Water drop on a lotus leaf

Subir Ghosh, one of our old Mahamandal brothers passed away recently. This is very sad news to everyone who knew him.  He was a good noble soul. From his early childhood he came into contact of Kharagpur Vivekananda Yuva Mahamandal. Every year he secured the first position in `Swadeshmantra` recitation competition. His skill in drawing and paintings were also remarkable. He decorated many issues of Unmochan – the hand written magazine of the unit beautifully. He was a good and sincere student also. Subir came into Mahamandal as a member of Vivek Bahini. At that time he was a student of primary section. Later, he secured many leadership qualities. His love and respect for Swami Vivekananda and his Message was genuine. At present, Subir was working in Calcutta. He was a youngman of only 40+.

Another ex-member of Vivek Bahini, Prithwish Kundu, passed away recently in a road accident. Prithwish was also a very good boy. Still we can remember his sweet behaviour.

Sincerely we pray to God for the peace of their eternal souls.

It is said that our life is like a drop of water on a lotus leaf. In this uncertain world one thing is certain, that is Death.

This photo was taken in 1979 at BNR football ground, Kharagpur during the birthday celebration of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. From right to left: Amar Goswami, Pradip Chattopadhyay (Babulal), Subir Ghosh, Susen Chakraborty, Soumen Sarkar and Animesh Sarkar.

Mrinmayi Devi Temple at Bishnupur

From the ancient period Bishnupur (District: Bankura, W.B. India) is famous for its Terracotta architectures and classical music (Bishnupur Gharana). Mrinmayi Devi Temple at Bishnupur is a famous temple and it is also an old temple. Bishnupur was the capital of Malla Kings for nearly 500 years. This temple was built by King Jagat Malla in 997 AD. In the temple premises, there is a beautiful image of Divine Mother, Devi Mrinmayi (Goddess Durga).

Sri Ramakrishna Dev visited this holy temple. Later he narrated his experience regarding his visit to the devotees at Dakshineswar. `` Once I went to Vishnupur. The raja of that place has several fine temples. In one of them there is an image of the Divine Mother, called Mrinmayi. There are several lakes near the temple, known as the Lalbandh, Krishnabandh, and so on. In the water of one of the lakes I could smell the ointments that women use for their hair. How do you explain that? I didn’t know at that time that the woman devotees offer ointments to the Goddess Mrinmayi while visiting her temple. Near the lake I went into Samadhi, though I had not yet seen the image in the temple. In that state I saw the divine form from the waist up, raising from the water.`` (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, I: 275)

Sri Ramakrishna Dev also told to Holy Mother Sarada Devi to visit this temple. Once Sri Ma Sarada Devi along with Durga Ma and others was going to Bishnupur railway station to take train towards Calcutta, a poor local Brahmin came and requested her to visit his house. Holy Mother visited his house and the temple of Devi Mrinmayi.

In another incident near Pokabandh at Bishnupur, one young man came to Holy Mother to take her holy feet dust as he was suffering from leucoderma. Sri Ma instructed him to go to the Devi Mrinmayi temple and take complete refuge to Mother Mrinmayi.

How to reach: Bishnupur is a sub-division of Bankura district. It is well connected by railways and roadways. The distance from Calcutta is 210 km by railways. Frequently passenger and express trains and buses are available from Calcutta / Kharagpur. The distance from Bishnupur to Joyrambati and Kamarpukur is 43 km and 46 km respectively by road.

Sweet Behavior

Sweet behavior is an art. In this world everybody wants sweet behavior from others. It is a matter of practice. It must be genuine not artificial. When we are going to make our life beautiful, gradually our behaviors are also sweet, cordial and genuine. Respect to others must be there. Each and every one of us there is divine potentiality and infinite energy. We have to look every man and woman in this respect. Anybody can make his/her life beautiful if he/she wishes. So, respect everyone and behave accordingly.

If our behavior is rude and rough, everyone who comes in contact with me will feel sad. Negative process will give negative result. After discharging negatively we can also feel guilty. Our public impression will be bad. People will try to avoid me.

