269 Replies to comments of Shri Aseem Mishra

How Great Monks are to be distinguished from ordinary mendicants? How Great Monks are to be differentiated from common householders? What should be the characteristic features of a Nation-Uplifter? An Indian housewife dropping some stale / hardened chapati (flat pan cake) into the alms-bag of a Great Monk in Calcutta, be quoted as an example in California to American Aristocratic Audience, as an example of his suffering? Did Swami Vivekananda take into consideration, the pitiable state of the poor Indian Housewives, who had dropped stale chapatis into the alms-bags of Indian Monks? Indian Rich Housewives do not have this problem of dropping something into alms-bags, because they ensure that their main-doors/gates are closed all the times. The appeals/beseechments/cries of the monks/mendicants cannot reach into the dining halls of rich homes, several rooms away inside. Still-richer Merchants/LandLords/Industrialists employ watchmen at their gates to ward away alm-seeking mendicants. After Swami Vivekananda returned from his American-European tours, he did not have any need to seek alms. Of course, rich Merchants/Landlords/Industrialists might have invited him as his guest, and feasted him with shad fish, turtles, and ice-creams.

Aseem Mishra has left a new comment on your post "Do the questions of beef eating - drinking and smo...":


Please go and read and most importantly understand if you are not funded to do this...vyadh gita...which tells you as in all of vedanta and vedas that it is the inner motive or mental schemata(which you cant know of him or others)that brings spiritual growth and realisation and not external works...even vivekananda has explianed these things...and we have such ideals that Lord shiv remained absorbed in samadhi even when he was offered a prasad of bhaang(intoxicating substance) ashes from graves(highly ominous substance) and he could transform everything into powerful prasad...to highlight is that negative is not suprem power in the universe but real knowledge...why are you guys obsessed in character assassination of any one who is not christian!!

Reply from ybrao a donkey (my personal views, which I cannot impose on my readers)
I respect your opinion. You can continue with them.

I add the following, from my side:-

We cannot compare vyAdha gIta with vivEkAnada gIta. Reason: vyAdha may be a sincere uneducated, untaught person. vivEkAnanda was a learned B.A. from Presidency College , Calcutta. He was said to have mastered Encyclopaedia Britannica. We cannot say that he did not read about buddha or know about jIva himsa. He was preaching all yOgas to the whole world and collecting pounds and dollars. He was telling them about housewives dropping into his palms, STALE hardened CAPATIS, when he went for bhiksha. They might have shed some tears and wept, when they were told that Indian housewives were so unkind to drop stale chapatis into the folded palms of a yogi. He was also telling his California audience, that he would return to the old days of living on begging and alms.

So, after returning to India, what was the hurry to fill up the belly with shad fish and turtles? What was the hurry to invite American women to share them? Particularly when he was suffering from diabetes and a dozen other diseases and swallowing medicines?

Your comment about Lord Shiva converting bhang into prasAd:--

yb-reply: Lord Shiva does not fill his belly with shad fish and turtles, before sitting on meditation. This, we can be 100% sure. Nobody knows what he eats, before sitting on meditation. If somebody kept bhang before his closed eyes, had he opened his third eye, the offerers would have been reduced to ashes then and there itself. What happened to manmatha (God of love)? I have great respect to Lord Shiva as a conquerer of manmatha, though I am an atheist. As an atheist, I can never get admission to kailAs, Shiva's abode. My wife recently (2013 September) visited kASi (vAraNasi) and got her entitlement to kailAsh, by virtue of the pilgrimage. She may be able to know what Shiva eats, if she gets admitted to kailAs citizenship after her death. I visited kAsi in 1982 with my parents. If that entitles me to get admitted to Shiva's court, it will help me to work in his court and also serve him during his 'tapasya'.

Back to vivEkAnada getting stale capAtis from Indian housewives, and his abandoning them to go for shad fish and turtles:-

What inner motive or mental schemata should a yati/yOgi have in overfilling belly with shad fish and Indian turtles? Is eating shad fish, chicken and turtles compulsory for union of jIvAtma (living soul) with paramAtma (Supreme soul)? Suppose we fill our stomach with popped rice won't we get nirvikalpa samAdhi?

About character-assassination of non-Christians:

yb-reply: You are assuming that I am a Christian, which is not correct.

We have in India today, pseudo-secularism (term popularised by Shri aDvANi) and pseudo-hindutva. Just as the secularism of Congress is nakli, the hindutva of BJP is also nakli.

It is obvious that you have neither read in depth the Complete Works of SwAmi vivEkAnanda. Nor at least all the posts at this blog.

VIVEKANANDA CAN CRITICISE ADI SHANKARACHARYA AND RAMANUJA. BUT CAN'T I CRITICISE VIVEKANANDA?

vivEkAnanda called Adi Sankaracharya and rAmAnujAcArya, mere pandits. I shall quote:

... Ramanuja, Shankara etc., seem to have been mere Pundits with much narrowness of heart. Where is that love, that weeping heart at the sorrow of others? — Dry pedantry of the Pundit — and the feeling of only oneself getting to salvation hurry-scurry! But is that going to be possible, sir? Was it ever likely or will it ever be so? Can anything be attained with any shred of "I" left anyhow? ...

You say that we guys are obsessed in character assassination of non-Christians. Did vivEkAnanda have any elemental courtesy to rAmAnuja and Adi Shankara? Didn't he know the story of kanaka dhArA stavam? Why vivEkAnanda didn't know social reforms carried out by rAmAnuja facing much hardships? Didn't vivEkAnanda pass very unkind remarks on Shankara and rAmAnuja, simply because he wept and they did not weep?

Adi Shankara was at least empathetic to the poor woman who dropped a 'goose-berry (amalak)' fruit into his alms bag. But Vivekananda, found fault with the poor householder women in Bengal, before his audience in California.

GIVING A GRAIN, AND MAKING 10 TIMES MORE PUBLICITY

OK, vivEkAnanda had a weeping heart for others. But what did he do? Started one or two orphanages and one or two schools. Work was done by nivEdita and other disciples. vivEkAnanda grudgingly gave a small part of his foreign donations for relief work, while he was collecting large donations from foreigners sending them tiger skins. He spent most of collections as he liked. Seeing him pay Rs. 80/- per month rent for a bungalow at Almorah, and bargaining to buy a bungalow, the prinipal donor for the bElur math Ms. Henrietta Mueller called everything "utterly rotten and corrupt from beginning to end and full of danger to the unhappy people who place their full faith in it" and moved to Theosophy of Anne Besant.

LOVING ONE'S OWN RELIGION, nothing wrong. BUT facts cannot be overlooked, in blind love.

Our hero-worship of a weight-lifter of a Nation of 1.2 billion, should not make us blind to facts. Then, we cannot spend millions of Rupees for celebrating 150th Anniversary on an ochre-robe wearer who begged for dollars from aristocratic American women.

This blog has nothing to do with Christianity. I oppose conversions of innocent persons into Christianity or some other religion. I suggest that an authority of not less than a District Collector should conduct a written tst and interview if anybody wants to convert. There should be a law to prevent religious conversions through false publicity-propaganda-promises and money-inducements.

There is also a need to make adequate laws for protecting human rights which are being infringed by all religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Islam.

You seem to believe that "external discipline" is not as important as "internal discipline". Both are equally important. Otherwise, how will you get spiritual growth by filling your belly with chicken, shad fish, and turtles? In your dreams American turtles and Indian turtles fight.

Please quote proof for Shiva being offered to bhang.