus who attacked the mosque had little
faith in the institutions of Indian democracy. They
view the state as soft, pandering to minorities out
of misplaced Westernized secularism. To them, an
independent India, freed after nearly 1,000 years of
alien rule (first Muslim, then British) and rid of a
sizable portion of its Muslim population by
Partition, is obliged to embody and assert the
triumphant indigenous identity of the 82% of the
population who consider themselves Hindu.
These zealots are not fundamentalists in any
common sense of the term, since Hinduism is a
religion without fundamentals: there is no Hindu
pope, no Hindu Sabbath, no single Hindu holy
book, and no such thing as a Hindu heresy. Hindu
“fundamentalists” are, instead, chauvinists, whose
religious faith is rooted not in any of Hinduism’s
profound philosophical and spiritual
underpinnings, but in its role as an alternative
source of collective, if not “national,” identity. For
them, Hinduism is a flag, not a doctrine.
Indeed, these extremists can hardly claim to
espouse Hinduism, which stands out not only as an
eclectic embodiment of tolerance, but also as the
only major religion that does not claim to be the
sole true one. All ways of worship, Hinduism
asserts, are valid, and religion is an intensely
personal matter related to the individual’s selfrealization
in relation to God. Such a faith
Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs
and UN Under-Secretary General, is a member of India’s parliament
and the author of several books, most recently Nehru: the Invention of
India (in German).
understands that belief is a matter of hearts and
minds, not of bricks and stone. The true Hindu
seeks no revenge upon history, for he understands
that history is its own revenge.
The court judgment gives two-thirds of the
disputed site to two Hindu organizations, and onethird
to Muslims, which suggests a solution that
might permit the construction of both a mosque
and a temple on the same site. The court’s decision
thus is an affirmation of Indian pluralism and of the
rule of law.
“India is a land
where history, myth,
and legend often overlap;
sometimes Indians
cannot tell the
difference.”
What the court has done is to craft a solution that
no political process could have arrived at
independently, but which takes the dispute off the
streets. Otherwise, the violence would continue,
spawning new hostages to history—and ensuring
that future generations would be taught new
wrongs to set right.
The judgment is likely to be appealed to the Supreme
Court by one side or the other. But it reminds the
world that democratic India can overcome its most
fundamental difficulties without violence or
revolution. In so doing, it is clear that India is ready
to leave behind the problems of the sixteenth
century as it takes its place in the twenty-first.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010
Source: www.project-syndicate.org
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 27

Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s real name was Abul
Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin. He was popularly
known as Maulana Azad. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
was one of the foremost leaders of Indian freedom
struggle. He was also a renowned Scholar and Poet.
Maulana Azad was well versed in many languages
viz. Arabic, English, Urdu, Hindi, Persian and
Bengali. Maulana Azad was a brilliant debater, as
indicated by his name, Abul Kalam, which literally
means ‘lord of dialogue’. He adopted the pen name
‘Azad’ as a mark of his mental emancipation from a
narrow view of religion and life.
Early Life
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was born on November
11, 1888 in Mecca. His forefathers came from Herat
(a city in Afghanistan) in Babar’s days. Azad was a
descendent of a lineage of learned Muslim Scholars,
or Maulanas. His mother was an Arab and the
daughter of Sheikh Mohammad Zaher Watri and his
father, Maulana Khairuddin, was a Bengali Muslim of
Afghan origins. Khairuddin left India during the Sepoy
Mutiny and proceeded to Mecca and settled there.
He came back to Calcutta with his family in 1890.
Education
Because of his orthodox family background Azad
had to pursue traditional Islamic education. He was
taught at home, first by his father and later by
appointed teachers who were eminent in their
respective fields. Azad learned Arabic and Persian
first and then Philosophy, Geometry, Mathematics
and Algebra. He also learnt English, World History,
and Politics through self-study.
Azad was trained and educated to become a
clergyman. He wrote many works, reinterpreting
28 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
the Holy Quran. His erudition led him to repudiate
Taqliq or the tradition of conformity and accept the
principle of Tajdid or innovation. He developed
interest in the pan-Islamic doctrines of Jamaluddin
Afghani and the Aligarh thought of Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan. Imbued with the pan-Islamic spirit, he visited
Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. In Iraq
he met the exiled revolutionaries who were fighting
to establish a constitutional government in Iran. In
Egypt he met Shaikh Muhammad Abduh and Saeed
Pasha and other revolutionary activists of the Arab
world. He had a firsthand knowledge of the ideals
and spirit of the Young Turks in Constantinople. All
these contacts metamorphosed him into a
nationalist revolutionary.
Nationalist Revolutionary
On his return from abroad, Azad met two leading
revolutionaries of Bengal— Aurobindo Ghosh and
Sri Shyam Shundar Chakravarty and joined the
revolutionary movement against British rule. Azad
found that the revolutionary activities were
restricted to Bengal and Bihar. Within two years,
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, helped setup secret
revolutionary centres all over north India and
Bombay (Mumbai). During that time most of his
revolutionaries were anti-Muslim because they felt
that the British Government was using the Muslim
community against India’s freedom struggle.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad tried to convince his
colleagues to shed their hostility towards Muslims.
Al Hilal
In 1912, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad started a weekly
journal in Urdu called Al Hilal to increase the
revolutionary recruits amongst the Muslims. Al-
Hilal played an important role in forging Hindu-

Muslim unity after the bad blood created between
the two communities in the aftermath of Morley-
Minto reforms. Al Hilal became a revolutionary
mouthpiece ventilating extremist views. The
government regarded Al Hilal as propagator of
secessionist views and banned it in 1914.
Maulana Azad then started another weekly called
Al-Balagh with the same mission of propagating
Indian nationalism and revolutionary ideas based
on Hindu-Muslim unity. In 1916, the government
banned this paper too and expelled Maulana Abul
Kalam Azad from Calcutta and interned him at
Ranchi from where he was released after the First
World War in 1920. After his release, Azad roused
the Muslim community through the Khilafat
Movement. The aim of the movement was to reinstate
the Khalifa as the head of British captured
Turkey. Despite of his house-arrest and
imprisonment, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
continued to write against the anti-people policies
of the British Government.
Mahatma Gandhi
While extending his support to Mahatma Gandhi
and non-cooperation movement, Maulana Azad
joined the Indian National Congress in January 1920.
He presided over the special session of Congress in
September 1923 and was said to be the youngest
man elected as the President of the Congress.
“He adopted
the pen name ‘Azad’ as
a mark of his mental
emancipation from
a narrow view of
religion and life.”
Maulana Azad emerged as an important national
leader of the Indian National Congress Party. He also
served as the member of Congress Working
Committee (CWC) and in the offices of General
Secretary and president for numerous occasions. In
1928, Maulana Azad endorsed the Nehru Report,
formulated by Motilal Nehru. Motilal Nehru Report
was criticized by number of Muslim personalities
involved with the freedom movement. As opposed to
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Azad also advocated for the
ending of separate electorates based on religion and
called for a single nation committed to secularism. In
1930, Maulana Azad was arrested for violation of the
salt laws as part of Gandhiji’s Salt Satyagraha. He was
put in Meerut jail for a year and a half.
Post Independence
During the violence that erupted following partition
of India, Maulana Azad assured to take up the
responsibility for the security of Muslims in India.
Towards this, Azad toured the violence-affected
regions of borders of Bengal, Assam, Punjab. He
helped in establishing the refugee camps and
ensured uninterrupted supply of food and other
basic materials. It was reported that in the crucial
Cabinet meetings both Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
and Maulana Azad clashed over the security
measures in Delhi and Punjab.
The role and contribution of Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad could not be overlooked. He was appointed as
India’s first Minister for Education and inducted in
the Constituent Assembly to draft India’s
constitution. Under Maulana Azad’s tenure, a number
of measures were undertaken to promote primary
and secondary education, scientific education,
establishment of universities and promotion of
avenues of research and higher studies.
Death
On February 22, 1958 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad,
one of the foremost leaders of Indian freedom
struggle passed away. For his invaluable
contribution to the nation, Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad was posthumously awarded India’s highest
civilian honour, Bharat Ratna in 1992.
Source: http://profiles.incredible-people.com,
www.culturalindia.net, www.iloveindia.com,
www.boloji.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 29

Meat and the
Environment
“By eliminating beef from the human diet, our
species takes a significant step toward a new species
consciousness, reaching out in a spirit of shared
partnership with the bovine, and, by extension, other
sentient creatures with whom we share the earth.” 1
Beyond Beef, Jeremy Rifkin
Killing animals for food, fur, leather, and cosmetics is
one of the most environmentally destructive
practices tak¬ing place on the earth today. The Krsna
consciousness movement’s policies of protecting
animals, especially cows, and broadly promoting a
spiritual vegetarian diet could—if widely adopted—
relieve many environmental problems.
These policies are rooted in the following
philosophical and functional principles:
1. Humans should not slaughter animals for food.
They should be as compassionate to cows and
other farm animals as they are to their pet dogs
and cats. Nonviolence extended beyond human
society is known as ahimsa, an ancient Vedic
principle still practiced in some parts of the world.
2. Cows are the most valuable animals to human
society. They give us fuel, fertilizer, power (for
tilling, transport, grinding, and irrigating), milk and
milk products, and leather (after natural death).
3. The killing of animals violates karmic laws,
creating col¬lective and individual reactions in
human society.
4. Well-documented medical studies show that
flesh-eating is harmful to health.
5. Mass animal-killing for food and fashion erodes
mercy, reducing respect for all kinds of life,
including human life.
30 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
6. Meat diets are more expensive than nonmeat diets.
7. If the world switched to a nonmeat diet, it could
radically increase its food output and save millions
of people from hunger, starvation, and death.
8. Massive animal slaughter is destroying the
environment. We shall now document this
destruction, keeping in mind that it amounts to
violence against the earth. It also has karmic
consequences.
The meat industry is linked to deforestation,
desertification, water pollution, water shortages,
air pollution, and soil erosion. Neal D. Barnard,
President of the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine (USA), therefore says, “If
you’re a meat eater, you are contributing to the
destruction of the environ¬ment, whether you
know it or not. Clearly the best thing you can do for
the Earth is to not support animal agriculture.” 2
And Jeremy Rifkin warns in his widely read book
Beyond Beef: “Today, millions of Americans,
Europeans, and Japanese are consuming countless
hamburgers, steaks, and roasts, oblivi¬ous to the
impact their dietary habits are having on the
biosphere and the very survivability of life on
earth. Every pound of grain-fed flesh is secured at
the expense of a burned forest, an eroded
rangeland, a barren field, a dried-up river or
stream, and the release of millions of tons of
carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane into
the skies.” 3
Forest Destruction
According to Vegetarian Times, half of the annual
destruction of tropical rainforests is caused by
clearing land for beef cattle ranches. 4 Each pound

of hamburger made from Central American or
South American beef costs about 55 square feet of
rain forest vegetation. 5
In the United States, about 260 million acres of
forest have been cleared for a meat-centered diet.
Each person who becomes a vegetarian saves one
acre of trees per year. 6
About 40% of the land in the western United States
is used for grazing beef cattle. This has had a
detrimental effect on wildlife. Fencing has forced
deer and antelope out of their natural habitats. 7
Agricultural Inefficiency
About half the world’s grain is consumed by
animals that are later slaughtered for meat. 8 This is
a very inefficient process. It takes 16 pounds of
grain and soybeans to produce 1 pound of feedlot
beef. 9 If people were to subsist on grains and other
vegetarian foods alone, this would put far less
strain on the earth’s agricultural lands. About 20
vegetarians can be fed from the land it takes to feed
1 meat-eater.
Eighty per cent of the corn raised in the United
States is fed to livestock, as well as 95% of the oats.
Altogether, 56% of all agricultural land in the United
States is used for beef production. 10 If all the
soybeans and grain fed yearly to US livestock were
set aside for human consumption, it would feed 1.3
billion people.
Soil Erosion and Desertification
Overgrazing and the intensive production of feed
grain for cattle and other meat animals results in
high levels of soil erosion. According to Alan B.
Durning of the Worldwatch Institute (1986), one
pound of beef from cattle raised on feed-lots
represents the loss of 35 pounds of topsoil. 11 Over
the past few centuries, the United States has lost
about two-thirds of its topsoil.
In other countries, such as Australia and the nations
of Africa on the southern edge of the Sahara, cattle
grazing and feed-crop production on marginal lands
contribute substantially to desertification.
Air Pollution
Burning of oil in the production of feed grain
results in air pollution, including carbon dioxide,
the main cause of global warming. Another major
source of air pollution is the burning of tropical
forests to clear land for cattle grazing.
The meat industry burns up a lot of fossil fuel,
pouring pollu¬tants into the air. Calorie for calorie,
it takes 39 times more energy to produce beef than
soybeans. 12 The petroleum used in the United
States would decrease by 60% if people adopted a
vegetarian diet. 13
And in their book For the Common Good, World Bank
Economist Herman E. Daly and Philosopher John B.
Cobb, Jr., say, “If a simple and healthful change in
eating habits along with localization of most food
production and a major shift toward organic farming
were to take place over the next generation, food
production and distribution could be weaned from
their current heavy dependence on fossil fuels. In
the process, the enormous suffering now inflicted on
livestock would be greatly reduced.” 14
The meat industry, in addition to producing carbon
dioxide, is also responsible for other greenhouse
gases, such as methane. Methane is produced
directly by the digestive process of cows. This
greenhouse gas is considered very dangerous
because each molecule of methane traps 20 times
more heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide.
“... stopping
animal-killing would
help induce a greater
respect for all kinds
of life, including
human.”
How big a threat to the planet is the methane
emitted by cows? Overall, the effect is not
significant, certainly not enough to justify fears of
cows destroying the planet by global warming. Each
year about 500 million tons of methane enter the
atmosphere, 15 contributing about 18% of the total
greenhouse gases. Cows account for 60 million tons
of the methane, about 12%. 16 Therefore, methane
emitted by cows amounts to only 2% of the total
greenhouse gas emissions. It should also be kept in
mind that feedlot cows, because they eat more,
produce more methane than range-fed cows. In
India, there are about 270 million cows, but 99.9% of
them are range fed. 17 Therefore they produce less
methane than an equivalent number of feedlot cows.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 31

Water Pollution
About 50% of the water pollution in the United
States is linked to livestock. 18 Pesticides and
fertilizers used in helping grow feed grains run off
into lakes and rivers. They also pollute ground
water. In the feedlots and stockyard holding pens,
there is also a tremendous amount of pesticide
runoff. Organic contaminants from huge
concentrations of animal excrement and urine at
feedlots and stockyards also pollute water. This
waste is anywhere from ten to hundreds of times
more concentrated than raw domestic sewage.
According to a German documentary film (Fleisch
Frisst Menschen [Flesh Devours Man] by Wolfgang
Kharuna), nitrates evaporating from open tanks of
concentrated livestock waste in the Netherlands
have resulted in extremely high levels of forestkilling
acid rain.
Water Depletion
All around the world, the beef industry is wasting
the diminish¬ing supplies of fresh water. For
example, the livestock industry in the United States
takes about 50% of the water consumed each year. 19
Feeding the average meat-eater requires about
4,200 gallons of water per day, versus 1,200 gallons
per day for a person fol¬lowing a lacto-vegetarian
diet. 20 While it takes only 15 gallons of water to
produce a pound of wheat, it takes 2,500 gallons of
water to produce a pound of meat. 21
The Bottom Line
Reducing or eliminating meat consumption would
have sub¬stantial positive effects on the
environment. Fewer trees would be cut, less soil
would be eroded, and desertification would be
substantially slowed. A major source of air and
water pollution would be removed, and scarce
fresh water would be conserved. “To go beyond
beef is to transform our very thinking about
32 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
appropriate behavior toward nature,” says Jeremy
Rifkin. “We come to appreciate the source of our
sustenance, the divinely inspired creation that
deserves nurture and requires steward¬ship.
Nature is no longer viewed as an enemy to be
subdued and tamed.” 22
Other Reasons Not to Kill Cows
Of course, saving the environment is not the only
reason it’s good to avoid eating meat, particularly
beef. During the process of converting grain to
meat, 90% of the protein, 99% of the carbohydrates,
and 100% of the dietary fiber are lost.
It is well documented that vegetarians are less
likely to contract certain kinds of heart disease and
cancer. So better health is one of the benefits of the
flesh-free, karma-free diet practiced by the Krsna
consciousness movement. This diet is not only
healthier but also more satisfying to the mind and
taste buds than meat-centered diets.
Furthermore, eliminating meat-eating would release
a vast quantity of food grain for human
consumption, thus helping solve the problem of
world hunger. And on an ethical level, stopping
animal-killing would help induce a greater respect
for all kinds of life, including human.
Michael A. Cremo & Mukunda Goswami
Source: Divine Nature: A Spiritual Perspective on
the Environmental Crisis, The Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust
Pictures: http://www.g-can.net, www.genv.net,
References: 1 Rifkin 1992, p291. 2 Feinsilber 1990. 3 Rifkin 1992, p226-227. 4 Vegetarian Times 1990. 5 Denslow and Padoch 1988, p168. 6 Robbins 1989, p2.
7 Rifkin 1992, p209. 8 Durning 1990, p16. 9 Robbins 1989, p1. 10 Robbins 1989, p1. 11 Durning 1986. 12 Feinsilber 1990. 13 Vegetarian Times 1990.
14 Daley and Cobb 1989, p282. 15 Pearce 1990, p37. 16 Rifkin 1992, p226. 17 Carter and Lennsen 1990. 18 Durning 1986. 19 Rifkin 1992, p219. 20 Feinsilber 1990.
21 Vegetarian Times 1990. 22 Rifkin 1992, p288-289

Sardar Vallabhbhai
Patel Foundation
The Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Foundation is a
Charitable Trust was registered in New Delhi on 18
June 2003. Mr. Ram Avtaar Sastry, who was founder
of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Foundation, driven by an
extraordinary Dream that no human being would be
deprived of rights as basic as survival, participation,
protection and development. He felt that something
needed to be done to improve the situation of the
underprivileged Indian citizen and mission is to help
the society achieve substantial sustainable growth
and human progress by placing responsibility in the
mainstream of Business practice.
Foundation is based on Humanity and Human
rights to work for the improvisation of the weaker
section and went in a big way for creating health
awareness all over India and abroad. The main
foresight of our Foundation is to concentrate upon
the health awareness and education programme
and implementation. Our Foundation catalyzes a
national movement for Universalization of
Elementary Education in India. Achieve significant
improvement in the quality of education as a
sustained method for attracting and retaining
children in the school. Start Technical Education to
all over India so that everyone become selfdependent
and make our India No.1 in the world
Map. Develop world-class human resources in the
field of Education. Numerous programmes in child
welfare education, Technical Training have been
created that have greatly benefited various
sections of the community particular the under
privileged neglected and the vulnerable ones.
Aim of our Foundation is to do well for every
human being in India and abroad.
Aims & Objectives
To render assistance to educate underprivileged
people who are economically backward.
To extend financial assistance to poor neglected
families in India.
To organize programmes for the welfare of
handicaps.
To organize Annual Sardar Patel Award.
To distribute certificates, in the field of social
work.
To publish literature and books for untouched
facets of Sardar Patel.
To organize seminars, symposiums, debates and
memorial lectures on national and international
issues.
To establish a research center, auditorium,
library in the name of Sardar Patel in Delhi, the
national capital of India.
To start a TV Channel to propagate Sardar
Patel’s ideas and his legacy to strengthen human
values and national solidarity.
Radha Sastry
Gen. Secretary, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
Foundation, New Delhi, India
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 33

Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi was one of the greatest political
leaders of India. She was the first and only woman
to be elected as the Prime Minister.
Childhood
Indira Gandhi was born in an aristocratic family of
Nehru on 19 November, 1917, in Allahabad. Her
father, Jawaharlal Nehru was a lawyer and also
leader of the Indian Nationalist Movement. Indira’s
mother, Kamala, was a religious lady. It was
reported that there was a huge difference between
the lifestyle of Jawaharlal Nehru and his wife
Kamala. The Nehrus, for traditions, followed a
more-western and sophisticated lifestyle.
Indira’s Grandfather, Motilal Nehru was a renowned
barrister of that period. He was also a prominent
member of the Indian National Congress Party. Due
to this, lot of noted leaders and party activists
would visit the Nehru House. Mahatma Gandhi was
one of them. Therefore, since childhood, Indira
Gandhi had developed an interest in the affairs of
country’s politics. Indira Gandhi attended
prominent schools including Shantiniketan,
Badminton School and Oxford. In 1936, her mother,
Kamala Nehru succumbed to tuberculosis after a
long struggle. She was eighteen at the time.
Jawaharlal Nehru was languishing in the Indian jails
that time.
Marriage Life and Politics
After returning from Oxford University, Indira
started participating enthusiastically in the
national movement. In 1941, Indira married
Feroze Gandhi, a journalist and key member of the
Youth Congress. Nehru raised objection to the
marriage of his daughter with a Parsi. In 1944,
Indira gave birth to Rajiv Gandhi followed two
years later by Sanjay Gandhi.
34 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Post Independence
After the independence Jawaharlal Nehru became
the first Prime Minister of India. Indira Gandhi
decided to shift to Delhi to assist his father. Her
two sons remained with her but Feroze decided to
stay back in Allahabad. He was working as an
editor of ‘The National Herald’ newspaper founded
by Motilal Nehru.
During the 1951-52 Parliamentary Elections, Indira
Gandhi handled the campaigns of her husband,
Feroze, who was contesting from Rae Bareli, Uttar
Pradesh. After being elected as MP, Feroze opted to
live in a separate house in Delhi. On 8 September
1960, Feroze died after a major cardiac arrest.
As Congress President
Indira Gandhi was a devoted partisan of the
Congress Party and became one of the political
advisors of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In
1959, she was elected as the President of the Indian
National Congress Party. After Jawaharlal Nehru
passed away on 27 May 1964, Indira Gandhi
contested elections and eventually elected. She
was appointed as the Information and Broadcasting
Minister during Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
At that time, people in southern parts of India were
protesting over Hindi being considered as the
national language. With each day, the situation was
worsening in the region. In order to pacify the
anger of community leaders, Indira Gandhi visited
Madras (now Chennai). During the Indo-Pakistani
War of 1965, Indira Gandhi was on a holiday trip to
Srinagar. Despite repeated warnings by the security
forces that Pakistani insurgents had entered very
close to the hotel, she was staying, Gandhi refused
to move. The incident fetched her huge national
and international media attention.

As Prime Minister
Following the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri on 11
January 1966, in Tashkent, the party countered a
serious trouble, as, some of the senior leaders of
the Congress party desired to contest. Unable to
reach at a consensus, the high-command led by K
Kamaraj picked Indira as their contender. Senior
Congress leader Morarji Desai opposed Indira’s
nomination for the coveted throne and decided to
contest against her. During voting, Desai gained
only 169 votes as compared to Indira’s 355 votes.
The virtual reason behind Indira’s selection for the
post was the belief that “Indira is not so competent
in taking decisions and thus she would, indirectly
be controlled by the top leadership.” But Indira
Gandhi, in contrast to the high-command, showed
extraordinary political skills and elbowed the
Congress stalwarts out of power.
The election of Indira Gandhi increased the
differences of opinion between the top Congress
leaders. The split looked evident as the members
hardly looked united on any issue. To dispel the
growing chances of split-up, Indira Gandhi inducted
Morarji Desai in the cabinet. He was appointed as
Deputy Prime Minister and then Finance Minister of
the country. In 1969, Gandhi issued order to
nationalize all the banks of the country. To
strengthen the national security, in 1974, India
successfully conducted an underground nuclear
test, at Pokhran in Rajasthan.
Declaration of Emergency
During 1975, the Opposition parties joined by local
groups and NGOs staged regular demonstrations in
almost all the states of the country protesting
against the rising inflation and unchecked
corruption in the government. The intensity of
protest was increasing day by day. The government
failed to pacify them and contain the movement. At
the same time, Allahabad High Court ordered her to
vacate the seat, immediately. The ruling helped in
adding fuel to the ongoing political fire. The
agitation and anger of the people amplified.
Realizing the consequences, Indira Gandhi, on 26
June, 1975, declared “a state of emergency, due to
the turbulent political situation in the country”.
Now, the political baton came into the hands of
Indira Gandhi, which she used very tactfully. All her
political rivals were imprisoned, constitutional
rights of the citizens were abrogated, and the press
placed under strict censorship.
Post Emergency Period
In the next elections, Indira Gandhi was defeated by
the Janata Dal, led by Morarji Desai and Jai Prakash
Narayan. Congress managed to win only 153 Lok
Sabha seats, as compared to 350 seats it grabbed in
the previous Lok Sabha. During the electoral
campaign, Janata Dal leaders urged the people to
choose between “democracy and dictatorship”.
Though the Janata Dal emerged victorious by a
huge margin it could not keep the coalition intact
for longer. The allies were concentrated more on
the self-development. They would fight almost on
all the issue and every ally threatened to quit it
their interest is not served. The internal strife
became evident within months of taking charge.
To divert the attention of the people from their
failure the Janata Dal ordered to arrest Indira
Gandhi. However, the strategy crashed disastrously
and gained Indira Gandhi, a great sympathy.
Operation Blue Star and her assassination
In September 1981, a Sikh militant group
demanding “Khalistan” entered into the premises of
the Golden Temple, Amritsar. Despite the presence
of thousands of civilians in the Temple complex,
Indira Gandhi ordered the Army to barge into the
holy shrine. The operation was carried out with
tanks and armored vehicles. The act was viewed as
an unparalleled tragedy in the Indian political
history. The impact of the onslaught increased the
communal tensions in the country. Many Sikhs
resigned from the armed and civil administrative
office and also returned their government awards.
On 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi’s bodyguards
Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, as a revenge of the
Golden Temple assault, assassinated the Prime
Minister at her Safdarjung Road residence.
“Indira
started participating
enthusiastically in the
national movement.”
Indira Gandhi was the first woman Prime Minister
of India. Political thinkers, even today consider
Gandhi as the most controversial Premier of the
nation. She was so much interested and inclined
towards the national politics that she had decided
to stay with Prime Minister father in Delhi. Her
husband, Feroze Gandhi stayed back in Allahabad.
It was during her period in office, India was
enveloped into “a state of emergency”. In order to
suppress the rising movement for a separate state
called “Khalistan” Gandhi ordered the army to
launch a manhunt inside the Golden Temple in
Amritsar. The event was termed as the “Operation
Blue-Star”. She was accused of unfair treatment to
the Sikhs and the anger was so intensified that on
31 October 1984, she was shot by two of her Sikh
bodyguards. Indira Gandhi was awarded the Lenin
Peace Prize (for 1983-84).
Source: www.thefamouspeople.com,
www.culturalindia.net
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 35

India has just emerged from the crisis brought about
in the name of religion. For some years, we have seen
religious emotions being exploited to suit political
ends, just as in the medieval times. We passed
through terrific times. We saw orgies of brutality
unknown in the darkest of ages; millions wandering
in search of safety. If religion is not to perish, it must
be completely isolated from power politics. I wish to
affirm two facts of the greatest moment in the
modern world which is going to pieces under the
influence of a materialistic interpretation of life.
First: Religion is the only means to save the human
race from moral and material destruction and when
due to fascistic control of life, moral values are
crumbling. It alone can preserve the dignity of human
personality by asserting its kinship with the Divine; it
alone can restore the framework of Moral Order
without which man has proved to be no better than a
brute why, much worse, much more dangerous
because of the power that science has placed in his
hands to achieve the collective murder of his race.
Second: The heart of all religions is one in spite of
difference of race, belief and origin of its founders
or followers; for, it lies in the fundamental
aspiration of men to outgrow all human limitations
till personality reaches out to perfection, which is
God. “Our heart is restless until it rests in thee”, did
St. Augustine embody, in beautiful words.
We are fallen on evil times. The worship of machines
has dimmed the vision of ages. Westernism, the
church of modern materialism, which Europe has
founded during the last century and a half has
undermined the faith of man in God and the Moral
Order Modern intellectual development,
emancipated from tradition and superstition, has
been drifting away from all forms of religion.
Old orthodox cults which upheld some form of
supernaturalism, have been losing their holds on
men. The old moral code based upon the belief in the
supernatural is breaking down. Our urban and
industrial civilisation, like an octopus, has spread its
tentacles in all spheres of life, and has been diverting
interest to secular pursuits unleavened by idealism.
Culture becoming secular has been foundering on
the problems of urban industrialism. We are denying
36 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Faith alone can
save the Human Race
ourselves the dynamic and constructive influence of
religion as an essential of social progress.
The lack of faith induced by the denial has brought
about the collapse of moral values. It has left an
emotional vacuum, dried up the reservoir from
which the strength essential to the growth of the
human personality was drawn for ages.
Our technical skill has no doubt developed
immensely but without the religious outlook we are
unable to struggle against the mass emotional
movements of which both Fascism and
Communism are sinister manifestations.
Such of us as have been carried away by the rush
of westernism all the world over, have become a
mad crowd breathlessly rushing forward to satisfy
an insatiate craving for lust and power.
In consequence the struggle for existence has become
bitter and intolerant. Deprived of religion, misery and
still more misery, wars and more devastating wars
appear to be the only prospect before us.
I am not a student of comparative religion; nor a
thorough student of the religion in which I believe.
But I know this: it is a conviction burnt into me; if
religion is not to perish it must be purified or
rituals and supernaturalism and become a vigorous
force for self-realisation in this life.
This it cannot achieve so long as it is identified with
a selfish yearning for a better Hereafter; till feeding
Brahmans, bathing in rivers’ and meaningless
prayers are believed to be passports for securing
comforts in heaven or in the next birth.
“I possess no supernatural powers and I want
none” said Gandhiji; and he was the most Godminded
among moderns.
Religion, as I conceive it, is the way by which man
can be more and more of himself every day he
follows it—here and now—in the hourly battles
which he has to wage in the world.
Shri Krishna did not ask Arjuna to attain selfrealisation
in the retirement of the forest or seek
heavenly reward by a life of privation. He told him to

e ‘My-minded’ in the very amidst of the battle with
war conches resounding and arrows flying on all sides.
“Fight, having overcome fever” was not said to win
houries in paradise. Religion to be real must teach
the creative art of life—the art of extracting the
highest joy which only comes by an ever increasing
sense of self-fulfillment.
All religions testify to an eternal Moral Order
governing life, unaffected by the fluctuating demands
and temptations of any particular age. Europe has still
to learn this truth. It has only taught us that morals
are but a matter of changing habits; that social needs
change and with them, the morals. Habits and morals
do change, not only with every age but with every
generation, but this is a superficial view.
Our ancients discovered the basis of the Moral
Order to be universal and in-electable Law or
Dharma. Obedience to this Law makes life a supreme
endeavour to attain that development, which is
differently styled perfection, self-realisation,
“Moksha” or liberation, “Kaivalya” or the absolute
integration of the human personality, Union with
God. It is succinctly summarised in the classic
phrase “By giving it up alone, shalt thou enjoy it.”
Patanjali defined the Law in clearer terms. “When
you cast out anger, malice and hatred, love shall
come unto you. When you attain the unity of word,
thought and deed, your deed shall come to fruition.
When you cease to covet, wealth shall come to you.
When the waste of mental and physical powers is
controlled, creative vigour shall be yours. When
your sense of possession is surrendered, you shall
realise your true worth and destiny.”
These are not moral aphorisms, nor conventions,
nor mere wisdom. They are aspects of the Law of
Moral Causation to all religions which is as
irresistible as the Law of gravitation.
Another common element in all religions is the
aspiration to reach out to God. It cannot be felt by
the man wallowing in self-complacency who lives to
rise no higher. But to those who desire a
harmonious life of ever growing effectiveness and
beauty, who want to be ‘themselves,’ incessant
yearning for God leads on to the goal.
Fix thy mind on Me alone;
Let thy will sink into Mine;
So shalt thou abide in Me alone for ever;
There is no doubt-
is the eternal message given by Shri Krishna
conveyed through prophets and apostles and the
numberless mystics in all countries.
“Enter thou unto the joy of thy Lord” as St.
Augustine said. But to be God-minded is not to be
unworldly. Again and again Shri Krishna exhorts
Arjuna: “Be My minded; Remember Me and fight.”
But He never asked him to flee the world. India is
essentially a God-minded country, in spite of
religious feuds which have marred her history on
occasions. This tradition was never required to be
activised more intensely than in the present when
we are labouring to fashion a great Chinese
philosopher, Tai Tsung, and stable democratic
state. The sacred principle of the great. Let no man
persecute another for his religion, for there are
many ways of reaching heaven- is as sacred and
true today as when it was uttered and was never
more necessary. ‘Who sees Me everywhere, who
sees all in Me’ this is not a gospel of a pale and
feeble universality. It is the active emotional urge
“Religion is the
only means to save the
human race from moral
and material destruction
and when due to fascistic
control of life, moral
values are crumbling.”
which broadens the individual mind so as to
embrace humanity in a single bond of organic unity.
It is the Ahimsa of Gandhiji, the Love of Christ, the
Karuna of Buddha. The cult of being God-minded
by surrendering oneself to God and becoming His
instrument, is the one force which binds man to
man irrespective of the barriers of race, nationality
and geography and which raises him above the
sordidness of life, integrates his personality and
makes him divine.’
This aspiration is the only platform on which all
religions can meet in the name of this object, I
welcome you all to fulfil the mission to which all
religions are pledged.
K.M. Munshi, Founder Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Welcome address delivered as Chairman,
Reception Committee, All Religions’ Conference,
Bombay, on April 23, 1949
Source: Bhavan’s Journal,
September 15, 2010
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 37

Chittaranjan Das
Chittranjan Das, also known as ‘Deshbandhu’, was
born on November 5, 1870 in Calcutta (Kolkata). His
father, Bhuben Mohan Das, was a lawyer and
journalist. His mother’s name was Nistarini Devi.
Das developed a logical mind owing to his father
and a liberal outlook and a deep sense of hospitality
owing to his mother. As a child, Das was deeply
imbued with patriotism and recited patriotic
poems. His early education was at the London
Missionary Society Institution at Bhowanipore.
He passed the entrance examination in 1885 and
graduated from the Presidency College in 1890. Das
developed a keen interest in Bengali literature and
read most works of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and
Rabindranath Tagore. On his father’s advice, Das
joined the Bar and the Inner Temple in London. He
became a barrister in 1893.
Barrister
Das came back to India and was enrolled as a
barrister at the Calcutta High Court. He was not
initially successful in the profession. The turning
point in his career came with the Alipur Bomb Case.
His brilliant handling of the case made him famous.
In 1917, Das came to the forefront of nationalist
politics when he presided over the Bengal
Provincial Conference held at Bhowanipore. Later,
he left his successful legal practice and joined the
freedom struggle wholeheartedly. He was arrested
and sentenced for six months. In 1922, he was
elected the President of the Gaya Congress Session.
38 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Das started practicing in the Calcutta High court
and had the opportunity to defend national
workers like Bipin Chandra Pal and Arvinda Ghosh.
The case against Arvinda Ghosh came to be known
as the Alipore Bomb Conspiracy. Two attempts on
the life of the Chief Presidency Magistrate of
Calcutta, Mr. Kingsford, were made because he was
ruthless while handing out punishments. The first
attempt through a mail bomb was a failure. The
second attempt was made by Khudiram Bose and
Prafulla Chaki. The attempt resulted in the death of
2 English women but Lord Kingsford escaped.
Prafulla committed suicide and Khudiram was
captured and sentenced to death. A witch-hunt
ensued and Arvinda Ghosh was labelled the
master-mind behind the blasts by the British
Government. Nobody was ready to defend Ghosh
except Chittranjan Das. The entire trial lasted for
126 days, 200 witnesses were examined, 4000 paper
exhibits and 500 material exhibits in the form of
bombs and explosives were filed in the case. Das’s
concluding statements alone lasted for 9 days.
Arvinda Ghosh was acquitted. Das accepted no fee
for defending Ghosh; in fact he incurred a heavy
loss of Rs. 15,000 by the time the case was
complete.
A Literary Man
Besides being an astute lawyer, Das was a literary
man. He has works like Mala and Antaryami (poems
expressing religious spirit and devotion), and
Kishore Kishori (poem expressing the eternal love

etween Lord Krishna and Radha). Along with
Arvinda Ghosh, he founded the famous journal
Bande Mataram. He was also the editor in chief of the
journal ‘Forward’, a mouthpiece of the Swaraj party.
Mahatma Gandhi
Das was moved by Gandhiji’s call for non-violent
resistance to the British Government. The Indian
Reforms Act, also known as the Montford Reforms
were passed in 1919 in Britain. The reforms were
aimed at achieving a responsible government in
India. Das moved a resolution declaring the reforms
“inadequate, unsatisfactory and disappointing.” He
appealed to the Government to make a conscientious
effort for setting up a more responsible government
in India. The Congress accepted Das’s resolution with
a few amendments. A sub-committee recommended
a boycott of educational institutions, law courts and
legislative councils. Das believed that most effective
way to gain freedom was to fight the British from
without and within. He favored the boycott of the
schools and courts but opposed the boycott of
legislative councils.
The Boycott
Das declared that he would give up his practice to
set an example for his people. Das played an
important role in the boycott of the arrival of Prince
of Wales in Calcutta on November 17, 1920. When
the Prince stepped into the city he found it deserted.
Das did his best to keep the boycott complete and
peaceful. He organized the Congress Volunteers
Corps for effectively implementing Congress
programs. He enrolled one crore volunteers to raise
Rs 1 crore for the Tilak Swaraj Memorial Fund. The
volunteers were involved in picketing Government
offices, shops selling foreign goods, liquor shops.
They were also involved in selling khaddar. This led
to an unprecedented mass awakening.
The fallout of the boycott of colleges resulted in
many students with no educational institution to go
to. Das setup the Bengal National College to fulfill
the demands of the students. In December 1921 Das
was arrested. Getting into the police car Das told
the crowd, “Men and women of India, This is my
message to you. Victory is in sight if you are
prepared to win it through suffering.” Conches were
blown and flowers showered on Deshbandhu, as he
was fondly called for the sacrifices he made for the
freedom struggle, as the police car started.
Deshbandhu was first imprisoned in the Presidency
Jail and was moved to the Central Jail where many
of his followers were imprisoned. Das was released
the following year.
Motilal Nehru
Deshbandhu, along with Motilal Nehru, founded the
Swaraj Party in 1923 for maintaining of continued
participation in legislative councils. The party was
soon recognized as the parliamentary wing of the
Congress. In Bengal many of the candidates fielded
by the Swaraj Party were elected to office. The
Governor invited Deshbandhu to form a
government but he declined. The party came to be
a powerful opposition in the Bengal Legislative
Council and inflicted defeats on three ministries.
Seva Sadan
The Calcutta Municipal Act of 1923 was a major
landmark in the history of local self-government in
India. The Swarajists were elected to the Calcutta
Corporation in a majority in 1924. Deshbandhu was
elected Mayor and Subash Chandra Bose was
appointed Chief Executive Officer. Greater efficiency
was brought to the administration and many welfare
projects were implemented. After giving up his legal
practice Deshbandhu went from one of the richest
men in Calcutta to one of the poorest. His liabilities
amounted to one lakh rupees. The only asset he had
was his huge building in Calcutta which he wanted to
gift to the nation. Deshbandhu set up a fund, which
was later made the Deshbandhu Memorial Fund
through Gandhiji’s intervention to clear his liabilities,
build a temple, establish an orphanage and provide
education to the masses. The total amount collected
by the fund amounted to eight lakh rupees.
Deshbandhu’s home was converted to a hospital for
women and is called Chittranjan Seva Sadan.
“The entire trial
lasted for 126 days, 200
witnesses were examined,
4000 paper exhibits and
500 material exhibits.”
Final Days
The struggle with the Government became more
intense on account of the legalization of the
oppressive Bengal Ordinance which authorized
arrest of individuals suspected of terrorism without
probable cause. Das had returned with a high fever
from the Belgaum Congress session of 1925. When
he heard that the ordinance was to be legalized on
January 7, 1925, Deshbandhu declared from his
sickbed, “The Black Bill is coming up for
discussion. I must attend at any cost and oppose
it.” He was taken to the Council on a stretcher
attended by two doctors. The bill was defeated.
Deshbandhu’s condition worsened. He died while
resting in Darjeeling on June 16, 1925. On
Deshbandhu’s death, Subash Chandra Bose said,
“The death of Deshbandhu... was for India a
national calamity... .”
Source: www.iloveindia.com, www.maxabout.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 39

