From:
"Narahari
Mehata"
<nmehata1@...>
To: ananda-marga-discourses-1@yogasamsthanam.net
Subject: How One Discourse Became Many In Latest English Edition
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 12:39:46 +0000
To: ananda-marga-discourses-1@yogasamsthanam.net
Subject: How One Discourse Became Many In Latest English Edition
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 12:39:46 +0000
Bábá
How One
Discourse Became Many In Latest English Edition
Namaskára Respected Márgii Brothers and Sisters,
Note:
This posting is written regarding the work of Kolkata Group, as they
are the only group publishing Bábá's books. Other groups are
merely reprinting what Kolkata Group publishes.
Discourse
Divided in Thirds, Second Two Parts Removed, Last Part Published as
Separate Discourse
Missing
Sections Replaced with Part of Another Discourse
I
write you regarding a very serious matter of scriptural distortion
which has been discovered. Kolkata Publications has separated one
discourse into three parts: They published the first and third of
these in separate places as different discourses, and left the middle
part completely unpublished. In place of the discourse's missing
second and third parts, the last part from yet another discourse was
pasted by Kolkata Publications to “complete” the first discourse.
This twisting of discourses continues even in the latest edition
(English), because Kolkata Publications simply translated from the
previous edition (Bengali), rather than use the sound recording as
the source.
It
happened like this: Suppose there are two discourses, Discourse A and
Discourse B, each given on different days by Bábá. Kolkata
Publications divided Discourse A into three parts A1, A2, and A3.
Part A1 was kept as part of Discourse A. Part A2 was removed and
never printed anywhere. Part A3 was removed and printed separately
as though its own discourse. A second discourse, Discourse B was also
divided into two parts B1 and B2. Kolkata Publications took Discourse
B's second part B2, and glued it to the end of Discourse A’s A1
part. Having thus glued A1 and B2 together, A1 + B2 were made into
and published as one discourse.
Here
is a map giving the essential structure of what Kolkata Publications
did with Discourses A and B, each given by Bábá as separate
discourses on different days:
Discourse
A
Part
A1 = Printed under the name of Discourse A
Part
A2 = Never Printed Anywhere
Part
A3 = Removed and Printed as its Own Discourse under a Separate Name.
Discourse
B
Part
B1 = Printed under the name of Discourse B
Part
B2 = Printed under the name of Discourse B; also translated
differently (fuller translation) a second time, glued to the end of
A1 and Printed under the name of Discourse A
Following
is the detail of what occurred, including the names of the discourses
involved.
Distortion
Occurred in Discourse:
“Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything”
The
distortion occurred in the discourse “Parama Puruśa Knows
Everything.” This discourse was published in Ánanda Vacanámrtam
Part 9 in 2007, as part of a much celebrated project taken on by a
special New York Sector team in the Kolkata Publishing Department;
Kirit ji was a member of this New York Sector team. The discourse was
given by Bábá in Patna in 1979 in Hindi, and published in English
in 2007. Today I write specifically regarding the English version,
although all three language versions are involved in this serious
matter of distortion.
Detail of
How Discourse was Mangled
So
the material published as a single English discourse named “Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything”, actually is taken from and belongs to
two different discourses. The printed discourse contains two discrete
sections which are not demarcated at all in the publication: the
first section is actually from “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything”
given on 7 April 1979; the second section is taken from “Parama
Puruśa Is Everywhere” given on 5 April 1979.
To
make matters more complicated, the discourse “Parama Puruśa Knows
Everything”, this discourse's real second section, which is missing
from that discourse, has never been published. And this very
discourse's third section, also missing from the discourse, has been
published separately instead as yet another discourse: “Parama
Puruśa – the Source of All Momentum”—and labelled as having
been given on 1 April 1979. But in reality no such discourse was
given on that date. That entire “discourse” is just the third
part of the discourse “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything” given on
7 April 1979.
In
sum two actual discourses, each given on different days by Bábá,
are involved here: Discourse A and Discourse B. Kolkata Publications
divided Discourse A into three parts A1, A2, and A3. A2 was removed
and never printed. A3 was printed separately as though its own
discourse with a separate name. A second actual discourse, Discourse
B was divided into two parts B1 and B2. Kolkata Publications glued
Discourse A's A1 part together with Discourse B's B2 part; thus A1 +
B2 were made into and published as one discourse.
