bhoobhransh

[bhoobhransh]

ॐ आप्यायन्तु ममाङ्गानि वाक् प्राणश्चक्षुः श्रोत्रमथो बलमिन्द्रियाणि च सर्वाणि सर्वं। ब्रौपनिषदं माहं ब्रह्म निराकुर्यां मा मा ब्रह्म निराकरोदनिराकरणमस्त्वनिराकरणं मेऽस्तु। तदात्मनि निरते य उपनिषत्सु धर्मास्ते मयि सन्तु ते मयि सन्तु॥ ॐ शान्तिःशान्तिः शान्तिः॥

May all my organs: speech, vitality, eyes, ears and all the senses be strong. All the Upanishads are Brahm. I should not give up Brahm, and Brahm should not abandon us, I should not be abandoned. In this way, engaged in self, may I attain the Upanishad-professed dharma. Om, peace, peace, peace.

[bhoobhransh]

The illegally sneaked in Bangladeshi muslims who are NOT currently being genocided by their government are freely moving about India, terrorizing and hacking poor Hindu villagers in Malda and Murshidabad (BTW, have you seen those people? whose houses were marked with ink in a truly biblical/quranic fashion and then attacked, the gashed and cut bodies lay in a pool of blood and mud?). And the government, their fucking piddi minions refuse to flush out the insanely radicalized bigots that hate Hindus and India, dwelling here in a number of crores, having no guts to actually implement ordinances passed in parliament that they mentioned in their election manifestos that the public mandate approved of.

Meanwhile, the same government has issued notices of expulsion that include Pakistani and Bangladeshi Hindu refugees that have come to India on Pilgrimage visas -- people who are actively being genocided in both Pakistan and Bangladesh -- who have the fundamental right to seek shelter in India since despite Nehru-Liaqat pact, these nations did not hesitate in butchering them in millions. It should be noted that it was only recently when IAS Tina Dabi signed orders to demolish a few such settlements that don't get any amenities (similar to the settlements of Kashmiri Pandits).

The reason why India does not recognize ANY refugees is because we haven't signed the 1951 accord for refugees, citing the possibilities of incoming radicalized brutes that would undermine India's integrity. Has it stopped the inflow from happening? No. But it has stopped the non-muslims being raped and murdered everyday in these nations from simply asking for shelter. In 2015, Shashi Tharoor tried to bring a bill in the loksabha to get India to provide asylum to individual applications which the Hindu majoritarian populist loksabha REJECTED.

So even 12 years into a "Hindu majoritarian populist" administration, persecuted Hindus still suffer while their persecutors have a free pass to run radicalization centers across the nation. The great secular tradition of killing Hindus that congress and their regionalist chooze (CPI, DMK) cemented, is being carried forward by Ranga and Billa with a topping of cow protection (as Arun Shourie quipped, "congress plus cow"). Maybe Hindus need to explore a more Hindu alternative that does not believe in keeping its knee on the necks of people running away from ethnic cleansing.

[bhoobhransh]

"A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes."

(Leopold Bloom observes eaters in a restaurant)

Ulysses (James Joyce, 1921)

[bhoobhransh]

“Each religion is alone true, that is to say, that at the moment we are thinking of it we must bring as much attention to bear on it as if there were nothing else. . . . A ‘synthesis’ of religion implies a lower quality of attention.”

Simone Weil (1909-1943)

From first volume of the compilation of her notebooks.

[bhoobhransh]

"The Hindus would have no loyalty except to their clan; they would have no higher idea of human association, no general idea of the responsibility of man to his fellow. And because of that missing large idea of human association, the country works blindly on, and all the bravery and skills of its people lead to nothing." V S Naipaul in "India: A Million Mutinies Now" (1990), commenting on the narrative set in William Howard Russell's travelogues of India written as the revolt of north india raged on against the british occupation (1958-59).

A quote very relevant in the times when the "hindu radical" government of India comfortably ignores the massacre of Hindus in bangladesh in the aftermath of the fall of Sheikh Haseena.

