Magazines

"If I disapproved of the ban on The Satanic Verses, if I disapproved of Dinanath Batra (whom I called “Ban Man” in my article in The Washington Post), if I disapproved of how Taslima Nasreen was hounded and attacked in Hyderabad by Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, then I can’t suddenly do a volte face and chest-thump today. When you ban a book, it acquires a kind of cult status because the market fuels curiosity. That is what happened with other banned books. In fact, there are books chronicling banned books by different regimes in history...All I am saying is that forcing Bloomsbury India to withdraw the book is counter-productive – both politically and in the pure sense of how market forces work... Where do you draw the line? Today, many are relieved that this book will not find a publisher in Bloomsbury. But what will you do if Swarajya or OpIndia launches a publishing house of its own in the future?'"

"“Fact-checking” sounds like a new business. Not enough people have figured out their tricks yet. And it certainly sounds like a noble thing to do. Just like journalism, back in the day. I challenge you: show me one difference between the job description of a journalist and a fact checker. If it walks like a duck, if it looks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck! You can’t seriously fall for this. Ten years ago, the online right waged a battle against “journalism.” And they won. The con artists are back. Dressed as fact-checkers. The struggle starts all over again."

"The OpIndia page on Wikipedia is negative because OpIndia dared to challenge the ecosystem and the foot-soldiers of the ecosystem decided to hit back at us."

"I speak as the Editor of OpIndia when I say that our platform itself believes that majority media houses have lost their ethical code. We have over 300 articles filed under “Media lies”. To ask us then, to conform to the ethical standards set by the very institution we oppose is a monstrosity at myriad levels... The moment you censor thoughts, you kill the soul of a man and the spirit of the writer. I oppose any regulation that may just as easily morph into tools of censorship."

"The OpIndia page on Wikipedia has been created and edited by an ecosystem that the OpIndia went after and exposed, time and again."

"So Cosmo says you're fat? Well I ain't down with that! 'Cause your waist is small and your curves are kickin' and I'm thinkin' bout stickin'."

"We do not want to assist the government, but like all media — first it will be almost entirely built largely as a commentary, opinion and essay magazine and will naturally be a magazine of ideas. If somebody in the government sees it as a good idea, they are free to do so. But our primary purpose is not that; it is to engage with young, intelligent Indians. How would you term a magazine like the Economist? I would say it is like that. It is absolutely essential we have a digital platform and a monthly print magazine. The amount of work involved in digital is far higher as it is a 24/7 business. You have to put up at least four to five pieces every day. But the revenue will obviously be from print."

"We need to worry not just about manipulated news, but also manipulated platforms and fact-checkers whose biases may go under the radar. Fact-checking can also be manipulated."

"We believe in what Rajaji has written, long years ago when the magazine was launched. These are our articles of faith. These are Swarajya’s articles of faith."

"As the leader, but also simply as C.R., he crisply expressed his views in a weekly column in Swarjya or Freedom, a plain English language magazine - he was an avid champion of English as the only link language for India - published in Madras."

"If I disapproved of the ban on The Satanic Verses, if I disapproved of Dinanath Batra (whom I called “Ban Man” in my article in The Washington Post), if I disapproved of how Taslima Nasreen was hounded and attacked in Hyderabad by Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, then I can’t suddenly do a volte face and chest-thump today. When you ban a book, it acquires a kind of cult status because the market fuels curiosity. That is what happened with other banned books. In fact, there are books chronicling banned books by different regimes in history...All I am saying is that forcing Bloomsbury India to withdraw the book is counter-productive – both politically and in the pure sense of how market forces work... Where do you draw the line? Today, many are relieved that this book will not find a publisher in Bloomsbury. But what will you do if Swarajya or OpIndia launches a publishing house of its own in the future?"

