Education and Women... Swamy Vivekananda...

It is very difficult to understand why in this country so much difference is made between men and women, whereas the Vedanta declares that one and the same Self is present in all beings.  Writing down Smritis etc., and binding them by hard rules, the men have turned the women into mere manufacturing machines.  In the period of degradation, when the priests made the other castes in competent to study the Vedas, they deprived the women also of all their rights.  You will find in the Vedic and Upanishadic age Maitreyi, Gargi and other ladies of revered memory have taken the place of Rishis.  In an assembly of a thousand Brahmanas who were all erudite in the Vedas, Gargi boldly challenged Yajnavalkya in a discussion about Brahman.

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All nations have attained greatness by paying proper respect to women.  That country and that nation which do not respect women have never become great, nor will ever be in future.  The real Shakti-worshipper is he who knows that God is the Omnipresent force in the universe, and see in women the manifestation of that force.  In America men look upon their women in this light and treat their women as well as can be desired, and hence they are so prosperous, so learned, so free and so energetic.  The principal reason why our race has so degenerated in that we had no respect for these living images of Shakti, Manu says, 'Where women are respected, there the Gods delight, and where they are not, there all work and effort come to naught."  There is no hope of rise for that family or country where they live in sadness.

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Women have many and grave problems, but none that cannot be solved by that magic word: education.  What does our Manu enjoin?  'Daughters should be supported and educated with as much care and attention as the sons.'  As sons should be married after observing Brahmacharya up to the thirtieth year, so daughters also should observe Brahmacharya and be educated by their parents.  But what are we actually doing?  They have all the time been trained in helplessness and servile dependence on others; and so they are good only to weep their eyes out at the approach of the slightest mishap or danger.  Women must be put in a position to solve their own problems in their own way.  Our Indian women are as capable of doing it as any in the world.

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Female education should be spread with religion as its centre.  All other training should be secondary to religion.  Religious training, the formation of character and observance of the vows of celibacy-these should be attended to.  Our Hindu women easily understand what chastity means, because it is their heritage.  First of all intensify that ideal within them above everything else, so that they may develop a strong character by the force of which,, in every stage of their lives, whether married or single-if they prefer to remain so-they will not be in the least afraid even to give up their lives rather than flinch an inch from their chastity.

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The women of India must grow and develop in the footprints of Sita.  Sita is unique.  She is the very type of the true Indian woman, for all the Indian ideals of a perfected woman have grown out of that one life of Sita.  And here she stands these thousands of years, commanding the worship of every man, woman and child throughout the length and breadth of Aryavarta.  There she will always be, this glorious Sita, purer than purity itself, all patience, and all suffering.  She who suffered that life of suffering without a murmur, she the ever chaste and ever pure wife, she the ideal of the people, our national God she must always remain.  She has gone into the very vitals of our race.  Any attempt to modernise our women, if it tries to take our women away from that ideal of Sita, is immediately a failure as we see every day.

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Studying the present needs of the age, it seems imperative to train some of them up in the ideals of renunciation, so that they will take up the vow of life-long virginity, fired with the strength of that virtue of chastity which is innate in their blood from hoary antiquity.  Our motherland requires for her well-being some of her children to become pure-souled Brahmacharins and Brahmachirinis.  Even if one amongst the women became a knower of Brahman, then by the radiance of her personality, thousands of women would be inspired and awakened to Truth, and great well-being of the country and society would ensue.

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Brahmacharinis of education and character should take up the task of teaching.  In villages and towns they must open centres and strive for the spread of female education.  Through such bevout preachers of character, there will be the real spread of female education in the country.  History and puranas, house-keeping and the arts, the duties of home life and the principles that make for the development of character have to be taught.  Other matters such as sewing, culinary art, rules of domestic work and upbringing of children will also taught.  Japa, worship and meditation shall form an indispensable part of the teaching.  Along with other things they should acquire the spirit of valour and heroism.  In the present day it has become necessary for them also the learn self-defence-how grand was the Queen of Jhansi!  So shall we bring to the need of India great fearless women-women worthy to continue the traditions of Sanghamittra, Lila, Ahalya Bai, and Mira Bai-women fit to be mothers of heroes, because they are pure and fearless strong with the strength that comes of touching the feet of God.  We must see to their growing up as ideal matrons of home in time.  The children of such mothers will make further progress in the virtues that distinguish themselves.  It is only in the homes of educated and pious mothers that great men are born.