40 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
The Rise and Rise
of Yoga in Australia
Yoga participation in Australia has grown in recent years to be the 13th most popular physical activity not
including walking, according to figures from the Australian Sports Commission. 1 Yoga, practised by 2.9% of the
population, was ahead of Australian Rules football (2.7%), dancing (2.4%), fishing (2.1%) and martial arts
(1.8%). However, yoga participation may be higher when therapeutic use is considered; between 7% and 12%,
according to a national study of the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies 2 .
In another national survey, yoga and meditation were seen by Australian General Practitioners (GPs) to be similar
in both safety and effectiveness to massage, acupuncture and hypnosis, with only massage and acupuncture
receiving higher rates of referral or suggestion by GPs 3 . No studies were found on participation in yoga as a
spiritual path or lifestyle.
In 2006, researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne and University of Queensland conducted the world’s
largest survey of yoga with nearly 4000 Australians completing the half-hour online questionnaire 4 . Previously,
little was known about the practice of yoga in Australia, whether as a physical activity, a form of therapy, a
spiritual path or a lifestyle.

The survey aimed to determine the way in which yoga was practised in Australia, including:
demographic and socio-economic characteristics of practitioners
the traditions, styles and techniques practised
reasons for practice; spiritual path, personal development, health or fitness
related lifestyle choices and physical exercise co-factors
health and medical conditions and the perceived benefits of practice
characteristics of experiences of yoga teaching, affiliations and insurances
frequency and reporting of yoga-related injuries
subjective experience (Flow state) in yoga
Some of the results are as highlighted.
Younger and Sexier
The Yoga in Australia survey found that the ‘typical’ yoga practitioner was a 41 year old female (85% of survey
respondents were female) who had practised regularly 1-2 times a week (56% of respondents) for about five
years, was likely to be tertiary educated (81%) and to have a household income over $50,000 (76%).
Interestingly, about one in seven survey respondents were employed in a healthcare occupation, most
commonly nursing, massage and psychology, suggesting acceptance of yoga amongst healthcare professionals.
However, the average age of yoga practitioners has fallen overseas 5 and may be doing the same in Australia,
driven by the uptake of stronger, more dynamic forms of yoga, like Ashtanga, Bikram (in a heated room),
Power Yoga and Yoga Synergy; appealing not only to younger people but also more to men. Iyengar,
Satyananda, the Krishnamacharya tradition (Viniyoga), and other forms of contemporary classical yoga are
also very popular in Australia.
The survey found that respondents devoted 61% of their typical practice session to asana (postures) and
vinyasa (sequences of postures), with the remaining time devoted to the gentler, more reflective activities of
pranayama (breathing techniques), meditation and relaxation.
More than meets the Eye
The reasons most commonly given for starting yoga were “health and fitness” or “flexibility and muscle tone”
(both about 71%), rising to over 80% as reasons for continuing, confirming that yoga is primarily seen and
practised as a physical discipline. However, “to reduce stress or anxiety” was also given by 58% of respondents
as a reason for starting yoga, increasing to 79% as a reason for continuing, nearly as common a motivation for
continuing practice as the physical reasons.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 41

An even greater differential was found in “spiritual path” and “personal development”.
While only 19% initially saw yoga as a spiritual practice, this more than doubled to 43% once practising.
Similarly, 29% initially saw yoga as a form of personal development, increasing to 59% as a reason for
continuing to practice. Yoga teachers will tell you that this is no surprise; “People come to yoga for the physical
but stay for the spiritual”.
Also worthy of investigation, about one in five respondents indicated they had a specific health or medical
reason for practising yoga.
Can Yoga change your Lifestyle?
Overall, 83.5% of yoga survey respondents were non-smoking, compared to the national non-smoking rate of 77% in
2005 6 , suggesting that yoga may appeal to those who exhibit healthy lifestyle choices, however the non-smoking
rate was seen to vary by years of regular practice; from 80.7% amongst participants with 0-1 years of practice, to
about 83.8% of those with 6-7 years of practice, and as high as 89% of those with 10-14 years of practice.
42 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010

It is not possible to attribute cause and effect as this was not a ‘same subjects’ comparison and in the presence
of many confounding factors, not the least of which was a 2% increase in the national non-smoking rate in the
10 years to 2005, however it is interesting to consider the extent to which regular yoga practice may have a
non-smoking influence. By way of example, one in nine of the non-smoking yoga survey respondents indicated
that their decision not to smoke was influenced by their yoga practice.
Likewise, 23% of respondents overall were vegetarian or vegan, and 50% had a preference for organic foods.
Vegetarianism also varied with years of practice, from about 15% of novice practitioners to 31% of those who
had practised for 8-9 years. By contrast, the proportion of non-alcohol drinking respondents remained
relatively consistent at between 23 and 25% over the same period.
Can Yoga change your Religion?
The religious orientation of yoga survey participants was found to be substantially different from the general
population and also varied with years of practice. While 68% of the population identified themselves as
Christian in the 2002 Census, only 35% of yoga survey respondents indicated they identified with Christianity,
while another 28% held “spiritual but non-religious” beliefs. Likewise, while Buddhism represented about 2% of
the Australian population in 2002, about 6% of yoga survey respondents held “Buddhist beliefs”, suggesting
that yoga may appeal to people who do not identify with traditional western religions.
Interestingly, the proportion of “Christian” respondents varied by years of practice; from 43% of those who had
practised for 0-1 years, to 28% of those who had practised for 6-7 years.
Likewise, the practitioners who indicated they held “spiritual but non-religious” beliefs varied from 23% of
those with 0-1 years of practice to 30% of those with 6-7 years of practice.
Those with Buddhist beliefs also increased from 4% to 9% over the same period, suggesting that regular yoga
practice may impact on spiritual/religious orientation.
However, the apparent ‘trends’ seen amongst yoga survey participants of differing years of practice, also
appeared to stabilise or reverse after about 6-7 years of practice, perhaps suggesting that while the nonreligious
spirituality available in yoga might initially provide a source of greater meaning for those who don’t
identify with traditional religions, there may be a point at which the two integrate to some extent. It is
theoretically possible that in the longer term, the spiritual path offered by yoga integrates with, or enhances,
the religious beliefs we may have been brought up to hold.
Can Yoga change your Health?
Of those who reported using yoga to address a specific health concern or medical condition, more people used
yoga for mental health issues like stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia, than used yoga for musculoskeletal
problems like chronic back, neck or shoulder pain, disc injuries and arthritis. A sign of the times perhaps!
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 43

Mental health issues accounted for 24% of all conditions reported, ahead of musculoskeletal issues with 21% of
conditions reported. Women’s health was the next largest area (9% of all conditions reported) with reported
improvement in menstrual and menopausal symptoms, and assistance during and after pregnancy, ahead of
gastrointestinal (7%), respiratory (6%) and cardiovascular (4%) conditions, with consistent improvement
reported across all categories. Weight management (shown in the ‘Other’ category), with nearly 5% of
conditions reported was also seen to be assisted by yoga practice.
Of all the conditions reported as being addressed by yoga, 53% were rated as “much better” (both conditions
and symptoms had improved), 29% “better” (condition improved but symptoms the same) and 12% “a little
better” (condition the same but symptoms improved). Overall, 95% of conditions were seen to be improved by
yoga practice, with 4.5% unchanged.
Can Yoga change your Outlook on Life?
The answer to this question was an even more emphatic “yes”. Perceptions of quality of life were improved by
yoga practice in all areas; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, and also in relationships, although
less consistent with the other categories.
Nearly 60 years ago, the World Health Organisation created a forward-thinking definition of health as, “a state of
complete physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being, and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity” 7 .
In support of this, many yoga survey respondents took the opportunity provided by the survey to describe the
way in which yoga had enhanced their all-round health, from average to good, or from good to excellent. Some
reported that they had destressed, had given up smoking, stopped eating junk food or stopped fighting with
their partner or children as a result of yoga practice. Some typical comments were:
44 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010

“Generally I am a much happier, emotionally stable person which is a change from how I was before yoga.”
“Yoga and meditation has given me the stillness and grounded-ness I need to manage emotionally stressful times
and situations.”
“Now that I’m doing a daily practice, I feel like I am at my best all the time. My relationships are better and I can
deal with everyday life better because I don’t get so stressed about the little things anymore.”
“Yoga has helped me take a step back, and see life, with its highs and lows, as just that—life with highs and lows. I
can choose to get stressed about it, or just to observe what happens.”
“I have had problems with depression for a large portion of my life. Yoga has helped me to deal with the
depression and other life issues which arise and which may have previously triggered a depressive episode.”
“All my relationships are much better off. Being ‘present’ was the major hurdle so now I can give my full attention
to those I am with.”
“Yoga has been the best thing I have ever done for myself! My self-esteem, fitness, flexibility, general health and
well-being has improved dramatically. It has created a calmness and clarity within myself which I had been
searching for.”
“I feel as if I could bang on about yoga for years and I want to take everyone by the scruff of the neck and show
them how beneficial it is.”
“I find that the regular practice (breathing, meditation and asana) reminds me how important it is to relax and to
take time out to just be. I wish I could bottle the feeling that I take home with me after a session.”
“Practising yoga increases my quality of life tenfold. I am calmer, more balanced and more in tune with my physical
and spiritual self, making me a better friend, lover and mother.”
A Final Word about Mental Health
Mental illness encompasses a broad range of conditions. At one end of the spectrum there are emotional or
mental disturbances, sometimes manifesting as chronic stress or anxiety, difficulty sleeping, addictions, eating
disorders, and towards the other end of the spectrum, behavioural disorders, depression, bi-polar and other
major mood and personality disorders.
The Mental Health Foundation of Australia says:
“One in five of us will experience depression at some time in our life. Unfortunately, only about 20% of depressed
people are correctly diagnosed because depression can mask itself as physical illness (such as chronic pain,
anxiety, sleeplessness or fatigue). Depression can contribute to, and be caused by, many physical illnesses. The
World Health Organisation has concluded that by 2020, depression will be the world’s major health problem.” 8
In yoga, mental illness is first recognised as the “Adhi” or disturbance that initially exists in the manomaya kosa
(the mental/emotional personality), before filtering through the layers of existence to the annamaya kosa (the
physical body) and manifesting as somatic illness . Adhi is characterised by excessive speed, mental
restlessness and emotional disruption (stress, anxiety, anger and resentment); in fact modern life seems to be a
perfect recipe for creating Adhi.
On a personal note, it’s important to recognise that we are profoundly emotional beings and inherently
spiritual. Once we validate this, we can begin to untangle the effect our emotions (thoughts and feelings) have
on our behaviour. Yoga is an effective way to develop this awareness, starting with the body and the breath but
ultimately developing stillness in the mind, inner peace and lasting happiness 9 .
The World Survey of Yoga
Based on the successful Yoga in Australia model, researchers from universities around the world including Indian
yoga universities and senior figures from many yoga traditions, supported by numerous yoga organisations around
the world are now collaborating to expand the concept internationally to include India, USA, Canada, the UK, Europe
and many other countries. It is expected that the website and survey will be made available in a number of languages.
Gambhir Watts, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia
1 Australian Sports Commission, the SCORS Research Group (SRG). Participation in Exercise, Recreation and Sport (ERASS) in Australia. 2 Xue, CCL. Zhang
AL, Lin V et al. Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in Australia: A National Population Based Survey. Journal of Alternative and Complementary
Medicine, July 2007, Vol 13:6 pages 643-650. 3 Cohen M, Penman S, Pirotta M, Da Costa C. Integration of Complementary Therapies in Australian General
Practice: Results of a National Survey. J Alt Comp Med. 2005 Dec; 11(6):995-1004. 4 Penman S, Cohen M, Stevens P, Jackson S. Yoga in Australia: Results of a
National Survey. www.yogasurvey.com. 5 American Sports Data, Inc. Superstudy by Sports Participation. http://www.americansportsdata.com/pr_04-15-
03.asp. 6 Australian Bureau of Statistics. 4831.0.55.001 - Tobacco Smoking in Australia: A Snapshot, 2004-05. 7 World Health Organisation (1946). WHO
definition of health. http://www.who.int/suggestions/faq/en/. 8 Mental Health Foundation of Australia. http://www.mhfa.org.au/main.htm. 9 Nagarathna, R,
Nagendra, HR. Integrated Approach of Yoga Therapy for Positive Health. Swami Vivekananda Yoga Prakashana, 2001
Credit: This article is based on the Summary Report of the Yoga Survey written by: Stephen Penman, M App Sc (Research), GC (Tert Teach Learn), is
the immediate past President of the Yoga Teachers Association of Australia (YTAA) and was a steering committee member of the Australian Teachers
of Meditation Association (ATMA).
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 45

New Delhi: Barack Obama, the sixth American
President to visit India since it gained independence,
arrives at a trying time, both for the United States
and for India. Some of Obama’s closest advisers
have just resigned, opening an awkward gap on
national security and the economy—the focus of his
meetings with India’s government.
For India, the issues on the agenda for Obama’s
visit are immense and complex, and the options for
resolving them are extremely limited. Those related
to security in Afghanistan and Pakistan are as
treacherous as they have ever been. Bilateral
economic, trade, and currency disagreements may
not be as bitter as they are between the US and
China, but they are thorny, and lack of resolution is
making them more intractable.
Nuclear non-proliferation remains one of Obama’s
priorities, as does the sale of US civilian nuclear
technology to India, for which former President
George W. Bush cleared the way. And Obama will be
keen to know what help India can provide with Iran, a
country with which India has smooth relations, owing
to their shared worries over Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Given this potent list of challenges, what are the
prospects for Obama’s passage to India? Some
years ago, I was queried by then US Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, who was helping
to prepare President Bill Clinton’s visit. As India’s
Foreign Minister at the time, I told him: “Why make
the visit destinational? Be content with the
directional,” or some such words. That response
retains its flavor today: as new directions in India-
US relations are set, new destinations will follow.
All state visits are overloaded with lofty,
superfluous rhetoric. US-India summits are
46 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
The New
Power Game
Obama in India
particularly prone to this hubris: the Great
Republic meets the World’s Largest Democracy. It
would be better for both countries to shed some of
these marigold garlands of cloying adjectives.
Another feature of such summits—the trading of
lists of “must do” and “can do” items—also should
be retired. It is both demeaning and tedious to treat
an arriving US president as a stars-and-stripes
Santa Claus, to be presented with lengthy wish
lists. Likewise, despite America’s pinched
economic circumstances, Obama would do well not
to use his visit to peddle US wares. Although trade
is an effective lubricant of good relations, these
sorts of talks are for the “sherpas,” not Obama and
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to handle.
These two great countries, “natural allies” in the
words of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
should reflect on what they have accomplished
together since 1998, in order to map what lies ahead.
Theirs is now a relationship of equals, so their
national interests need to be reconciled on
everything from Pakistan to climate change.
Indeed, Obama is placed in a unique position for an
American president, a position that he appears to
comprehend, though his opponents in the US do
not. Power today begins in the acceptance of the
limits upon it. This is also true of an India that is
only now coming to recognize its new status in the
world, in which the country’s limits and
responsibilities have expanded mightily.
Ours is an unstable neighborhood, one that
America has entered without fully understanding
the consequences—for India and for the
neighborhood. India must ask Obama hard
questions about how security is to be assured,

ut, before doing so, it needs to ask the same
questions of itself.
India must make clear—and the US must
recognize—that a sub-continental country of a
billion-plus people cannot be kept within the
categorical confines of “South Asia.” The US must
accept and candidly discuss the damaging
consequences of its military, diplomatic, and
political overreach—of a “war too far” that has
brought the region to its current ugly impasse.
What can the two countries do, separately and
together? Both leaders must accept that history is
destiny, and that the irrefutable logic of geography is a
determinant of it. This is the only relevant and reliable
guide in meeting the region’s complex challenges.
The constraints on US options, the veto of
circumstances, offers little room for diplomatic
improvisation. Here the greatest constraint is
America’s difficult and worsening relationship with
Pakistan. India must understand this troubled
partnership, into which America entered with its
eyes wide open, though it would help if the US
accepted that India has paid—and continues to
pay—a very high price on this account. Only
through such acceptance can the two countries
chart a common future.
Likewise, it would be unwise for the US gratuitously
to offer China a role in the affairs of a region that
includes India itself—something that Obama
appeared to do during his visit to China earlier this
year, when he mentioned China as having a role to
play in Kashmir. The US should also stop
questioning India’s relationship with Iran, a neighbor
with which India is linked by many centuries of
economic, cultural, and even civilizational ties.
Two great peoples and countries, although now
locked in a “strategic alliance,” may occasionally
fall out of step with one another, as India and the
US have—for example, over global climate
negotiations. But, at such moments, Obama might
do well to recall Vajpayee’s words during Clinton’s
visit, when he quoted Walt Whitman’s poem
“Passage to India”:
“Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go.”
Jaswant Singh
Jaswant Singh, a former Foreign Minister,
Finance Minister, and Defense Minister of India, is
a member of the opposition in India’s Parliament.
He is the Author of Jinnah: India – Partition –
Independence.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010,
Source: www.project-syndicate.org
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 47

