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Wednesday,
March 6, 2002,
Chandigarh, India  
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CM on probation Right political gesture Of Saudi peace plan |
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Police apathy & religious bigotry
The mystery remains
How AVI directors escaped with crores
‘Abrupt halting of heart drugs dangerous’
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CM on probation With the increasing assertiveness of over-ambitious legislators, ministry-making is not an easy job in Punjab even in normal times. It became all the more ticklish exercise this time for the Congress which has wrested power from the SAD-BJP alliance after five years amidst high expectations. Though major groups have been accommodated in the ministry, serious gaps from the angle of its representative character and the functioning skill remain. The 19-member two-tier Council of Ministers looks lopsided and not so cohesive, especially in critical areas of financial management and industrial growth. There are wheels within wheels and no one can be sure which wheel is running at whose behest and for what purpose. It will probably take a couple of months before a viable team emerges. Perhaps, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has not got the persons he wished to include in the ministry. But, then, he has to be realistic. He is expected to take everybody along to achieve the larger objective of faster growth and usher in a corruption-free regime he has promised to the people. It will be a folly on the Chief Minister's part to think that he can improve things by large-scale postings and transfers. The administration and the police setup have to be toned up substantially—both functionally and attitudewise. So far one does not get the impression that the recent changes have been undertaken with a view to giving the state a clean administration. Some of the persons entrusted with the sensitive posting-transfer task may have a lot to explain. In any case, no government can establish its credibility by its transfer and posting exercise. The Chief Minister needs to remember that a perception of honesty creates a general feeling of fairness in the system. This, in turn, generates a high degree of legitimacy for the government, thereby increasing its effectiveness. Capt Amarinder Singh has a long way to go. His real task begins now. He may have his problems—functional or otherwise. But as long as he is serious and sincere in his efforts and does not allow himself to be outmanoeuvred by manipulators and operators, he will get public support. He ought to remember that his party won the assembly election on a negative vote. So, he will have to work hard to give a new direction to the administration with the support from his ministerial colleagues. The people want "good" governance. And good governance requires a "good" government which is both capable and willing to chalk out the direction of growth on all fronts and is, at the same time, able to translate its policies and programmes into action through a productive and accountable system. Much will depend on how cohesive, transparent and purposeful is the working of ministers and key administrative functionaries. Capt Amarinder Singh is on probation. He will be watched closely for his performance as well as non-performance. As it is, there are no short-cuts to success. |
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Right political gesture The Haryana Assembly made the right political gesture on the opening day of the Budget session by placing on record its deep sense of anguish over the incidents of communal violence in Gujarat. The political compulsion for making the gesture is not difficult to understand. Haryana has a large Muslim population. And there was an attempt to cause trouble in a small pocket by a group of social malcontent. Yes, the main mosque in Kaithal was damaged by miscreants, who attacked certain other places of worship as a reaction to the rail coach carnage at Godhra, Gujarat. However, the prompt damage control measures taken by the district administration helped in bringing out the human face of the residents of this township. Funds are being raised by concerned citizens for repairing the places of worship damaged by the unscrupulous elements. That is as it should be. Besides, the Meos of Haryana are different from mainstream Muslims because they still follow most of the Hindu social customs of their forefathers. The Haryana Assembly resolution is important for another reason. Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala heads a coalition government comprising the Indian National Lok Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The fact that the BJP associated itself with the resolution that condemned the communal flare-up in Gujarat is significant. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who heads a BJP government, will not be amused by the flak his indifference to containing the communal mayhem has drawn from his own party men in Haryana. Apart from the resolution condemning the Gujarat killings, the day's proceedings included the routine of the Governor's address on the opening day of the session. The address predictably harped on the Supreme Court judgement on the completion of the controversial SYL canal by Punjab and Haryana. The rhetoric too was appropriate considering that Governor Babu Parmanand was addressing the Haryana Assembly. There was expected table-thumping when he said that the Supreme Court judgement brought a "message of happiness for the farmers of Haryana". Did it? Remember, Punjab has filed a review petition and until that is decided Haryana may be jumping the gun by spending huge sums of money on reconstructing the part of the SYL that falls in its territory. According to rough estimates, Haryana would have to spend about Rs 12 crore on repairs alone. And what is the point in completing work on a project that can never become operational without Punjab agreeing to complete its part of the canal? The deadline set by the apex court does not necessarily mean that Punjab's response should be as positive as that of Haryana. Neither Punjab nor Haryana can afford to ignore the political compulsions that dictate their respective positions on the future of the SYL canal. And neither party should be expected to commit political suicide in the larger interest of the people of the region. Without the Centre agreeing to take the rap by working out as fair a solution as is possible the construction of the SYL may continue to remain a bone of contention between Haryana and Punjab, the apex court's directive notwithstanding. |