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If the women are reaised, their children will by their noble actions glorify the name of the country; then will culture, knowledge, power and devotion awaken in the country..........

Religious Education... Swamy Vivekananda...

Religion is the innermost core of education.  I do not mean my own or any one else's opinion about religion.  The true eternal principles have to be held before the people.  First of all we have to introduce the worship of the great saints.  Those great-souled ones who have realised the eternal truths are to be presented before the people as the ideals to be followed - Sri Ramachandra, Sri Krishna, Mahavira, Sri Ramakrishna and others.  Keep aside for the present the Vrindavan aspect of Sri Krishna and spread far and wide the worship of Sri Krishna roaring out the Gita with the voice of a lion, and bring into daily use the worship of Shankti - the Divine Mother, the source of all power.  We now mostly need the ideal of the hero with the tremendous spirit of Rajas thrilling through his veins from head to foot-the hero who will dare and die to know the truth, the hero whose armour is renunciation, whose sword is wisdom.  We now want the spirit of the brave warrior in the battle-field.

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Make the character of Mahavira your ideal.  At the command of Ramachandra he crossed the ocean!  He had no care for life or death.  He was a perfect master of the senses and wonderfully sagacious.  Build your life on this great ideal of personal service.  Through that ideal all the other ideas will gradually manifest themselves in life.  Obedience to the Guru without questioning and strict observance of Brahmacharya-this is the secret of success.  As on the one hand Hanuman represents the ideal of service, so on the other he represents leonine courage, stroking the world with awe.  He has not the least hesitation in sacrificing his life for the good of Rama.  A supreme indifference to everything except the service of Rama.  Only the carrying out of Sri Rama's behest is the one vow of his life.  Such whole-hearted devotion is wanted.

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At the present time the worship of the divine play of Sri Krishna with the Gopis is not good.  Playing on the flute and so on will not regenerate the country.  Playing on the khol and kartal and dancing in the frenzy of the kirtana has degenerated the whole people.  In trying to imitate the highest sadhana, the preliminary qualification for which is absolute purity, they have been swallowed in dire tamas.  Are not drums made in the country?  Are not trumpets and kettle-drums available in India?  Make the boys hear the deep-toned sound of these instruments.  Hearing from boyhood the sound of effeminate forms of music, the country is well-nigh converted into a country of women.  The damaru and horn have to be sounded, drums are to be beaten so as to raise the deep and martial notes, and with 'Mahavira, Mahavira' on our lips and shouting 'Hara, Hara, Vyom, Vyom', the quarters are to be reverberated.  The music which awakens only the softer feelings of  man is to be stopped now for some time.  The people are to be accustomed to hear the Dhrupad music.

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Through the thunder roll of the dignified Vedic hymns life is to be brought back into the country.  In everything the austere spirit of heroic manhood should be revived.  If you can build your character after such an ideal then a thousand others will follow.  But take care that you do not swerve an inch from the ideal.  Never lose heart.  In eating, dressing or lying, in singing or playing, in enjoyment or disease, always manifest the highest moral courage.  Never allow weakness to overtake your mind.  Remember Mahavira, remember the Divine Mother, and you will see that all weaknes, all cowardice will vanish at once.

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The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God.  The new religion says that he is the atheist who does not believe in himself.  But it is not selfish faith.  It means faith in all because you are all.  Love for yourself means love for all, love for animals, love for everything, for you are all one.  It is the great faith which will make the world better.  The ideal of faith in ourselves is of the greatest help to us.  If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practised, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.  Throughout the history of mankind if any motive power has been more potent than another in the lives of great men and women, it is that faith in themselves.  Born with the consciousness that they were to be great, they became great.

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Infinite strength is religion.  Strength is goodness, weakness is sin.  All sins and all evil can be summed up in that one word: weakness.  It is weakness that is the motive power in all evil-doing.  It is weakness that is the source of all selfishness.  It is weakness that makes man injure others.  Let them all know what they are, let them repeat day and night what they are: 'So'ham'.  Let them suck it in with their mother's milk, this idea of strength-I am he!  This is to be first heard; and then let them think of it; and out of that thought will proceed works such as the world has never seen.