Building the India-US Partnership
Washington, DC: President Barack Obama’s first
presidential visit to India offers a unique
opportunity to cement a global partnership with a
rapidly emerging power. Set to become the world’s
third or fourth largest economy by 2030, India could
become America’s most important strategic partner.
In coming decades, a strong bilateral partnership will
prove vital in managing the rise of China and
promoting an Asian balance of power that is favorable
to India, the United States, and Asia as a whole. India’s
success as a democracy also strengthens freedom
globally and protects broader American interests.
Yet, as many observers have noted, US-India
relations have recently become listless and marked
by drift. Both countries are to blame. Obama has
understandably focused on competing priorities,
including the troubled US economy and ongoing
wars abroad. India’s government has been similarly
occupied with domestic political struggles and the
challenge of sustaining economic growth amid
rising pressure for redistribution. Moreover, Indian
officials must still nurture the small, albeit growing,
constituency that supports a rapidly transformed
relationship with the US.
For its part, the Obama administration should take
a number of steps to reaffirm its support for India’s
rise, its democratic achievements, and its struggle
for security. Notably, the US should reaffirm its
support for a larger Indian role in international
organizations and help integrate India into the
global non-proliferation regime.
In this context, the Obama administration should
endorse India’s quest for a permanent seat on the
United Nations Security Council. Obama
48 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
should also support India’s membership in key nonproliferation
organizations like the Nuclear Suppliers
Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.
India, too, must do its part. It can begin by creating
greater opportunities for US firms—including from
the nuclear industry—to invest in India’s economic
success. It can expand defense cooperation beyond
purchases of American-made military equipment by
deepening its diplomatic engagement with the US to
help find solutions to the difficult problems stemming
from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. In short, India’s
government should look for ways to sustain
America’s interest in India during difficult times.
Both countries should consolidate their
cooperation in other areas already agreed upon:
agriculture, education, health care, energy, and
science and technology. Obama’s trip offers an
opportunity for taking stock, expanding initiatives
that have matured, and announcing new projects
that will provide global benefits.
The latter include developing an international food
security initiative, cooperating to increase
vocational training in fragile states, expanding
clean-energy research, investing in global diseasedetection
systems, and collaborating to explore
shale-gas extraction. In addition, the US and India
should create innovation partnerships, which would
not only yield direct returns to both countries, but
would also demonstrate how a strong bilateral
relationship can improve the international system.
Ultimately, a strong US-Indian partnership is in both
countries’ strategic interest. Their societies are
already intertwined—and will be even more so in
the future—by various personal, economic, and
social links. Moreover, Obama should resist the
urge to approach the bilateral relationship purely
in transactional terms, but instead should seek to
strengthen India’s long-term capacity to be a
productive partner with the US.
In short, Obama ought not to ask, “What will India
do for us?”, but rather, “Is a strong, democratic and
independent India in America’s national interest?” If
the answer to this question is yes—as it should
be—then the US should focus on how it can help
India’s power continue to grow.
Ashley J. Tellis, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, helped to
negotiate the US-India civil nuclear agreement. He
is the author of a new report, “Obama in India –
Building a Global Partnership: Challenges, Risks,
Opportunities,” from which this article is adapted.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
Source: www.project-syndicate.org

The classical Yoga of India has been brought down
from the high pedestal of divinity to the mundane
streets of New York in America. Thousands of mats
covered the streets in Times Square and shut down
the city center in order to salute the sun and share
a concrete-penetrating AUM.
Thousands in America are practicing mundane Yoga.
The Yoga industry in America is worth $3 billion per
year The data collected by Harris Interactive Service
Bureau (HISB) shows that 16.5 million people
practice Yoga in America. According to 2004
estimates by The Yoga Journal, (brought out by John
Abbott, a former investment banker at Citicorp)
which has readership of over 1,000,000 people,
Americans spent approximately $2.95 billion on Yoga
classes, Yoga related products like clothing, books
and mats, and on Yoga retreats and vacations.
In their quest for relief from daily stress and work
world, the Americans are being exploited by the
gullible Yoga Masters from the east as well as west.
Many have donned the mantle of a Guru without caring
to teach the real spiritual Yoga. Yoga today has become
synonymous with physical fitness and culture. There is
more emphasis on the physical aspect of Yoga i.e.
Asnas and some form of Pranyama techniques. To the
Americans Yoga is so hot, so cool, so very this minute,
according to The Power of Yoga, Time.Com.
To quote Garden Way Yoga, “As our nation turns to
backyards, barbecues, burgers, bright colors and
explosions in the sky, it seems appropriate to
celebrate independence in a personal way as well.
Perhaps with some Yoga?”
People in the west are looking for independence,
freedom, liberation and Moksha from oppressors
(stressors), mental slavery, mind stuff and Vritti.
The key to competition within the Yoga business is
the quality of the instructor. In addition to this
location, quality and ambiance of the facility is the
real competitive advantage.
Yoga as exercise has evolved into numerous
subdivisions and variations. Naked yoga, chair
yoga, acro yoga and hip-hop yoga are some of the
few variations emerging. There is much debate
whether the term Hatha Yoga properly described
yoga as exercise, since the traditional Hatha Yoga
The Yoga Market
in America
system originated as, and still is, a spiritual path in
its own right.
To Quote one of the avid practitioners, “And if
you’re looking for a crucible in which to heat
compassion, this (yoga) is a really good one.
Someone once told me that compassion is the ability
to hold love and pain together in the same moment.”
Yoga has stretched far beyond its meditative, baggysweats
roots to become a fashionable lifestyle pursuit
appealing as much to competitive marathon runners
and college students as it does to om-chanting
meditators. Curve-hugging styles in Lycra, cotton and
micro fibers come from a variety of yoga-inspired
brands, including Prana, Be Present, Inner Waves, and
Lululemon Athletica, as well as Nike and Fila.
Increasingly, major corporations outside the
athletics and mind-body arenas are aiming their
advertisements at this lucrative market. Prudential
Financial, for instance, is running a “Live Long Live
Well” campaign. A svelte woman in her 60s
stretches in a triangle pose in the ads. “Yoga
personifies the idea of health, and we’ve been
making a concerted effort to tie well-being into
finances,” said Maria Umbach, a vice president for
marketing in Prudential’s life insurance unit.
Ford Motors sought young and fit career women
this year in its “Live and Drive” ad campaign for its
$18,000 Fusion car. The ads featured a woman in her
20s taking a yoga class in which she is straining to
lift her body vertically into an arm-stand pose that
other students around her are holding perfectly.
Lex Gillan, Director of the Yoga Institute and
Bookstore in Houston is committed to the
importance of one-on-one communication with
students. He says, “Once you open a studio, it
becomes 85% business and 15% teaching.”
Whatever your passion, the business of yoga can
be your outlet and provide you income.
“Conscious Commerce” should define the business of
yoga and Frank Angiuli of Natural High Lifestyle is its
champion. “We hope to be the thread that merges
fashion, conscious living, and the health of our planet.”
Source: Bhavan’s Andheri Parivar Vol. No. 4, Issue 10
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 49

An ancient civilisation like India has always
worshipped the sun as the god who bestows life
and sustains it. And, as Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh put it: “It is to this source of energy that
humankind must turn to meet the twin challenge of
energy security and climate change.”
Towards this end, India has drawn up ambitious
plans to generate a staggering 20,000 MW of solar
energy by 2022, a hundredfold increase over the
next 12 years. This makes it the world’s biggest
solar energy project.
Asserting that India has started moving forward in
utilising solar energy with the launch of the
Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission by the
Prime Minister earlier this year under the brand
name Solar India, Minister for New and Renewable
Energy Farooq Abdullah, says that about 1,000 MW
of power would be generated through hundreds of
solar power plants across the country over the
next three years.
“In the second phase, we intend to generate an
additional 2,000 MW by 2015 and strive to achieve
the target of 20,000 MW by 2022. As more and more
players enter the field, the upfront cost of setting
up a power plant will reduce to make its energy
affordable to all,” Abdullah says.
Solar energy can transform India in so many ways.
As the Prime Minister said at the launch, it could be
the country’s next scientific and technological
frontier after the atomic energy, space and
information technology revolutions.
The mission’s success “has the potential of
transforming India’s energy prospects, and
50 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Tapping the Sun
Solar Energy for 20,000
MW of Power
contributing also to national as well as global
efforts to combat climate change”.
The target of building 20,000 MW of solar
generating capacity by 2022 was “no doubt
ambitious”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
admitted, “but I do sincerely believe that the target
is doable and that we should work single-mindedly
to achieve it as a priority national endeavour”.
With its abundant sunshine for most of the year,
India is in a particularly advantageous position to
develop solar power. The country gets about 5,000
trillion kWh per year over its land area with most
parts receiving 4-7 kWh per sq m per day.
The major problem with the rapid roll-out of solar
power is its high cost compared to other sources of
power such as coal. Current industry estimates are
that it will cost Rs.17.50 to produce a unit of solar
power, well over double the cost of production
through coal.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE),
the nodal Ministry for Solar India, says the objective
of the mission “is to create conditions, through rapid
scale-up of capacity and technological innovation, to
drive down costs towards grid parity”.
“The mission anticipates achieving grid parity by
2022 and parity with coal-based thermal power by
2030,” says MNRE’s mission document.
The economics of solar power looks better as the
price of electricity generated from other sources
goes up. The price of electricity traded internally
has already touched Rs.7 per unit for base loads
and around Rs.8.50 per unit during peak periods.

This will rise further as the country moves towards
imported coal to meet its energy demand. The
price of power will have to factor in the availability
of coal in international markets and the cost of
developing import infrastructure. It is also evident
that as the cost of environmental degradation is
factored into the mining of coal, as it must, the
price of this raw material will increase.
With energy shortages biting harder, India is
increasing the use of diesel-based electricity, which
is both expensive—costs as high as Rs.15 per unit.
It is in this situation that the solar imperative is
both urgent and feasible to enable the country to
meet long-term energy needs.
The Solar India mission will adopt a three-phase
approach, spanning the remaining period of the
11th Five Year Plan and the first year of the 12th
Plan (up to 2012-13) as Phase 1, the remaining four
years of the 12th Plan (2013-17) as Phase 2 and the
13th Plan (2017-22) as Phase 3.
The MNRE says the first phase will focus on capturing
the easy options in solar thermal; on promoting offgrid
systems to serve populations without access to
commercial energy and modest capacity addition in
grid-based systems. In the second phase, after taking
into account the experience of the initial years,
capacity will be aggressively ramped up to create
conditions for up scaled and competitive solar energy
production in the country.
“It is to this
source of energy that
humankind must turn to
meet the twin challenge
of energy security and
climate change.”
This, MNRE says, will be achieved by creating 15
million square meters of solar thermal collector
area by 2017 and 20 million square metres by 2022.
“The ambitious target for 2022 of 20,000 MW or
more will be dependent on the learning of the first
two phases, which if successful, could lead to
conditions of grid-competitive solar power,” says
the mission document.
The authorities will make solar heaters mandatory
by changing building by-laws, and ensure the
introduction of effective mechanisms for
certification and rating of manufacturers of solar
thermal applications.
The mission will facilitate promotion of these
individual devices through local agencies and
power utilities, and support the upgrading of
technologies and manufacturing capacities through
soft loans.
As the Prime Minister put it, “technological
innovation will be a key factor in ensuring the
success of this mission”.
“We will need to find ways of reducing the space
intensity of current solar applications, including
through the use of nano-technology. Cost-effective
and convenient storage of sold energy beyond
daylight hours will be critical to its emergency as a
mainstream source of power. In the meantime, we
may need to explore hybrid solutions, combining
solar power generation with gas, biomass or even
coal-based power,” he said.
Indian industry will obviously have to play a key
role in ensuring the success of the mission, and for
this it should set up “Solar Valleys” across the
country along the lines of the “Silicon Valleys” that
have been set up, according to the Prime Minister.
“These valleys will become hubs for solar science,
solar engineering and solar research, fabrication
and manufacturing. I urge Indian industry to see
the national solar mission as the huge business
opportunity that it is going to be.”
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 51

On his part, Minister Abdullah admits that the
upfront cost of setting up a solar power plant is
high—Rs.15 crore for 1 MW—but says in the longterm,
electricity from such a clean and inexhaustible
energy source would be rewarding in more ways
than from fossil fuels and conventional sources.
“Efforts should also be made to ensure LED (Light
Emitting Diode) lamps are extensively used for
street-lighting, government offices, commercial
establishments and households to reduce use of
conventional bulbs and Compact Fluorescent
Lamps (CFL) that are less efficient and power
consuming,” Minister for New & Renewable Energy,
Farooq Abdullah says.
“We are planning to install solar panels at about
200,00 mobile towers across the country in place of
diesel gen-sets used to operate them and check
their fallout on environment,” he also notes.
To reduce use of firewood and cooking gas in
preparing mid-day meals for school-going children
and at mass feeding centres at religious and other
gatherings, Abdullah advocates increasing use of
solar cookers and solar heaters.
“Solar cookers are being extensively used at Shirdi
in Maharashtra, Mount Abu in Rajasthan and
Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh to prepare meals for
about 20,000-25,000 people a day. This should be
promoted in a big way to conserve natural
resources and decrease dependence on the import
of fossil fuels,” he says.
Joydeep Gupta, Freelance Journalist
Source: India Perspectives, Vol. 24, No. 3/2010
Photographs: Courtesy Ministry of New &
Renewable Energy, Government of India
52 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
“... in the long-term,
electricity from such a
clean and inexhaustible
energy source would be
rewarding in more ways
than from fossil fuels
and conventional
sources.”

The Cosmos
and the Self
Everything in Nature rises from some line seedforms,
becomes grosser and grosser, exists for a
certain time, and again goes back to the original fine
form. Our earth, for instance, has come out of a
nebulous form which becoming colder and colder
turned into this crystallised planet upon which we
live, and in the future it will again go to pieces and
return to its rudimentary nebulous form. This is
happening in the universe, and has been through
time immemorial. This is the whole history of man,
the whole history of Nature, the whole history of life.
Every evolution is preceded by an involution. The
whole of the tree is present in the seed, its cause.
The whole of the human being is present in that
one protoplasm. The whole of this universe is
present in the cosmic fine universe. Everything is
present in its cause, in its fine form. This evolution,
or gradual unfolding of grosser and grosser forms,
is true, but each case has been preceded by an
involution. The whole of this universe must have
been involuted before it came out, and has
unfolded itself in all these various forms to be
involved again once more. Take, for instance, the
life of a little plant. We find two things that make
the plant a unity by itself,—its growth and
development, its decay and death. These make one
unity, the plant life. So taking that plant life as only
one link in the chain of life, we may take the whole
series. One Life, beginning in the protoplasm and
ending in the most perfect man. Man is one link,
and the various beasts, the lower animals and
plants are other links. Now go back to the source,
the finest particles from which they started, and
take the whole series as but one life, and you will
find that every evolution here is the evolution of
something which existed previously.
Where it begins there it ends. What is the end of
this universe? Intelligence, is it not? The last to
come in the order of creation, according to the
evolutionists, was intelligence. That being so, it
must be the cause, the beginning, of creation also.
At the beginning that intelligence remains involved,
and in the end, it gets evolved. The sum-total of the
intelligence displayed in the universe must
therefore be the involved universal intelligence
unfolding itself, and this universal intelligence is
what we call God, from Whom we come and to
Whom we return, as the scriptures say. Call it by
any other name, you cannot deny that in the
beginning there is that infinite cosmic intelligence.
What makes a compound? A compound is that in
which the causes have combined and become the
effect. So these compound things can be only within
the circle of the law of causation; so far as the rules
of cause and effect go, so far can we have
compounds and combinations. Beyond that, it is
impossible to talk of combinations, because no law
holds good therein. Law holds good only in that
universe which we see, feel, hear, imagine, dream,
and beyond that we cannot place any idea of law.
That is our universe which we sense or imagine, and
we sense what is within our direct perception, and
we imagine what is in our mind. What is beyond the
body is beyond the senses, and what is beyond the
mind is beyond the imagination, and therefore is
beyond our universe, and therefore beyond the law
of causation. The Self of man being beyond the law of
causation is not a compound, is not the effect of any
cause, and therefore is ever free, and is the ruler of
everything that is within law. Not being a compound
It will never die, because death means going back to
the component parts, destruction means going back
to the cause. Because It cannot die, It cannot live, for
both life and death are modes of manifestation of the
same thing. So the Soul is beyond life and death. You
were never born and you will never die. Birth and
death belong to the body only.
“Every evolution
is preceded by an
involution.”
The doctrine of Monism holds that this Universe is all
that exists; gross or fine, it is all here; the effect and
the cause are both here; the explanation is here. What
is known as the particular is simply repetition in a
minute form of the universal. We get our idea of the
Universe from the study of our own Souls, and what is
true there also holds good in the outside universe.
The ideas of heaven and all these various places, even
if they be true, are in the Universe. They altogether
make this Unity the first idea, therefore, is that of a
Whole, a Unit, composed of various minute particles,
and each one of us is a part, as it were, of this Unit. As
manifested beings we appear separate, but as a reality
we are one. The more we think ourselves separate
from this Whole, the more miserable we become. So
Advaita is the basis of ethics,
Swami Vivekananda
Source: Swami Vivekananda’s Works, p. 182–184
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 53