"While this trend is still marginal, it is already very visible on the media front, where internet papers have become the arteries of new communities shedding the Sangh baggage and trying to serve the Hindu cause through new analyses: VijayVaani, India Facts, Hindu Human Rights, Swarajya, Bharat-Bharati, the India Inspires Foundation. These people have no power yet, but they do have ideas. More up-to-date and more aware of international trends in political thinking than the gerontocratic Sangh, their thought is far more interesting. It also is more rooted, more Hindu than the Hindutva current, which is stuck in the 1920s’ borrowed nationalist paradigm. If “debate” with the Hindu side is what you want, it is they who are the ones to talk to."

"I gazed on the mountains in grandeur majestic, I gazed on the vales—they were fruitful and fair; I gazed with delight on the lakes and the fountains, I gazed on the banner—the eagle was there. "E pluribus unum" exultingly waves, E pluribus unum! what freemen and slaves? The genius of liberty, maiden celestial, Sat nigh that gay banner attempting to smile; Alternately gazing on eagle and fetters, The tears from her eyes trickled down all the while, And she sighed where the banner of liberty waves, o'er traitors, and tyrants, and heart-broken slaves."

"The Socialist Standard generally is a pathetic imitation of the old Socialist Standard. Most of its articles are irrelevant to the real task of the Socialist party which is to get the working class to understand Socialism as a matter of urgency. The Socialist Standard consists of rambling articles on every other subject except Socialism. It soft peddles on stressing the need for the working class to capture control of the political machinery. In addition it contains misleading information and makes absurd claims which cannot be substantiated. In no way could the Socialist Standard be regarded as a fitting instrument for expressing Socialist ideas."

"Mr Sanders appears to have subscribed for a time to Socialist Republic , a cheaply produced magazine linked with the hard left Socialist Party of Great Britain."

"The SPGB has become the best-known impossibilist group, and its journal, the Socialist Standard, is the most accessible written expression of impossibilism."

"It was fortunate in having a rich patron, and it brought out a well-produced paper, the Socialist Standard."

"Be careful how you handle the Socialist Standard. It is powerful stuff and is fatal to working-class political ignorance."

"No matter which group of the Masters win the struggle, the Workers remain enslaved. The division of interest is not between the people of the world, but between the Classes—The Master Class and the Working Class. Not, therefore, in their fellow workers abroad, but in the Master Class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found. “What interest have the Workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none."

"I now propose to quote the most outstanding authority in the Socialist world in the British Empire, "The Socialist Standard", which is the official organ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain."

"The party’s task was simply and purely to make the case for socialism, on soap-boxes, in the Socialist Standard and during the elections."

"It was easier for humanity to become involved into matter and held in bondage than it is to gain freedom from that bondage, because bondage comes by natural descent, but freedom is gained only through self-conscious effort."

"What was done in the early ages of humanity may be done again in our age. Through all apparent confusion runs a harmonious purpose. Humanity had to become involved in materiality that it might gain strength and wisdom and power by overcoming matter and raising it to a higher degree in the scale of perfection. Humanity is now on the upward evolutionary arc of the cycle, and some may, some must rise to the plane of the immortals if the race is to progress."

"He who is informed concerning the law of spiritual development and birth, even though he be willing to comply with all requirements, should not rush madly on when wise men stop to ponder."

"Each part of the body is a talisman to attract or guard against the powers of nature. As the talisman is used the powers will respond. Man is verily the microcosm who may call upon the macrocosm according to his knowledge or faith, his image-making and will."

"For every part of the body of man there is a corresponding force and entity in nature, which is the body of God, and the beings who take part in the building of the body are bound to that part which they have built and must respond to the nature of the function which that part is commanded by the incarnated ego to perform."

"The explorer into the new world of immortality must not be less courageous than the adventurer into new fields who risks his life and spends his substance and endures mental and bodily hardship and privation and failure, in the hope of discovery."

"The requirements for immortality are a sound mind in a healthy and adult body, with the idea of immortality as the motive in a life of unselfishness and of living for the good of all."

"Each soul lives in a distinct world of its own, and of its own making, which it relates to or identifies with itself. The soul builds a physical body within and around a portion of itself for a sojourn and experience in the physical world. When the sojourn is at an end it dissipates the physical body by the process called death and decay."

