Hindu Monks

"From Swami Shraddhanand’s point of view what has happened may be called a blessed event. He had been ill. I had not been aware of it, but a friend told me that it would be a miracle if Swamiji survived . . . you see, he (Shraddhanand) was a brave man . . . he had no fear of death for he had faith in God . . . there is nothing to be wondered at that he was killed . . . Today it is a Mussalman who has murdered a Hindu. We should not be surprised if a Hindu killed a Mussalman. God forbid that this should happen but what else can one expect when we cannot control our tongue or our pen? I must, however, say that if any Hindu imitated this act he would only bring disgrace to Hinduism . . . Let us pray to God that we may understand the real meaning of this assassination . . . Let the Hindus remain peaceful and refrain from seeking revenge for this murder. Let them not think that the two communities are now enemies of each other and that unity is no longer possible. If they do, they will be committing a crime and bringing disgrace upon their religions.1"

"A new type of wisdom, though within the four walls of Islamic fanaticism and day-dreaming, dawned upon Khwaja Hasan Nizami in the early years of the 20th century. He was no ordinary pen-pusher or paid mullah in some suburban mosque. On the contrary, he was a highly placed ‘divine’ in the hierarchy of Nizamuddin Auliya’s prestigious silsilã, and widely honoured in the Muslim world. He published in 1920 a big book, Fãtami Dãwat-i-Islam, in which he advocated all means, fair and foul, by which Hindus were to be converted to Islam. He advised the mullahs to concentrate on Hindu ‘untouchables’, and convert them en masse so that Muslims could achieve parity of population with the Hindus. He disclosed in the introduction to his book that he had consulted many Muslim leaders including the Agha Khan regarding the soundness of his scheme, and that all of them had agreed with the caution that the scheme should be kept a closely guarded secret. Unfortunately for the Khwaja, the scheme came to the notice of Swami Shraddhananda who exposed it, fought it tooth and nail, and frustrated it completely by means of his Shuddhi Movement.... Abdul Bari clean forgot that Swami Shraddhananda had unconditionally supported the Khilafat agitation under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi. It was Swamiji who had bared his breast in Chandni Chowk on March 30, 1919, and dared the British soldiers to try their bullets on him. It was Swamiji whom the Muslims of Delhi had invited to address them from the mimbar of the Jama Masjid on March 31, 1919. Abdul Bari should have denounced Hasan Nizami who had hatched a plot against the Hindus without any provocation whatsoever on the part of the latter. But the self-righteous Mullah and the authoritative interpreter of the Shariat, had done just the opposite. He had joined his voice with that of the other Mullahs in egging upon a Muslim fanatic to murder Swami Shraddhananda. The Mullahs of Deoband had offered special prayers for the soul of the assassin."

"The Aryan social polity was based upon instructions laid down in the Vedas ; and the Divine knowledge of the Vedas was believed by the Aryans to have existed from the beginning of the world. Says Sir William Jones, the earliest Vedic Scholar among the English...... "We cannot refuse to the Vedas the honour of an antiquity the most distant.""

"While Muhammadans multiply like anything, the numbers of the Hindus are dwindling periodical­l­y."