Why
the Distortion Occurred
As
you can see, by cutting discourses into sections and mixing them with
other discourses, the Kolkata group created an amalgamation of
discourses. It has taken quite a bit of research to untwist the
complex history of how they mixed up the discourses. Now however the
matter has become very clear and is being presented before you. In
this posting the English 2007 publication is under consideration; in
a future posting the history of the previous language editions will
also be discussed and it will be seen just how the distortion
developed into how it is today.
The
source of the 2007 English Edition's problem is that the special
Kolkata team did not use the original sound file. If they had done
so, they would have immediately realized the problem. Years ago the
initial publications were produced in Bengali and Hindi; years later
when in 2007 the English was for the first time getting translated
and published then it was highly needed to work from the original
sound track. Indeed, it would have been the only dependable way, the
responsible way to proceed. But instead, translation was done from a
previous edition in a different language. Using this as the original
source for translating was asking for trouble—and that is what they
got.
Effect of
Serious Distortion on Ánanda Márga Scripture
Mixing
sections from different discourses and combining them into one is a
very serious sort of distortion. When Bábá speaks a sentence,
that sentence occurs in the setting of a paragraph. And that
paragraph in turn occurs in the setting of an overall discourse
having a particular subject. The individual sentence Bábá speaks
must be understood in light of the paragraph, the discourse, and the
overall subject with which He is dealing. Taking a sentence or group
of sentences out of their intended context and placing them in a
different context may lead to wrong understanding of Bábá's
intended message. Depending on the context, it can lead to definite
and egregious misunderstanding. Mixing up the paragraphs Bábá
spoke into different discourses is a major step toward chaos in the
scripture. The end result is “kichuri” or hodge-podge of
passages, with no one knowing what passage really belongs where. This
is one of the main reasons for the degeneration of a great teacher's
teachings. Just see what happened with Lord Shiva and Lord Krśńa:
the integrity of their teachings could not be maintained. The
teachings fell into the hands of priest classes who distorted and
changed them to meet their own selfish needs. Ultimately it led in
both cases to the degradation of the teachings of dharma into
commonplace religion replete with dogma. We must not allow this to
occur with the teachings of Lord Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrtiji.
2007
English Version Presented with Distortion Highlighted
Below
is the English language version of the discourse printed under the
name “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything.” The phrase “under the
name” is used because as shown below, the discourse is a concocted
melange. The second and third parts of the discourse “Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything” are missing; and material from another
discourse has been put there in place of the missing parts.
Each of
Four Sections Color-Coded
According
to Type of Distortion
Here
below you will find four color-coded parts “A1”, “B2”, “A2”,
and “A3”. The first part, Part “A1”, belongs to the actual
discourse in which it is has been placed: “Parama Puruśa Knows
Everything.” The second part, Part “B2”, is the second part of
a different discourse altogether, “Parama Puruśa Is Everywhere
”—but has been wrongly printed here glued to the end of Part
“A1”. The third part, Part “A2”, should be the second part of
Discourse A i.e. “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything”—but has
never been printed anywhere. The fourth part, Part “A3”, should
be the third part of this discourse “Parama Puruśa Knows
Everything”—but has been instead wrongly printed separately as a
totally different discourse and given the name “Parama Puruśa –
the Source of All Momentum”. There is no such discourse given on
that day by Bábá; Part “A3” should have been published
following Part “A1” and “A2”, as one single discourse.
So
below you will find all four sections “A1”, “B2”, “A2”,
and “A3” one after another: the first belongs rightly in this
discourse; the second belongs to a different discourse but has been
wrongly placed here by the Kolkata Publishers; the third belongs here
but was never printed here or anywhere; and the fourth has been
printed separately by the Kolkata Publishers as though it were its
own discourse.
The
four sections are presented below each in a different color. The
actual discourse each section belongs in is also marked—but
understand that the first two sections have been forcibly brought
together by the Kolkata group and printed as though they were one
discourse—as though Bábá had spoken this entirely in one
sitting on April 7 1979. Whereas the third section presented
below belongs here but was never printed, and the fourth
belongs here but has been printed separately.
All
the three discourses at issue here—“Parama Puruśa Knows
Everything”, “Parama Puruśa Is Everywhere”, and the
so-called “Parama Puruśa – the Source of All Momentum”—all
these three are printed in the 2007 English Ánanda Vacanámrtam
Part 9.
Here
below are parts “A1”, “B2”, “A2”, and “A3” as
described.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Reconstruction
of “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything” Discourse: Includes (1)
PART A1, which was printed in it & belongs in it; (2) PART B2,
which was printed in it but does not belong in it; (3) PART A2, which
was not printed in it but belongs to it; and (4) PART A3 was not
printed in it but belongs in it.
