Editorial Message, 28th May 2007 by Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan, Hon. Director, IISH

A280507:Let us convert the negatives into positives India is a nation which faced many negatives. Perhaps this is the only nation which faced many negatives total of which will be more than the negatives faced by all other people in the world. Here, we faced mainly from outside and exclusively because of the greatness of our approach, vision, outlook and heritage values, which others particularly the people of Semitic religion and also the politicians could not tolerate. Surprisingly our culture, heritage and values could withstand all these negatives and torture.

Now let us take another picture from our heritage on how we handled the negatives. Our great literature give examples. Have you ever thought how Ramayana became such a voluminous epic, containing more than 24000 verses ? Have you thought why the Mahabharata became the greatest and most voluminous book in the world having more than 1,25,000 verses in it. How the Mahabhagavatha was created ? You know Ramayana was literally created by Manthara, the negative character in the epic. She advised Kaikeyee to instruct Emperor Dasaratha , to send Sri. Rama to the Vanavaasa. Suppose she would not have advised so, what would have happened ? Answer is simple. Rama would have become the Yuvaraja in the next day and after few years automatically, he would have become the King of Kosala and would have coronated in Ayodhya, the capital of Kosala. After one year, all the people would have celebrated , the first anniversary of Rama’s coronation, after five years the fifth anniversary of Rama’s ministry. (Luckily there was not election during then) . So on the tenth year, the silver jubilee, the golden jubilee celebration etc., of the coronation would have taken place as usual. When Rama becomes old naturally at the age of 90 or so he, just like anyone else would have ‘disappeared from the earth’ for even. How much pages woul have been there in the epic Ramayana. At the maximum 25 pages.! Search the answer for the question, Who created the circumstances for writing the Ramayana ? None other than Manthara who is a negative player ! Is it not true that Sakuni created the similar circumstances Mahabharatha ? If Sakuni would not have played the dice with all his crookedness , are you not sure than Dharma putra would have won the play! If that happened will there be any compulsion for the pandavas to go the forest? If Dharma putra would have won the game naturally he would have become the king and celebration of first, fifth, tenth anniversary, silver jubilee and golden jubilee finally all the Pandavas would have gone to heaven one after the other. It did not happen.
Yet another incident in our history. You know the great king Pareekshit ruled Hastinapura. He knows every bit of dharma saastra. Unfortunately due to some aberration he put the dead snake on the neck of Maharshi Sameeka when the latter did not answer for the King’s request for some water. This terrible negative of putting a dead snake on the neck of a Maharshi who was doing the thapas annoyed the Maharshi’s son, Gavijaatha, and he cursed the king. “ within seven days you the king will die by the snake bite! “ This curse made the King Pareekshit to spend rest of the seven days most fruitfully which resulted in the creation of Mahabhagavatha.

Remember now, Sri Rama, Dasaratha, Lakshamana, Bharatha, Dhrutharasthra, Gandhari, Kunthi, Arjuna, Pareekshit, Sreesuka, Sameeka…..none of them are living. But the Epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha are still with us. We created the positive from the negatives.
We all know the English education system destroyed many of our cultural values and dharma. I would like to tell you now. Do not go on crying about it. Let us convert this negative into positive. As Swami Vivekananda could deliver his great lecture series in Chicago because of his fluency in English, Aravinda Maharshi could write Savitri, due to English fluency. Rabindra nath Tagore’s writing when got translated into English , he got the Nobel Prize. Dr. Raman could get the Nobel Price because he could present his findings in English. Swamy Chinmayananda, Maharshi Mahesh Yogi, Swami Sivananda and many hundreds could deliver our cultural message to millions of the people world over because we could get the influence of English directly. Convert the negative into positive. Milions of Indian heritage books are getting translated into English so they are all subjected into research now a days. Many are applying the valuable message from our heritage because they are all available in English which are translated by Indians in the true spirit of the message, which is need of the day . Not word by word translation. This we Indians could do exclusively because of the knowledge of English which has almost become the universal language. Even we Indians have to use English for communicating with Indians of other states.

I mentioned the above lines to bring to your notice other messages also. Let the Govt of India and various State Governments do negative towards Hindus. Take this opportunity wake Hindus up and fight the negative. No dharma should sleep, people will wake up if and only if negatives are thrusted upon them. Change the negatives into positives. Use all the negatives created by the Christians, Muslims, the politicians and so on , to bring the Hindus together. Let us fight the negatives and convert them into positives. We should not get satisfied by merely by removing them. Each negative created is an opportunity for us. Each positive is a step for marching forward.

Do not weep, Do not cry, Do not boil your blood, Do not get out of control mentally or physically. Our nation is the nation of great heroes. Only one country which could take the sword for fighting with the foreigners for more than a millennia and also which could use the sahana sakti or the spiritual force for defeating the foreigners and the British !

Dr. N. Gopalakrishnan