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Tell the truth boldly.  All truth is eternal.  Truth is the nature of all souls.  And here is the test of truth: anything that makes you weak physically, intellectually and spiritually, reject as poison.  There is no life in it, it cannot be true.  Truth is strengthening.  Truth is purity, truth is all knowledge.  Truth must be strengthening, must be enlightening, must be invigorating.  Go back to your Upanishads, the shining, the strengthening, the bright philosophy.  Take up this philosophy.  The greatest truths are the simplest things in the world, simple as your own existence.  The truths of the Upanishads are before you.  Take them up, live up to them and the salvation of India will be at hand.

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Physical weakness is the cause of at least one-third of our miseries.  We are lazy; we cannot combine.  We speak of many things parrot-like but never do them.  Speaking and not doing has become a habit with us.  What is the cause?  Physical weakness.  This sort of weak brain is not able to do anything.  We must strengthen it.  First of all our young men must be strong.  Religion will come afterwards.  Be strong, my young friends, that is my advice to you.  You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through the study of the Gita.  You will understand Gita better with your biceps, your muscles, a little stronger.  You will understand the mighty genius and the mighty strength of Krishna better with a little strong blood in you.  You will understand the Upanishads better and the glory of the Atman, when your feet and you feel yourselves as men.

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Strength, strength is what the Upanishads speak to me from every page.  It is the only literature in the world, where you find the word "Abhih", 'Fearless', used again and again.  In no other scripture in the world is this adjective applied either to God or man.  And in my mind rises from the past the vision of the great emperor of the West, Alexander the Great, and I see as it were in a picture the great monarch standing on the banks of the Indus, talking to one of our sannyasins in the forest: the old man he was talking to, perhaps naked, stark naked, sitting upon a block of stone, and the Emperor astonished at his wisdom, tempting him with gold and honour, to come over the Greece.  And this man smiles at his gold and smiles at his temptations, and refuses.  And then the emperor standing in his authority as Emperor says, 'I will kill you if you do not come', and the man bursts into a laugh, and says, 'You never told such a falsehood in your life as you tell just now.  Who can kill me?  For I am spirit unborn and undecaying.'  That is strength!...

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There are thousands to weaken us, and of stories we have had enough.  Therefore, my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, every time strength.  And the Upanishads are the great mines of strength.  There in lies strength enough to invigorate the whole world.  The whole world can be vivified, made strong, energised through them.  They will call with trumpet voice upon the weak, the miserable and the down-trodden of all races, all creeds and all sects to stand on their feet and be free.  Freedom, physical freedom, mental freedom and spiritual freedom are the watchwords of the Upanishads.

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But no scriptures can make us religious.  We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a word of religion or of God.  We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves.  You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books.  You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map.  Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge.  Beyond that they have no value whatever.  Temples and churches, books and forms are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual child strong enough to take the higher steps.  Religion is not in doctrines or dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation.  It is being and becoming.  It is realisation.

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We may be the most intellectual people the world ever saw and yet we may not come to God at all.  On the other hand, irreligious men have been produced from the most intellectual training.  It is one of the evils of western civilization-intellectual education alone without taking care of the heart.  It only makes men ten times more selfish.  When heart be followed.  It is the heart which takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach.  It goes beyond the intellect and reaches what is called inspiration.  Always cultivate the heart.  Through the heart the Lord speaks.

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The intensest love that humanity has ever known has come from religion.  The noblest words of peace that the world has ever heard have come from men of the religious plane.  At the same time the bitterest denunciation that the world has ever known has been uttered by religious men.  Each religion brings out its own doctrines and insists upon them as being the only true ones.  Some will even draw the sword to compel others to believe as they do.  This is not through wickedness, but through a particular disease of the human mind called fanaticism.  Yet out of this strife and struggle, this hatred and jealousy of religions and sects, there have risen from time to time potent voices proclaiming peace and harmony.