PART
A1 = Printed in Discourse, and belongs in Same Discourse
Printed
In:
Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything
7
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9
pages
97-102
Puruśa
evedaḿ sarvaḿ yadbhútaḿ yacca bhavyam;
Utámrtasyesháno
yadanye nátirohati.
The
meaning is: “Parama Puruśa knows everything.” Evedaḿ sarvaḿ
jánáti sarvaḿ eva – “He knows everything;” yadbhútaḿ
– “whatever has been”; yacca bhavyam – “whatever will be”;
utámrtasyesháno – “He is the master of both heaven and hell;”
yadanye nátirohati – “no one is His master.” This is the
literal meaning of the shloka.
This
shloka is a rk from the Rgveda’s tenth mańd́ala, puruśa
súkta. This reminds me of something. If a shloka is from the Rgveda
then it is called a rk rather than a shloka. This is a convention of
the Rgveda. The singular is rk and the plural is rcá. Some
mistakenly pluralize rcá and say rcáyeṋ [in Hindi], but rcá
is already a word with a plural ending. For example, many people
pluralize the word santa and say santoṋ [in Hindi]. This is
incorrect because the word santa is itself plural. Santoṋ means
“honest individuals”.
In
the shloka it is said that Parama Puruśa knows everything. Parama
Puruśa knows what has happened in the past, what is happening in
the present and what will happen in the future. What does Puruśa
mean? Pure shete yah, or purasi shete yah sah Puruśa, that is, he
who is lying in the pura [city] of the body and observing everything
is Puruśa. He is seeing everything but doing nothing. The second
meaning is “he who is lying in front”, for example, purasi hitaḿ
karoti yah sah purohitah.
Yadbhútaḿ
yacca bhavyam. The meaning of puruśa knowing everything is that
whatever has been or will be is inside of him, not outside. Nothing
exists outside him. Momentum comes from him. In the rk there is no
mention whatsoever of the present. Now the question may arise: Does
Parama Puruśa only know the past and the future, and not the
present? Here nothing is said about the present because actually
there is no such thing as the present. For example, no one hears the
words I am saying at this moment; they hear them slightly afterwards.
When someone hears my words they are present for that person but for
me they are in the past. We call something present when we are not
aware of it being past or future, that is, we combine the two into
one. What do we do then? We take a little chunk of the past and a
little chunk of the future, join them together, and make the present.
In actual fact this is not the present. There is no such thing as the
present. For this reason there is no mention of the present in this
rk. Yadbhútaḿ yacca bhavyam.
Utámrtasyesháno.
Uta means “hell”. Tala, atala, talátala, pátála,
atipátála, rasátala – these are the different levels of hell.
Rasátala is the lowest of them all. When a person has become
completely degenerate then people say about them that they have gone
to rasátala. Just as there are seven levels in the downward
direction, there are also seven levels in the upward direction –
bhúh, bhuvah, svah, mahah, janah, tapah, and satya. Among these
seven worlds, svah is heaven. And down below, the pátála, the
imaginary pátála, is called hell. Parama Puruśa is the master
of heaven and He is also the master of hell. People want to be saved
from hell. He who is the master of the mortal world is also present
in hell. This is a complex question. In the same way, the immortal
world is also arranged in seven levels – bhúh, bhuvah, svah,
mahah, janah, tapah, and satya (vyáhrti: vi – á – hr + ktin).
Parama Puruśa is the master of both heaven and hell. Now the thing
is that these seven lower levels are not spatial entities. In the
Vedas all these levels have been described: Asúryáh náma te
lokáh andhena tamasávrtáh – “Hell is the asúrya world,
that is, where the light of súrya [sun] cannot enter, that which
remains always covered in profound darkness.” It is where the
darkness is so dense, so deep, that a person cannot even see himself.
That kind of darkness is called andhatamisrá. And when a person
cannot see someone else, then it is called andhakár. What is hell
like? It is where there is no sun, that which is covered in
andhatamisrá. That person who does not do spiritual practices moves
in the direction of this world of darkness. This is the correct
meaning of this shloka.
Uta
means “hell”, that is, the world of darkness. This world of
darkness is arranged in six layers – tamah, tamasá, tamisrá,
andhatamah, andhatamisrá, and andhatamasá. In the Upaniśad it
is said: táḿste pretyábhigacchanti yeke cátmahano janáh [to
which all will go who deny their own souls]. That world of darkness
is called the asúrya world. It is depicted as if from within that
deep darkness even more darkness is vomited up. If one looks towards
that deep darkness then it seems, as if, even a deeper darkness is
tearing the heart of that darkness and coming out.