[bhoobhransh]

I would have been a sanghi or BJP supporter if either of these entities were even capable of working for saving Indic thought, indic culture i.e. hinduism.

[bhoobhransh]

Brihad-aranyak-upanishad, Chapter 1: Brahman 2 (on creation), shloka 2

बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद्

आपो वा अर्कः; तद्यदपां शर आसीत्तत्समहन्यत । सा पृथिव्यभवत्, तस्यामश्राम्यत्; तस्य श्रान्तस्य तप्तस्य तेजो रसो निरवर्तताग्निः  

आप: वा अर्कः (water itself is fire??)

तद्यदपां (tat yat apaam -- that which, of the water)

शर आसीत् (was at the top)

तत्समहन्यत (tat samahanyat): that congealed

सा पृथिव्यभवत् (that became the earth)

तस्यामश्राम्यत् (after working on her)

तस्य श्रान्तस्य तप्तस्य (of the heat of his tiredness)

तेजो रसो निरवर्तताग्निः (his essense came out, became fire)

The interpretation of the previous shloka induces me to understand that water is life and life is operated by arka/fire/warmth. Therefore, as the earth solidifies, the interaction of heat with water gives rise to life.

Doubts:

Why do Shankaracharya and Madhvacharya assume that Prajapati is being talked about here?

There seems to be recursive cause and effect relationship between fire and water, which induces me to think that the words representing them mean different things in different context. This is easier to glean out from the previous shoka but less so in this one.

Supposed context:

( I will revisit this after I internalize the idea of hiranygarbha, the cosmic embryo. Currently, I am jotting down a sort of modernist interpretation informed by scientific ideas. Superposing these onto hindu vangmay and reducing it to a collection of "facts" would be an injustice to the treasure trove that it is.)

[bhoobhransh]

Brihad-aranyak-upanishad, Chapter 1: Brahman 2 (on creation), shloka 1

बृहदारण्यकोपनिषद्

नैवेह किंचनाग्र आसीत्, मृत्युनैवेदमावृतमासीदशनायया, अशनाया हि मृत्युः; तन्मनोऽकुरुत, आत्मन्वी स्यामिति । सोऽर्चन्नचरत्, तस्यार्चत आपोऽजायन्त; अर्चते वै मे कमभूदिति, तदेवार्क्यस्यार्कत्वम्; कं ह वा अस्मै भवति य एवमेतदर्क्यस्यार्कत्वं वेद ॥ १ ॥

न एव इह (not here even) किंचनाग्र (a fraction of something) आसीत् (was).

मृत्यून् एव इदं आवृतं आसीत् (it was covered with death only) अशनायया (with hunger)

अशनाया हि मृत्युः (as hunger is death)

तत् मनः अकुरुत (it/he begot a mind) आत्मन्वी (in possession of self/having a soul) स्याम् इति (wish to be, so)

सः अर्चत् चरत् (he went about shining, burning) तस्यार्चत आप: अजायन्त (his burning begot water)

{to self}

अर्चते वै मे (indeed, due to my burning) कम् भूत् इति (water/life came into being) {to self}

तत् एव अर्क्यस्य अर्कत्वं -- that is the warmth of fire/sun-begotten

कं ह वा - or water/life/happiness अस्मै भवति is for it

य एवम एतद अर्क्यस्य अर्कत्वं वेद -- who knows the warmth of that begotten by fire/sun

In the beginning, there was nothing but death/nothingness. That nothing begot a mind, a self -- by wishing for it to be so. It went about burning, like a fire. From its burning, arose life. To know the warmth that gives rise to life is to live.