"The question naturally arises—What is the first step to be taken in our advance towards Hindu Sangathan ? In my tour throughout India I have seen educated Hindus reluctant to mix with each other. It is only on rare occasions that they meet to discuss common social problems. The reason is that they have no common meeting place. Their sectarian temples have not sufficient space where even a hundred or two could sit together. In Delhi, besides the Jama and Fatehpuri mosques which can accomodate big audiences consisting of 25 to 30 thousands of Muhammadans, there are several old mosques which can serve as meeting places for thousands. But for Hindus, the only enclosed meeting place is Lakshmi Narayana’s Dharmsala which can hardly accomodate some 8 hundred, with this difference that while the Muhammadan meeting are free from all noise, the hubbub of voices from travellers in the Dharamshala hardly allows the speakers to be distinctly heard. The first step which I propose is to build one Hindu Rashtra Mandir at least in every city and important town, with a compound which could contain an audience of 25 thousands and a hall in which Katha from Bhagavad Gita, the Upnishads and the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharat could be daily recited. The Rashtra Mandir will be in charge of the local Hindu Sabha which will manage to have Akharas for wrestling and gatka etc. plays in the same compound. While the sectarian Hindu temples are dominated by their own individual deities, the Catholic Hindu Mandir should be devoted to the worship of the three mother-spirits (ekr`'kfDr) the Gau-mata, the Saraswati-mata and the Bhumi-mata. Let some living cows be there to represent plenty, let 'Savitri' (xk;=h eU=e~) be inscribed over the gate of the hall to remind every Hindu of his duty to expel all ignorance and let a life-like map of Mother— Bharat be constructed in a prominent place, giving all its characterestics in vivid colours so that every child of the Matri-Bhumi may daily bow before the Mother and renew his pledge to restore her to the ancient pinnacle of glory from which she has fallen !"

"If you hold dear the memory of Swami Shraddhanandji, you would help in purging the atmosphere of mutual hatred and calumny, you would help in boycotting papers which foment hatred and spread misrepresentation. I am sure that India would lose nothing if 90 per cent of the papers were to cease today. ... Now you will, perhaps, understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it, I do not even regard him as guilty of Swamiji's murder. Guilty, indeed, are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another. For us Hindus, the Gita enjoins on us the lesson of equality; we are to cherish the same feelings towards a learned Brahmin as towards a Chandala, a dog, a cow or an elephant."

"The Urdu pamphlet Daî Islâm by Khwaja Hasan Nizami came into his hands. He immediately wrote in answer a pamphlet, the title of which clearly expressed his violent reaction: ‘The Hour of Danger: Hindus, be on your guard! The order has been given to attack and destroy the fortress of your religion in the hidden dead of night!’ (…) The Swami found out that the pamphlet was in fact only the introduction to a larger volume called Fâtamî Dawat-i-Islâm, which had been published as early as 1920, years before the shuddhi of the Malkanas started. In this the Swami saw proof that the Muslim reaction of the day was not merely against the shuddhi and sangathan movements, but rather was part of a sinister plot hatched years earlier. In his pamphlet the Swami went on to show how Nizami in his own introduction referred to his consultations with many Muslim leaders, including the Aga Khan, and how all had agreed that the publication of his work should remain a carefully kept secret within the Muslim community. The single purpose of the pamphlet was to describe all the means, fair and foul, by which Hindus could be induced to become Muslims. (…) In the conclusion of his own booklet, the Swami suggested some ways in which the Muslim threat could be countered. The openness and ethics of his methods stood in strong contrast with Nizami’s tactics.”"

"I cannot close the reminiscences of the life of a great reformer without recalling his last visit to the Satyagraha Ashram only a few months ago. Let me assure my Musalman friends that he was no hater of Musalmans,. He undoubtedly distrusted many Musalmans. But he bore them no ill-will. He thought that Hindus were cowed down and he wanted them to be brave and be able to defend themselves and their honour. In this connection he told me that he was much misunderstood and that he was absolutely innocent of many things that were said against him. He told me he had several threatening letters. He was warned by friends not to travel alone. But this man of faith said, "What protection shall I seek but of God ? Not a blade: of grass perishes without His will. I know therefore that nothing can happen to me so long He wishes me to serve through this body.""