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Of Saudi peace plan Amidst killings and counter-killings involving Israelis and Palestinians a fresh initiative for peace has been made in West Asia. It has the stamp of the most influential Arab country, Saudi Arabia, earning instant support from the USA and the European Union. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon too have expressed considerable interest in the effort. But what exactly is this plan, a brainchild of Crown Prince Abdullah? In a nutshell, the Saudi formula offers Israel Arab recognition and normal economic, political and cultural relations with all its West Asian neighbours in exchange for vacating the areas it occupied in the 1967 war. This means complete Israeli withdrawal from West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. It is not clear whether the Israeli pullout will include the return of the Golan Heights to Syria, but logic says this should also be part of the proposed plan. The most
significant aspect of the peace initiative is the desire of Saudi Arabia to play an active role in ending the Palestinian uprising (continuing since September, 2000) against the Israelis, including jehadi violence, and target killings by Tel Aviv using its military might. The kingdom is the richest country in the region, enjoying the maximum clout in Washington even today despite the fact that most of the terrorists involved in the September 11 strike at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon complex were Saudi nationals. Many West Asia watchers believe that this is the reason why the Saudis have decided to set afloat their own formula. In the past they had been mostly passive players excepting the period when King Faisal was at the helm of affairs. There are reports that Saudi nationals are greatly worked up at what is happening in the Palestinian Authority area. Thus Jeddah considers it essential to use its influence in western and Arab capitals to eliminate the factor which brought it international embarrassment. The initial reaction from the Arabs is, however, not encouraging. Their inflated ego is coming in the way. Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has outrightly rejected the peace initiative, saying that he had a better formula but it did not find enough support. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa too has views similar to those of the Libyan leader. Mr Moussa has even threatened to resign from the Arab body, scheduled to hold its crucial meeting on March 27-28, if his reservations were ignored. Syria and Lebanon too have their misgivings. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is insisting on the implementation of the 1991 Madrid land-for-peace proposal or on the UN resolutions which alone, he feels, can lead to "comprehensive peace". Syria has a point, though it is not justified in rejecting the latest move. The Saudi plan is silent about the fate of the Palestinian refugees, who want a right to return to the land of their forefathers. It was the issue related to these refugees and the question of allowing the Palestinians to have East Jerusalem as the capital of their homeland that rocked the 1993 Oslo peace process. Yet the Saudi move should be given support by one and all, including the Israelis and the Palestinians who seem to be tired of killing each other. Let everybody talk peace. Any problem can be sorted out once people begin to hold discussions with an open mind. |
Police apathy & religious bigotry The extensive violence in Gujarat following the train tragedy in Godhra calls for deep reflection on the part of those who are trying to shape the destiny of this country. Capturing power by false slogans and dangerous propaganda will only result in more and more violence, including arson and murder. The nation as a whole will suffer, with its very future becoming a big question mark. Pakistan is a standing example of this nemesis. Violence was encouraged and promoted in Kashmir and elsewhere in India by those who were in power in Pakistan from 1989 onwards and this has now yielded the poison fruit which General Musharraf is unable to squash. The numerous active and sleeper modules promoted and planted by the ISI of Pakistan throughout India have been there for many years. Whether an ISI functionary and a fundamentalist owing allegiance to the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami was responsible for mobilising the Godhra crowd and attacking the hapless karsevaks returning from Ayodhya is not clear yet. However, the fact that a big mob was waiting with petrol and weapons to burn and kill the karsevaks indicated pre-planning and preparations. This gruesome act has to be condemned without reservation. It is unfortunate that the communal peace between Hindus and Muslims should have been so seriously damaged after many years. The revenge killings in big and small towns in Gujarat and a few other places elsewhere in the country are bound to leave a bitter legacy. The police apathy, and to some extent connivance, motivated by religious bigotry is a tragic development during the past two or three decades. The