by Sri Sandip Dasgupta
Joy Babathakur. Joy Babathakur. Joy Babathakur.
Welcome to the Raspurnima issue of e-Sri Sanai. With this issue, we are completing our first year of existence. This has indeed been possible with His blessings – after all it was His idea to get this venture started. With His blessings, several people have stepped up and contributed articles. My sincere thanks go out to all our contributors, readers and supporters. I would also like to commend the hard work put in by our editors (Sri Anjan Dasgupta and Smt. Sroddha Patranabis) in making the venture a success.
Now the challenge for all of us is to spread the word and get a larger body of people to contribute articles in the years to come. Sri Sri Babathakur had asked us to create this media to bring out our spontaneous expression of thoughts. It is my opinion that the articles published so far have indeed planted the seed of spirituality and spiritual thought amongst the readers. The next step is for all our readers to reflect (mananam) on these thoughts and bring out their ideas and understandings in the form of articles. At the same time, we expect to continue to receive well researched and scholarly articles from authors like Mr. Subbu Venkatakrishnan.
On the occasion of Raspurnima, let me attempt to relate one aspect (“I” in “I”) of Sri Sri Babathakur’s seven point formula of “I” (“I” in “I”, “I” of ”I”, “I” from “I”,“I” for “I”, “I” by “I”,”I” with “I”, “I” to “I”, “I” on “I” and beyond and beyond) to the events of Raspurnima.
According to Sri Sri Babathakur, ‘Raas Leela means Divine Sport. It was enacted at Vrindavan on Raspurnima. It was a spiritual performance on the transcendental level, the plane of YogaMaya. Lord Krishna had expanded himself in many forms and stood besides each Gopi (milkmaid) placing His hands on the shoulders of the gopis on both sides of Him and then began dancing in their midst. Each gopi thought that Krishna was dancing with her alone'.
Now, let us look at one possible interpretation of ‘I in I’. Sri Sri Babathakur talks about the existence of two kinds of “I” – a temporary “I” (i.e. Kaccha “I”) and a permanent “I” (i.e. Pakka “I”). In my opinion, “I in I” refers to the I-Reality (the permanent “I”) that resides in each and every one of the individual “I” (temporary “I”) in the world. Each individual “I” mistakenly thinks that he or she has his/her own independent existence, just like each gopi thought Lord Krishna was dancing with her alone. But the reality is that we each owe our existence to that permanent “I-Reality” – in other words all our “individual I”s reside in that permanent “I”. Hence “I” in “I”.
Meanwhile, in other news:
- Saccidananda Society USA Chapter’s application for non-profit status is still pending a
decision with the Internal Revenue Service.
- Saraswati Puja will be celebrated in His presence on Jan 20, 2010 at the premises of
Saccidananda Society, Kolkata [Address A-190 Metropolitian Coop. Housing Society, Kolkata-700105. Ph: 011-91-33-2323-1406].
- The Saraswati Puja program will be held at Kala Kunj, Kolkata on Jan 23, 2010. As in other years, it is expected to feature an evening of melodious bhajans (revealed to Sri Sri Babathakur) and Sri Sri Babathakur’s speech on “I-Reality”.
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