"I wish to plead for Abdul Rashid. I do not know who he is. It does not matter to me what prompted the deed. The fault is ours. The newspaper man has become a walking plague. He spreads the contagion of lies and calumnies. He exhausts the foul vocabulary of his dialect, and injects his virus into the unsuspecting, and often receptive minds of his readers. Leaders ‘intoxicated with the exuberance of their own language’ have not known to put a curb upon their tongues or pens. Secret and insidious propaganda has done its dark and horrible work, unchecked and unabashed. It is, therefore, we the educated and the semi-educated class that are responsible for the hot fever, which possessed Abdul Rashid. It is unnecessary to discriminate and apportion the blame between the rival parties. Where both are to blame, who can arbitrate with golden scales and fix the exact ratio of blame? It is no part of self-defence to tell lies or exaggerate . . . Swamiji was great enough to warrant the hope that his blood may wash us of our guilt, cleanse our hearts and cement these two mighty divisions of the human family.3"

"The first great achievement of the Tablighi Jamaat was the cold-blooded murder of Swami Shraddhananda. The swami had been lionized by Muslims when he supported the Khilafat agitation during the first Non-Cooperation movement (1921-22). “But as he was closely associated with the šuddhi movement… a section of Muslims cherished bitter hatred against him. On 23 December 1926, when the Swami after a serious attack of pneumonia was lying in his bed, a Muslim entered into his room on false pretext and stabbed him with a dagger.”"

"Brother Abdul Rashid was shown in. I purposely call him brother, and if we are true Hindus you will understand why I call him so. Swamiji asked his servant to admit Abdul Rashid, because God had willed to show there through the greatness of Swamiji and the glory of Hinduism . . . The murder has been possible because the two communities look upon each other with feelings of hatred and enmity . . . Let every Mussalman also understand that Swami Shraddhanandji was no enemy of Islam, that his was a pure and unsullied life, and that he has left for us all the lesson of peace written in his blood . . You will all be accepting this resolution standing while, at this moment perhaps, there are Hindu-Muslim disturbances going on in Delhi. But I tell you that, if every one of you understands and lays to his heart the lesson that Swami Shraddhanandji has left for us, it is again possible to win swaraj in no time. I am a mad man, you will say, accustomed to giving rash promises. Well, I tell you I am not mad, I am still as much in earnest about my programme as I was in 1920, but those who made pledges in 1920 broke them and made swaraj impossible then. We are all children of the same Father—whom the Hindu and the Mussalman and the Christian know by different names . . . Now you will, perhaps, understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it, I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami’s murder. Guilty, indeed, are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another. For us Hindus, the Gita enjoins on us the lesson of equality; we are to cherish the same feelings towards a learned Brahmin as towards a Chandal, a dog, a cow and an elephant. This is no occasion for mourning or tears; it is an occasion that should burn in our hearts the lesson of bravery. Bravery is not the exclusive quality of the Kshatriyas. It may be their special privilege. But, in our battle for swaraj, bravery is essential as much for the Brahmin and the Vaisya and the Sudra as for the Kshatriya. Let us not therefore shed tears of sorrow, but chasten our hearts and steel them with some of the fire and faith that were Shraddhanandji’s.2"

"This was the practical application of Swami Shraddhananda’s book ‘Hindu Sangathan’, Saviour of the Dying Race (1924). If one book can make you understand modern Hindu activism in general, of which Hindu Nationalism and a fortiori the RSS is only one current, it is that one, far more than Bunch of Thoughts."

"It is said that when He was an infant in His mother's arms, He wept continually, and when the neighboring ladies and His mother cried Haribol! He used to stop. Thus there was a continuation of the utterance of Haribol in the house, foreshowing the future mission of the hero."

"It is said that a brahmin on pilgrimage became a guest in His house, and cooked his food and read his grace with meditation on Krishna. In the meantime, the lad came and ate up the cooked rice. The brahmin, astonished at the lad's act, cooked again at the request of Jagannatha Misra. The lad again ate up the cooked rice while the brahmin was offering the rice to Krishna in meditation. The brahmin was persuaded to cook for a third time. This time all the inmates of the house had fallen asleep, and the lad showed Himself as Krishna to the traveler, and blessed him. The brahmin was then lost in ecstasy at the appearance of the object of His worship."