BBC showed on February 28 morning itself the looting of shops and gangs marching with swords in hands while the police stood at street corners merely watching. The PAC of Uttar Pradesh was known for this dangerous malaise, but what was seen in Gujarat has left a sense of dejection in those who value standards of public administration and justice. On top of all this came equivocal and almost partisan utterances of Chief Minister Narendra Modi who seemed unable to forget his past as an RSS pracharak. When the law and order situation had gone out of control and the local police was unable to handle the situation, the Army should have been requisitioned and deployed with instructions to shoot at sight at the rioters. Instead the Army was in a standby mode and later driven through the streets in trucks and not flag-marched in Ahmedabad. They were deployed on the streets only on March 2. While we talk about Pakistan’s perfidy and reaping what it sowed all these years, what is happening in our own country? The horrible events in Gujarat should trace its origin to the rath yatra undertaken by the then BJP President, Mr L.K. Advani, in 1990. Deposing before the Liberhan Commission on May 17, 2001, Mr Advani said that he was not ashamed of the Ram temple movement and the rath yatra as it was a movement of national glory. It may be recalled that Mr Advani announced on September 12, 1990, that the rath yatra, with him at its head, would traverse the entire North and pass through at least eight states. He commenced his yatra from Somnath on September 25, 1990, with considerable religious fervour. The route of the rath yatra turned out to be a bloody trail, with riots breaking out in several places in Gujarat, UP, Rajasthan and even Karnataka and nearly a thousand people died in the communal riots. In a signed editorial in the party’s organ, BJP Today, Mr Advani wrote in September 1997, that the Babri Masjid as an “ocular demonstration against the Hindus”. Citing Arnold Toynbee on the Babri Masjid, he said the intelligentsia was unanimous in describing the existence of Babri Masjid as an insult to the Hindus. The ocular provocation was no longer there and it was not a matter of regret. Had Toynbee been alive today, he too, like Naipaul and Nirad Chaudhary, would have justified the demolition of the structure, he wrote. The inexorable march of events led to the demolition of the structure on December 6, 1992. The aftermath resulted in large-scale riots throughout the country. The Bombay explosions and killings in March, 1993 were the organised response at the instance of Pakistan and its ISI. While the nation as a whole suffered, the BJP’s political prospects soared. After the BJP came to power, it was the VHP and its storm troopers who were keeping the Ram temple movement alive. As long as it was not time-bound it suited the BJP quite well since the BJP leaders had convinced themselves that it was the rath yatra and the Ram temple movement which gave the party the crucial last leap for capturing power in Delhi and several States in the North. It may be remembered that BJP President Jana Krishnamurthy asked the Sangh Parivar to work for the success of the party in the UP elections last month. This dual and equivocal approach on the part of the BJP is mainly responsible for the present situation. To give yet another example, when the VHP leaders entered the site of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya defying the ruling of the Supreme Court prohibiting the entry of anyone in the restricted area, there was an uproar. Commenting on the event, Home Minister Advani declared that while he did not approve of the VHP people entering the disputed site, he found no transgression of law by them. There was no explanation why then a case was subsequently registered against the VHP leaders and an Additional Director-General of Police deputed by the UP government to the site for enquiry. The time has come for the Sangh Parivar and the BJP leadership in power to seriously ponder over the course of events since 1990, the rhetoric which attended the Ram temple movement, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the extensive violence throughout the country in the aftermath and subsequent course of events. More than anything else, the Ram temple rhetoric should be toned down. An example of unwarranted eloquence on the temple issue was the statement attributed to Mr Advani at a Press conference at Bhopal on June 13, 1997. To quote the report in full, which appeared in The Economic Times dated June 14, 1997, “BJP President LK Advani today struck a hard line Hindutva stance by saying that Indian Muslims will have to make a choice between Lord Ram and Mughal emperor Babar. Mr Advani said that there would be no dilution in the party’s position on the issue. In a news release here he virtually held Muslims responsible for Partition and called upon the community to purge from their mindset every trace of the ideological, theological underpinnings of the two-nation theory.” Having nurtured and encouraged the Parivar on such heady talk, it is no wonder that the Sangh Parivar has become uncontrollable and unrestrainable. Hopefully, such a strident tone would be avoided in future. Prime Minister Vajpayee had declared that he was talking to some concerned people about an amicable settlement for the construction of Ram temple by March, 2002. However, he announced recently that he was unable to work out the arrangement and the VHP should wait for the court decision or a consensus among the parties concerned. This exercise could well have been avoided as it had only added to the expectations of the Sangh Parivar. In the aftermath of the Gujarat events, the BJP seems to be in a fix and unable to handle the parivar with strong measures. After the Prime Minister’s appeal to the VHP on February 28 its spokesman, Mr Onkar Bhave, audaciously accused Mr Vajpayee of “criminal negligence”. Another VHP spokesman, Mr Veereshwar Divedi, called the Central Government as the “Ravana Raj”. Such verbal excesses would not help in restoring normalcy and the Sangh Parivar should be sternly told to behave. The opinion abroad about the events in India in the past few weeks is depressing. An analyst wrote in The New York Times on February 25 that while General Musharraf strove towards a secular polity, the ruling politicians of India headed in the opposite direction. “Oddly, the illiberal tendencies a military dictator seeks to expel with popular support from Pakistan seem to be finding a hospitable home in democratic India.” This comment is even more appropriate in the light of the events in Gujarat and elsewhere since February 27. |
