Contents
What it means to be an Indian 3
Appendix 1 : How can India achieve her Greatness :
Lessons from her past 8
Appendix 2 : Did You Know 12
Appendix 3 : A Questionnaire 15
Since my childhood I experienced a strong feeling for my nation. I always carried a sense of pride for being an Indian. There was no logical reason for it; something that I was not taught about, something that I just had in me. The memory of this feeling goes back to when I was 5 or 7 years old. As I would travel in the train for days, and as I would pass by different lands, mountains, rivers, forests, I would identify myself with the landscape and a feeling of the goddess would be invoked within me. This sense and feeling remained with me as I grew. Later when I grew and became more conscious of myself and my own life, I realised that there were many similarities between me and my country - INDIA. And she lived in me.
‘India must find back and manifest her soul.’
Q: How to find back India’s soul?
‘Become conscious of your psychic being. Let your psychic being become intensely interested in India’s Soul and aspire towards it, with an attitude of service; and if you are sincere you will succeed.’[1]
The Mother’s answer to the above question awakened a need in me to aspire and come in touch with the true India that lives in me.
Through this sub-project I would try to deepen my link with India by correlating my own journey with India’s journey. I have identified my own movements of light and shadow with the character of my nation. In this sub-project I would like to explore the following questions:
· What Is India? What it means to me to be an Indian?
· What is her Quest, what is her destiny? What will be this journey like?
· What are the similarities between my journey and India’s journey?
· What are her strengths? What are her weaknesses?
‘… Other people look upon the country as an inert piece of matter, a stretch of fields and meadows, forests and rivers. To me She is the Mother. I adore Her, worship Her.’[2]
‘India is not the earth, rivers and mountains of the land, neither is it a collective name for the inhabitants of this country. India is a living being, as much living as, say, Shiva. India is a goddess. If she likes, she can manifest in human form.’[3]
Personal
experience
For a major part of my childhood I grew up in Bengali pada[4], where Durga Puja used to be a big occasion. Once, I remember, as I was standing in front of the idol, suddenly an understanding arose within me and I experienced Ma Durga as Mother India. I experienced an immense joy within me. I waited for this experience to happen to me again on other Puja occasions...
Some Reminiscences
1) On another occasion I remember I was in class fourth and we were a group of 8-10 girls. In a major part of our chatting we shared our future dreams. Once it happened that everybody shared how they would go abroad for studies. I was the only one who didn’t agree with the idea and criticized their view, and ended up fighting with everybody. I stood confidently alone in the group. The confidence that I experienced came from a very strong sense of love for India. There was a feeling that there was nothing wrong with her. Though today I am not against going abroad as I do understand the need for widening, I still carry the same confidence for my nation.
2) Even when quite young, I carried a sense of being responsible for my country. In class eighth I formed a group of 5 girls called 5stars. Our dreams were how we would make a difference in our society by choosing different professions to serve our nation. And the first project of the group was to raise funds for the Prime Minister’s Relief fund from the savings of our pocket money. This was the first platform where I shared all my dreams in detail. It was much later that I realised some parts of those dreams in my life...
3) …I chose the profession of education and one day suddenly a meaning arose from the depth of my heart that this profession has been given to me to serve my nation. I also felt it was the only profession through which I could truly serve my nation. I experienced an immense strength and confidence within myself.
4) When I landed in my present work place, on the very first day, as I took the first few steps in the campus, I looked at the flag flying high in the sky – again a meaning and guidance arose from the depths of my heart. This is the flag of the victory. The work here would become the role model for the nation. This is the space where all defeats will be transformed into victories, as an offering to eternity. I was filled with joy and again got a meaning in life. I carried the same old pride while participating in my first project of organizing the ‘Spiritual and Cultural talk series’ at various colleges at Delhi. For years I looked at the flag for inspiration, strength and guidance.
Life is still now… but my search for a purpose is on.
What Is The Destiny?
My Quest: In the quietness of night, in the silence of my devotion, as I sat to adore Thee, I experienced a yearning for light. A yearning to be guided by the light, a yearning to become a true individual, an individual who is not bounded by any limitation, an individual who is not bounded by the appearances of one’s nature… and I asked myself what do I truly want to express through my life…
India’s Quest: What is India’s yearning? What is India’s quest that she is trying to express? What helps her to overcome her limitations? Why India is called an eternal country? Why is she called the Land of Light and Knowledge? Why is she one of the oldest civilizations? Why is India the homeland of various faiths and religions?
The answers lie in the faith of the people standing in line for hours at the temple doors to make an offering to their deity, in the strength of children, adults and old, who carry God in their heart, where the light of the ancient texts is still a part of everyday life.
The answer is in the smile and contentment
of the farmer, the shopkeeper and the common man whom any outer calamity
doesn’t touch and they can single-mindedly focus on their daily work.