When Illiteracy
is a Vested Interest
“If you plan for a year”, said Chinese Philosopher
Kuan-Tze over 2500 years ago, “plant a seed. If for
10 years, plant a tree. If for a 100 years, teach the
people. When you sow a seed once, you will reap a
single harvest. When you teach a people, you reap
a hundred harvests”.
Independent India, it seems, fights shy of teaching
the people. Indeed, its rulers have only sowed
countless seeds of corruption that have grown into
huge (family) trees.
We are the world’s largest mass-producers of
human beings, but as successive World Bank
development reports point out, we are abysmal
niggards in “investing in people”. Our national
allocation for education is less than 6 per cent of
the Gross Domestic Product and expenditure on
people’s health is less than one per cent of GDP.
What is considerably worse, our leaders have
consciously invested their political fortunes in
perpetuating poverty, illiteracy, ill-health and bad
hygiene among our people.
The late Mr. T.A. Pai once told me that the Indian
Parliament was the largest representative body of
54 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
illiteracy in the world. Two out of five adult
illiterates in the world are Indians and 20 per cent
of the globe’s illiterate population comes from
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
In today’s India education is a privilege and
illiteracy is a vote bank. The Constitution-makers
compounded the confusion rather than reconciled
the conflict by setting the goal of universal
education and guaranteeing the right of universal
adult franchise. The only politician who tried to
alter this adversary relationship between privilege
and vote bank was that brief champion of social
justice and equity, Mr. V.P. Singh. He sought to
achieve those laudable goals, not by eradicating
illiteracy or ending the privileged status of the
literate, but by making the backward the privileged.
Spread the icing on the cake and don’t bother about
worthiness, was the late “messiah’s” message.
So, the Constitution-makers’ fond hopes of making
every child literate by the end of the first decade
and a half of the Indian Republic’s existence has
become pipedream. Over the years, it had ceased
to be even a dream. Statisticians tell us that as
many as 88 per cent of the country’s children in the

age group five to nine enter schools but they don’t
tell us that more than half of these children drop
out of it before the primary stage is over. Less than
25 per cent complete the secondary stage. Most
parts of Kerala have achieved 100 per cent adult
literacy, not because of any new national effort but
because of the foresight of the ru1er of Travancore
who laid down the kingdom’s policy in 1817 saying
that education of all its people would be the
responsibility of the state as it was an essential
concomitant of the economic and cultural wellbeing
of society.
Literacy is a mission and like all missions it
depends on private excellence, individual
commitment and voluntary effort rather than on
state policy and bureaucratic benevolence. In any
case the latter is not forthcoming. Funds will just
be not there for the purpose. When governments
go bankrupt (of ideas for ever and funds
periodically) they nibble at education, tinker with
its structure and demoralise the students.
Higher education on the other hand, is rarely short
of funds. Engineering and Medical colleges are
opened at the drop of a proverbial hat. “Fake”
universities are as common today as “fake” police
encounters.
Ivan Illich, in his brilliant book, “Deschooling
Society”, says that the escalation of the schools is
as destructive as the escalation of weapons, though
less visibly so—and we have in urban India today a
proliferation of what are known as “degree shops”
peddling education for an unaffordable price. The
teaching fraternity is dotted with persons
wallowing in affluence through what is known as
tuition rackets.
Even at the level of colleges, education is a process
of gradation and indoctrination. The few dedicated
ones in the profession are to be seen as “simple
romantic men contributing to society’s mental
health problem by maintaining their belief in the
improvability of the human condition through
education”. We have teachers today who ceased to
be students a long time ago—and they teach what
their masters taught them when they were students.
And states and governments satisfy themselves by
pointing to ever increasing outlays on education as
proof of their commitment to the spread of
knowledge. They take the same approach to
population control; the distribution of condoms
and birth control pills are touted as targets fulfilled.
More outlays for less learning, unless, of course,
the field of study serves government interests.
Bertrand Russell once wrote that in universities
“mathematics is mainly taught to men who are
going to teach mathematics to men who are going
to teach mathematics to .... Sometimes, there is an
escape from this treadmill. Archimedes used
mathematics to kill Romans. Galileo used his
science to improve the Grand Duke of Tuscany’s
artillery and modem physicists have perfected the
technology to exterminate the human race. It is
usually on this account that the study of
mathematics is commended to the general public
as worthy of state support”.
Thus, funding the children to gain a modicum of
knowledge to become self-reliant citizens of
tomorrow is not a priority of our governments; but
mandalising government service, opening
professional colleges charging capitation fees for
entry, allowing elite institutions to grow like
mushrooms, and above all, treating the education
system as something not part of the overall human
development in society are all official concerns.
So, we do not have an education policy, only a
network of curriculum dispensers. At the one end,
the first steps in human education are not available
to vast segments of Indian society and at the other,
esoteric fields of knowledge that satisfy the elite few
in the megalopolis and the metropolises never suffer
for want of funds. Wrong priorities, not only in
regard to target populations but also with regard to
substance within the system. When a student is
schooled” or “college educated” in India, it only
means he/she is equipped by the system to confuse
teaching with learning, grade advancement with
education, a diploma with competence and fluency
with the ability to think—in brief, service is
accepted as value. The problem goes far beyond
schooling. As Illich points out in modern society
medical’ treatment is mistaken for health care, social
work for better community life, police, presence for
safety, military poise for national security and the
rat race for productive work. It is all a part of what is
called the modernisation of poverty where basic
human needs get institutional answers which define
problems and not offer solutions.
“Our leaders
have consciously invested
their political fortunes in
perpetuating poverty,
illiteracy, ill-health and
bad hygiene among
our people.”
Modern bureaucracies, and that includes
universities, government hospitals and public
institutions claim a political and financial
monopoly over the public mind setting the norms
for what is possible and what is desirable. The
results are the concepts of poverty line, gross
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 55

national product, export -oriented growth, zero
sum game, et al; all of them try to explain our
maladies but not treat them.
Our crises are complicated by the fact that in India
every established economic, political or social
maxim is made to stand on its head.
Punjab and Haryana are economically better off
than most states of India and ought to enjoy a
higher literacy percentage, than say, Himachal
Pradesh but they do not. Kerala is not a rich state,
nor is it industrially advanced but literacy among
both males and females, is highest there. Bihar is
rich in natural resources but its people are among
the most backward, poor and illiterate in the
country. Perhaps social cohesion, rather than
economic prosperity, is vital for the growth of
education. Contrariwise, economic growth may
well be the harbinger of social cohesion leading to
higher literacy.
“Surging forward
and looking backward
and going nowhere—that
sums up our education
system.”
Other countries can be looked at for guidance but
they hardly serve as adoptable models. They
cannot too, in a country where the University
Grants Commission has more money to subsidise
colleges than state governments have to spend on
primary schools.
56 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Education is the last thing one can assure oneself of
in these circumstances.
Marshal McLuhan thought of the education system
as car with the inmates driving it faster and faster
but with their eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror.
Surging forward and looking backward and going
nowhere—that sums up our education system. I
recall the following song by Tom Paxton sung in the
fifties in the USA:
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned that Washington never told a lie,
I learned that soldiers seldom die,
I learned that everybody’s free,
That’s what the teacher said to me,
And that’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school.
What did you learn in school today,
Dear little boy of mine?
I learned our government must be strong,
It’s always right and never wrong,
Our leaders are the finest men,
And we elect them again and again,
And that’s what I learned in school today,
That’s what I learned in school.
V.N. Narayanan
Source: Bhavan’s Journal, September 15, 2010

Shri Guru
Nanak Dev
Purveyor of the Mool Mantra ‘Ik Onkaar…’
Shri Guru Nanakji was the first of the ten great
Gurus revered by the Sikhs. During His lifetime He
not only directly realized the Truth, but also
tirelessly spread the knowledge about the Absolute
Reality and the path that leads to It. He was in
every way a saint of the highest order.
There are two types of saints: One is the type who
becomes silent upon realizing the Truth because
that state transcends all experiences and therefore
cannot be expressed in words. The other type
consists of those rare ones who, having known the
Truth and experienced total self-satisfaction, still do
not consider their lives fulfilled until they have set
others, too, on the path of Truth called Dharma, and
made them aware of the ever-existing, all-pervasive
Reality which is the true essence of every being.
With the passage of time, like all things in this everchanging
world, there is a regular decline in dharma
and knowledge of the Truth is lost. It is at such times
that saints and sages take birth. When there is an
unbridled growth of adharma and the materialistic
and diabolical forces become too strong, then
Almighty God Himself takes avtaar. But in every age,
this work of the Lord is done by saints and sages.
They, indeed, are the nitya avtaars of the Lord.
When knowledge of the Truth is lost, even though
people may be religious, they are not spiritual.
Many a time it has happened that the Truth which
is the essence of religion is forgotten, and people
become trapped in the outward practices of rites
and rituals. Considering these rites and rituals to
be the true end of religion, they mechanically go
through the motions, never discovering, or even
seeking to discover, something deeper and more
significant... something which helps in the
unfolding and evolution of their personality.
History has shown that whenever a saint appears,
he endeavours to explain the true inner
significance of these practices. In every age when
orthodoxy increases and the pundits and the
priests involve the blind followers of
religion in the outward practices of
worship such as pujaas, paats,
pilgrimages, and so on, but fail to
reveal to them the essential Truth,
at all such times a saint arises to
show people the path of Truth.
The 15th century A.D. was one such
period, when the Hindus were
steeped in orthodoxy and the kings of
northern India were fighting amongst
themselves. The Moghuls attacked the
country and became the rulers of India.
They then tried to convert the Hindus by force.
It was at this crucial time in the history of Bharat
that Shri Guru Nanak took birth. He searched for
the Truth during His very childhood and
discovered it during His youth. Not satisfied with
only His own salvation, however, He moved from
place to place imparting His knowledge to one and
all. He went as far as Mecca and Medina,
demonstrating that there are no boundaries to
Truth... that the Truth is there in all religions but
does not belong exclusively to any one religion.
“Fill your hearts with love, stop fighting with each
other. Fighting is not the basis of any religion. On
the surface religions may appear different, but the
Truth which is the basis of all religions is one and
can be known only through love. Parmaatmaa,
Ishwara, Allah, all are names of that one God.
Therefore worship that one God with devotion.
Love all and come to know that Truth which is One.
This alone is the goal of human life.” Therein lies
the substance of the teachings of Shri Guru Nanakji.
The teachings of Shri Guru Nanak are found in the
“Guru Granth Sahib” along with the works and
compositions of many other saints. The “Guru
Granth Sahib” begins with the so-called mool mantra:
Ik-onkar sat-naam kartaa-purakh nirbhau nirvair
akaal-moorat ajuni saibangh gurparsaad
This mool mantra, which is chanted by even the
little children in devoted Sikh, Punjabi and Sindhi
homes, is also considered to be the mangalaacharan
or ‘invocation’ which is chanted before reciting or
studying the compositions of Shri Guru Nanakji,
especially the “Japji Sahib” and “Sukhmaniji”.
But what do these terms mool mantra and
mangalaacharan really mean? First we shall try to
understand what these terms denote, and then dive
into their deeper meanings.
Swami Swaroopananda
Source: Meditations on The One Indivisble Truth,
Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, p. 1-5, to be
continued…
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 57

58 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Santa
Claus

St. Nicholas was born in 280 AD, in Patara, a city of
Lycia, in Asia Minor. He became the gift giver of
Myra. His gifts were given late at night, so that the
gift giver’s identity would remain a secret. St.
Nicholas was eventually named the patron saint of
children, sailors, Russia and Greece.
St. Nicholas was a Christian priest, who later became a
bishop. He was a rich person, and travelled the
country helping people, giving gifts of money and
other presents. St. Nicholas did not like to be seen
when he gave away presents, so the children of the day
were told to go to sleep quickly or he would not come!
Nothing has changed and Santa Claus will not arrive
this Christmas unless the children go to sleep early.
Legend
A citizen of Patara had lost all his money and his
three daughters could not find husbands because of
their poverty. In despair their wretched father was
about to commit them to a life of shame. When
Nicholas heard of this, he took a bag of gold and at
night tossed it through an open window of the
man's house. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl,
and she was quickly married. Nicholas did the same
for the second and then for the third daughter.
Diocletian
Despite being quite young Nicholas had earned a
reputation for kindliness and wisdom. In the year
303, the Roman Emperor Diocletian commanded all
the citizens of the Roman Empire, which included
Asia Minor, to worship him as a god.
Christians believed in one God and one God alone,
so their conscience would not allow them to obey
the Emperor’s order. Angered by their
stubbornness, Diocletian warned the Christians
that they would be imprisoned. The Emperor
carried out the threat and St. Nicholas who resisted
too was also imprisoned. For more than five years,
St. Nicholas was confined to a small cell. He
suffered from cold, hunger, and thirst, but he never
wavered in his beliefs. In 313, when Diocletian
resigned, and Constantine came to power Nicholas
was released, and he returned to his post as Bishop
of Myra. He continued his good works and became
even wiser and more understanding.
In the eyes of the Catholics, a saint is someone who
has lived such a holy life that, after dying and going
to heaven, he or she is still able to help people on
earth. They often become patron to different
groups of people—one such was children and many
legends sprang up to explain his presence.
By 450, churches in Asia Minor and Greece were
being named in honour of him. By 800, he was
officially recognized as a saint by the Eastern
Catholic Church. In the 1200s, December sixth
began to be celebrated as Bishop Nicholas Day in
France. By end of the 1400s, St. Nicholas was the
third most beloved religious figure, after Jesus and
Mary. There were more than 2000 chapels and
monasteries named after him.
Father Christmas
In the 1500s people in England stopped worshipping St.
Nicholas and favored more another gift giving figure
Father Christmas. Over the centuries, St. Nicholas’
popularity grew, and many people in Europe made up
new stories that showed his concern for children. The
name Santa Claus was derived from the Dutch Sinter
Klass pronunciation of St. Nicholas. Early Dutch
settlers in New York (once called New Amsterdam)
brought their traditions of St. Nicholas. As children
from other countries tried to pronounce Sinter Klass,
this soon became Santa Klass, which was settled as
Santa Claus. The old bishop’s cloak with mitre,
jewelled gloves and crozier were soon replaced with
his red suit and clothing seen in other modern images.
Christmas History
The word for Christmas is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of
Christ, first found in 1038. Christmas was not among the
earliest festivals of the Church. The date of 25 December,
as is well known, was chosen by the Church of Rome in
the fourth century. Pope Julius I (337-352) assigned
December 25 as the date of the Nativity of Jesus.
This date in pagan Rome was dedicated to the Sun
god, because it is from this day that the days begin
gradually to grow longer until summer. This feast
was also lively and joyful because it was combined
with the Saturnalia (17-24 December) and the
calends of January (1 January) that ushered in the
new year. Although Christianity had already been
affirmed in Rome by an Edict of Constantine, the
myth of Mithras who venerated the Sun God was
still widespread, especially among soldiers. The
abovementioned festivities, centred on 25
December, were deeply rooted in popular tradition.
For the abandonment of pagan festivals, this gave
the Church of Rome the idea of impressing a
Christian religious significance on the day by
replacing the Sun God with the true Son of Justice,
Jesus Christ, choosing it as the day on which to
celebrate his birth.. St John the Evangelist presents
Jesus as “the true light that enlightens every man...
the light [that] shines in the darkness” (cf. Jn 1:14).
From the fourth century every Western calendar
assigned it to December 25. At Rome, then, the
Nativity was celebrated on December 25 before
354; in the East, at Constantinople, not before 379.
Rome took over the Eastern Epiphany (the
discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the
Magi,), now with a definite Nativity coloring, and,
with an increasing number of Eastern Churches,
placed it on December 25; later, both East and West
divided their feast, Christmas on December 25 and
Epiphany on January 6.
Source: www.the-north-pole.com, www.ewtn.com,
www.ewtn.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 59

In Search of Dynamism
The Big Blink
Chicago: World growth is likely to remain subdued
over the next few years, with industrial countries
struggling to repair household and government
balance sheets, and emerging markets weaning
themselves off of industrial-country demand. As this
clean-up from the Great Recession continues, one
thing is clear: the source of global demand in the
future will be the billions of consumers in Africa,
China, and India. But it will take time to activate that
demand, for what is now being produced around
the world for industrial-country consumers cannot
simply be shipped to emerging-market consumers,
especially the poorer ones among them.
If we want to talk about billions of new consumers,
rather than the tens of millions who have incomes
similar to the middle classes in industrial countries,
we must recognize that many emerging-market
consumers have much lower incomes than
industrial-country consumers, and live in vastly
different conditions. Their needs are different, and
producers around the world have, until recently,
largely ignored them.
But times are changing. Increasingly, producers are
focusing on people who, if not at the bottom of the
income pyramid, comprise the vast numbers
nearer the base.
For example, an Indian company, Godrej, is making
an innovative refrigerator targeted at poor
villagers. Village women typically are forced to
cook multiple times during the day because the
food that they prepare in the morning spoils in the
heat. They would like to be able to refrigerate
uneaten food, which would limit waste as well as
time spent cooking. Unfortunately, with electricity
supply intermittent even when available,
compressor-based electric refrigerators, which
consume a lot of power, have not been an option.
Godrej’s engineers observed that if the objective was
only to keep food from spoiling, and not necessarily
to make ice, it would be sufficient if the refrigerator
cooled to a few degrees above zero centigrade. This
would allow the use of a less power-hungry fan
instead of a compressor, and the fan could run on
batteries rather than relying on the power grid.
This is the kind of frugally engineered product that
can create enormous new consumer demand in
60 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
emerging markets. Companies in the industrial
world are taking note. General Electric, for
example, is cutting down the functions provided by
its medical equipment to only what is strictly useful
in order to supply remote rural clinics across the
developing world. “Just-enough” functionality
makes the equipment affordable without
compromising quality.
Over the next decade, growth in this kind of
developing-country demand will help offset the
slow growth of demand in industrial countries. But
the process cannot be rushed. Unfortunately, with
high levels of unemployment in industrial
countries, policymakers want to do something—
anything—to increase growth fast. The aggressive
policies that they are following, however, could
jeopardize the process of adjustment.
Consider the United States Federal Reserve’s foray
into quantitative easing. Clearly, the Fed’s objective
is to increase bond prices, in the hope that lower
long-term interest rates will propel corporate
investment. In addition, the Fed hopes that lower
long-term interest rates will push up asset prices,
giving households more wealth and greater incentive
to spend. Finally, by demonstrating a willingness to
print money, the Fed hopes to increase inflationary
expectations from their current low levels.
Even though the markets seem to be anticipating
substantial levels of quantitative easing, US
corporate investment remains subdued. And US
households seem wary of splurging again as they
did in the past, no matter how wealthy they feel.
The Fed has, however, succeeded in enhancing
expectations of inflation in the US. With its
anticipated bond purchases keeping a lid on
interest rates, the net effect is that investors do not
see an adequate real return from holding dollar
assets, which is perhaps one reason the dollar has
been depreciating.
Emerging markets are worried because they believe
that the Fed’s ultra-aggressive monetary policy will
have little effect in expanding US domestic demand.
Instead, it will shift demand towards US producers,
much as direct foreign-exchange intervention
would. In other words, quantitative easing seems to
be as effective a method of depreciating the dollar

as selling it in currency
markets would be.
Because they know that it
will take time for domestic
demand to pick up,
emerging markets are unwilling
to risk a collapse in exports to the
US by allowing their currencies to
strengthen against the dollar too quickly.
They are resisting appreciation through
foreign-exchange intervention and capital
controls. As a result, we might not see steady
growth of demand in emerging markets. Instead,
excess liquidity and fresh asset bubbles could
emerge in the world’s financial and housing
markets, impeding, if not torpedoing, growth.
In the ongoing showdown over currencies, who will
blink first? The US (and other industrial countries)
could argue that it has high levels of unemployment
and should be free to adopt policies that boost
growth, even at the expense of growth in emerging
markets. These countries, in turn, could argue that
even very poor US households are much better off
than the average emerging-market household.
Rather than bickering about who has the stronger
case, it would be better if all sides compromised—if
everyone blinked simultaneously. The US should
dial back its aggressive monetary policy, focusing
on repairing its own economy’s structural
problems, while emerging markets should respond
by allowing their exchange rates to appreciate
steadily, thereby facilitating the growth of domestic
demand. Is it too much to hope that the G-20 can
achieve such a commonsensical compromise?
Raghuram Rajan, a former Chief Economist of the
IMF, is Professor of Finance at the Booth School of
Business, University of Chicago, and author of Fault
Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the
World Economy, which was recently awarded The
Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of
the Year Award.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
Source: www.project-syndicate.org
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 61