The mystery remains Jai Hanuman gian gun sagar, jai kapeesh.................. Time was running out. Another experiment of finding out radicals in a mixture of salts had been earlier carried out successfully, in the first part of the practicals. The second part of gravimetric estimation had, however, yet to be completed. I had with me now six recordings of the weight of the crucible-mixture-combine, each recorded on a precision weighing-machine, all differing from the another. Obviously, the readings were all wrong, or at best, one of them could be correct. The thought first occurred to me to take the average of the six readings, but no sooner did the idea sprout than it was discarded, for the errors of them all would then attach to the average, and the average would definitely be incorrect. Certainly, the time left did not allow further experimentation-heating and weighting et al. However, there was still the possibility that one of the six readings might be correct, after all. It is then that I thought of invoking the blessings of god Hanuman. Having recited the Hanuman Chalisa, I picked up one folded piece of paper out of six on which I had scribbled down the weights, one on each. I chose the weight thus picked up, used it for calculations, derived the result and handed over the papers to the examiner. Then followed the wait of two months. The results were announced. I got 28 out of 30 in the practicals. The gravimetric experiment had come out to be correct. By the grace of Hanuman or by pure chance? The mystery remains. |
How AVI directors escaped with crores Financial institutions are extremely liberal when it comes to sanctioning loans which run into crores. However, they are not only stingy but also extremely suspicious of loan-seekers when they approach them for petty amounts. To substantiate, take this case of AVI Packaging India Ltd., which was housed in SCO No. 493/494 in Sector 35-C, Chandigarh. The management of this company had applied for a loan of Rs 68.30 crore from the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) to set up plants in 1997. Within no time, all the formalities were completed and a loan of Rs 50 crore was sanctioned by the then General Manager, IFCI, Mr M.M. Sikka. Interestingly, the first instalment of Rs 12.50 crore was also released within 1997 itself. IFCI displayed incredible efficiency and released the second instalment of Rs 17.50 crore within five months. Under the rules of any financial institution, the second instalment is never released without physically verifying the optimum use of the first instalment. As per the agreement AVI Packaging India Ltd was supposed to put up the plant with the first instalment of Rs 12.50 crore. Despite the fact that not even a brick was laid, IFCI still went ahead in releasing the second instalment. Ironically, it was only after releasing the total loan of Rs 30 crore, the management of IFCI reportedly came to know that AVI had submitted forged documents and that the sanctioned amount was not used for the purpose it was sanctioned. The management of IFCI directed Mr Sikka to get a case registered against AVI Packaging India Ltd. The Chandigarh Police lodged the case under FIR No. 35 on February 19, 1999, under IPC Sections 420, 406, 467, 468, 471 and 120B against Avinash Arora, Rohit Kumar Arora, Inderpal and Rakesh Arora. While the anticipatory bail of the accused was dismissed by the district court in March 1999, Rakesh Arora was arrested in January, 2001. The accused moved anticipatory bail applications in the high court in March, 1999. The court in its order on July 8 asked the accused to deposit Rs 10 crore from their own sources and not from the “no lien account” of Canara Bank by August 31 and further directed they should not be arrested till that date. Thereupon, the accused filed a review petition against the July order of the court on which the court on September 9, 1999 rejected their bail application since the accused had not complied with the order to deposit money by the said date. The accused then went to the Supreme Court for bail on September 27. The court directed the high court to review its July 8 decision. The high court finally rejected the bail application on October 6, 2000. The police took non-bailable warrants against the accused on October 12, 1999. The accused, except Rakesh Arora who was arrested in January 2001, are still absconding and have been declared proclaimed offenders. In fact, the high court had also appointed a liquidator for the AVI Group of companies set up by the accused. “Meanwhile, during the course of investigation and questioning of accused, Rakesh Arora, the police was led to the vehicles owned by the accused. The vehicles verified from different registration offices included two Mercedes cars and a luxury bus all bearing Haryana state registration numbers. This also did not help find any clues to the whereabouts of the rest of the accused. The Chandigarh Police has already flashed wireless messages and circulated photographs of the accused across the country seeking any tip-off on them. A hue and cry notice has also been issued to all-India police