RE: [Sri Ramakrishna] Fw: A long-term plan to counter this menace .

[Guest guest]

Kudos to you guys!! Excellent work from the Singapore devotees of Sri

Ramakrishana

 

 

P. S. Kamanat [kamanat]

Tuesday, 18 September 2001 10:20 PM

Laurent_Claude_3

Cc: Dr. P.M. Subrahmanyan; Suresh Shenoy; Kayamkulam;

dasdeb; Ramakrishna ; Jayaprasad R;

kscpillai; hari1; Koul, Rabinder; Mrs.

Jayashree of Malaysia; vraja

[sri Ramakrishna] Fw: A long-term plan to counter this menace.

 

 

 

-

P. S. Kamanat

The President of America Whitehouse ; Vice-President America Whitehouse

Cc: First Lady of America ; Mrs Cheney Whitehouse

Tuesday, September 18, 2001 2:20 PM

A long-term plan to counter this menace.

 

 

Mr. President George W Bush and the Vice President Mr. Cheney,

 

We join with you in your sorrow at this tragic moment. It is the sorrow

of all of us. You are not alone in the fight against such attrocities

emanating from the deranged brains and minds.

We congratulate you for quickly arranging a prayer at the National

Cathedral to seek God's intervention and to remember who suffered at this

tragedy. The world urgently needs streams of sincere prayers and noble

thoughts of exalted nature now to counter the devilish frenzy building up

around us.

All of us have to admit that this situation is a creation of all of us.

Religion is the most powerful weapon for the humanity to upgrade ourselves

from brutality and to grow spiritually. It is also the most powerful tool to

keep us united with God in life and death. But, it will destroy the human

race if it is not harnessed properly. The present calamity is the result of

handling the religion by the spiritually under-developed religious teachers

of the present day religions.

Such leaders and their followers live in unwanted sympathy generated out

of hatred and suspicion against the non-believers of their gods. This is a

very disturbing mania in their psyches. On the other hand, the followers of

other religions who happen to hear such untimely missionary calls will

equally develop the same disturbing phobea and turn out to be the enemies of

humanity. We have to stop this once for all.

It is high-time for the world leaders like you, Mr. President, to

observe closely those who publicly proclaim slogans like " my God alone is

true " or " evangelisation of Asia is our mission of the new milliennium " or

" Allah is the only God " or " Christ is the only way and path " . We have to

openly brand all of them as dull-headed religious leaders, however powerful

and organised they are. These slogans will create chaos in a secular society

if they miss the real spiritual and mystical significances.

It is absolutely helpful if the terms My God, Christ, Allah, Krishna,

Buddha and so on are projected as the various names of the same One Eternal

Truth, or of the same God Almighty. Those leaders should be taught and

pressed hard to assert that all religions are calling on the same God and to

consider the whole mankind as the children of God, as a first step. But, if

we allow them to identify publicly these terms with the deified conceptions

of individual sections or races or religions, such calamity is bound to

happen again and again. This should be stopped. Let us take a hard decision

and please send strong warnings and concerns to all the leaders of major

religions of the world for the safety of all of us.

Mr. President, let this assertion of equality of all religions and

negation of all religious exclusivenesses be one of the two-pronged tools

you can use against the long-term war you have declared on the hiding

culprits. We do not have any dearth of religious leaders who proclaimed the

equality of religions in our history, both in the East and the West.

Ramakrishna (1836-86) and His chief Disciple Vivekananda (1863-1902) are the

greatest prophets of the harmony of religions of the modern time. Let us

recall that America had the unique opportunity to extend Her warmth and

loving hospitality to SIX of the SEVENTEEN Monastic Apostles of Ramakrishna

during the last part of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th

century. She heard them preaching in Her own soil the refreshing messages of

the harmony of religions.

There is a wonderful piece of a speech that sent waves of thrill among

the audience of the Hall of Columbus in Chicago on 11 September 1893 when

the world parliament of religions started its procedures with Cardinal

Gibbons in the chair " .................Sectarianism, bigotry, and its

descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have

filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human

blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not

been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced

than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell

that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell

of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with sword or with pen, and of all

uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal. "

 

This is how Vivekananda, the Chief Apostle of Ramakrishna, concluded the

first of a series of speeches in the World Parliament of Religions that held

in connection with the 400th national day celebrations of the America in

1893. Mr. President, you can highlight now the relevance and acceptance of

that clarion call made in America's soil by VIVEKANANDA a hundred plus years

ago.

 

Sincerely

Prakash and friends from Singapore.

 

Note:- We saw TV telecasts of the grand prayer session in the National

Cathedral last Friday. The representatives from Islam, Judaism and various

sections of Christianity were invited to say prayers there. A very grand

function. It would have been grander had you invited the representatives of

the most ancient religions of the world, Hinduism and Buddhism also to say

prayers on that solemn occasion. America and the world at large would

benefit more if all were invited. Here in Singapore, all the major religions

are invited for such government-sponsored functions to share the same

platform.