Nada Yoga
The Yoga of Music!
Nada Yoga, which means “union through intonation
of sound” has been a part and parcel of an ancient
system of Yoga called Kriya Yoga or the Yoga of
Technique. We know that the Sanskrit term, “Yoga”,
has varied connotations— to combine, coordinate,
harmonise, integrate and much more apart from
Kriya Yoga; ancient Indian spiritualists, had
explored other forms of yogic systems, like that
Jnana Yoga (of self-enquiry), Bhakti Yoga (of
devotion), Karma Yoga (of service) and Raja Yoga
(of integration of all other system).
Like all other yoga, Nada Yoga attempts towards
one’s inner transformation to reach a heightened
level of consciousness and understanding.
The transformation here is attempted by
meditating on sound vibrations. These practices
are universal with a common bondage of breath
that interlinks them all.
Focusing on sound vibrations, especially on the
harmonics, which emanate as overtones as in the
case of sounding of a Himalayan bowl or through
the shruti emanations in a tanpura or a veena, has
been the enriching practices in Nada Yoga. This
helps the Sadhak (practitioner) in having an easy
access to self-realisation, also considered as an
appropriate practice for all age-groups.
Focusing on intonation and harmonics is a
technique that falls under the heading of Kriya
Yoga. These practices are so diverse and varying
that they are not well-codified. Except a few ancient
texts, (e.g., Nada Bindu Upanishad, etc), most of
62 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
those texts which deal with these practice seem to
be lost with the vagaries of time. Hence, there are
several subtly different practices, that address the
meditation on sound as a path to spiritual growth.
However, one can make three clear distinctions, as
there are three principal forms: Nada, Laya, and
Surat Shabda yoga. It is difficult to point out the
very thin and subtle differences, that exist between
them, as these are based on one’s subjective
experience and understanding. As one progresses,
he develops a knack of understanding their
subtleties. It is quite safe to group all these three
forms under a common head, Nada Yoga.
Our mind is something like cotton. As it gets
soaked in moisture, our mind too gets absorbed in
sound. This is why pleasant sounds like music are
popular with all—infants, children, teenagers,
elderly, sick etc. As the mind gets soaked with
sound vibrations, there arises a feeling of inner
bliss—celebrated in all yoga systems. Recent
studies have endorsed this concept of ancient nada
yogis, as scientific studies made in recent years
have noticed the triggering of “feel good” brain
chemicals with the arrival of music!
Nada Yoga distinguishes two sources, in-so-far as
sound goes: ahata or the struck sounds which have
their origin from outside organism, and anahata or the
unstruck sound, which emanates from the interiors as
one advances in his or her meditation with sound.
While the former is considered as “gross”, the latter is
believed to arise inwardly from the subtle pranic
energy moving through nadis (energy channels) in the
body. While listening and appreciating, “gross’ sounds
do not require much practice, but internal sounds
demand tapas (penance) and hours of labour on the
part of a Sadhak.
“It is good for those
who suffer from lack of
love and concern by the
near and the dear.”
Modern music therapy involves concentration on
external or “struck” sounds, carefully selected by a
music therapist. In the case of internal sound
experience, it is the Sadhak himself who has to
manage and control the emanations of anahata.
These internal sounds have been compared with
the sounds of bells, gongs, flutes, or even a hum
like an electric transformer! While these sounds
can be reflecting, those in the human body, such as
breathing, blood-flow, movement of food in the
digestive tract, etc those internal sounds which are

never audible are hard to explain as they are
“heard” in deeper realms of one’s existence.
The Sadhak usually, confines his focus on these
finer and deeper sounds, moving his awareness
from one level of existence (beta) to another
(alpha)—all the time maintaining “relaxed
alertness”. It is thus a very enjoyable form of
meditation, which can be practised by all—
illiterate or educated, young or old, healthy or sick,
weak or strong. This method can be called the
precursor of all notions on music therapy, which
started its roots in the U.S.A as an aftermath of the
world wars.
“By selecting
positive and loving music
from an external source,
the meditation becomes
all the more beneficial to
the body, mind
and spirit.”
The meditation is almost effortless, gentle and easy
to learn. It is also quite enjoyable. By selecting
positive and loving music from an external source,
the meditation becomes all the more beneficial to
the body, mind and spirit. It is good for those who
suffer from lack of love and concern by the near
and the dear. It is good for those who are mentally
upset with injustice, inequality, unreasonableness
around. It is good for those who badly need
balancing and rejuvenation.
For the beginners of Nada Yoga: A beautiful way to
start experiencing sound vibrations is through
music rich in harmonics. The music so chosen,
should be loving and calming like a mother! A
consistent musical form is more preferred than the
fluid ones which are evanescent. Music should not
be too loud or coarse. There is a wide selection of
Indian instrumental music especially those from
sitar, flute, veena, santoor, etc which, when medium
or slow-paced with ragas which hug can work
wonders! Some modern versions could be had from
“New Age” music. Music by Don Campbell or
Stephen Halpern, Japanese Shakuhachi music,
Native American flute music all exhibit care and
concern, the quality which is badly needed by
those orphaned by the civilisation. As words in
songs can distract, instrumental music is wellsuited
here.
After selecting a loving music (that you too love!),
sit quietly and concentrate on the music intensely
for 5 to 10 minutes. Then take a break and lie in
shavasana posture to relax. Then again listen
intensely for another 5 to 10 minutes. Repeat this
process 4 or 5 times. As you lie in shavasana, in due
course, you may be surprised that you are able to
hear certain subtle sounds which are sui generis.
Don’t accelerate this process. As suggested earlier,
the change within should come naturally.
However, each experience could be unique and
rewarding. It is the process that is more enjoyable
rather than the endresults! In other words, the
process itself is an achievement!
Nada Yoga is actually much easier than what it
sounds to those who are not initiated. The
wonderful bonus of this practice—meditating with
music—ensures that the journey itself is as
beautiful as its end-results! The practice improves
one’s listening skill, improves the tolerance levels
so as to cope with the adverse events and
situations, and above all to make an ordinary
existence into productive and enjoyable!
T V. Sairam
Source: Bhavan’s Journal, September 15, 2010
Above from top: Diwali Pahat glittered with morning
melodies of Flute of Pt. Nityanand Haldipur; Pt. Brijnarain
plays Sarod Solo accompanied on Tabla by Pt. Kalinath
Mishra; Dr. N. Rajam, eminent Violinist, at her best
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 63

Need of the Hour:
A Prayer in Unison
64 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010

An Event to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi
Jayanthi & the International Day of Peace
The Global Organisation for Divinity organised a
cultural evening and mass prayer at the Parramatta
Town Hall on the 2nd October’10, to commemorate
Mahatma Gandhi Jayanthi and the International
Day of Peace. An elite set of special guests attended
the function adding a sense of depth and character
to the purpose behind the gathering—one of
devout tradition and a pertinent spiritual message.
The guests were Hon Julie Owens MP, member for
Parramatta, Councillor Glenn Elmore, Woodville
Ward, Mr Gambhir Watts, President of Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan, Australia and Swami Atmeshananda
of Ramakrishna Mutt, Sydney.
The programme commenced with the prayer song
Maithrim Bhajathae by Kausthub Krishnamurthy.
This song was written by Paramacharya of Kanchi
and sung at the 50th anniversary of the U.N
assembly by Smt. M.S. Subbalakshmi. The song is
about universal love and peace in the world.
Gandhiji’s favourite “Raghupathi Raghava” was
sung melodiously by Sindhu Sharma. This was
followed by the rendering of “vaishnava janatho”
by Kaavya Jaishankar. Written by the famous
Narasimha Mehta, this song was a part of Gandhiji’s
everyday prayer. It qualifies the term vaishnav as
that which applies to one who feels the pain of
others, helps those in need, humble and sees
everyone as equal. Above all, a vaishnav revels in
chanting the divine name of Ram.
The Gandhian principle of simple living and high
thinking is something that Sri Muralidhara Swamiji,
the great spiritual leader in Chennai, India values
very much and has himself written a song
“ElimaiyAna vAzhkai”, on that virtue. Ashwin
Bhaskaran and Siddharth Murali Manohar sang this
song. They also did a song “My Ji” in western
classical style, the song written by Deepak Vinodh,
a member of the G.O.D. team as a humble offering
to Sri Muralidhara Swamiji. The melodious music
was composed by Ashwin Bhaskaran.
Vishwaas Productions’ band is a UNSW based
society and has made a name for itself in the
sydney culutral scene through its multi award
winning productions, “Gandhi:The Power of One”
and “The Legend of Asoka”. The band with Gana
Aruneswaran on Guitar, Chiranth Wodeyar on
Mandolin, Yashneel Prasad on Tabla, Sabinesh
Pottekkatt and Siddarth Murali on vocals delivered
a fantastic song “Mahatma”. Mr Bibhu Agarwal, a
4th year student of commercial law at the Sydney
University made a very nice and crisp speech on
Gandhiji. Bibhu was the scriptwriter of the award
winning “Gandhi, The Power of One” play staged by
Vishwaas Productions in 2009.
Hon Julie Owens MP, member for Parramatta who
had earlier lit the lamp for the function made a nice
speech on how she was able to relate so very well
to the musical extravaganza because of her own
background in music. She welcomed the idea of
G.O.D. choosing to celebrate the occasion of
Gandhi Jayanthi in such a nice theme mixing
culture and prayer.
Sri Muralidhara Swamiji‘s tireless work towards
promoting universal peace and harmony through
chanting of the divine name has inspired many
young professionals who have joined his fold full
time dedicating themselves to his holy cause. Dr
Packianathan Authimoorthy, known affectionately
as Bhagyaji is one of them. Presiding over the
function, he delivered a spectacular speech very
apt for the occasion. He mentioned that even
without any religion telling us that love is the
binding factor bringing the entire humanity
together, everyone is instinctly aware of that. To
seek that love in a material sense, one goes down
the external path whereas if we seek inward, we
find that peace. The external search gains us
material joy through scientific inventions but not a
sense of peace.
Once entrenched in that peaceful bliss, one is able
to bring forth unconditional love towards everyone
around and this universal love is the need of the
hour. Even though God is omnipresent, we see the
need for the temple or a place of worship because
it brings people together for a common purpose.
We are all children of one God and each child has a
unique way of relating to the father. One needs to
realise this and only an inner transformation makes
this possible thus bringing forth universal peace
and harmony. Chanting the divine name is the
easiest and best way of bringing about this inner
transformation as demonstrated by Gandhiji. He
led the peace movement that endeared him to
millions around the world through the power of the
divine name of Ram. Just like the staff in his hands
that he held firm always, his mind was always
chanting the divine name. From this great example,
we need to adopt the practice of chanting the
divine name, whatever else we do.
After the speech, Bhagyaji led a prayer session in
which the Mahamantra was chanted by all those
present. The event concluded with a vote of thanks.
A special mention was made that the
multiculturalism in the Australian society was well
demonstrated by the active participation of the
members of the Government in the event.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 65

Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Nirad C. Chaudhuri was an eminent Bengali Indian
Writer and Journalist. He was appointed the
political speaker for the Calcutta branch of the All
India Radio and also edited several prestigious
magazines. He will always be remembered for his
phenomenal biography ‘The Autobiography of an
Unknown Indian’ published in the year 1951. It put
him directly on the short list of great Indian English
writers of those days. The book traces the height of
the British Raj in India till its eventual dissolution.
Early Life
Nirad C. Chaudhuri was born on 23 November in 1897
at Kishoreganj located in the Mymensingh district of
East Bengal of those days or today’s Bangladesh. He
studied at Kishorganj and then in Kolkata city. As a
student of history at the Scottish Church College,
Nirad C. Chaudhuri topped the University of Calcutta,
which was a rare distinction at that time.
66 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
A Writer
Nirad C. Chaudhuri began his career as clerk in the
accounting department of the Indian Army and also
started writing stories for popular magazines. His
first article on Bengali poet, Bharat Chandra was
published in Modern Review, a popular English
magazine of those times. After this, he entered the
field of journalism and began editing various
magazines. Nirad C. Chaudhuri also temporarily
introduced two highly esteemed Bengali magazines,
Samasamayik and Notun Patrika.
“Chaudhuri
topped the University
of Calcutta, a rare
distinction at
that time.”
Association with National Leaders
Finally in the year 1938, Nirad bagged a job as the
secretary to the great Indian political leader, Sarat
Chandra Bose. Due to this, he got ample
opportunity to meet various renowned leaders of
India like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and
others. In the year 1932, Nirad C. Chaudhuri
married Amiya Dhar who was herself a very prolific
writer. Later on, Nirad C. Chaudhuri was elected as
a political speaker for the Calcutta branch of the All
India Radio.
Final Days
Writing was Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s innate passion
and he pursued this until the very end. His last
work was published at the age of 99. He died at
Oxford in England two months short of his 102nd
birthday in the year 1999.
Source: www.iloveindia.com

Bipin Chandra Pal
Bipin Chandra Pal was a noted politician, journalist,
an eminent orator and one of the three famous
patriots, known as the trilogy of Lal Bal Pal. The other
two were Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak. He
was one of the main architects of the Swadeshi
movement. He stood against the partition of Bengal.
Early Life
Pal was born on November 7, 1858 at Sylhet (now in
Bangladesh). He came to Calcutta (Kolkata) and got
admitted in the Presidency college but left studies
before graduating. However he had remarkable
Literacy competence and studied various books
extensively. He started his career as school master
and worked as a librarian in the Calcutta Public
Library. Here he came in contact with Keshav
Chandra Sen and others like Shivnath Shastri, B.K.
Goswami and S.N. Banerjee. Their influence
attracted him to join active politics. Soon he got
inspired by the extremist patriotism of Tilak, Lala
and Aurobindo. In 1898 he went to England to study
comparative theology but came back to preach
ideal of Swadeshi through himself in the Non-
Cooperation Movement due to his difference of
viewpoints with other leaders of the movement.
A Writer
Bipin Chandra Pal was a teacher, journalist, orator,
writer and librarian. Pal used his profession in
spreading patriotic feelings and social awareness.
He was the editor of the ‘Democrat’, the
‘Independent’ and many other journals and
newspapers. He published a biography of Queen
Victoria in Bangla. ‘Swaraj and the Present
Situation’ and ‘The Soul of India’ are the two of his
many books.
He wrote a series of studies on the makers of
modern India such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Keshab
Chandra Sen, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, Rabindranath
Tagore, Ashutosh Mukerjee and Annie Besant. He
preached a “composite patriotism” that implied a
universal outlook. “Paridarsak” (1886-Bengali
weekly), “New India: (1902-English weekly) and
“Bande Mataram” (1906-Bengali daily) are some of
the journals started by him.
Lal Bal Pal
But above all, he was the one of the three famous
leaders called “Lal Bal Pal” who comprised the
extremist wing of the Indian National Congress
(INC). It was these three leaders who started the
first popular upsurge against British colonial policy
in the 1905 partition of Bengal. Described as “one
of the mightiest prophets of nationalism”, Bipin
Chandra Pal was associated with India’s political
history during its phase of the struggle for freedom
with Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai.
The trio was termed the “extremists” as they stood
for the ideal of Swaraj or complete political
freedom to be achieved through courage, self-help
and self-sacrifice. With Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal
Gangadhar Tilak from the Lal Bal Pal team, Bipin
Chandra Pal doled out a number of extremist
measures like boycotting goods made by British,
burning Western clothes and lockouts in the British
owned businesses and industrial concerns to get
their message across to the foreign rulers. Later on
during the course of his life history, Bipin Chandra
Pal came in contact with prominent Bengali leaders
like Keshab Chandra Sen and Sibnath Sastri.
Source: www.mapsofindia.com,
www.iloveindia.com, http://swarajyaparty.org,
http://www.indianetzone.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 67

continued from last issue...
Twilight
Glimmering and Hazy
Landscape of Indian Politics
He moved his eyes on their faces like a spider and
tried to seek their faces. One of the trio came to the
rescue of the speaker ‘Our protest doesn’t matter.
You see ... people are not united. Everyone for
himself. Simple rule.’ The dog stood there as if
trying to follow the discussion. It looked at Rajeev
as if asking him to depart from this place.
Rajeev and the dog followed a broad road. Their
hasty steps took them in the direction of straight,
wide, road leading to Rajeev’s home.
Suddenly his attention was caught up by an unusual
glow at some distance. The road lay expectant and
quieter with a lot of litter lying on both the sides.
The glow was proceeding in the opposite direction
of his walking. He was hushed up inwardly. O God !
it was a speeding vehicle emitting flames in all
directions. There was a crash, a din giving a jolt to
the atmosphere. Rajeev was at the spot after a few
more bouncing steps. The bus lay scattered against
a way-side tree like an injured visitor. The impact of
the collusion was severe scalding of the various
parts of the vehicle. There was rotten smell rising
around and towards the sky. It was a completely
shattered and devastated sport looking desolate
and lonely despite scattered conglomeration of
lanes, huts, half-baked houses and the road.
Rajeev advanced towards the burning heap of the
bus. It was pilliage of debris involved in fire without
their own consent. There lay a boy of twenty with a
completely cleared face. His body lay still like
eternity Who could he be ? And why did he drive
the burning bus? Questions rose like a series of
bouncing bells. His face was blurred beyond
surface recognition. Burning cinders flew like petty
kites in all directions. Flashes of fire went across
like sun-lit glow-worms. The burning pot was
charred with an awe that moves like a Ghost in the
pitch-dark night. In the sky shreds of clouds were
made in expansion.
Tears rolled down Rajeev’s cheeks ‘O God! my
god... I recognise the face. Yes ... the same face
certainly recognise him’. He muttered to himself
68 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Dharam Pal
not beyond the perch of the dog. ‘Don’t touch it.
Don’t... It’s a police case. You may be caught...’ He
found a dim human figure canopying his head.
‘Why... the dead body is to be lifted, carried and
taken away to the relations.’ ‘You know the dead
body... ? His father, his mother... ?’
Yes, I know them. Of course ...I know them, but...’
You don’t care. Police is there to take care of such
situations. They must be around. After all they have
a responsibility...’ He raised his head to see the
person standing nearby him. He got up putting a lot
of strain to his knees. ‘Ghastly accident of the day.’
A voice squeaked out of the group.
Never witnessed such incidents. My stay in this
town is of more than forty years; But such a
situation..oh..no.. never.’ The old man did not
fumble for such words though his teeth looked like
a barren land. The boy is a dare devil. Who did
prompt him? Of course... a dare devil! surprising...
shocking. The town reduced to a burning ghat.’ ‘It’s
all the doing of a politician. Must be for some
political gain.’ Rajeev was led to a sort of mental
psychosis. How to inform the parents of the dead
boy? Should he himself go or let the police take its
course? But it may take long before the body
reaches its destination.
People were converging reluctantly at the sight in
twos and threes, as if they were about to enter a
danger zone. The sight of devastation began to
swell with mute and chattering faces. ‘Oye... Oye... I
know him... yes... yes... He lives in Krishna Colony.
Krishna Colony...’ ‘Parents...old...and poor. Second
death in the family. Only brother of three sisters...’
Another voice echoed in the crowd. ‘Hai-Bhagwan
this boy! I know him since childhood, only help to
his family.’ ‘Let’s take the dead body...’ ‘Where?’ ‘To
Krishna colony... to his old poor parent.’ ‘How about
the police case?’ ‘No one around. Jungle law. The
dead body will rot here. No police ... no ... kanoon...’
There was a pall of dismay shrouding the emotional
contours of the crowd. The dog was already there...
perched near the dead body in a posture of perfect

silence. Rajeev looked at the mute creature that had
followed him since their encounter in the by-lanes.
There was an Implied consent in the crowd that
Krishna’s dead body should be removed to his
house. Apprehensions regarding the legal
procedure stayed back in their minds. Rajeev
stepped forward and slid his arm under the
charred neck.
A commotion in the crowd and some stepped
forward to lend a hand to the lifting of the body.
It look the shape of a scattered procession. Dumb
faces. Slow and unsteady movement. Something
sinister sat on their faces. Conglomeration of subconscious
fears, a sense of insecurity and fear of the
unseen created an awe of its own kind. Rajeev almost
visualized a picture of gloom shattering everyday
contours of Krishna’s house. One of them stepped
forward and almost yelled, Yes... overthere... The
lane ends on a square. From the right. Yes, right. A
new lane starts. It terminates in Krishna’s house.’
Their arrival at the lane resulted in the movement
of hurrying steps coming out of their houses like
bees swarming an enclosure. Their anxiety to be
one with the situation was overflowing. A shopkeeper
shouted ‘who is burnt? who... Krishna? My
God! he lives here. He is burnt like coal.’
The muddy lane had developed cracks like sudden
eruptions on a human body. Krishna Colony with
its zig-zag patches, half-broken lay mired and
tranquil. Krishna’s house did not have spacious
doors. Their dimensions betrayed the contents and
the inmates of the house. ‘We can stay here. We
can’t crowd the house. Stop-stop, not more than
twenty people.’ The surging crowd stood restless.
Rajeev went ahead of the group treasuring the dead
body. A slow, sudden knock at the door with
prominent crevices permitting tiny whiffs of wind.
Rajeev felt like a patient under anesthesia.
The knock was repeated with a sub-dued pitch.
Two worn out, dim eyes peeped through one of the
slits on the door. He took time to unlatch the door
and stood peering at Rajeev. Many moments of
painful silence followed the door. His scanty eyelids
fluttered revealing the little orbes of his light
half extinguished. ‘Who are you? who... they?’ The
old man’s words crawled punctuated by a big stifle.
‘Krishna...’ Rajeev muttered the name creeping up
an outerpoise. The old man whispered, ‘Krishna?
Not at home. We are waiting...waiting...’
He, could not hide his anxiety. Rajeev began to sob
and a few others joined the sub-dued wail. Before
the old man could make out the grim situation, they
entered the low ceiling dinghy scant of full light and
breath of air. The inmates did recognise the cleared
face and their desperation took a lonely, sudden
wailing beyond endurance. The old, shattered
mother was almost propped up by the three sisters.
They fell upon his body crying and making frantic
gesticulations as if to rescue him from his present
state. There was no point of return.
to be continued...
Dharam Pal
Born on October 1, 1941, Prof Dharam Pal, Retd
Head, Department of English, Hindu College,
Sonepat, Haryana, India has published Novels,
Short-stories in Hindi and English. These include,
Upnevesh, Mukti, Raj Ghat ki Aur, Tharav, Basti,
Avshes, Nirvastra, Ramsharnam, Twilight, The
Eclipsed Serialized in Indo-Asian Literature and
other stories. Two students have been awarded
MPhil Degrees on his Hindi Works. His plays,
stories have also been broadcast on Indian Radio.
He has been twice honoured by Governor of
Haryana, India. He has won Hindi Rashtriya
Shatabdi Samman, 200 and also Penguin Award.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 69

