Gau Gram Yatra

An unprecedented journey, marathon of marathons.

Salient features ....


# A grand journey (yatra) has begun from Kurukshetra (Haryana) on Vijayadashami Day (September 28, 2009) and will conclude in Nagpur on Makar Sankranti Day in 2010, covering a distance of 20,000 km in 108 days and there will be over 400 prominent events at different places during the Yatra. 


# Some smaller journeys will also be conducted in villages, which will join the bigger ones to be conducted at taluka, district and state levels. There will be about 15,000 such smaller journeys and they will cover a distance of about 10 Lakh Kms.

# Over 21 crore people of the country are expected to give their assent over the memorandum, which will be presented to the President of India Smt. Pratibha Patil demanding the total ban on cow slaughter, status of national animal to the cow and implementation of the existing laws against cow slaughter. According to an estimate, more than 50 crore people will resolve to protect the rural culture, villages and the cow through the Yatra.

For journey schedule, refer http://eng.gougram.org/

BEST part is that it would by and large remain a-political .... no politicians involved,which is quite a welcome step. Cultural movement have to be taken up by people (the masses) and not by politicians. The way democracy runs today, politicians can't claim that they represent the masses. So, they can't (and shouldn't) stand for cultural issues that directly touches the heart and soul of people of India. Past experience says (and I believe) that they have messed up cultural issues (and people's sentiments) and have hurt the movement rather than helping it. Ram Janmabhumi movement a befitting case.

So, IF the journey succeeds in attaining its objective even if partially (considering that we have a so-called "secular" Govt. and President appointed by them), by then we would witness a new way of governance. And alternatively, IF the journey couldn't get any of the demands, even then the message would have reached the masses and they would become more aware towards the significance and importance of Gau-Mata. In either cases, the organizers (sants and gurus) should feel happy, a state (ananda) in which they already are always [like a Karma Yogi who is unaffected by the outcome, Gita lessons are working, at the least in my mail postings .... :)]

So, spread the news ... Mark your calendar .... yatra comes to Hyderabad on 15th November (Sunday).

Lastly, in the words of Sri Aurobindo "The Sanatan Dharma, that is nationalism. This is the message that I have to speak to you." And, we can add now that ... Gau-Mata is Sanatan Dharma.

Sri Aurobindo - Gita, Vasudev, Sanatan Dharma and India

100 years back, on 30th May 1909, a man delivered his last political speech before retiring from active political life and moving to Puduchery for his spiritual pursuits. He was Sri Aurobindo.

http://www.searchforlight.org/Anubhuti/Anubhuti%20Vol%202/UttarpadaSpeech.htm

You'll enjoy the speech if you read through full text but for those with time constraints ... :), highlights are given below

* How he saw Vasudev (Shri Krishna) everywhere in Jail, his conversations with God (Vasudev) and also how Vasudev helped him.

I looked the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade.

* Bhagavad Gita and Sanatan Dharma.

Then He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhana of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negligently. I realised what the Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatan Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatan Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived.

Above description is what Gita explains as 'Karma-Yoga'.

* India's rise, nationalism and Sanatan Dharma

She (India) does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great.......When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall be great........I spoke once before with this force in me and I said then that this movement is not a political movement and that nationalism is not politics but a religion, a creed, a faith. I say it again today, but I put it in another way. I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatan Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatan Dharma it would perish.

Ideal of Hindu attacked ...

The ideal of a Hindu is to respect diverse views (who doesn't necessarily belive in our philosophies) and protect people beyond our political boundaries who are being inflicted with injustices.

And FYI, it is not just an ideal in theory which we find suitable for preaching !

Our ancestors have showcased the world by practicing it in their life. They welcomed the Jews and Parsis, who were being ethnically persecuted by the Christians and Muslims. 

“The Indian Jewish identity is the only one that hasn’t been created by persecution,” he (Robin David, an Jew) said. “We’ve never felt scared. This is the first time we’ve been made to feel like Jews.” -- an Article by Naresh Fernandes is the editor of Time Out Mumbai

But ... do we have the capacity and will to carry forward the legacy of our ancestors, our Hindu ideal ? NOT at all ! 

According to another article, The future of terrorism,

India should worry. Terror attacks of such complexity are most easily detected and disrupted by a developed country which has deep pockets and efficient systems. A country like India, with a foothold in three centuries, provides both porous lines of defence and excellent, globally important targets.

Gohan Gunaratne, author of Inside Al Qaeda, points out that "the world's top four countries that suffer from terrorism are Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and India." Take out the failed and rogue states and only India is left. Or, to put it another way, you won't find a Chabat Lubavitch guesthouse (Nariman House) in the other three.