"From this point on in our lives, we will either find or lose our souls."

Its been two years now. i have found mine. Hope you have too.

Thanks :)

The Mahatma and The Poet



In more than the 25 years they had known each other, Gandhi and Tagore exchanged nearly a 100 letters between them. Their contents wide ranging from matters relating to an evolving National Struggle, to affectionate, warm personal enquiries and sharings by two friends. And it was not that they always agreed. Between them were probably some of the most important and soaring debates of Modern India. Yet its amazing to see how they've kept their humanity and deep reverential friendship alive through all the rumble-tumble intensity of those times.

This was the last correspondence between them, sent over telegram. It brought tears to my eyes.

(Gandhi's greetings on Tagore's 81st birthday - 13 April 1941)

To: Gurudev Shantiniketan

Four score not enough may you finish five
Love

Gandhi

(The Poet's reply)

To: Mahatma Wardha
Thanks message but four score is impertinence, five score intolerable

Rabindranath

And there was this man who couldn't stop laughing. For no apparent reason. For life was so beautiful, he was eternally tickled :-)

Very few are sanctified in isolation. Very few become perfect in absolute solitude.

Living with other people and learning to lose ourselves in the understanding of their weakness and deficiencies can help us to become true contemplatives. For there is no better means of getting rid of the rigidity and harshness and coarseness of our ingrained egoism, which is the one insuperable obstacle to the infused light and action of the Spirit of God.

Even the courageous acceptance of interior trials in utter solitude cannot altogether compensate for the work of purification accomplished in us by patience and humility in loving others and sympathizing with their most unreasonable needs and demands.

There is always a danger that hermits will only dry up and solidify in their own eccentricity. Living out of touch with other people they tend to lose that deep sense of spiritual realities, which only pure love can give.

Do you think the way to sanctity is to lock yourself up with prayers and your books and the meditations that please and interest your mind, to protect yourself with many walls, against people you consider stupid? Do you think the way to contemplation is found in the refusal of activities and works which are necessary for the good of others but which happen to bore and distract you? Do you imagine that you will discover God by winding yourself up in a cocoon of spiritual and aesthetic pleasures, instead of renouncing all your tastes and desires and ambitions and satisfactions for the love of Christ, Who will not even live within you if you cannot find Him in other people?

Far from being essentially opposed to each other, interior contemplation and external activity are two aspects of the same love of God.

- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Inquilab Zindabad



"I differ from you as the South pole differs from the North pole, but if I had a dozen dedicated youths like you with me, I could have changed the history of India long ago."

- Mahatma Gandhi to the imprisoned revolutionists of the Chittagong Rebellion

"Revolution is the inalienable right of mankind... To the altar of the revolution, we have brought our youth as incense, for no sacrifice is too great for so magnificent a cause. We are content... long live revolution."

- Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt's statement at their trial.

Bird over Water



Why are we so scared of death? Are we ready to die at a moment's notice? happily and joyfully. And peacefully.

The mind that is preoccupied with the gratifications of pain and pleasure, becomes extraordinarily dull. It is scared of death and seeks to propagate itself forever. This is the root of Fear. And the cause of all suffering. The dull mind that will not let go. Or cease to register.

But to appreciate Beauty and Life, you need a mind that is extraordinarily alive. infinitely supple and simple. One that is intensely observant and yet completely detached. Its a state of quiet simplicity and elegant silence. It is love itself.

This one's for you. Thanks :)