stations”, revealed Mr B S Bassi, IG, Chandigarh Police. “Interestingly, while investigating the police collected some record from the Regional Passport Office, Chandigarh. On verification it was found that the documents submitted by the accused were “false”. The police also found an official letter from a Haryana IAS officer, Mr P C Jain, recommending the issuing of passports to the accused. However, investigations made it amply clear that Mr Jain was not aware of the fraud committed and had issued the letter in good faith”, said Mr HGS Dhaliwal, SP, Operations. The police, all these years, has been following the case with perseverance. It has not given up hope and is confident of a breakthrough. It has also dispatched investigating officers, SIs Prem Chand, Dewan Singh and Inspector Kultar Singh to places like Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi, Sonepat etc taking cues from the telephone calls made from the office and residence numbers of the accused. Meanwhile, IFCI, on its part, has held Mr M M Sikka responsible for not having followed the procedures, besides ignoring the physical verification of the utilisation of the first instalment of Rs 12.50 crore. Mr Sikka has since been dismissed from service. The Chandigarh Police formed a special team of senior officers in January, 2001, for further investigation into this fraud. This team took into its possession certain revealing documents from the IFCI Head Office in New Delhi and the Regional Office in Chandigarh, besides the banks concerned in Chandigarh and Panchkula. It also took in its possession the related record from the Registrar of Companies office in Jalandhar. This record had mentioned names of associates of Avinash Arora and the chartered accountants of the AVI group. The investigations revealed that all the names and addresses were fake and fabricated. However, the Chandigarh Police has not let the dust gather on their file. It approached “India’s Most Wanted” programme to highlight the case and the accused with their pictures. “Within one hour we received information from several viewers giving us details of the hideouts of directors of the AVI group of industries. Police parties were immediately rushed to the Sainik Farm located in South Delhi. In all probability the accused had also seen the programme, which enabled them to escape in a hurry. However, vehicles like BMW, Mercedes and Pajero were parked in front of their house, which was rented accommodation. We discovered that they were running some business from this location as 100 computers were installed there. Although they escaped, we got many clues from there”, revealed Mr HGS Dhaliwal. Meanwhile, the accused directors of the AVI group succeeded in obtaining yet another loan of Rs 10 crore from the LIC, Mumbai. The management of the IFCI has disclosed that a sum of Rs 14.50 crore has been recovered from the accused through various means. Meanwhile, the visiting police party led by SI Dewan Singh confirmed this. The special team has also procured all the records of income tax of the AVI group. The Chandigarh Police has also confirmed a couple of expensive cars with brand names like Opal Astra, Cielo purchased by
the AVI group. Accused Rakesh Arora was arrested on January 25, 2001. A car belonging to the AVI group was also recovered from his possession. The accused was in police custody for nearly a month and was eventually sent to judicial custody. The Sessions Court as well as the high court rejected his bail application. “The clues from the continued investigations have led the Chandigarh Police to Jaipur and Lucknow, where we discovered that the Aroras had opened huge SK Supermarts. The investigations also revealed that the Aroras were indulging in every law-breaking activity possible like not paying the rent for hired premises or using ‘kundi’ connections to avoid electricity bills etc. We now have extremely important information about them. Besides, we had in the very beginning alerted all international airports. Hence, the Aroras are bound to fall in our net”, said Mr Bassi. |
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‘Abrupt halting of heart drugs dangerous’ Hospitalised heart patients who abruptly stop taking cholesterol-lowering drugs suffer a rebound effect that makes them three times more likely to die or have a heart attack than those who stay on the medicine, researchers say. The German-led study found that patients hospitalised for acute chest pains lose the protective benefits of statin drugs in as little as 24 hours after stopping the medicine because their nitric oxide levels quickly fall to below-normal levels. “The message to physicians is: Don’t stop statins,” said lead author Christian W Hamm, Director of Cardiology at the Kerckhoff Heart Center in Bad Nauheim and Professor of Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Hamburg. “We tried to show that the withdrawal of statins in human results in a rebound phenomenon and has an adverse impact on patients with acute coronary syndromes.” The study, published in latest issue of the journal Circulation, looked only at heart patients who needed to be hospitalised. It did not look at what the implications are for healthy patients who stop taking their cholesterol-lowering medicine. Millions of Americans take statins every day. Statins are sold under such brand names as Lipitor, Zocor and Mevacor. Dr Sidney Smith, chief science officer for the American Heart Association, said no studies have shown whether the same danger would apply to otherwise healthy people who stop taking their statins. But he said patients should not stop without first consulting a doctor. In addition to lowering cholesterol, statins reduce artery inflammation, hinder the blood’s ability to clot, speed the growth of muscle cells in the arteries and increase the release of protective nitric oxide from the cells lining the inner walls of heart arteries.