Somewhere all of us are trying to express what we are deep within. Our choices in life, work, relationships, etc. are ways to express the same quest. It is the quest that leads or guides us in our lives. It sails us through our difficulties, gives us strength to look forward in life.
A nation’s quest also expresses the idea and psychological forces that motivate the life of the masses. Over the years we Indians have believed that man and nature are a part of the evolutionary growth, and have a purpose. Thus began the search for the purpose. This led them to – ‘knowledge of oneself and mastery over oneself’. Nothing was just a miracle to the Indian mind. Everything in nature had a purpose and life became a journey to discover that. India is trying to express her deep understanding of Individual and Society by leading them to the synthesis of matter and spirit.
My Journey 1: My journey began with a vague sensation that there is a purpose behind my life and I would like to discover that and express that. But this process has not been easy. There are difficulties and the struggle to overcome difficulties. As there are moments of joys and laughter, so there are of suffering. But it was mostly through the crises that I learnt the most, as they pushed me to progress and rise above myself, overcome my limitations.
India’s
Journey 1: What is India’s journey that she has taken on? India is
not just a story of building and breaking of empires and kingdoms. Her
diversities have evolved through the ages. India, once who became an example of
perfection in human achievements through her teachings of wisdom and
philosophy, structure of society, governance, systems and sciences, her courage
and valour, also had to go through the shadow of night and experience crisis
and suffering, a crisis of slavery and hunger, a crisis of low self-esteem, a
crisis of the imposition of alien ideas. She had to throw away her glorious
past of great achievements and succumb to lethargy, indifference and
mediocrity. Ultimately these crises
will help her to progress and evolve to express her true character.
My
Journey 2: Often I
experience the movements of doubt, fear, lack of will and unhappiness. Mostly
it comes from a lack of knowledge and lack of vitality. And it requires an
effort to come in touch with my aspirations, but once the connection is
established the problems disappear.
India’s
Journey 2: I experience the
same movements with the problems of India. Today, an idea pervades that only a
westernized India would be able to stand the pressures of competition and
development of the world – this is perhaps an outcome of mental slavery. An
effort and vitality is required to regain her originality and build
herself on her own foundations. KD
Sethna writes that today the greatest challenge before us is of
“dimming of the fire in the hearts of their
[India’s] inhabitants and the paling of the light in their mind…”[5]
Pavan
K Varma in his book Being Indian
writes,
“It is important,
therefore, to understand, with much greater clarity and honesty than before,
what it is to be an Indian. Such inquiries in the past have been greatly
handicapped by two factors. The first is the stereotypes in which foreigners
see India. The second is the self-image that Indians seek to project about
themselves”[6]
India’s
journey is not a story of enlightened sages and the efficient kings. It is also
of a journey that has exposed her weakness, taken her through humiliation and
put her in the chains of slavery, so that she evolves and attains her true
strength founded on the deepest truth of her existence.
India and the Future
As there are moments of light in life, so there are the difficulties, stagnation and suffering. But even though one goes through these dark periods one doesn’t lose the feeling that there is a purpose and also the experience of strength which comes from a deep-rooted faith to manifest and express one’s true purpose.
India too has gone through the periods of light as well as darkness. Still India is conscious of her role and what she has to contribute to the world. India has always been the home of deepest aspirations and search for truth. The sense of eternity is quite native to the Indian mind and her culture. We have always seen its influence in all her creations, arts, music, dances, architecture, literature, epics, sciences, etc. India expresses this sense through her intellect and her dynamic and diverse life. Since ancient times India has developed systems, philosophies, epics, arts, sciences to their utmost perfection. Today she is trying to express her role through her advanced information technology, her stand in the UN council, her attempt against terrorism and with her best-selling authors in the world.
Whatever
may be the evident crisis today but a growing revival of her ancient systems
and spiritual awakening in the masses cannot be ignored. She has filtered her
knowledge and strength to the world body. India has the knowledge and she is
preparing the means to express it. The need of the hour is once again to ignite
the same vision, the fire and quest of achieving the highest possible
perfection. …Today India must judge herself by the greatness she achieved over
millennia and not by the weaknesses of a few centuries, and regain her
strength, courage and enthusiasm to overcome her inertia and cowardice, and
take a leap towards the future.
Let India be a source of faith, strength and
inspiration for all of us so that she can be alive in all our hearts. May we
transform our weaknesses so that she gains her strength.
