ABVP

Akhil Bharathiya Vidyarthi Parishad

Akhil Bharathiya Vidyarthi Parishad is an all India student organization, working in the field of education with a broader vision of National Reconstruction. This is the largest students’ organization in the intact universe. The ultimate goal of ABVP is the wellbeing of entire students’ community as well as the whole educational field. For this, ABVP made effort to improve the various facets of students in their character, attitude, vision, personality and all other field for making them the part of social reconstruction as well as to make national integration in our country.


The ABVP was started soon after independence with the objective of channelising students' energies in the task of national reconstruction by a group of students and teachers who drew their inspiration from the RSS, the premier nationalist organisation of the country. Its growth process was slow and sporadic in the first few years but it picked up after Prof. Yeshwantrao Kelkar, a lecturer in Bombay, became its main organiser in 1958. He was its real architect and builder. As a consequence of singe-minded devotion of Prof. Kelkar, who passionately tried to build up this organisation till his death in 1987, the ABVP is what it is today.The uniqueness of the Parishad lies in the fact that it has emerged as a stable organisation of floating population of students. Perhaps no social organisation has its members changing so quickly and regularly as the ABVP has. Despite this handicap, the ABVP has gained strength day by day. In all probability, the ABVP is the only example of its type throughout the world. Another unique feature of the oraganisation is that though it is a student organisation in every respect, the teachers also take an active part in its functioning. Ever since its inception teachers have been deeply involved in building up the organisation and they comprise the permanent component of the membership.

What distinguishes the ABVP from other organisations is the fact that it is a full-fledged and regular student organisation which has evolved a distinct philosophy and role for a student organisation and which organises multifarious activities to fulfill its objective of national reconstruction. So far as ABVP's contribution in the national life is concerned it can be said with pride that apart from organising a lot of constructive and meaningful activities and helping to solve the problems related to student and educational field, the Parishad has played an important role in highlighting and solving larger problems of the country. The thoughts and ideals of the ABVP on educational change can prove as valuable assets for any educational ministry or department. Be it the issue of terrorism in Kashmir or of infiltration of foreigners into Assam and border states, or the issue of reservation and Mandal recommendations or the gigantic task of integrating north-eastern citizens with those of the other parts of the country or the problem of unemployment and economic reconstruction of the country or the fight against social inequalities or the calamity of earthquake in Marathwada, the ABVP has never been found wanting both on the plains of thinking and action. The ABVP today has a cadre of socially committed workers who are capable of undertaking any challenging task.The coming days would witness a more active, meaningful and effective participation by the ABVP in the task of national reconstruction and the country and its citizens would feel proud of such a role of the ABVP.

A Biography of Vivekananda


Swami Vivekananda's inspiring personality was well known both in India and in America during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented Hinduism. His vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture as well as his deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence, brilliant conversation, broad human sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure made an irresistible appeal to the many types of Americans who came in contact with him. People who saw or heard Vivekananda even once still cherish his memory after a lapse of more than half a century.In America Vivekananda's mission was the interpretation of India's spiritual culture, especially in its Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious consciousness of the Americans through the rational and humanistic teachings of the Vedanta philosophy. In America he became India's spiritual ambassador and pleaded eloquently for better understanding between India and the New World in order to create a healthy synthesis of East and West, of religion and science.In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as the patriot saint of modern India and an inspirer of her dormant national consciousness. To the Hindus he preached the ideal of a strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man as the visible manifestation of the Godhead was the special form of worship he advocated for the Indians, devoted as they were to the rituals and myths of their ancient faith. Many political leaders of India have publicly acknowledged their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.The Swami's mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind, he strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda had a direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He derived his ideas from that unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the soul-stirring language of poetry.The natural tendency of Vivekananda's mind, like that of his Master, Ramakrishna, was to soar above the world and forget itself in contemplation of the Absolute. But another part of his personality bled at the sight of human suffering in East and West alike. It might appear that his mind seldom found a point of rest in its oscillation between contemplation of God and service to man. Be that as it may, he chose, in obedience to a higher call, service to man as his mission on earth; and this choice has endeared him to people in the West, Americans in particular.In the course of a short life of thirty-nine years (1863-1902), of which only ten were devoted to public activities — and those, too, in the midst of acute physical suffering — he left for posterity his four classics: Jnana-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and Raja-Yoga, all of which are outstanding treatises on Hindu philosophy. In addition, he delivered innumerable lectures, wrote inspired letters in his own hand to his many friends and disciples, composed numerous poems, and acted as spiritual guide to the many seekers who came to him for instruction. He also organized the Ramakrishna Order of monks, which is the most outstanding religious organization of modern India. It is devoted to the propagation of the Hindu spiritual culture not only in the Swami's native land, but also in America and in other parts of the world.Swami Vivekananda once spoke of himself as a 'condensed India.' His life and teachings are of inestimable value to the West for an understanding of the mind of Asia. William James, the Harvard philosopher, called the Swami the 'paragon of Vedantists.' Max Müller and Paul Deussen, the famous Orientalists of the nineteenth century, held him in genuine respect and affection. 'His words,' writes Romain Rolland, 'are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero!'

KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER- Swami Vivekananda

KARMA IN ITS EFFECT ON CHARACTER-
Swami Vivekananda

The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, to do; all action is Karma. Technically, this word also means the effects of actions. In connection with metaphysics, it sometimes means the effects, of which our past actions were the causes. But in Karma-Yoga we have simply to do with the word Karma as meaning work. The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. The cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time man finds that it is not happiness, but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain are great teachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul they have upon it different pictures, and the result of these combined impressions is what is called man's "character". If you take the character of any man, it really is but the aggregate of tendencies, the sum total of the bent of his mind; you will find that misery and happiness are equal factors in the formation of that character. Good and evil have an equal share in moulding character, and in some instances misery is a greater teacher than happiness. In studying the great characters the world has produced, I dare say, in the vast majority of cases, it would be found that it was misery that taught more than happiness, it was poverty that taught more than wealth, it was blows that brought out their inner fire more than praise.
Now this knowledge, again, is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man "knows", should, in strict psychological language, be what he "discovers" or "unveils"; what a man "learns" is really what he "discovers", by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in your own mind. The external world is simply the suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind, but the object of your study is always your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not in the apple nor in anything in the centre of the earth. All knowledge, therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In many cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say, "We are learning," and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man, the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant, and the man from whom it has entirely gone is all-knowing, omniscient. There have been omniscient men, and, I believe, there will be yet; and that there will be myriads of them in the cycles to come. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestion is the friction which brings it out. So with all our feelings and action — our tears and our smiles, our joys and our griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses and our blessings, our praises and our blames — every one of these we may find, if we calmly study our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so many blows. The result is what we are. All these blows taken together are called Karma — work, action. Every mental and physical blow that is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power and knowledge are discovered, is Karma, this word being used in its widest sense. Thus we are all doing Karma all the time. I am talking to you: that is Karma. You are listening: that is Karma. We breathe: that is Karma. We walk: Karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is Karma, and it leaves its marks on us.

കുട്ടികള്‍ കുറവ്: 2000 അധ്യാപകര്‍ക്ക് ജോലി പോകും തിരുവനന്തപുരം: സംസ്ഥാനത്തെ സ്‌കൂളുകളില്‍ തലയെണ്ണലിന്റെ കണക്കുകളനുസരിച്ച്‌ കഴിഞ്ഞ വര്‍ഷത്തെ അപേക്ഷിച്ച്‌ രണ്ടരലക്ഷം കുട്ടികളുടെ കുറവ്‌. അധ്യാപക വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥി അനുപാതത്തില്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്താന്‍ സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ തയ്യാറായില്ലെങ്കില്‍ 2000്‌ മുതല്‍ 6000 വരെ അധ്യാപക തസ്‌തികകള്‍ ഇല്ലാതായേക്കും. സംസ്ഥാന സിലബസ്‌ വിട്ട്‌ രക്ഷിതാക്കള്‍ കുട്ടികളെ കേന്ദ്ര സിലബസിലേക്ക്‌ കൂടുതലായി അയക്കാന്‍ താത്‌പര്യം കണിക്കുന്നതാണ്‌ സംസ്ഥാന സിലബസിലെ കുട്ടികളുടെ എണ്ണത്തില്‍ വന്‍തോതില്‍