"The paste, the paint, the costume, the footlights and the play cause the soul to forget its being in eternity, and it is immersed in the littleness of the play."

"This was the way when wisdom ruled humanity. Then child birth was attended by no labor pains, and the beings in the world knew of those who were to enter. It is not so now."

"After asking the twin questions, "Whence and Whither?" and "How do I come?" and "How do I go?" there comes the soul-awakening question, "Who am I?" When the soul has earnestly asked itself this question, it will never again be content until it knows."

"It is well that we cannot solve the mystery. To do so might destroy our shadowland before we can live in the light. Yet we may get an idea of the truth by making use of analogy. We may apprehend "Whither we go?" by taking a glance along the perspective of "Whence we come?""

"The visible world stands between two eternities as a great theatre in eternity. The immaterial and the invisible here become material and visible, the intangible and formless take on a tangible form, and the Infinite here appears to be finite as it enters into the play of life."

"But the invisible germ, although out of its place in the world of the soul, is not cut off from the world of the soul."

"The immaculate conception is attended by a great spiritual illumination; then the inner worlds are opened to the spiritual vision, and man not only sees but is impressed with the knowledge of those worlds. Then follows a long period during which this spiritual body is developed through its physical matrix, just as the foetus was developed in the womb. But whereas, during the foetal development the mother feels only and merely senses vague influences, the one who is thus creating a spiritual body knows of all of the universal processes which are represented and called upon in the fashioning of this immortal body. Just as at the time of the physical birth the breath entered the physical body, so now the divine breath, the holy pneuma, enters the spiritual immortal body so created. Immortality is thus attained."

"It shows that the progenitors of early humanity have watched the development of early humanity during all the races and their cycles, until finally some have descended and taken up their abode in the dwellings provided."

"Man was circular before he came into the physical world."

"Capricorn is the sign of individuality, having attained which the human fulfills his obligations to others and becomes a god."

"Thus he lives to help others; and so while living, acting, and loving in silence, he overcomes life by thought, form by knowledge, sex by wisdom, desire by will, and, gaining wisdom, he gives up himself in the sacrifice of love and passes from his own life into the life of all humanity."

"At certain moments in the lives of an individual there wells up from within a conscious expansion of consciousness… In a breath, in a flash, in an instant of time, time ceases and this interior world opens out from within. More brilliant than myriad suns it opens in a blaze of light which does not blind or burn. ...he has seen the light, he has felt the power, he has heard the voice."

"After first seeing the light and feeling the power and hearing the voice, one will not at once pass into the realm of soul. He will live many lives on earth, and in each life will walk silently and unknown over the path of forms until his selfless action shall cause the realm of soul again to open out from within when he will again receive the selfless love, the living power, and the silent wisdom. Then he will follow the deathless ones who have travelled before on the deathless path of Consciousness."

"The physical world is the arena or stage on which is played the tragedy-comedy or drama of the soul as it battles with the elemental forces and powers of nature through its physical body."

"The personality is an animal which the individuality, the traveller of the ages, has bred for service and which if nourished, guided and controlled, will carry its rider through desert plains and jungle growths, across dangerous places, through the wilderness of the world to the land of safety and peace."

"He lives in his own universe, the confines of which he builds. And what he believes to be realities are the thought pictures with which he fills it. As the web may be swept away and the spider remains to build another, so in each life the individuality causes to be built for itself a new universe, though most often the personality knows it not."

"The personality is a form, a costume, a mask, in which the individuality appears and takes its part in the divine tragedy-drama-comedy of the ages now being again played on the stage of the world."

"Here the alchemist magician consumates the great work, the mystery of the ages - of changing an animal into a man and a man into a god."

"Man thinks and nature responds by marshalling his thoughts in a continuous procession while he looks on with wondering gaze, unmindful of the cause."

"Thought is karma."

"What is conscious without the senses is I. THE ZODIAC."