-
Aditi
HOW CAN NDIA
ACHIEVE HER GREATNESS: LESSONS FROM HER PAST
a compilation
India’s central conception
is that of the Eternal, the Spirit here encased in matter, involved and
immanent in it and evolving on the material plane by rebirth of the individual
up the scale of being till in mental man it enters the world of ideas and realm
of conscious morality, dharma. This achievement, this victory over unconscious
matter develops its lines, enlarges its scope, elevates its levels until the
increasing manifestation of the sattwic or spiritual portion of the vehicle of
mind enables the individual mental being in man to identify himself with the
pure spiritual consciousness beyond Mind. India’s social system is built upon
this conception; her philosophy formulates it; her religion is an aspiration to
the spiritual consciousness and its fruits; her art and literature have the
same upward look; her whole dharma or law of being is founded upon it. Progress
she admits, but this spiritual progress, not the externally self-unfolding
process of an always more and more prosperous and efficient material civilisation.
It is her founding of life upon this exalted conception and her urge towards
the spiritual and the eternal that constitute the distinct value of her
civilisation. And it is her fidelity, with whatever human shortcomings, to this
highest ideal that has made her people a nation apart in the human world.[7]
Spiritual Aspiration develops very strongly and spontaneously as soon as one comes to India. Those are graces. Graces, because it is the destiny of the country, it has been so through out her history, and because she has always been turned much more upward and inward than outward. She is now losing all that and wallowing in the mud, but anyway…it was like that and still is like that.[8]
The whole root of difference between Indian and European culture springs from the spiritual aim of Indian civilisation. It is the turn which this aim imposes on all the rich and luxuriant variety of its forms and rhythms that gives to it its unique character. For even what it has in common with other cultures gets from that turn a stamp of striking originality and solitary greatness. A spiritual aspiration was the governing force of this culture, its core of thought, its ruling passion. Not only did it make spirituality the highest aim of life, but it even tried, as far as that could be done in the past conditions of the human race, to turn the whole of life towards spirituality.[9]
The ancient Aryans knew that man was not separate from the universe, but only a homogeneous part of it, as a wave is part of the ocean. An infinite energy, Prakriti, Maya or Shakti, pervades the world, pours itself into every name and form… We are each of us a dynamo into which waves of that energy have been generated and stored, and are being perpetually conserved, used up and replenished. … There are processes by which man can increase his capacity as an adhara. There are other processes by which he can clear of obstructions the channel of communication between himself and the universal energy and bring greater and greater stores of it pouring into his soul and brain and body. …
…the more we can increase and enrich the energy, the greater will be the potential range, power and activity of the functions of our mind and the consequent vigour of our intellectuality and the greatness of our achievement. This was the first principle on which the ancient Aryans based their education and one of the chief processes which they used for the increased storage of energy, was the practice of Brahmacharya.[10]
The business of the ancient Rishi was not only to know God, but to know the world and life and to reduce it by knowledge to a thing well understood and mastered with which the reason and will of man could deal on assured lines and on a safe basis of wise method and order. The ripe result of this effort was the Shastra. …in older India Shastra meant any systematised teaching and science; each department of life, each line of activity, each subject of knowledge had its science or Shastra. The attempt was to reduce each to a theoretical and practical order founded on detailed observation, just generalisation, full experience, intuitive, logical and experimental analysis and synthesis, in order to enable man to know always with a just fruitfulness for life and to act with the security of right knowledge. The smallest and the greatest things were examined with equal care and attention and each provided with its art and science. The name was given even to the highest spiritual knowledge whenever it was stated not in a mass of intuitive experience and revelatory knowledge as in the Upanishads, but for intellectual comprehension in system and order,—and in that sense the Gita is able to call its profound spiritual teaching the most secret science, guhyatamam sastram. This high scientific and philosophical spirit was carried by the ancient Indian culture into all its activities. … But what we have more especially to observe is that while Indian culture made a distinction between the lower and the higher learning, the knowledge of things and the knowledge of self, it did not put a gulf between them like some religions, but considered the knowledge of the world and things as a preparatory and a leading up to the knowledge of Self and God. All Shastra was put under the sanction of the names of the Rishis, who were in the beginning the teachers not only of spiritual truth and philosophy… but of the arts, the social, political and military, the physical and psychic sciences, and every instructor was in his degree respected as a guru or acarya, a guide or preceptor of the human spirit. All knowledge was woven into one and led up by degrees to the one highest knowledge.[11]
The Indian brain is still in potentiality what it was; but it is being damaged, stunted and defaced. The greatness of its innate possibilities is hidden by the greatness of its surface deterioration. …
It is not our contention that the actual
system of ancient instruction should be restored in its outward features, - a
demand often made by fervid lovers of the past. Many of them are not suited to
modern requirements. But its fundamental principles are for all time and its
discipline can only be replaced by the discovery of a still more effective
discipline, such as European education does not offer us.[12]
Our spiritual wisdom has been our strength. We survived as a nation the onslaughts of invaders and the numbering effects of colonialism. We have also learnt to adjust to the rifts and divisions in our own society. But in the process of all the adjustment, we also lowered our aims and expectations. We must regain our broad outlook and draw upon our heritage and wisdom to enrich our lives. The fact that we advanced technologically does not preclude spiritual development. We need to home-grow our own model of development based on our inherent strengths.[13]
Ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping.[14]
The Indian nation cannot be killed. Deathless it stands and it will stand so long as that spirit shall remain as the background, so long as her people do not give up their spirituality. Beggars they may remain, poor and poverty-stricken, dirt and squalor may surround them, perhaps throughout all time; but let them not give up their God, let them not forget their past and let them not also forget that they are the children of sages and heroes.[15]
In 1948, just two years before his passing, Sri Aurobindo said in a message to the Andhra University:
It would be a tragic irony of fate if India were to throw away her spiritual heritage at the very moment when in the rest of the world there is more and more a turning towards her for spiritual help and a saving Light. This must not and will surely not happen; but it cannot be said that the danger is not there. There are indeed other numerous and difficult problems that face this country or will very soon face it. No doubt we will win through, but we must not disguise from ourselves the fact that after these long years of subjection and its cramping and impairing effects a great inner as well as outer liberation and change, a vast inner and outer progress is needed if we are to fulfill India's true destiny.[16]
Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence. For by its virtue alone she has been one of the immortal nations; this alone has been the secret of her amazing persistence and perpetual force of survival and revival.[17]
True Spirituality is not to renounce life, but to make life perfect with the Divine Perfection.