On the other hand, if we behave positively, we will get positive result. It is said that courtesy cost nothing but wins much. We will also get the peace of mind.  People will remember me for my sweet behaviors. Our public impression will be also positive.

If we want respect from others, we have to respect others. If we want sweet behavior from others, we have to behave sweetly to others. It is a two way process.

Sweet behavior is highly essential in today’s world which is full of stress and strain. Moreover sweet behaviors can solve many critical solutions. To behave properly and sweetly, we have to make our character (which is a bundle of habits) beautiful by constant practices. When our life will be beautiful, our every thought, work and deed will be also beautiful. Automatically our own behavior to others will be sweet and cordial. If we want to behave sweetly without making our life beautiful, it will be artificial. When we genuinely want the welfare and prosperity of others from the core of our mind then only sweet behavior is possible.

In the beginning, speak less. Think twice before you speak. Try to use sweet words to your near and dears as far as possible. It will help you in your life making and character building process and at the same time people will get peace from your sweet words and cordial behavior. Only from this one quality of character, people will remember you throughout their life.

Behavior
Sweet Behavior	Rude & Rough Behavior
Positive Result	Negative Result
Long term Good Impression	Long term Bad Impression

Subho Nababarsha

(Happy Bengali New Year 1418)

Pray to God for His blessings

on this auspicious day

so that we can make our life beautiful

and

serve more to others

 by being a

good and honest citizen.

Resolution

It is said that you can not start your journey by two boats at the same time. If you really want to make your life beautiful, you have to leave negative thoughts, ideas and associations. Otherwise it is very difficult to re-shape your life. There are some conditions for making the life beautiful. You have to accept it.  There is a certain method of character building.  And for this, you have to practice it daily. It is not a project of certain duration, like a five year plan. Rather it is a life long process. Early risers will certainly get advantages. At first take a resolution that I will make my life beautiful, I will make my character perfect. Here `beautiful` means unveiling the beauty of character. Develop the inner human qualities and make your character perfect. So, resolution is important. That will guide your life. For this, mental concentration is highly essential. Because, without the help of your mind, you can not make your character beautiful. Our mind is restless and always roaming here and there like a maddened monkey. Swami Vivekananda compared the state of our mind with a maddened monkey - `` How hard it is to control the mind! Well has it been compared to the maddened monkey. There was a monkey, restless by his own nature, as all monkeys are. As if that were not enough some one made him drink freely of wine, so that he become still more restless. Then a scorpion stung him. When a man is stung by a scorpion, he jumps about for a whole day; so the poor monkey found his condition worse then ever. To complete his misery a demon entered into him. What language can describe the uncontrollable restlessness of that monkey? The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature; then it become drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance. How hard to control such a mind! (CW, 1:174)

Why our mind is restless?

ü      incessantly active by its own nature

ü      wine of desire

ü      sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others

ü      demon of pride

There are two sides of our mind. One is good mind, which will help me to attain my aim. The other is bad mind, which is constantly giving me negative signals. Now the question is: who will win? Whom you support. If you support bad mind, certainly you will get the negative advantages. You can not make your life beautiful with negative thoughts and ideas. In this level, a firm resolution is necessary. If you support (follow) good mind and act accordingly, your every thought and work will be good and meaningful. Supporting of good mind is essential in this journey.

How to control our mind? It is a very tough work but not impossible. By the practice and detachment (abhyasa and bairagya) we can control our mind.

Swami Vivekananda gave us some basic ideas regarding this.

``Before we can control the mind we must study it.

We have to seize this unstable mind and drag it from its wanderings and fix it on one idea. Over and over again this must be done. By power of will we must get hold of the mind and make it stop and reflect upon the glory of God.

The easiest way to get hold of the mind is to sit quiet and let it drift where it will for a while. Hold fast to the idea, ``I am the witness watching my mind drifting. The mind is not I``. Then see it think as if it were a thing entirely apart from yourself. Identify yourself with God, never with matter or with the mind.

