Banaras Quotes

बात बिगाड़े तीन; अगर मगर लेकिन।

In Banaras, I asked a monk, “To hold onto human character, one must have at least one desire. What is your desire.” He replied, “I have only one desire: Moksha or liberation from mortal bodies.” I said, “You are using the desire to leave the body to hold on to the body. Isn’t that contradiction? Aren’t you stuck in a loop of contradiction?” Recently, I met an old man in Chamundi Hills. He was singing praise of Maa Chamundi. I asked him, “Baba, what is your one desire that you are using to hold onto this body?” He replied, “Desire to sing songs in praise of Maa Chamundi.” I asked, “What about the desire of Moksha? Don’t you want to be free from this bondage?” He replied, “There is just one soul who is free- the Paramatma. I am that.” I said, “But how come you are stuck in this human body?” He said, “Young man! My mortal form is only in your mind. When you let go of your mind, you can meet me as Paramatma - the free soul. Then there is no you and me. There is just Paramatma.

बाप की खटिया टूटी, बेटा पिए फ्रूटी।

Goodreads is becoming my diary- When I joined Nalanda by 2018, Ritika Rajput, Myself and Urvashi punia bishnoi were almost inseparable friends for three months, wherever we go, we go together, we eat together, we fight together almost whole Nalanda could not separate our friendship until two people entered which I do not want to mention. When we were close friends Shubham das and Shalini Chauhan were seniors to us and introduced us into trekking and hiking in and around Rajgir. But Ritika did not like that I even talk with Shalini Chauhan. Once Shalini invited me to visit Banaras with her, but Ritika asked me not to go with her, I did not want to mess up within friendship so I did not go. After Myself, Ritika and Urvashi broke apart in friendships , Shalini was always there to support me without any expectations. Yeah there were few more friends or seemed like friends Rashmi Singh, Rakhi Kashyap, Deepa kundu, Kajal, Madhuri and all of them were making troubles instead of peace. Shalini was the only peace lover at that time in the campus, but second year she went abroad and then I could not see her even until now Just diary of memories

Bharatendu’s ninety-eight-verse speech ‘Hindi Ki Unnati Par Vyakhyan’ (Lecture on the Progress of Hindi) at the inaugural meeting of the Hindi Vardhini Sabha in Allahabad established his standing as leader of the Hindi movement. More diatribes against Urdu would follow from Bharatendu, but he did not live to see the result of his efforts. He died in 1885 at the age of thirty-five. The year 1893 saw the establishment of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha in Banaras, the most influential body for advocating use of the Hindi language and the Devanagari script.

Ghar wapsi, conversion tools of politicians for political purposes’ Lalmani Verma | 318 words Eminent educationists on Saturday concluded that issues like “ghar wapsi” and “religious conversion or reconversion” are “tools beings used by politicians to gain political mileage”. At a seminar organised by Centre for Advanced Studies of Allahabad University, Department of Philosophy, professors from several state varsities unanimously spoke against such programmes, saying that religious conversion was a rare practice that could not be performed by inducing fear or allurement. Among the attendees were Professors Lalji Bajwa, Shabnam Hameed, Aziz-ur-rehman Siddiqui, M Massey, S P Pandey and Kripa Shankar. Prof Massey is the principal of Christian College in Allahabad while Prof Pandey and Prof Kripa Shankar are with Banaras Hindu University.

In Banaras, Gandhi made four fundamental claims about how Indians should conduct their affairs. First, Gandhi argued in favour of instruction in the mother tongue. English, the foreign language imposed on India, should have no place in education or public affairs; Second, Gandhi pointed to the sharp inequalities between different groups in India. He contrasted the luxuriant lifestyles of the maharajas with the desperate poverty of the majority of Indians. That is why he asked the princes to cast off their jewels, and told the students that they must acquaint themselves with the living conditions of peasants, artisans and labourers; Third, he asked that officials of the state identify more closely with those they governed over. He deplored the arrogance of the elite Indian Civil Service (ICS), whose officers saw themselves as members of a ruling caste rather than as servants of the people; Finally, Gandhi asked for a more critical attitude towards religious orthodoxy. The Kashi Vishwanath was the most famous temple in all of Banaras. Why then was it so filthy? If Indians were incapable of maintaining even their places of worship, how then could they justify their claims for self-rule?

At a session on the first day, Annie Besant was shouted down by the delegates, because of her opposition to the policy of non-cooperation. Gandhi stood up on a chair and with folded hands asked the hecklers to quieten down. Every speaker, he said, must be given a patient hearing. This was a handsome gesture, since, back in 1916, Mrs Besant had demanded that he stop speaking in Banaras when his words offended her.

