The Indian Messenger Online

In the 19th century the influence of Western education and culture created awareness on a lot of people in India. Only for that reason the rational and national thinking, irrespective of religion, arose in their mind. Slowly both Indian and European educationists and social reformers understood that the education of the womenfolk was highly necessary for the social reforms of the country. Because women were living in the darkness of ignorance, naturally they took an active part for the upliftment Read More …

‘Rememberest thou not the words wherewith thy Ethics treat of the three dispositions which Heaven wills not …’ ‘Inferno’, Canto XI, The Divine Comedy Once upon a time, there was one Sivnath Sastri, a defense and shelter, a back-stage worker and a fore-frontier, a demon with the demure personality – a milestone, a symbol of homage and sacrifice, an idol of wisdom and confrontation, an ideological balance between teamwork and disharmony. In one word he was an icon of the Read More …

Most of our Readers are probably aware that Baboo Rammohun Roy has taken his passage to England, on board the Albion on Monday evening, Nov’15, 1830. The Baboo who is, in some degree, a reformer, may be considered as one of those remarkable men who attract attention in their day and generation by outstripping the prejudices and shackles of a peculiar position and taking nothing for granted, examine everything for themselves. With an intellect of no common order and capacity, Read More …

Tagore bridged both worlds. He would become a mystic who made no distinction between scientific  wonder and spiritual awe. Saints were like scientists who journeyed into the unknown and came back to report, through their mystical experiences that God is real. Referring to a mystical inner journey, he once silo “you cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water” or by measuring the waves in an ocean with a scientific instrument, he might have added, in Read More …

Life in the presence of God is, rich and gracious. In thought of God sorrow and sighing flee away. Those who love God find it their supreme joy continually to offer him delighted thanks-giving. When we erase the traditional picture of heaven our speaking, these truths are often left unsaid. Until we are ready with new ways of saying them the perennial truth of heaven is overlooked. We may say that heaven is a state of mind and satisfy the Read More …

Raja Rammohun Roy, known as the first modern man of India, was firmly convinced that despite the evils inherent in imperialism, the British rule in India was destined to play a historic role. He saw how the country had fallen apart and got divided into numerous kingdoms and principalities mutually antagonistic following the decline of the Mughal Empire that was supposed to have begun with the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. A central rule under a constitutional system of governance Read More …

Rabindranath Tagore has passed away. With him passes out an entire Age. It is even impossible to realise now the incalculable loss suffered by Bengal, by India,-may, by the entire world. For, it will be a century before a proper endeavour can be made towards an evaluation of the gigantic personality of Rabindranath Tagore. A descendent of Rammohun Roy and of the greatest prophets of Humanity from Buddha to Nanak and Chaitanya, from Homer and Valmiki to Hafiz, Chandidas, Shakespeare, Read More …

Rabindranath in one of his celebrated poems confidently asserted that he is a poet of this world and wherever there is a cry whether of sorrow or joy, that would find an instant response in his poems This assertion, of course, came much later in his life when he had virtually completed his mission of peace and understanding in all the continents he was able to go. It may be surmised that this was an appreciation of love and respect Read More …

Happiness is not a word the Buddha uses. He talks about Enlightenment, about Nirvana, about to see life as it is and learning to act accordingly. Suffering, he says, comes from things out of balance, out of focus in our lives. Happiness to the Buddha does not lie in the things, or power or money. It is not accumulates, it is shaped out of the clay of the self. To eliminate suffering, he says, we must eliminate, control and master Read More …

On this special day let us remember those great men who had a direct impact on the spread of Brahmoism in the Bhowanipur area. In the month of June, 1852, a number of influential men assembled at the house of the late Sambhunath Pandit and established an Association under the name of Jnan Prakasika Sabha, or “Truth Revealing Society”, whose object it was to promote the spiritual enlightenment of its members. Sambhunath Pandit himself became its President. Babu Annadaprasad Banerji, Read More …