"The moon was eclipsed at the time of His birth, and the people of Nadia were then engaged, as is usual on such occasions, in bathing in the Bhagirathi with loud cheers of Haribol... Mahaprabhu was a beautiful child and the ladies of the town came to see Him with presents. His mother's father, Pundit Nilambar Chakravarti, a renowned astrologer, foretold that the child would be a great personage in time... The ladies of the neighborhood styled Him Gour Hari on account of His golden complexion, and His mother called Him Nimai on account of the nimba tree near which He was born. Beautiful as the lad was, everyone heartily loved to see Him every day."

"My Dear Rupa, the science of devotional service is just like a great ocean, and it is not possible to show you all the length and breadth of the"

"While the Lord was going, chanting and dancing, thousands of people were following Him and some of them were crying, some were laughing, some were dancing, and some singing. Some of them were falling on the ground, offering obeisances to the Lord. And all of them were roaring with the holy name of Krishna, Krishna.... The Lord was dancing, raising His two hands, and roaring with the words, “Haribol! Haribol!”"

"As regards Chaitanya and his followers, their persecution in the hands of the officers of Husain Shah, the most enlightened and liberal Muslim Sultan, has been described in some detail on pp. 632-635. One significant feature of the Chaitanya movement is often ignored. Of the twenty-four years he remained in his mortal frame after he renounced the world and was initiated as a sanyasin, he hardly spent even a year in the dominion of Husain Shah and his Muslim successors, but lived for twenty years in the Hindu kingdom of Orissa. The Vaishnava followers of Chaitanya were persecuted in their homeland during the regime of Husain Shah, and Chaitanya spent practically his whole life as a sanyasin under the patronage of the Hindu ruler of Orissa who became his devoted disciple. By connecting these two facts it will not probably be wrong to surmise that though Chaitanya began his religious life in the Muslim kingdom of Bengal, it did not evidently prove a congenial home to him or to his cult, and both found a safe refuge only in the neighbouring Hindu kingdom. In any case the fact remains that the chief credit for the rise and growth of Chaitanya’s Vaishnavism must go to the Hindu kingdom of Orissa and not to the Muslim kingdom of Bengal. This is a very significant fact in the history of Hindu culture in India during the period under review. (Preface)"

"O my Lord! Your holy name alone can render all benedictions upon the living being, and therefore You have hundreds and millions of names, like Krishna, Govinda, etc. In these transcendental names, You have invested all Your transcendental energies, and there is no hard and fast rule for chanting these holy names. O my Lord! You have so kindly made approach to You easy by Your holy names..."

"O almighty Lord! I have no desire to accumulate wealth, nor I have any desire to enjoy beautiful women; neither do I want any number of followers of Mine. What I want only is that I may have Your causeless devotional service in my life – birth after birth."

"Conceptions of good and bad are all mental speculations. Therefore, it is erroneous to say, "this is good" and "this is bad"."

"The two great biographies of the great Vaishnava saint Chaitanya, namely, the Chaitanya-charitamrita and the Chaitanya-bhaga-vata, contain many stories of the religious bigotry of the Muslims and the consequent persecution of the Hindus. Both the books refer to a famous episode in the life of Lord Chaitanya. He had introduced the system of public worship in the form of kirtan (a sort of congregational song loudly sung together by a large number of men in public streets to the accompaniment of special musical instruments). This enraged the Muslim qazi, and one day when Chaitanya’s devotees were singing the name of God in the streets of Nadiya (Navadvipa in Bengal), he came out, struck blows upon everybody on whom he could lay hands, broke the musical instruments, and threatened with dire punishment all the Hindus who would dare join a kirtan party in this way in his city of Nadiya. To prevent the recurrence of public kirtan, the qazi patrolled the streets of Nadiya with a party. The people of Nadiya got afraid, but Chaitanya decided to defy the qazi’s orders, and brought out a large kirtan party which was joined by thousands. The qazi was at first wild with anger and held out the threat that he would destroy the caste of all the Hindus of Nadiya; but terror seized him when his eyes fell upon the vast concourse of people in a menacing attitude. He fled, and his house was wrecked by the angry crowd. The Chaitanya-bhagavata does not describe the sequel. But the other work, Chaitanya-charitémrita, describes how Chaitanya sent for the qazi who was now in a more chastened mood, and the two had a cordial talk."