We Are Not
These Bodies
Dehi nityam avadhyo yam
dehe sarvasya bharata
tasmat sarvani bhutani
na tvam socitum arhasi
“O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the body
is eternal and can never be slain. Therefore you need
not grieve for any creature.” (Bhagavad-gita 2.30)
The very first step in self-realization is realizing
one’s identity as separate from the body. “I am not
this body but am spirit soul” is an essential
realization for anyone who wants to transcend
death and enter into the spiritual world beyond. It
is not simply a matter of saying “I am not this
body,” but of actually realizing it. This is not as
simple as it may seem at first. Although we are not
these bodies but are pure consciousness, somehow
or other we have become encased within the bodily
dress. If we actually want the happiness and
independence that transcend death, we have to
establish ourselves and remain in our
constitutional position as pure consciousness.
Living in the bodily conception, our idea of
happiness is like that of a man in delirium. Some
philosophers claim that this delirious condition of
bodily identification should be cured by abstaining
from all action. Because these material activities
have been a source of distress for us, they claim that
we should actually stop these activities. Their
culmination of perfection is in a kind of Buddhistic
nirvana, in which no activities are performed.
Buddha maintained that due to a combination of
material elements, this body has come into
existence, and that somehow or other if these
material elements are separated or dismantled, the
70 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
cause of suffering is removed. If the tax collectors
give us too much difficulty because we happen to
possess a large house, one simple solution is to
destroy the house. However, Bhagavad-gita indicates
that this material body is not all in all. Beyond this
combination of material elements, there is spirit, and
the symptom of that spirit is consciousness.
Consciousness cannot be denied. A body without
consciousness is a dead body. As soon as
consciousness is removed from the body, the
mouth will not speak, the eye will not see, nor the
ears hear. A child can understand that. It is a fact
that consciousness is absolutely necessary for the
animation of the body. What is this consciousness?
Just as heat or smoke are symptoms of fire, so
consciousness is the symptom of the soul. The
energy of the soul, or self, is produced in the shape
of consciousness. Indeed, consciousness proves
that the soul is present. This is not only the
philosophy of Bhagavad-gita but the conclusion of
all Vedic literature.
The impersonalist followers of Sankaracarya, as
well as the Vaisnavas following in the disciplic
succession from Lord Sri Krsna, acknowledge the
factual existence of the soul, but the Buddhist
philosophers do not. The Buddhists contend that
at a certain stage the combination of matter
produces consciousness, but this argument is
refuted by the fact that although we may have all
the constituents of matter at our disposal, we
cannot produce consciousness from them. All the
material elements may be present in a dead man,
but we cannot revive that man to consciousness.
This body is not like a machine. When a part of a
machine breaks down, it can be replaced, and the

machine will work again, but when the body breaks
down and consciousness leaves the body, there is
no possibility of our replacing the broken part and
rejuvenating the consciousness. The soul is
different from the body, and as long as the soul is
there, the body is animate. But there is no
possibility of making the body animate in the
absence of the soul.
Because we cannot perceive the soul by our gross
senses, we deny it. Actually there are so many
things that are there which we cannot see. We
cannot see air, radio waves, or sound, nor can we
perceive minute bacteria with our blunt senses, but
this does not mean they are not there. By the aid of
the microscope and other instruments, many
things can be perceived which had previously been
denied by the imperfect senses. Just because the
soul, which is atomic in size, has not been
perceived yet by senses or instruments, we should
not conclude that it is not there. It can, however, be
perceived by its symptoms and effects.
In Bhagavad-gita Sri Krsna points out that all of our
miseries are due to false indentification with the body.
matra-sparsas tu kaunteya
sitosna-sukha-duhkha-dah
agamapayino ‘nityas
tams titiksasva bharata
“O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of
heat and cold, happiness and distress, and their
disappearance in due course, are like the
appearance and disappearance of winter and
summer seasons. They arise from sense perception,
O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate
them without being disturbed.” (Bg. 2.14) In the
summertime we may feel pleasure from contact
with water, but in the winter we may shun that very
water because it is too cold. In either case, the
water is the same, but we perceive it as pleasant or
painful due to its contact with the body.
All feelings of distress and happiness are due to the
body. Under certain conditions the body and mind
feel happiness and distress. Factually we are
hankering after happiness, for the soul’s
constitutional position is that of happiness. The
soul is part and parcel of the Supreme Being, who is
sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah—the embodiment of
knowledge, bliss, and eternity. Indeed, the very
name Krsna, which is nonsectarian, means “the
greatest pleasure.” Krs means “greatest,” and na
means “pleasure.” Krsna is the epitome of pleasure,
and being part and parcel of Him, we hanker for
pleasure. A drop of ocean water has all the
properties of the ocean itself, and we, although
minute particles of the Supreme Whole, have the
same energetic properties as the Supreme.
The atomic soul, although so small, is moving the
entire body to act in so many wonderful ways. In
the world we see so many cities, highways, bridges,
great buildings, monuments, and great civilizations,
but who has done all this? It is all done by the
minute spirit spark within the body. If such
wonderful things can be performed by the minute
spirit spark, we cannot begin to imagine what can
be accomplished by the Supreme Spirit Whole. The
natural hankering of the minute spirit spark is for
the qualities of the whole—knowledge, bliss, and
eternality—but these hankerings are being
frustrated due to the material body. The
information on how to attain the soul’s desire is
given in Bhagavad-gita.
At present we are trying to attain eternity, bliss,
and knowledge by means of an imperfect
instrument. Actually, our progress toward these
goals is being blocked by the material body;
therefore we have to come to the realization of our
existence beyond the body. Theoretical knowledge
that we are not these bodies will not do. We have to
keep ourselves always separate as masters of the
body, not as servants. If we know how to drive a car
well, it will give us good service; but if we do not
know how, we will be in danger.
The body is composed of senses, and the senses are
always hungry after their objects. The eyes see a
beautiful person and tell us, “Oh, there is a beautiful
girl, a beautiful boy. Let’s go see.” The ears are
telling us, “Oh, there is very nice music. Let us go
hear it.” The tongue is saying, “Oh, there is a very
nice restaurant with palatable dishes. Let us go.” In
this way the senses are dragging us from one place
to another, and because of this we are perplexed.
indriyanam hi caratam
an mano ‘nuvidhiyate
tad asya harati prajnam
vayur navam ivambhasi
“As a boat on the water is swept away by a strong wind,
even one of the senses on which the mind focuses can
carry away a man’s intelligence.” (Bg. 2.67)
It is imperative that we learn how to control the
senses. The name gosvami is given to someone who
has learned how to master the senses. Go means
“senses,” and svami means “controller”; so one who
can control the senses is to be considered a
gosvami. Krsna indicates that one who identifies
with the illusory material body cannot establish
himself in his proper identity as spirit soul. Bodily
pleasure is flickering and intoxicating, and we
cannot actually enjoy it, because of its momentary
nature. Actual pleasure is of the soul, not the body.
We have to mold our lives in such a way that we will
not be diverted by bodily pleasure. If somehow we
are diverted, it is not possible for us to establish our
consciousness in its true identity beyond the body.
bhogaisvarya-prasaktanam
tayapahrta-cetasam
yavasayatmika buddhih
samadhau na vidhiyate
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 71

traigunya-visaya veda
nistraigunyo bhavarjuna
nirdvandvo nitya-sattva-stho
niryoga-ksema atmavan
“In the minds of those who are too attached to sense
enjoyment and material opulence, and who are
bewildered by such things, the resolute determination
for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not
take place. The Vedas deal with the subject of the three
modes of material nature. Rise above these modes, O
Arjuna. Be transcendental to all of them. Be free from
all dualities and from all anxieties for gain and safety,
and be established in the Self.” (Bg. 2.44-45)
The word veda means “book of knowledge.” There
are many books of knowledge, which vary according
to the country, population, environment, etc. In India
the books of knowledge are referred to as the Vedas.
In the West they are called the Old Testament and
New Testament. The Muhammadans accept the
Koran. What is the purpose for all these books of
knowledge? They are to train us to understand our
position as pure soul. Their purpose is to restrict
bodily activities by certain rules and regulations, and
these rules and regulations are known as codes of
morality. The Bible, for instance, has ten
commandments intended to regulate our lives. The
body must be controlled in order for us to reach the
highest perfection, and without regulative principles,
it is not possible to perfect our lives. The regulative
principles may differ from country to country or
from scripture to scripture, but that doesn’t matter,
for they are made according to the time and
circumstances and the mentality of the people. But
the principle of regulated control is the same.
Similarly, the government sets down certain
regulations to be obeyed by its citizens. There is no
possibility of making advancement in government or
civilization without some regulations. In the previous
verse, Sri Krsna tells Arjuna that the regulative
principles of the Vedas are meant to control the three
modes of material nature—goodness, passion, and
ignorance (traigunya-visaya vedah). However, Krsna
is advising Arjuna to establish himself in his pure
constitutional position as spirit soul, beyond the
dualities of material nature.
As we have already pointed out, these dualitiessuch
as heat and cold, pleasure and pain—arise
due to the contact of the senses with their objects.
In other words, they are born of identification with
the body. Krsna indicates that those who are
devoted to enjoyment and power are carried away
by the words of the Vedas, which promise heavenly
enjoyment by sacrifice and regulated activity.
Enjoyment is our birthright, for it is the
characteristic of the spirit soul, but the spirit soul
tries to enjoy materially, and this is the mistake.
Everyone is turning to material subjects for
enjoyment and is compiling as much knowledge as
possible. Someone is becoming a chemist,
physicist, politician, artist, or whatever. Everyone
72 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
knows something of everything or everything of
something, and this is generally known as
knowledge. But as soon as we leave the body, all of
this knowledge is vanquished. In a previous life one
may have been a great man of knowledge, but in
this life he has to start again by going to school and
learning how to read and write from the beginning.
Whatever knowledge was acquired in the previous
life is forgotten. The situation is that we are
actually seeking eternal knowledge, but this cannot
be acquired by this material body. We are all
seeking enjoyment through these bodies, but
bodily enjoyment is not our actual enjoyment. It is
artificial. We have to understand that if we want to
continue in this artificial enjoyment, we will not be
able to attain our position of eternal enjoyment.
The body must be considered a diseased condition.
A diseased man cannot enjoy himself properly; a
man with jaundice, for instance, will taste sugar
candy as bitter, but a healthy man can taste its
sweetness. In either case, the sugar candy is the
same, but according to our condition it tastes
different. Unless we are cured of this diseased
conception of bodily life, we cannot taste the
sweetness of spiritual life. Indeed, it will taste bitter
to us. At the same time, by increasing our
enjoyment of material life, we are further
complicating our diseased condition. A typhoid
patient cannot eat solid food, and if someone gives
it to him to enjoy, and he eats it, he is further
complicating his malady and is endangering his life.
If we really want freedom from the miseries of
material existence, we must minimize our bodily
demands and pleasures.
Actually, material enjoyment is not enjoyment at
all. Real enjoyment does not cease. In the
Mahabharata there is a verse—ramante yogino
‘nante—to the effect that the yogis (yogino), those
who are endeavoring to elevate themselves to the
spiritual platform, are actually enjoying (ramante),
but their enjoyment is anante, endless. This is
because their enjoyment is in relation to the
supreme enjoyer (Rama), Sri Krsna. Bhagavan Sri
Krsna is the real enjoyer, and Bhagavad-gita (5.29)
confirms this:
bhoktararh yajna-tapasam
sarva-loka-mahesvaram
suhrdam sarva-bhutanam
jnatva mam santim rcchati
“The sages, knowing Me as the ultimate enjoyer of all
sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all
planets and demigods, and the benefactor and wellwisher
of all living entities, attain peace from the pangs
of material miseries.” Bhoga means “enjoyment,” and
our enjoyment comes from understanding our position
as the enjoyed. The real enjoyer is the Supreme Lord,
and we are enjoyed by Him.
An example of this relationship can be found in the
material world between the husband and the wife:

the husband is the enjoyer (purusa), and the wife is
the enjoyed (prakrti). The word pri means “woman.”
Purusa, or spirit, is the subject, and prakrti, or
nature, is the object. The enjoyment, however, is
participated in both by the husband and the wife.
When actual enjoyment is there, there is no
distinction that the husband is enjoying more or the
wife is enjoying less. Although the male is the
predominator and the female is the predominated,
there is no division when it comes to enjoyment. On
a larger scale, no living entity is the enjoyer.
God expanded into many, and we constitute those
expansions. God is one without a second, but He
willed to become many in order to enjoy. We have
experience that there is little or no enjoyment in
sitting alone in a room talking to oneself. However,
if there are five people present, our enjoyment is
enhanced, and if we can discuss Krsna before
many, many people, the enjoyment is all the
greater. Enjoyment means variety. God became
many for His enjoyment, and thus our position is
that of the enjoyed. That is our constitutional
position and the purpose for our creation. Both
enjoyer and enjoyed have consciousness, but the
consciousness of the enjoyed is subordinate to the
consciousness of the enjoyer. Although Krsna is the
enjoyer and we the enjoyed, the enjoyment can be
participated in equally by everyone. Our enjoyment
can be perfected when we participate in the
enjoyment of God. There is no possibility of our
enjoying separately on the bodily platform.
Material enjoyment on the gross bodily platform is
discouraged throughout Bhagavad-gita.
matra-sparsas tu kaunteya
sitosna-sukha-duhkha –dah
agamapayino ‘nityas
tams titiksasva bharata
“O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of
heat and cold, happiness and distress, and their
disappearance in due course, are like the
appearance and disappearance of winter and
summer seasons. They arise from sense perception,
O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate
them without being disturbed.” (Bg. 2.14)
The gross material body is a result of the
interaction of the modes of material nature, and it
is doomed to destruction.
antavanta ime deha
nityasyoktah saririnah
anasino ‘prameyasya
tasmad yudhyasva bharata
“Only the material body of the indestructible,
immeasurable, and eternal living entity is subject to
destruction; therefore, fight, O descendant of
Bharata.” (Bg. 2.18) Sri Krsna therefore encourages
us to transcend the bodily conception of existence
and attain to our actual spiritual life.
gunan etan atitya trin
dehi deha-samudbhavan
janma-mrtyu-jara-duhkhair
vimukto mrtam asnute
“When the embodied being is able to transcend
these three modes [goodness, passion, and
ignorance], he can become free from birth, death,
old age, and their distresses and can enjoy nectar
even in this life.” (Bg. 14.20)
To establish ourselves on the pure brahma-bhuta
spiritual platform, above the three modes, we must
take up the method of Krsna consciousness. The
gift of Caitanya Mahaprabhu, the chanting of the
names of Krsna:
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare
facilitates this process. This method is called
bhakti-yoga or mantra-yoga, and it is employed by
the highest transcendentalists.
His Divine Grace, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada
Source: Beyond Birth and Death, p. 1-13,
The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835,
British Parliament
“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who
is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not
think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her
spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system,
her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they
will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly
dominated nation”.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 73

