Sunday, February 15, 2015

Discourse scarred: "broad" changed to "odd"

From: R. Naidu <rnaidu@broadscan....>
To: Ananda Marga Discourses <anandamargadiscourses@sunlink.net>
Subject: Discourse scarred: "broad" changed to "odd"
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2015 07:58:22 +0530

Discourse scarred: 

"broad" changed to "odd"

Namaskar,
On 18 July 1979 in Visakhapatnam, at morning general darshan, Sadguru Baba delivered a discourse that was printed in Ánanda Vacanámrtam part 13, English Edn (2011) as  “Significance of Yoga.” It is chapter 19 and starts on page 123.


What Baba actually spoke

Now let us see what Sadguru Baba actually spoke that day.

    “There are fifty broad propensities. And actually, more than one thousand sub-propensities.” 


Our Tiljala Publishers wrote odd instead of broad

See below what our Tiljala publishers printed in book. In particular please pay attention to the term highlighted in red: odd. Because those publishers "odd" instead of "broad."

The publishers wrote:            

    “There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty odd propensities, and actually, more than one thousand sub-propensities.”

Sadguru Baba actually spoke:

    “There are fifty broad propensities. And actually, more than one thousand sub-propensities.” 

Here is how our Tiljala publishers printed it in the book, Ananda Vacanamrtam part 13.

    “There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty odd propensities, and actually, more than one thousand sub-propensities.”


What they published was wrong

So in the book they changed  term "broad" to "odd." Yet these two terms do not convey the same idea and Guru’s original words should not be changed. So what they did was wrong.

Thus the publishers are writing that Baba says that all 50 human propensities are odd.

And remember, all this was done in the name of Baba, Lord Shrii Shrii Anandamurtiji - as the publishers printed this book in His name.

Here for your review is what our Tiljala Publishers wrote:

    “The citta, the mind stuff, the mind of human beings, has got so many propensities, so many vrttis, it moves here there, there and there. There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty odd propensities.”

And here is what Baba actually spoke:

    “The citta, the mind stuff, the mind of a human being, it has got so many propensities, so many vrttis. It moves here and there, here and there. There are fifty broad propensities.” 

Note: You may have remarked that there are numerous words that are not the same - but we ignored these points and focused exclusively on how they changed the term broad to odd. Because that is the main blunder. At the same time no one should think that all these other word changes are typos. It is not like that. The above line in yellow is exactly what Guru spoke. And those Tiljala publishers made various changes in addition to their main blunder.

The following scan from Ánanda Vacanámrtam part 13 (2011) shows how our Tiljala publishers wrongly printed the discourse. See how they erred and inserted the word “odd” - underlined in red below. They wrote "odd" instead of "broad.”




The above scan from Ánanda Vacanámrtam part 13 (2011) shows how our Tiljala publishers wrongly printed the discourse. See how they wrongly inserted the word “odd” - underlined in red above. They wrote "odd" instead of "broad.”


Conclusion: broad - not odd

Verily the term Baba actually spoke was broad - not odd. The term broad reflects Baba’s guideline that there is a range of 50 propensities.

But the publishers utterly missed this idea and instead published the word ”odd” - instead of ”broad” -  which carries an entirely different meaning.

It is sad that those in charge of printing and publishing Guru’s divine discourses are making such egregious errors. Any true disciple of Baba will easily understand that Guru never describes the human propensities as being “odd.” For example there are propensities that goad human beings towards Parama Purusa, encourage devotion and love and affection for the entire creation - i.e. neo-humanism. How can one say that such propensities are odd. This goes against the fundamentals of Ananda Marga.

For example here are some propensities that are very essential for spiritual life: (a)  dharma [psycho-spiritual longing], (b) mokśa [spiritual longing], (c) áshá [hope], (d) ceśt́á [endeavour], (e) mamatá [mine-ness, love], (f) anutápa [repentance], (g) oṋm [acoustic root of creation, preservation, dissolution], (h) phat́ [practication, i.e., putting a theory into practice)], (i) vaśat́ [welfare in the subtler sphere], (j) namah [surrender to the Supreme], and (k) amrta [sweet expression], pará [spiritual knowledge]. Who can claim that such propensities are odd. No one - as these propensities are vital for any sadhaka to gain success.

Yet it never occurred to the publishers that what they printed was wrong and misleading. They could not recognise that they were misrepresenting Guru by writing “fifty odd propensities.” That is why the situation is sad. They are printing and publishing Baba’s books but they have no idea what they are doing. That is why they are prone to making gross errors in the name of Sadguru Baba.

In Him,
R. Naidu


Note 1: Who was involved

The discourse, “Significance of Yoga”, Ánanda Vacanámrtam part 13, English Edn (2011) ch 19, pg 123, was published by Ac Sugatananda Avt and he was also the one who worked on re-edting and re-transcribing this discourse.


Note 2: If the subject is not clear please read below

Tiljala publisher wrote "odd" instead of "broad." So it got ruined.

To provide some context, some synonyms of the word odd are: strange, peculiar, weird, queer, funny, bizarre, abnormal, eccentric, unusual, unconventional, outlandish, quirky, zany.

Hence, what the publishers printed may be interpreted by readers as:

There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty outlandish propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty eccentric propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty bizarre propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty quirky propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty weird propensities.

There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty strange propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty queer propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty funny propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty abnormal propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty unusual propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty unconventional propensities.
There are fifty, not only fifty, fifty zany propensities.

These are the 13 or more ways that typical readers may interpret the word odd and apply that to the published statement.