Doubts:

Although the first words indicate that there was nothing, then mentioning the presence of hunger and death could indicate a flux, fluctuations -- something that does not lead to any being, as clusters appear and dissolve/die. And then out of one of these fluctuations, something is born out of nothing. So the upanishad ascribes a will to it.

archat means to worship, to shine, to alight. the sandhi should yield a single n but it somehow uses nn. I am not clear on that. Acc to laws of sandhi, t+n =nn, n+a = n. I have surmised but not concluded that it means "to go about shining".

ark, arkya, arkatvam have context specific meanings. Fire indicates the source -- which is the sun but also any other fire that could be. kam -- water, desire, copulation, life -- depends on arka. For life to be understood, the source of it needs to be understood.

Supposed context:

The vedas are supposed to be less organized collections of thought/ritual/tradition and observations therein. After having lived with the vedas for a long time, authors of different upanishads try to express different abstract aspects if that complex collection in a very coherent and concise manner. It is observed in smaller upanishads that a premise is laid out and some basic logic is built on it to arrive at a basic principle that should guide human action. This shloka at least sounds like a call to enrich knowledge, to investigate the source of being. I may change this view as I reread many of these texts now.

[bhoobhransh]

मुझे काफिर लगे कहने मुसलमानों की बस्ती में

नज़र आती नहीं कुछ अपनी हस्ती अपनी हस्ती में

कुछ ऐसा खो गया हूँ दिल के हाथों बुतपरस्ती में

जिधर जाता हूँ मिरे सामने बुतख़ाना आता है

[bhoobhransh]

समालोचन में नई कविता प्रकाशित हुई

[bhoobhransh]

I like to do surface level reading because when you do in-depth reading, you tend to miss a lot.

[bhoobhransh]

“He who has sat alone with his soul day and night, year in year out, in confidential discord and discourse, and in his cave – it may be a labyrinth, but it may be a gold-mine – become a cave-bear or treasure-hunter or a treasure-guardian and dragon, finds that his concepts themselves at last acquire a characteristic twilight colour, a smell of the depths and of must, something incommunicable and reluctant which blows cold on every passer-by. The hermit does not believe that a philosopher – supposing that a philosopher has always been first of all a hermit – has ever expressed his real and final opinion in books: does one not write books precisely to conceal what lies within us? – indeed, he will doubt whether a philosopher could have ‘final and real’ opinions at all, whether behind each of his caves there does not and must not lie another, deeper cave – a stranger, more comprehensive world beyond the surface, an abyss behind every ground, beneath every ‘foundation’. Every philosophy is a foreground philosophy – that is a hermit’s judgment: ‘there is something arbitrary in the fact that he stopped, looked back, looked around here, that he stopped digging and laid his spade aside here – there is also something suspicious about it.’ Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hiding-place, every word also a mask.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

[bhoobhransh]

"On claims of being objective"

They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"—and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule.

from Chapter I of "Beyond Good and Evil" by Friedrich Nietzsche

as translated by Helen Zimmern

[bhoobhransh]

In 2014 agricultural subsidies again became a sticking point when India threatened to block a WTO agreement to simplify trade procedures that would, many hoped, revive the stalled Doha Round. The agreement was likely to benefit rich countries more than poor ones, and India wanted, in return, progress on a proposal supported by many developing countries to ensure that government programs that buy food from local farmers and distribute it to the poor are not considered illegal agricultural subsidies. India’s commerce minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, described it as regrettable that the WTO could not agree on how to treat India’s efforts to provide food for its poor “while the rich world can continue to subsidize their farmers unabatedly.” The trade facilitation agreement was eventually approved when, in an arrangement seen as a victory for the Indian government, the United States agreed not to challenge India’s food security program, and India withdrew its opposition.

(In Peter Singer's "One world now: the ethics of globalization" citing contemporary articles India and US reach WTO breakthrough over food - BBC News)

WTO and WEF (and many UN institutions) have always been the tools to exert western hegemony and corporate interests (and by extension, colonial values) onto the rest of the world. We should be very careful and accepting the value these organizations project and the ones they concede to.

[bhoobhransh]

[bhoobhransh]

Santa Claus is actually on the decision making side of the christmas present chain. The guy on the distribution side, he is called Banta Claus.