This is what India must show to the world soon.[18]
DID YOU KNOW?
· The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.
· The 'place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.
· Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies, which originated in India.
· Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculation was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.
· The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.
· Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 (i.e. 10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12 (10 to the power of 12).
· The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh over 6000 years ago. The very word 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.
· Sanskrit is considered as the mother of all higher languages. This is because it is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software. (a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987).
· The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single '80-tonne' piece of granite. Also, this magnificent temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola.
·
The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal
Pradesh.
Built in 1893 after leveling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above
sea level.
· The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.
· India is the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).
· India has the most post offices in the world!
· The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing over a million people!
· Chess was invented in India.
· The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e. good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.
· The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
· Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The father of medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.
· Although modern images & descriptions of India often show poverty, India was one of the richest countries till the time of British in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered America by mistake.
· Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world. (Source. Gemological Institute of America)
· Sushruta is regarded as the father of surgery. Over 2600 years ago Sushrata & his team conducted complicated surgeries like cataract, artificial limbs, caesareans, fractures, urinary stones and also plastic surgery and brain surgeries.
· Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.
· The first six Mogul Emperor's of India ruled in an unbroken succession from father to son for two hundred years, from 1526 to 1707.
· The official Sanskrit name for India is Bharat. INDIA has been called Bharat even in Satya yuga (Golden Age)
· The name ‘India’ is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu. The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name ‘Hindustan’ combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.
Jai Hind![19]
A Questionnaire
1) What is India for You? How do you relate with it?
2) What it means to you to be an Indian?
3) Can you co-relate your journey with India’s journey?
4) What are your strengths that you identify with India’s strengths?
5) What are your weaknesses that you identify with India’s weaknesses?
6) What
would you like to change or cultivate in yourself to contribute to the growth
of India?
[1] The Mother, CWM – (15.6.1970), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry
[2] Sri
Aurobindo, cited in The Awakening Ray, vol.1: Jul/Aug 1997, p. 3, The Gnostic
Centre,
[3] The Mother, cited in The Immortal India Diary, p.298,
Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Publication and Distribution Agency, Jaipur
[4] Word used for colony
[5] KD
Sethna, The Indian Spirit and the World’s future, p.10, Sri Aurobindo Society,
[6] Pavan K Varma, Being Indian, pp.1-2, Penguin
Books
[7] Sri Aurobindo, The
Foundations of Indian Culture, pp.2-3, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry
[8] The Mother, cited in The
Immortal India Diary, p.298, Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Publication and
Distribution Agency, Jaipur
[9] Sri Aurobindo, The
Foundations of Indian Culture, p.121, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry
[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Brain of
India, pp.6-7, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
[11] Sri Aurobindo, The
Foundations of Indian Culture, pp.166-67, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
[12] Sri Aurobindo, The Brain of
India, pp.6-7, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
[13] APJ Abdul Kalam, Ignited
Minds: unleashing the power within India, pp.98-99
[14] Sri Aurobindo, The
Foundations of Indian Culture, p.2
[15] Source: KH Krishnamurthy, Foundations
of Ayurveda: an Anthological Approach, p.515
[16] Sri Aurobindo’s Message to
the Andhra University, December 1948, On Himself, v.26, pp.412-13
[17] Sri Aurobindo, The
Foundations of Indian Culture, p.3
[18] The Mother, cited in The
Immortal India Diary, p.306, Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Publication and
Distribution Agency, Jaipur
[19] Taken from the net