Picture the mind as a calm lake stretched before you and the thoughts that come and go as bubbles rising and breaking on its surface. Make no effort to control the thoughts, but watch them and follow them in imagination as they float away. This will gradually lessen the circles. For the mind ranges over the wide circles of thought and those circles widen out into ever-increasing circles, as in a pond when we throw a stone into it. We want to reverse the process and starting with a huge circle make it narrower until at last we can fix the mind on one point and make it stay there. Hold to the idea, ``I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act``, and each day the identification of yourself with thought and feeling will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

When this is done, the mind is your servant to control as you will. `` (CW, 8:47-48)

Record your experiences

Generally we write our own diary regarding our daily life. Sometimes we maintain an appointment diary for some pre-scheduled appointments or work. But never have we written down our experiences in the diary. We are growing older day by day. In the journey of this life we are gathering different types of experiences, sometimes they are sweet sometimes they are bitter. We learn, we gain from every experience. If we write down our experiences in an old diary or Notebook in the following format, it will helpful for us in the near or distant future and especially it will more helpful for our coming generations. Just imagine, your children or grand children are reading your experiences after 50 years from now and they will learn a lot from this diary. They will gather the knowledge to tackle a similar problem which you are facing today. Please remember: Experiences are our teachers.

Specimen Format

My Experience (No. ---)

1	Date & Time
2	Season
3	Location
4	Brief incident
5	Detail incident
6	Conclusion
7	Experience gathered
8	Strategy applied to tackle the problem (if any)
9	Suggestions for future generations (and also for yourself)
10	Signature & Date

How to manage your work?

The work load is increasing day by day. There are different types of work. Our official work, our duties towards our family, some social services -How to manage? We are leaving our bed in the morning with a heavy work load in our mind. There is no end of work. Just I finish one work, another is alarming. Sometimes we are restless, feeling irritated. The burning question is, how to manage our work?

As I said earlier, an appointment diary will help you in this matter. If you are not maintaining an appointment diary, please purchase one from your local book store. It costs just Rs 30-40 only. Record all your work-to-do in that diary (date wise). Record the `Holiday List` of your organization (in which you are working) in that diary. Then only you can make a previous plan. Let us take an example. Suppose you have to pay Rs 500 as Insurance premium for your two wheelers on 20 September, 2011. Now March is going on. Just open the page of 20 Sept and record this work on that day. This is not enough. Open the page of 13 Sept (7 days before) and record that `the renewal date for Insurance premium is on 20 Sept.` It will alert you well in advance. Now, in this seven days you can contact your agent; give him the related papers and the fees. You will get the renewed copy in time. This is just an example. But if you follow this routine, your journey will be smooth. You can use your cell phone also for previous planning. If you record the holiday list, you can make a plan well in advance for your outdoor work. You can make a plan for a short weekend tour also if Monday is a holiday in any month.

There are different types of work we have to do in a day or in a week. Make a priority list and follow the list. If possible, decentralize your family workload among the family members. It is not possible for you to do all types of work as a head of the family. Allow your children to do some work. Give them freedom and guide them. They will also help you to share your load.  Encourage them. Gradually they will learn from the experiences.

Regarding official work, you can reduce the workload by your sincerity and punctuality. Do your allotted work as fast as possible. Every work must be neat and clean. Come your office in exact time and leave your office in schedule time. This is the first condition to reduce the workload. Always cultivate positive attitude in your mind. If you are not able to love your work then how can you expect that you will finish your daily work? Motivate yourself. Learn from everyone. Give proper respect to each and every employee in your office. Help your colleague, when necessary. Please remember your sincerity and punctuality will inspire others, especially your juniors in the office.

Start your daily life as early as possible. If you leave your bed just 30 minutes before, you will get extra15 hours in a month! Active period in our human life is only 20-30 years. So, don’t waste your time. Alertness is necessary.

Don’t waste your time. Always use your 24 hours in a meaningful way. Make proper use your wrist watch. Make a weekly plan on Sunday for the coming week. Try to follow the plan in 7 days. If you divide your time among different types of work, certainly you will do a lot of work in 24 hours. But planning is necessary and the most important thing is to follow that plan. This is a tough work. Come and accept it.