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The time was ripe for one to be born who would see in every sect the same spirit working: the same God: one who would see God in every being, one whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the downtrodden, and at the same time whose grand brilliant intellect would harmonise all conflicting sects not only in India but also outside India; and bring a marvellous harmony, the universal religion, into existence.  Such a man was born and I had the good fortune to sit at his feet for years.  I learned from my Master the wonderful truth that the religions of the world are not contradictory of antagonistic.  They are but various phases of one eternal religion.  Sri Ramakrishna never spoke a harsh word against anyone.  So beautifully tolerant was he that every sect thought that he belonged to it.  He loved every one; to him all religions were true.  His whole life was spent in breaking down the barriers of sectarianism and dogma.

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Let our watchword then be acceptance and not exclusion.  Not only toleration, for so-called toleration is often blasphemy.  Toleration means that I think that you are wrong and I am just allowing you to live.  Is it not blasphemy to think that you and I are allowing others to live?  I accept all religions that were in the past and worship them all.  I worship God with every one of them, in whatever form they worship Him.  I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian's church and kneel before the crucifix.  I shall enter the Buddhistic temple, where I shall take refuge in Buddha and in his Law.  I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the Light which enlightens the heart of everyone.

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Not only shall I do all these but I shall keep my heart open for all that may come in the future.  Is God's book finished?  Or is it still a continuous revelation going on?  It is a marvellous book-these spiritual revelations of the world.  The Bible, the Vedas, the Koran and all other sacred books are but so many pages, and an infinite number of pages remain yet to be unfolded.  Let us take in all that has been in the past, enjoy the light of the present and open every window of the heart for all that will come in the future.  Salutation to all the prophets of the past, to all the great ones of the present and to all that are to come in the future...........!!!!!!

What is meant by liberalisation of the Indian Economy...?

Liberalisation of the economy forms one of the pillars of the New Economic Policy announced by the government in 1991-92.  Liberalisation means freeing the economy from direct or physical controls imposed by the government such as industrial licensing, price and distribution controls on products, import licensing, foreign exchange control, control of capital issues by companies (i.e. collection of funds by sale of their shares and debentures, or funds), direct control of credit (laying down the limit on credit that the financial institutions might grant), restriction on investment by large business houses, and the like, so that development and operation of the economy is increasingly guided by the freely operating market forces.  The new economic policy was built on the assumption that too many government controls gave room for widespread corruption and retarded the growth of the economy.  Accordingly, India has been consistently trying since 1991-92 not only to liberalise its economy but to integrate it with world economy (globalisation).

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What is deep freezing...?

Deep Freezing is a method of preserving food by lowering its temperature to 18 degree centigrade or below.  It stops almost all spoilage processes, although there may be some residual enzyme activity in uncooked vegetables, which is why these are blanched (dipped in hot water to destroy the enzymes) before freezing.  Micro-organisms cannot grow or divide while frozen, but most remain alive and can resume activity once defrosted.  Commercial techniques freeze foods rapidly in order to prevent the growth of large ice crystals which would damage the food tissue on thawing.

When were the Present Continents Formed...?

At the very time when oil was beginning to form, an enormous shift took place in the Earth's crust, which slowly resulted in the formation of the present continents.

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Numerous studies, even in recent years, confirm the theory that the great continental mass pushed out of the sea in the earlier periods and then split apart into several pieces which drifted about the Earth for hundreds of millions of years.  Finally, between the middle of Cretaceous and early Tertiary Periods (100 million to 50 million years ago) these pieces split up again to form land masses recognisable in form to the continents of today.  These sections are still drifting apart.
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This interesting suggestion, first put forward by the German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), is known as the theory of 'continental drift'.  Wegener, who was also a daring explorer and experience geologist, published his ideas in a book printed in 1912.  It naturally created a great stir in scientific circles, which soon split into two groups, one of his supporters and one of his opponents.  They are both eager to prove or disprove his theory.
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In a few words, wegener's idea was as follows: in dim, distant times the continental masses were joined together in a single block (or shield), which Wegener called Pangaea.  The rest of the Earth was covered by a primeval mass of water, the Pantalaxia.
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During the Eocene Period, about 50 million years ago, a slow but steady movement then began.  The Pangaea cracked and, pulled apart by the rotating movement of the Earth, the bits began to drift away from each other as if they were floating on a heavier, more elastic base.
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According to Wegener, it was because of this shifting that the folds occurred in the Earth's crust which lifted up the loftiest mountain chains still existing in the world today.
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