"O son of Maharaj Nanda, I am your eternal servitor, and although I am so, somehow or other I have fallen in the ocean of birth and death. Please, therefore, pick me up from this ocean of death, and fix me as one of the atoms of your lotus feet."

"The Chaitanya-mangala of Jayananda describes as follows the plight of the Brahmans of Navadvipa, the birth-piace of Chaitanya, shortly before his birth (A.D. 1485): “The king seizes the Brahmanas, pollute their caste, and even take their lives. If a conchshell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put sacred marks on the forehead, and then bind them. He breaks the temples and up- roots Tulasi plants, and the residents of Navadvipa are in perpetual fear of their lives. The bathing in the Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of sacred Aésvattha and jack trees have been cut down. The numerous Yavanas (Muslims) who reside in.the Piralya village ruined the Brahmanas. The feud between the Yavanas and the Brahmanas is everlasting, and the terrible village of Piralya is close to Navadvipa. Misled by the false report of (the people of) Piralyz that a Brahmana was destined to be the king of Navadvipa...the king (of Gauda) ordered the destruction of Nadiya (Navadvipa). Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya left Gauda with his family and kinsmen and fled to Orissa where he was honoured by its ruler Prataparudra.” Some time later, the king of Gauda changed his attitude and had the broken houses and temples repaired, but the Brahmanas whose caste was polluted remained for ever outside the fold of Hinduism.”’"

"Throughout the Chaitanya-bhagavata there are casual references to Hindus being constantly oppressed by the fear that the public performance of kirtan, and even singing religious songs loudly in one’s own house, would provoke the Sultan and bring untold miseries upon the people of Nadiya. A section of them was therefore angry with the Vaishnavas, and once a rumour was spread that the Sultan had sent two boats full of soldiers to Nadiya to arrest those who sang kirtan. Many people expressed their amazement that Chaitanya and his followers were engaged in loudly singing kirtan at Rama-keli near the capital city, Gauda, without any fear of the terrible Muslim king living so near. These incidental references constitute more valuable data than even the full-fledged stories of the sacrilegious conduct of the qazis for making a proper estimate of the wretched condition of the Hindus. They had to live in perpetual dread of the religious bigotry and intolerance of the Muslims during the rule of even the most enlightened Muslim Sultan of Bengal."

"It would be wrong to infer from this, that Sultan Husain Shah had a tender heart for the Hindus. At least the contemporary Hindus thought otherwise. Even after Husain Shah issued the above order, the intimate followers of Chaitanya argued: “This Husain Shah had destroyed numerous temples in Orissa; the liberal views he expressed were but a passing phase, and might be changed at any moment by evil counsels of Muslim officials”. So they sent an urgent message to Chaitanya to leave the vicinity of the capital. One of the Hindu courtiers of the Sultan, when asked about Chaitanya, deliberately misrepresented him as an ordinary sannyasi, in order to avert the Sultan’s wrath against a great Hindu saint."

"As is usual with religious books, the author of the Chaitanya- charitaémrita attributes the change in the qazi’s attitude to a miracle. A more rational explanation of the qazi’s forbearance is probably to be found in the attitude of the Sultan. Shortly after the above incident, the author describes the visit of Chaitanya to Rama- keli, a village near the capital city of Gauda. When Sultan Husain Shah heard of the great ovation paid to the saint by millions of people along the whole route, he was surprised, and observed that one whom such a vast crowd follows without any expectation of material benefit must be a saint. He ordered the Muslim qazis not to injure him in any way and allow him to go wherever he liked."