Now
the question arises: whose movement is towards that darkness? It is
the movement of that person or those persons who do not perform
spiritual practices. Táḿste pretyábhigacchanti. Now Parama
Puruśa is present even in this world shrouded in profound darkness.
Here the purport of the shloka is that since Parama Puruśa is the
master of both heaven and hell, He also has to go to hell from time
to time to supervise or look after things.
END
OF PART A1
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PART
B2 = Printed in Discourse, but does not belong in Discourse
Printed
In:
Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything
7
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9
pages
97-102
Belongs
in:
Parama
Puruśa Is Everywhere
5
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9.
pages
89 - 95
[These
are the last three paras in the printed discourse “Parama Puruśa
Knows Everything”. But Bábá spoke these paragraphs on an
entirely different day, during a different discourse. The discourse
He spoke them in is
“Parama
Puruśa Is Everywhere”, 5 April 1979, Patna, and is printed in
Ánanda Vacanámrtam Part 9. In that discourse the same paragraphs
are present, but translated in a much briefer way.]
Tamáhuragryaḿ
puruśaḿ mahántam. So this Parama Puruśa is all-pervading,
moving everywhere. He is present in the so-called heaven and in the
world of darkness where the sun does not shine. How will you know
Him? You do not even know why you have come to this earth. How will
you know where He is hiding and what He is doing? But He knows what
you are doing or thinking in secret. When we meditate on Parama
Puruśa we must think that Parama Puruśa is taking me as the
object of His cosmic mind; He is seeing me. One should have this kind
of thought in one’s mind.
For
this reason it is said: sa vetti vedyaḿ na ca tasyásti vettá
tamáhuragryaḿ puruśaḿ mahántam. That Puruśa, that is,
Parama Puruśa, is called agryapuruśa or mahán. Agrya means “he
who remains in the front or the forefront of everything”.
Agryapuruśa means “representative Puruśa, best Puruśa, first
Puruśa”. What does mahán mean? The first person singular of the
word mahat is mahán. In the Sanskrit language two very important
words are brhat(1) and mahat. What is the fundamental difference
between them? Similarly, two very similar words are vishála and
brhat. That which is very big but which can be measured is vishála,
for example, the Himalayas. They are nearly fifteen hundred miles in
length but in spite of being extremely big they can be measured. We
depict the Himalayas in our maps. And that which is so big that it
cannot be measured, we call mahat. There is only one such entity that
is so big that it cannot be measured, and what is that entity?
Brahma. It is said: brhattvád brahma brḿhańatvád brahma.
So
brhat means “so big that it cannot be measured”. And what does
mahat mean? That which is not big in the physical sense but which is
big or very big in the psychic sense is mahat. In other words,
something which is brhat belongs to the external world, the world of
the sense organs which we can see with our eyes, and that which
belongs to the mental world, which cannot be perceived in the
external world but which exerts a great influence over other things
in the psychic sense, we call mahat. Take, for example, a renunciant
who is small in stature but who possesses tremendous intellect and
understanding. We will not call him or her brhat. Seen externally, he
or she is a person of small size. Actually he or she is mahán. For
this reason, Parama Puruśa is called agryapuruśa or mahán
puruśa in the Vedas.
END
OF PART B2
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PART
A2 = Not printed in Discourse, but belongs in Discourse
Printed
In:
Never
Printed.
Belongs
in:
Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything
7
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9
pages
97-102
[Here
there is a section which was given by Bábá in Hindi (the entire
discourse was in Hindi), and which was never printed. Because it was
never printed, it was of course never translated. This was the second
section of the discourse Parama Puruśa Knows Everything, but it was
simply removed by Kolkata Group's Publishing Dept, and never printed
anywhere.]
END
OF PART A2
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PART
A3 = Not printed in Discourse, but belongs in Discourse
Printed
In:
Parama
Puruśa – the Source of All Momentum
1
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9
pages
67 – 69
Belongs
in:
Parama
Puruśa Knows Everything
7
April 1979, Patna
Ánanda
Vacanámrtam Part 9
pages
97-102
[These
below paragraphs should have been the final paragraphs of the
discourse “Parama Puruśa Knows Everything”. They are the final
section of what Bábá spoke in that discourse. However they were
not printed in this discourse. Instead they were kept separate and
published as a complete discourse unto themselves, with the name
“Parama Puruśa – the Source of All Momentum .” There was no
such discourse given by Bábá on that date.]