Jinnah had, among other things, criticized the singing in government schools of the patriotic hymn ‘Vande Mataram’. Composed by the great Bengali writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the poem invoked Hindu temples, praised the Hindu goddess Durga, and spoke of seventy million Indians, each carrying a sword, ready to defend their motherland against invaders, who could be interpreted as being the British, or Muslims, or both. ‘Vande Mataram’ first became popular during the swadeshi movement of1905–07. The revolutionary Aurobindo Ghose named his political journal after it. Rabindranath Tagore was among the first to set it to music. His version was sung by his niece Saraladevi Chaudhurani at the Banaras Congress of 1905. The same year, the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati rendered it into his language. In Bengali and Tamil, Kannada and Telugu, Hindi and Gujarati, the song had long been sung at nationalist meetings and processions. After the Congress governments took power in 1937, the song was sometimes sung at official functions. The Muslim League objected vigorously. One of its legislators called it ‘anti-Muslim’, another, ‘an insult to Islam’. Jinnah himself claimed the song was ‘not only idolatrous but in its origins and substance [was] a hymn to spread hatred for the Musalmans’. Nationalists in Bengal were adamant that the song was not aimed at Muslims.The prominent Calcutta Congressman Subhas Chandra Bose wrote to Gandhi that ‘the province (or at least the Hindu portion of it) is greatly perturbed over the controversy raised in certain Muslim circles over the song “Bande Mataram”. As far as I can judge, all shades of Hindu opinion are unanimous in opposing any attempts to ban the song in Congress meetings and conferences.’ Bose himself thought that ‘we should think a hundred times before we take any steps in the direction of banning the song’. The social worker Satis Dasgupta told Gandhi that ‘Vande Mataram’ was ‘out and out a patriotic song—a song in which all the children of the mother[land] can participate, be they Hindu or Mussalman’. It did use Hindu images, but such imagery was common in Bengal, where even Muslim poets like Nazrul Islam often referred to Hindu gods and legends. ‘Vande Mataram’, argued Dasgupta, was ‘never a provincial cry and never surely a communal cry’. Faced with Jinnah’s complaints on the one side and this defence by Bengali patriots on the other, Gandhi suggested a compromise: that Congress governments should have only the first two verses sung. These evoked the motherland without specifying any religious identity. But this concession made many Bengalis ‘sore at heart’; they wanted the whole song sung. On the other side, Muslims were not satisfied either; for, the ascription of a mother-like status to India was dangerously close to idol worship.

Gandhi spoke after the pandit. Describing the practice of untouchability as ‘a blot on Hinduism’, he noted that in Banaras and elsewhere in India, ‘a dog can drink from a reservoir, but a thirsty Harijan boy may not. If he goes, he cannot escape being beaten. Untouchability as practised today considers man worse than a dog'.

If in one area you see a pyre being lit, a little away you’ll see an infant undergoing a ritualistic tonsuring. Barely 100m away a newly married couple will be offering prayers to the river, while further away you’ll find children playing cricket on the banks of the river close to an elderly man who is deep in thought silently watching the Ganga flow by. Nearby, people will be feeding the fish, while some distance away little girls in brightly coloured skirts and tops play hopscotch on the steps leading to the river. In essence, the cycle of life is quite literally unfolding before your eyes," Irfan Nabi

Miracle story about Lahiri Mahasaya from a woman disciple, Abhoya, from Chapter 31, titled "An Interview with the Sacred Mother", in the book "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Yogananda*: She [Abhoya] and her husband, a Calcutta lawyer, started one day for Banaras to visit the guru. Their carriage was delayed by heavy traffic; they reached the Howrah main station in Calcutta only to hear the Banaras train whistling for departure. Abhoya, near the ticket office, stood quietly. "Lahiri Mahasaya, I beseech thee to stop the train!" she silently prayer. "I cannot suffer the pangs of delay in waiting another day to see thee." The wheels of the snorting train continued to move round and round, but there was no onward progress. The engineer and passengers descended to the platform to view the phenomenon. An English railroad guard approached Abhoya and her husband. Contrary to all precedent, the guard volunteered his services. "Babu," he said, "give me the money. I will buy your tickets while you get aboard." As soon as the couple was seated and had received the tickets, the train slowly moved forward. In panic, the engineer and passangers clambered again to their places, knowing neither how hte train started nor why it had stopped in the first place. Arriving at hte home of Lahiri Mahasaya in Banaras, Abhoya silently prostrated herself before the master, and tried to touch his feet. "Compose yourself, Abhoya," he remarked. "How you love to bother me! As if you could not have come here by the next train! - *More Lahiri Mahasaya miracle stories can be found in this chapter of this book.

As Hazari Prasad Dwivedi once said: Don’t mix with people who kill the god inside you, mix with people who bring alive the god in you.

one of them, it turns out, has read Chai, Chai. It occurs to me that it has been many years since I travelled for the book, and now the book is doing the travelling.

When the Almighty pledges to destroy someone, it is by simply taking away the power of good judgment. Banaras, 2017 THE GREAT DWARKA SHASTRI Vidyut saw his great grandfather immersed in books that appeared to be older than the 800-year-old dwaar of the Dev-Raakshasa matth.

Brahma Murari surachita lingam nirmala bhasita shobhita lingam janmaja dukkha vinashaka lingam tat-pranamami Sadashiva lingam…

The Bauls are without customs, conventions or canons. Their guru is sunya, “emptiness”. There’s no worship in Mosque or Temple or on special holy day. At every step I have my Mecca and Kasi [Banaras]; sacred is every moment. The great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore said: “Bauls exemplify the one and only religion, the Religion of Man.

It is important to realize that as theism and theological thought developed in India, each “individual” god was seen as complex. Each was seen as the thousand-headed One, Purusha, who includes the others. Each expresses the full range of God’s multiplicity. Further, each is not seen as penultimate, limited to the one quarter of Reality that we know; each is seen to stretch the theological imagination beyond the world-unworld

The point is one that speaks to us all: The moment we human beings grasp God with jealousy and possessiveness, we lose hold of God. One might add that the religious point here is quite the opposite of God’s jealousy, of which we hear so much in the Old Testament; it is God’s infinite capacity to love and the problem of human jealousy.

There are, however, Christians and people of other faiths who seem to have no trouble speaking of God’s ultimacy with one breath and staking out a private territory of God’s activity and grace with the next.