"Sanatana, a trusted Hindu official of the Sultan, became an ardent devotee of Chaitanya. So he (Sanatana) spent his time in religious exercises in his house, and ceased to attend the court on plea of illness. One day the Sultan paid a surprise visit and found Sanatana hale and hearty, engaged in religious discourse with twenty or thirty Vaishnavas. The Sultan got very angry and kept Sanatana in confinement. Sultan Husain Shah was then making preparations for a military expedition against Orissa, and asked Sanatana to accompany him. But the latter refused, saying: “You are going to torment our gods (i.e. destroy the images and temples); I cannot go with you.” This firm reply to the iconoclastic Sultan offers a striking contrast to the fulsome eulogies paid to him by some contemporary Bengali poets. One of them, Vijaya Gupta, mentioned above, describes Husain Snah as an ideal king whose subjects enjoy all the blessings of life, and compares him to the epic hero Arjuna. Another goes even further and describes the Muslim Sultan, notorious for breaking Hindu temples, as the incarnation of Krishna in the Kali Age. All these merely indicate the degree of abject surrender and the depth of moral degradation of the Hindus of Bengal caused by three hundred years of political servitude and religious oppression. Evidently a new spirit was infused into them by Chaitanya, at least for the time being."

"The Self is only one. Do you feel hurt if you blame yourself or scorn yourself for your errors? If you hold the Self there is no second person to scorn you. When you see the world you have lost hold of the Self. On the contrary, hold the Self and the world will not appear."

"Know Thyself. All else will be known to thee of its own accord. Discriminate between the undying, unchanging, all-pervading, infinite Atma and the ever-changing, phenomenal and perishable universe and body. Enquire, "Who am I?" Make the mind calm. Free yourself from all thoughts other than the simple thought of the Self or Atma. Dive deep into the chambers of your heart. Find out the real, infinite "I". Rest there peacefully for ever and become identical with the Supreme Self."

"The world is so unhappy because it is ignorant of the true Self. Man's real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true Self. Man's search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true Self. The true Self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end."

"Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope."

"Seek the seeker."

"Silence is most powerful. Speech is always less powerful than silence."

"If one watches whence the notion ‘I’ arises, the mind gets absorbed there; that is tapas. When a mantra is repeated, if one watches whence that mantra sound arises, the mind gets absorbed there; that is tapas."

"Existence of Isvara follows our conception of Isvara. Let us first know whose concept He is. The concept will be only according to the one who conceives. Find out who you are and the other problem will solve itself."

"Peace is for the purification of one's mind. Power is for the growth of the community. Having established the community with power, one should then establish supreme peace."

"Ishta-devata and Guru are aids - very powerful aids on this path. But an aid to be effective requires your effort also. Your effort is a sine qua non. It is you who should see the sun. Can spectacles and the sun see for you? You yourself have to see your true nature. Not much aid is required for doing it!"

"There are no impediments to meditation. The very thought of such obstacles is the greatest impediment."

"Why should you trouble yourself about the future? You do not even properly know about the present. Take care of the present, the future will take care of itself."

"Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world."

"Relative knowledge pertains to the mind and not to the Self. It is therefore illusory and not permanent. Take a scientist, for instance. He formulates a theory that the Earth is round and goes on to prove it on an incontrovertible basis. When he falls asleep the whole idea vanishes; his mind is left a blank. What does it matter whether the world remains round or flat when he is asleep? So you see the futility of all such relative knowledge. One should go beyond relative knowledge and abide in the Self. Real knowledge is such experience, and not apprehension by the mind."

"It is false to speak of realization. What is there to realize? The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long sanskaras which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone."

"38. The sense of doership reaps the fruits of action (karma): karma ends when the doer realizes his true nature."

"Let knowledge be guessed by the sign of equality to all beings."

"21. During that time, the embodied person does not know the attainment in the heart. It is known in the Samadhi. The difference in name is due to the difference in cause."

"We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then Reality alone will remain, and we will be That."

"20. The activity affected by causes like fainting, sleep, excessive joy, grief, possession by spirits, fear etc goes to the heart, its own place."

"… just as the limb gives assistance to the body, likewise the member of the community helps the community and reigns supreme."

"19. This perception of division between the seer and the object that is seen, is situated in the mind. For those remaining in the heart, the seer becomes one with the sight."