AP Are kids who snore inattentive? New research suggests children who snore face nearly double the risk of being inattentive and hyperactive, providing fresh evidence of an intriguing link between sleep problems and attention deficit disorders. While the study doesn’t answer whether one condition causes the other, the researchers believe snoring and other sleep problems may be the culprit in some cases because children often express sleepiness by being inattentive and “hyper.” If it turns out to be true, this theory could help explain the paradox over why stimulants such as Ritalin can effectively treat children with conditions like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who already seem over-stimulated, said Dr Ronald Chervin, a University of Michigan neurologist and sleep researcher, and the study’s lead author.
AP Women sue firms for pill effects Around 100 British women who claim they were exposed to potentially lethal side-effects by using a “third generation contraceptive pill have launched legal action against three drug firms in London’s high court. “Several of them are the victims of disastrous injury which will incapacitate them throughout their lives,” Lord Brennan, representing the women, told the court on Tuesday. The litigation includes claims brought on behalf of a number of women who, according to lawyers, died after using the pills that were introduced in the 1980s.
AFP Ask kids about their father: Foster People who want to know the identity of the father of Jodie Foster’s two children will have to wait till they are grown up, the actress says. The 39-year-old star says she will explain to her children, Charles, three, and five-month-old Kit, the circumstances surrounding their conception, but that everybody else will have to wait a few more years. “I know what I’m going to say. But I’m not going to share it with America. So far they seem extremely content and well-adjusted. I have a big family and lots of male friends. I’m trying to do the best I can,” Foster said. “Someday, somebody can ask them directly about their lives, and they’ll have something to say. You’re welcome to call them up when they’re 18.”
DPA |
The function of the “good teacher”... is two-fold. He of course explains the scriptures, the spirit as well as the letter; but what is more important still, he teaches by his life — by his little daily acts, by his most casual words, sometimes even by his silence. Only to be near him, only to serve and obey him in humility and reverence, is to become quickened in spirit. — Swami Prabhavananda, Spiritual Heritage of India *** A perfect Master descends from the inner spiritual regions of ineffable bliss with the sole purpose of redeeming mankind.... Enlightenment is the sword with which he cuts at the root of all earthly attachment. — Isaac A. Ezekiel, Saint Paltu *** Even if you should be the worst among all sinners, You will cross, by the boat of wisdom alone, the sea of evil. As a blazing fire reduces the wood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all activities to ashes There is nothing on earth which possesses such power to cleanse as wisdom. The perfect yogi finds this knowledge in himself by himself in due time. — The Bhagavadgita, IV, 36-38 *** Jnana Yoga is communion with God by means of knowledge.... So long as God seems to be outside and far away, there is ignorance. But when God is realised within, there is true knowledge. Knowledge leads to unity; ignorance to diversity. — Saying of Sri Ramakrishna, 732, 737, 741 *** We call on Thee, Lord of hosts, the Sage of sages; The most reputed of all; The Supreme king of Spiritual knowledge Of Lord of Spiritual wisdom! Listen to us with Thy graces; And in the place of worship. — Rigveda, 2.23.1 |
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