The
word sarva contains three letters: sa, ra, and va. Sa means
sattvaguńa [sentient force], ra means “energy”, and va means
“nature” or characteristics. The world is composed of these three
and they exist in Parama Puruśa. For this reason the final
container of everything is Parama Puruśa. For instance, I create an
elephant in my thoughts; certainly I know it as well. In the same
way, Parama Puruśa is the knower of the entire universe. Parama
Puruśa, however, is not the knower of the universe in the same
sense that we knowingly perceive external objects. Ordinarily the
easy knowledge that a person acquires about external objects comes
through the medium of his or her sense organs. One gets that
knowledge by coming in contact with a certain object. However, for
Parama Puruśa there is no external object. Everything is internal.
So the term “knowledge” as it applies to human beings does not
apply to Parama Puruśa.
Parama
Puruśa is the lord of both heaven and hell. For this reason it is
said that everything is held within Him; nothing is outside Him.
There is, in fact, no separate region such as heaven or hell. A
spiritual aspirant is established in heaven or eternity by performing
spiritual sadhana. This means that vidyámáyá [cosmic
centripetal force] has two forces, samvit and hládinii. Through
samvit a human being earns knowledge, moving away from the darkness
of ignorance; through samvit humans move towards the life. Áhláda
means “bliss”. Since Parama Puruśa is the blissful entity, as a
result of samvit the experience of bliss appears within the human
being. Gradually he or she reaches satyaloka and beyond that the
human merges and becomes one with the ultimate blissful entity
situated one of far shore of satyaloka [the causal world of
macrocosm].(1) In one words, a person who performs spiritual sadhana
advances towards Parama Puruśa, and that peaceful heavenly abode
where Parama Puruśa resides is obtained.
What
is degradation? The divine effulgence earned through the performance
of spiritual sadhana dispels the darkness of the spiritual aspirant’s
mind. And the moment we turn away from sadhana that darkness comes
back to our mind to stay and our mind gradually advances towards
deeper darkness. Thus in our gurupújá mantra the guru is the one
who banishes that darkness of ignorance which befools our eyes and
which arises as a result of our mind’s movement towards darkness.
So, the guru is not a spatial entity. One who moves towards Parama
Puruśa moves towards the world of knowledge.
Just
as vidyámáyá has two forces, avidyámáyá [cosmic
centrifugal force] also has two forces, vikśepa and ávarańii.
The more a living being moves towards darkness, the more they
gradually forget their true nature, their actual source. They think
themselves to be separate from the Supreme Being and gradually they
move towards deeper and deeper darkness. This is referred to as the
living being’s movement towards darkness. However Parama Puruśa
is everywhere. We have heard this in the Mahabharata. Since this is
entirely the divine drama of one Parama Puruśa, wherever one goes,
be it heaven or hell, their momentum comes from Parama Puruśa.
END
OF PART A3
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Mixing
sections from different discourses and combining them into one is a
very serious sort of distortion. When Bábá speaks a sentence,
that sentence occurs in the setting of a paragraph. And that
paragraph in turn occurs in the setting of an overall discourse
having a particular subject. The individual sentence Bábá speaks,
must be understood in light of the paragraph, the discourse, and the
overall subject with which He is dealing. Taking a sentence or group
of sentences out of their intended context and placing them in a
different context may lead to wrong understanding of Bábá's
intended message. Depending on the context, it can lead to definite
and egregious misunderstanding. Mixing up the paragraphs Bábá
spoke into different discourses is a major step toward chaos in the
scripture. The end result is “kichuri” or hodge-podge of
passages, with no one knowing what passage really belongs where. This
is one of the main reasons for the degeneration of a great teacher's
teachings. Just see what happened with Lord Shiva and Lord Krśńa:
the integrity of their teachings could not be maintained. The
teachings fell into the hands of priest classes who distorted and
changed them to meet their own selfish needs. Ultimately it led in
both cases to the degradation of the teachings of dharma into
commonplace religion replete with dogma. We must not allow this to
occur with the teachings of Lord Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrtiji.
In
sum: Kolkata Publications has separated one discourse into three
parts: They published the first and third of these in separate places
as different discourses, and left the middle part completely
unpublished. In place of the discourse's missing second and third
parts, the last part from yet another discourse was pasted by Kolkata
Publications to “complete” the first discourse. This twisting of
discourses continues even in the latest edition (English), because
Kolkata Publications simply translated from the previous edition
(Bengali), rather than use the sound recording as the source.
At
His Feet,
Narahari
Mehata
