ABHIKSHA

Abhiksha or non-begging and Self-dependence are two Articles of Faith, in the doctrine preached by Swami Swarupananda Paramhansa Deva which are greatly hailed throughout the world today.

MORALITY CAMPAIGN

‘Transformation of the present human race into a completely divine society is His ultimate object and character-building movement is the means to achieve this object. But such movement will not stop within a year or two. This tremendous Movement will have to continue for three hundred years or nine generations of human beings.

There is a branch of Science called “eugenics” which means the science of good re-production. Researchers and scientists across the world have been, for ages, applying the principles of eugenics in the field of many animals and plants to ensure that their off-springs become much more developed, useful, valuable and healthy than their parents. But alas, there is no attempt at applying the principles of eugenics in the field of human race! His Divine Grace Sri Srimat Swami Swarupananda Paramhansa Dev informs us that ancient India did pay much attention to this aspect. The ancient people of India knew the glory of Brahmacharyya (self-control or restraint). It was known that if a boy can spend his life with complete purity, free from any vice and then enters the married life, with a girl who has also spent her maiden life in complete purity in thought and action, and if after observance of Brahmacharyya for some time even in their conjugal life, gives birth to their child, then the son or daughter born out of them is expected to be much stronger, purer, selfless, generous or elevated than his or her parents. If this process can be repeated for three hundred years in most of the families of the nation, then after a lapse of three hundred years of nine generations thousands of boys and girls will be born who cannot be rightly called human beings but who should instead be called divine men and women. Sri Sri Babamoni emphasizes that even left to the course of natural evolution, such divine persons in lakhs or crores will be born, but only after undergoing the process of natural evolution for crores of years; whereas if human beings follow the course of ‘deliberate’ or ‘attempt-driven’ evolution, transformation of the present human race into a divine one will be effected only after nine generations or three hundred years! This process or procedure that He has styled as “Brahmacharya through generations” if practiced sincerely and religiously for an uninterrupted period of nine generations or three hundred years among lakhs of families, will lead to the emergence of an altogether transformed society of only divine persons or super-men and women that Sri Aurobinda had visualized long back in his book ‘Life Divine’ or that many great men like Lord Buddha had predicted. Truly great men whom we may call ‘Avatars’ are rarely born in this world. Personalities like Jesus Christ, Lord Buddha, Prophet Muhammed, Guru Nanak, Jain Mahavir, Shri Chaitannya, Acharya Sankar, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda or Swami Swarupananda Paramhansadev emerge in this world only once or twice in one or two centuries. Is it then ever possible that such great men will be born in millions simultaneously? “Yes it is possible”—says Sri Sri Babamoni, the wonderman of the twentieth century—”but possible only after ‘three hundred years’ of exemplary penance through observance of “Banshanukramik Brahmacharya” (Brahmacharya through generations) by lakhs of families simultaneously, that is to say, by extending the application of eugenics in the field of human race as well or in short through the preaching and practice of “Charitra Gathan Andolan” or Morality campaign which is also termed as “Character Building Movement”.

When present Bangladesh and India was under the bondage of British Rule, almost all the great thinkers of those days were of the opinion that it was the political subjugation to foreign power that lay at the root of all the problems and sufferings of the people of India and therefore once this root cause could be expunged by any means, gradually all miseries of the people would dwindle and will ultimately vanish. There was a cacophony of voices heard loudly all around in those days—those were “freedom first” “freedom last”, “we want to hear nothing but freedom”, “Everything else but freedom should be relegated to oblivion” etc. but even in the midst of such all-pervading cries for political freedom, a different voice was heard and that was the clarion call of Sri Sri Babamoni who had the courage to go against the prevailing stream of public opinion and declared unambiguously—”When I analyse the reasons behind our present sufferings, I realize that political subjugation is not the root cause of our miseries but is only one of the various symptoms of a disease that has attacked the entire nation,— the moral degradation in a mass scale is the root cause of the ailment.

Our sufferings were (and still are) varied—like illiteracy, superstitions, low standard of public health, abject poverty, etc. These were considered the symptoms of the disease. And what was the disease itself? According to all other thinkers of those days, Political subjugation was the main disease. Therefore it was generally believed that by obliterating the main disease or its root cause, we would be gradually relieved of all the bad and painful symptoms. But this has not happened in reality. We have attained political freedom more than seventy years ago. Have our sufferings gone? The answer is better known to any of the readers! An emphatic “no”. Why is this? This is because the root cause behind our sufferings was not the absence of political freedom but was the wide spread immorality or lack of character-building on a mass scale engulfing the entire nation. The truth that Sri Sri Babamoni could visualize more than a century back with His incomparable foresight has started being realized only in the present time by all of us through our immense and ever-increasing sufferings.

This is ample proof that identifying the absence of political freedom as the “root cause” behind all sorts of our sufferings was as Himalayan blunder and that how correct the analysis and judgement of Sri Sri Babamoni was when He singled out the widespread immorality prevalent in the country as the root cause of all our problems and He established and propagated of a new social movement which was termed by Him as the Character Building Movement around 1914 to be spread over across the country as the sole remedy of this stupendous malady.

To drive home this point further Sri Sri Babamoni had also cited examples from history. Rome was an independent State. But when moral degradation spread over in large scale, it could not resist the attack from a barbarous community and lost its political freedom to the attackers. Three or four years prior to the onset of the 2nd World War Sri Sri Babamoni had made a prediction in a speech delivered by Him at Sylhet in 1935 that although France was famous for her military power, we might see in near future France to be defeated in an insignificant battle thereby losing its political freedom. This came out true. Such unexpected and humiliating military defeat suffered by France was attributed to the widespread circulation of obscene literature across France, indulgence of lustful dance and drinking in the bars and restaurants of Paris and the resultant overall moral degradation that besieged the whole of France. These reasons behind the ignominious defeat of the extremely powerful French Army that not many years back could boast of having as its supreme commander as invincible a military leader as Napoleon, were frankly and unhesitatingly admitted by the then commander of the French Armed Forces Marshal Pe Tain.

It is not irrelevant to repeat that even when freedom struggle was at its peak in British India(Bangladesh was part of India back then), Sri Sri Babamoni had the courage to point out that political subjugation was not the root cause behind our miseries but was only one of the many other symptoms, the root cause being the wide-spread moral degradation. He discovered the Character-Building Movement as the only medicine. It is very relevant in this connection to note that although Sri Sri Babamoni had kept Himself aloof from active politics, many of the great revolutionaries of the then Bengal—particularly those associated with the Chittagong Armoury case led by Masterda Surya Sen used to meet Him and build their character on the lines of His advice, and therefore the British had put Him behind the bars at least on four occasions.

In those days also it was never disputed that character building was necessary. But Sri Sri Babamoni was not to be satisfied with one or two or one hundred or two hundred boys building their character. He wanted to launch a massive movement of character-building across the length and breadth of the country so that lakhs or crores of boys and girls participated in that Movement by undertaking great penance to build his or her individual character causing to spread it from man to man, from door to door, from village to village or town to town allowing not a single human locality to stay outside the influence of that great Movement. This He had termed as the “Character-Building Movement” or “Charitra Gathan Andolan”.

The launching of this great “Character Building Movement” is the greatest contribution of Sri Sri Babamoni in the history of mankind for it is through this Movement that the present human society as a mixture of both good and bad people can, in as short a time as three hundred years only, be elevated to the status of a divine society each member of which will be as like as of great personality i.e. Lord Buddha, Lord Christ, Sri Sankar, Sri Chaitanya etc thereby earning the sobriquet of “a society of Human Avatars” for that glorious entity.