A Lesson in Humility
to the Smug West
About 100 miles south of Delhi, where I live, lie the
ruins of the Mughal capital, Fateh-pur Sikri. This
was built by the Emperor Akbar at the end of the
16th century. Here Akbar would listen carefully as
philosophers, mystics and holy men of different
faiths debated the merits of their different beliefs in
what is the earliest known experiment in formal
inter-religious dialogue.
Representatives of Muslims (Sunni and Shi’ite as well
as Sufi), Hindus (followers of Shiva and Vishnu as
well as Hindu atheists), Christians, Jains, Jews,
Buddhists and Zoroastrians came together to discuss
where they differed and how they could live together.
Muslim rulers are not usually thought of in the
West as standard-bearers of freedom of thought;
but Akbar was obsessed with exploring the issues
of religious truth, and with as open a mind as
possible, declaring:
“No man should be interfered with on account of
religion, and anyone is to be allowed to go over to
any religion that pleases him.” He also argued for
what he called “the pursuit of reason” rather than
“reliance on the marshy land of tradition”.
All this took place when in London, Jesuits were
being hung, drawn and quartered outside Tyburn,
in Spain and Portugal the Inquisition was torturing
anyone who defied the dogmas of the Catholic
Church, and in Rome Giordano Bruno was being
burnt at the stake in Campo de’Fiori.
It is worth emphasising Akbar, for he—the greatest
ruler of the most populous of all Muslim states—
represented in one man so many of the values that
we in the West are often apt to claim for ourselves. I
am thinking here especially of Douglas Murray, a
young neocon pup, who wrote in The Spectator last
week that he “was not afraid to say the West’s
74 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
values are better”, and in which he accused anyone
who said to the contrary of moral confusion:
“Decades of intense cultural relativism and
designer tribalism have made us terrified of
passing judgment,” he wrote.
The article was a curtain-opener for an Intelligence
Squared debate in which he and I faced each other,
along with David Aaronovitch, Charlie Glass, Ibn
Warraq and Tariq Ramadan, over the motion: “We
should not be reluctant to assert the superiority of
western values”. (The motion was eventually
carried, I regret to say.)
Murray named western values as follows: the rule
of law, parliamentary democracy, equality, and
freedom of expression and conscience. He also
argued that the Judeo-Christian tradition is the
ethical source of these values.
Yet where do these ideas actually come from? Both
Judaism and Christianity were not born in
Washington or London, however much the
Victorians liked to think of God as an Englishman.
Instead they were born in Palestine, while
Christianity received its intellectual superstructure
in cities such as Antioch, Constantinople and
Alexandria. At the Council of Nicea, where the
words of the Creed were thrashed out in 325, there
were more bishops from Persia and India than from
western Europe.
Judaism and Christianity are every bit as much
eastern religions as Islam or Buddhism. So much
that we today value—universities, paper, the book,
printing—were transmitted from East to West via
the Islamic world, in most cases entering western
Europe in the Middle Ages via Islamic Spain.
And where was the first law code drawn up? In
Athens or London? Actually, no—it was the

invention of Hammurabi, in ancient Iraq. Who was
the first ruler to emphasise the importance of the
equality of his subjects? The Buddhist Indian
Emperor Ashoka in the third century BC, set down in
stone basic freedoms for all his people, and did not
exclude women and slaves, as Aristotle had done.
In the real world, East and West do not have
separate and compartmentalised sets of values.
Does a Midwestern Baptist have the same values as
an urbane Richard Dawkins-reading atheist? Do
Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama belong to the
same ethical tradition as Osama Bin Laden?
In the East as in the West there is a huge variety of
ethical systems, but surprisingly similar ideals, and
ideas of good and evil. To cherry-pick your
favourite universal humanistic ideals, and call them
western, then to imply that their opposites are
somehow eastern values is simply bigoted and silly,
as well as unhistorical.
The great historian of the Crusades, Sir Steven
Runciman, knew better. As he wrote at the end of
his three-volume history: “Our civilisation has
grown… out of the long sequence of interaction
and fusion between Orient and Occident.” He is
right. The best in both eastern and western
civilisation come not from asserting your own
superiority, but instead from having the humility to
learn from what is good in others, as well as to
recognise your own past mistakes. Ramming your
ideas down the throats of others is rarely a
productive tactic.
There are lessons here from our own past.
European history is full of monarchies,
dictatorships and tyrannies, some of which—such
as those of Salazar, Tito and Franco—survived into
the 1970s and 1980s. The relatively recent triumph
of democracy across Europe has less to do with
some biologically inherent western love of freedom,
than with an ability to learn humbly from the
mistakes of the past—notably the millions of
deaths that took place due to western ideologies
such as Marxism, fascism and Nazism.
These movements were not freak departures from
form, so much as terrible expressions of the darker
side of western civilisation, including our long
traditions of antisemitism at home.
Alongside this we also have a history of exporting
genocide abroad in the worst excesses of western
colonialism—which, like the Holocaust, comes
from treating the non-western other as
untermenschen, as savage and somehow
subhuman.
For though we like to ignore it, and like to think of
ourselves as paragons of peace and freedom, the
West has a strong militaristic tradition of attacking
and invading the countries of those we think of as
savages, and of wiping out the less-developed
peoples of four continents as part of our civilising
mission. The list of western genocides that
preceded and set the scene for the Holocaust is a
terrible one.
The Tasmanian Aborigines were wiped out by
British hunting parties who were given licences to
exterminate this “inferior race” whom the colonial
authorities said should be “hunted down like wild
beasts and destroyed”. Many were caught in traps,
before being tortured or burnt alive.
The same fate saw us exterminate the Caribs of the
Caribbean, the Guanches of the Canary Islands, as
well as tribe after tribe of Native Americans. The
European slave trade forcibly abducted 15m
Africans and killed as many more.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 75

It was this tradition of colonial genocide that
prepared the ground for the greatest western crime
of all—the industrial extermination of 6m Jews
whom the Nazis looked upon as an inferior,
nonwestern and semitic intrusion in the Aryan West.
For all our achievements in and emancipating women
and slaves, in giving social freedoms and human
rights to the individual; for all that is remarkable and
beautiful in our art, literature and science, our
continuing tradition of arrogantly asserting this
perceived superiority has led to all that is most
shameful and self-defeating in western history.
The complaints change—a hundred years ago our
Victorian ancestors accused the Islamic world of
being sensuous and decadent, with an
overdeveloped penchant for sodomy; now Martin
Amis attacks it for what he believes is its mass
sexual frustration and homophobia. Only the sense
of superiority remains the same.
If the East does not share our particular sensibility
at any given moment of history it is invariably told
that it is wrong and we are right.
Tragically, this western tradition of failing to respect
other cultures and treating the other as
untermenschen has not completely died. We might
now recognise that genocide is wrong, yet 30 years
after the debacle of Vietnam and Cambodia and My
Lai, the cadaver of western colonialism has yet again
emerged shuddering from its shallow grave. One only
has to think of the massacres of Iraqi civilians in Falluja
or the disgusting treatment meted out to the prisoners
76 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
of Abu Ghraib to see how the cultural assertiveness of
the neocons has brought these traditions of treating
Arabs as subhuman back from the dead.
Yet the briefest look at the foreign policy of the
Bush administration surely gives a textbook
example of the futility of trying to impose your
values and ideas—even one so noble as
democracy—on another people down the barrel of
a gun, rather than through example and dialogue.
In Iraq itself, we have succeeded in destroying a
formerly prosperous and secular country, and
creating the largest refugee problem in the modern
Middle East: 4m Iraqis have now been forced abroad.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, the US attempt to
push democracy in the region has succeeded in
turning Muslim opinion against its old client
proxies—by and large corrupt, decadent
monarchies and decaying nationalist parties. But
rather than turning to liberal secular parties, as the
neocons assumed they would, Muslims have
everywhere lined up behind those parties that have
most clearly been seen to stand up against
aggressive US intervention in the region, namely
the religious parties of political Islam.
Last week, the Islamic world showed us the sort of
gesture that is needed at this time. In a letter
addressed to Pope Benedict and other Christian
leaders, 138 prominent Muslim scholars from every
sect of Islam urged Christian leaders “to come
together with us on the common essentials of our
two religions.” It will be interesting to see if any
western leaders now reciprocate.
We have much to be proud of in the West; but it is
in the arrogant and forceful assertion of the
superiority of western values that we have
consistently undermined not only all that is most
precious in our civilisation, but also our own foreign
policies and standing in the world. Another value,
much admired in both East and West, might be a
simple solution here: a little old-fashioned humility.
William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple’s new book, The Last Mughal:
The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857, published by
Bloomsbury, has just been awarded the Duff
Cooper Prize for history.

Children’s Day
Children’s Day is to celebrate “childhood”. On
Children’s Day tribute is payed to all children in the
world. Children are loved by one and all. They win
over our hearts with their angelic eyes and
innocent smiles. It makes one realise that maybe
that’s the way God wanted us to be.
India’s first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal
Nehru, was born on November 14. After his death
in 1963, his birthday has been celebrated as
children’s Day in India. Children’s Day is not just a
day to let the future generation have its say. It is a
day to remember a leader who, in his quiet but
determined way, laid the foundation to convert a
nascent nation into a world power.
Chacha Nehru
Apart from being known for his skills as a
statesman, Nehru was also immensely fond of
children. The more popular and famous of Nehru’s
pictures show him with children.
“Nehru ... is never the
Indian political leader
and Prime Minister, but
always Chacha Nehru,
Nehru Uncle.”
In all the photographs Nehru’s joy at being with
children is apparent. When he is not sharing
pleasantries with them, the expression of intense
concentration as he listens to them reveals his
commitment and attitude to children. Children to
Nehru were little adults in the making. Nehru, to
children, is never the Indian political leader and Prime
Minister, but always Chacha Nehru, Nehru Uncle.
The story also goes that he started to wear a rose
on his jacket after a child pinned one on it. The
national children’s centre, Jawahar Bal Bhavan, is
also named after Jawaharlal Nehru. Children’s Day
is literally that. It is the day when children all over
the country are pampered with goodies. From the
schoolchild’s point of view, the best thing perhaps
is that it is a special day at school, they need not
wear uniforms and are given sweets.
Celebrations
Children’s Day is celebrated all over India,
especially at the school level. There are also
community activities with stress on children’s
involvement. Most schools have cultural
programmes for the day, with the students
managing it all. All over the country, various
cultural, social, and even corporate, institutions
conduct competitions for children. Children’s Day is
a day for children to engage in fun and frolic.
Schools celebrate this day by organising cultural
programmes. Teachers of the school perform songs
and dances for their students. Various competitions
like quizzes, fancy dress competitions, and
elocutions are organised on this day. Children are
also treated to a movie and lunch. Television
networks have in the recent years started to air
special programmes all day long for kids on
November 14, making this day a special treat.
Bhavan Australia supports Baal Diwas celebrated
by Hindi Samaaj Sydney along with Girraween Hindi
School at Dundas community centre.
Source: http://festivals.iloveindia.com,
www.sarugu.com
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 77

Bhavan’s
Children
Extract from Creation: A Story from Ancient India
The Journey of Life
Manu replied to Brahma, “I understand how
humans can be materially happy. But how can they
get spiritual happiness as well?” Brahma answered,
“For this purpose, I have divided human life into
four stages (ashrams). They are as follows:
1) Student Life - learning Vedic knowledge
2) Married Life - enjoying family life and training
children in spiritual values
3) Retired Life - increasing spiritual activities like
going on pilgrimage
4) Renounced Life - leaving home to be completely
devoted to Lord Krishna
These natural stages enable people to enjoy this
world in an ethical way and, at the end, to get
liberation from the cycle of birth and death.”
After teaching Manu about the system of
varnashrama (with 4 varnas and 4 ashrams),
Brahma divided time into four ages, which revolve
like the seasons. For each age, he taught a specific
religious practice.
Did you know? People in the Vedic tradition
generally follow the first two or three ashrams. One
who does finally enter the fourth ashram, leaving
home, is called a sannyasi. A sannyasi dresses in
saffron (light orange) robes and carries a staff and
water pot. His job is to constantly travel, to prepare
for the end of life and to teach others about
spiritual life.
78 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Human Society
Brahma also instructed Manu, “I have made you
humans different from other species. Animals
simply eat, sleep, fight and produce offspring.
Humans also ask about life’s important questions.
Unlike animals, they can choose between good and
bad actions, and how to treat others.”
“My dear king, I have given humans different
talents and corresponding jobs, so they can be
happy in their work. For human life to be well
organised, I have divided society into four groups,
called varnas:
1) Teachers, scholars and priests (brahmins)
2) Politicians, warriors and police (kshatriyas)
3) Farmers, traders and businessmen (vaishyas)
4) Workers, helpers and craftsmen (shudras)
My dear King Manu, please understand this point!
Although people play different roles in society, they
are all equally important”.
Did you know? In India, society was organised into
four groups and everyone worked at a job they
enjoyed. Later the system became hereditary,
meaning that people were born into a particular
varna and couldn’t move from it. This became
known as ‘the caste-system’, which was unfair. Many
people today object to the hereditary caste-system.
Source: ISKCON Educational Services

The Real Creator
Reader.com
New India - A Message
The future of the nation, “where wisdom made its home before it went into
any other country” rests on shoulders of you youth and therefore promise
that you will shed the last drop of blood in your veins for building a new
India greater than the India of yesterday. This new India, you could
accomplish if only you imbibe our sacred culture “Sacrifice and
Service”. Actions and works rooted in Dharma alone will erase
the problems the Nation is facing today. Work hard to retain
the real spirit of our culture “unity in diversity”.
At last, scientists have discovered an exquisite expression: god-particle. They are
convinced that the whole creation has evolved from god-particles. They are now
making all-out efforts to prove its existence. Once they do so, they will be able to
tell all that everyone and everything is a conglomeration of god-particles.
The clarion call therefore is, Arise, Awake and
stop not until you build the India conceived
by our scriptures, by name “The Punya
Bhoomi”.
K.P.R. Menon, Kochi
It is now the turn of Vedantins to discover a new definition of Atma as Ma (Mother) of
Atom and of atom as the smallest stable particle of matter, including Dark Matter and
also as the smallest quantum of energy, including Dark Energy. They should then
repeat that Atma is an Orb of Consciousness and Paramatma (Parama = Infinite) is
Infinite Orb of Consciousness. This could eventually meet universal acceptance.
D.L. Bijur, Mumbai
Source: Bhavan’s Journal, October 15, 2010 Note: We invite frank opinion from our readers.
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 79

Charter of Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan Australia
The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Bhavan) is a non-profit, non-religious, nonpolitical
Non Government Organisation (NGO). Bhavan has been playing a
crucial role in educational and cultural interactions in the world, holding
aloft the best of Indian traditions and at the same time meeting the needs of
modernity and multiculturalism. Bhavan’s ideal ‘is the whole world is but
one family’ and its motto: ‘let noble thoughts come to us from all sides’.
Like Bhavan’s other centres around the world, Bhavan Australia facilitates
intercultural activities and provides a forum for true understanding of
Indian culture, multiculturalism and foster closer cultural ties among
individuals, Governments and cultural institutions in Australia.
Bhavan Australia Charter derived from its constitution is:
80 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
To advance the education of the public in:
a) the cultures (both spiritual and temporal) of the world,
b) literature, music, the dance,
c) the arts,
d) languages of the world,
e) philosophies of the world.
To foster awareness of the contribution of a diversity of cultures to the
continuing development of multicultural society of Australia.
To foster understanding and acceptance of the cultural, linguistic and
ethnic diversity of the Australian people of widely diverse heritages.
To edit, publish and issue books, journals and periodicals,
documentaries in Sanskrit, English and other languages, to promote the
objects of the Bhavan or to impart or further education as authorized.
To foster and undertake research studies in the areas of interest to
Bhavan and to print and publish the results of any research which is
undertaken.
www.bhavanaustralia.org
The Test of Bhavan’s Right to Exist
The test of Bhavan’s right to exist is whether those who work for it in different spheres and in different places
and those who study in its many institutions can develop a sense of mission as would enable them to translate
the fundamental values, even in a small measure, into their individual life.
Creative vitality of a culture consists in this: whether the ‘best’ among those who belong to it, however small
their number, find self-fulfilment by living up to the fundamental values of our ageless culture.
It must be realised that the history of the world is a story of men who had faith in themselves and in their
mission. When an age does not produce men of such faith, its culture is on its way to extinction. The real
strength of the Bhavan, therefore, would lie not so much in the number of its buildings or institutions it
conducts, nor in the volume of its assets and budgets, nor even in its growing publication, cultural and
educational activities. It would lie in the character, humility, selflessness and dedicated work of its devoted
workers, honorary and stipendiary. They alone can release the regenerative influences, bringing into play the
invisible pressure which alone can transform human nature.

Flash back
Prayer - Mahatma Gandhi
Prayer has not been part of my life in the sense that
Truth has been. It came out of sheer necessity, as I
found myself in a plight when I could not possibly
be happy without it. I have never lost my peace.
In fact, I have found people who envy my peace.
That peace, I tell you, comes from prayer. I am not a
man of learning, but I humbly claim to be a man of
prayer. Once you accept the existence of God, the
necessity for prayer is inescapable.
Let us not make the astounding claim, that our
whole life is a prayer, and, therefore, we need not
sit down at a particular hour to pray. Even men,
who were all the time in tune with the Infinite, did
not make such a claim.
Their lives were a continuous prayer, and yet for
our sake, let us say, they offered prayer at set hours,
and renewed each day the oath of loyalty to God.
Bapu - Jawaharlal Nehru
This little man of poor physique had something of
steel in him, something rocklike which did not yield
to physical powers, however great they might be.
And in spite of his unimpressive features, his loincloth
and bare body, there was a royalty and a
kingliness in him which compelled a willing
obeisance from others.
Consciously and deliberately meek and humble, yet
he was full of power and authority, and he knew it,
and at times he was imperious enough, issuing
commands which have to be obeyed. His calm, deep
eyes would hold one and gently probe into the
depths; his voice, clear and limpid, would purr its
way into the heart and evoke an emotional response.
He was humble, but also clear-cut and hard as a
diamond, pleasant and soft-spoken but inflexible and
terribly earnest. His eyes were mild and deep, yet out
of them blazed a fierce energy and determination.
Sri Aurobindo - Rishabhchand
Three things stand out in Sri Aurobindo’s life: His
consuming love of God and his passionate will to
realise Him and manifest Him on earth. Union with
God for personal freedom and fulfillment was never
his aim.
He yearned to be one with God in order to bring the
Divine Consciousness down into Matter, and help
mankind to live the Divine Life here, in the material
world, in the human body.
The second ruling passion of Sri Aurobindo’s life
was his love for India. He looked upon her as the
Mother, the Divine Mother, the ageless guardian of
spiritual Light, the leader of the world in the ways
of the Spirit.
The third thing to note is his boundless love for
man and earth. It was, indeed, a natural corollary to
his love of God; for he saw God in all beings and
things, and God’s hand in all happenings. God was
to him not only the invisible Creator, but the leader
of the worlds.
From Bhavan’s Journal October 2, 1960
Reprinted in Bhavan’s Journal October 15, 2010
Nov 2010 | Bhavan Australia | 81

Holy & Wise
“In this moving world, whatever moves is enveloped by
God. Therefore, you find your enjoyment by offering it to
him. Be not greedy for what belongs to others.”
Eeshopanishad -1
“All human actions have one or more of these seven
causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason,
passion, and desire.”
Aristotle
Kulapativani
He Was the Shadow of Truth
Wherever there are men of God, or wherever truth
and non-violence are respected, Gandhiji enlists an
active crusader. In the history of politics, Gandhiji’s
insistence on Truth challenged the Machiavellian
political tradition that the end justified the means.
Truth must prevail in politics as elsewhere, for
politics, according to Gandhiji, could not be
isolated from a religious devotion to Truth. “At one
time,” he said, “I thought God was Truth. Now I
know Truth is God.” Thus, for 30 years, the goal of
India’s politics, under Gandhiji, was to win freedom
by open and honest means; and the weapons were
non-violent non-cooperation, civil disobedience,
and collective Satyagraha in which earnest spirits,
by self-invited martyrdom for the cause, became
the source of efficacy. Gandhiji did not lay down
one policy for leaders and another policy for the
masses. He was the first to practise what he
preached. If the sense of possession was sin, it was
a sin for his wife, Smt. Kasturba Gandhi, to keep
even a few rupees with her, however innocently.
No great man known to history, has publicly confessed
to so many weaknesses and blunders. Not that the
others were not guilty of such lapses, but their sense of
Truth did not demand an open acknowledgment.
His uncanny perception, his gift of evoking loyalty,
82 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
“I consider that it is unmanly for any person to
claim superiority over a fellow being. He who
claims superiority, at once forfeits the claim to
be called a man.”
M K. Gandhi, - Gandhi for 21st Century No. 11
his extraordinary capacity of organisation, would
have made Gandhiji found an empire in any age
when empire making as a career had been open to
any man.
Dr K.M. Munshi
Founder Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Friday 18 March - 6:30pm - 10pm
> Orchestra and Bhangra Dances
Saturday 19 March - 11am - 8pm
> Cultural Performances, Prayers, Meditation, Yoga and
Ayurveda demonstrations
> 12:30pm - Rath Yatra departs from Hyde Park (North)
> Food and Craft Stalls
Sunday 20 March - 11am - 7pm
> Cultural Performances
> Colour Throwing Sessions at regular intervals
> Food and Craft Stalls
presented by
www.bhavanaustralia.org
18 - 20 March 2011
Darling Harbour, Sydney
Proudly supported by
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1300 BHAVAN (1300 242 826)
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