Marxists and Vivekananda

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This came from Tom Lipscome. We are sharing it with our list.

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Marxists get into the spirit of Swami Vivekananda

 

Aug. 5. — Vivekananda and spirituality seem to have at last broken through

the Marxist cordon and entered the portals of West Bengal Assembly. For some

time Marxists in the state have uncharacteristically started discovering

merit in Vivekananda, but yesterday the Left Front government sprang a

surprise, when gift packs containing a short compilation of Vivekananda’s

writings and a booklet by Swami Ranganathananda, president, Ramakrishna

Math, were distributed to the MLAs at the state Assembly.

When the specially-wrapped gift sets were handed over to the MLAs (and also

the media), along with the customary volumes of reports on the functioning

of different departments and state agencies, no one had any clue to the

contents of the packs. But, when the wrapper was ripped open, out popped a

compilation of Vivekananda’s writings entitled Vivekananda His Call To The

Nation, and Swami Ranganathananda’s Enlightened Citizenship And Our

Democracy.

Vivekananda’s utterances touch on subjects including faith and strength,

power of the mind, religion and ethics, education and society and man, the

maker of his destiny. Among the well-known lines of Vivekananda figures his

observation : “You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your

muscles, a little stronger.” Or, take this assertion : “Strength is life:

weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal ; weakness

is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.” Do the Marxists find in

them a vindication of their use of muscle power during polls? Swami

Ranganathananda’s booklet is considered a brilliant exposition of democracy,

as developed and practised since the days of the Greek city-states. Marxists

in their heyday would surely have found revolting the major premise of Swami

Ranganathananda that democracy or secularism has no conflict with

spirituality and that the former is rather a preparation for the latter.

But, winds of change are blowing through the Marxist realm and hence their

MLAs are presumably being “invited” to at least become acquainted with a

liberal dose of spirituality as defined by Swami Ranganathananda. Asked to

explain the surprise “entry” of Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ranganathananda,

Assembly Speaker Mr HA Halim said today: “I would make inquiries.” — Uday

Basu in Kolkata

 

 

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