The finance minister has changed the direction of India’s budget deficit by reducing the target for 2010-11 to 5.5 percent.
You really believe it will happen? Go back over the years and see their previous claims.
He has got a lot of praise for that in India. Still you are not impressed. Why?
Even if it happens, it is not being done by sound budgeting. It is from selling off the family jewels if it happens.
Don’t you think a high deficit was justified last year when the government had to spend and help the economy revive?
No. They are just trying to push the problems out into the future rather than solving the underlying problems. Do you really think the solution for a problem of too much debt and too much consumption is more debt and more consumption?
Are we not living in extraordinary times when we have to follow such flexible policies?
We are indeed. They are making the problems worse in extraordinary times which require tough measures to correct decades of abuse.
The finance minister rolled back some of the economic stimulus measures he had announced last year. Would you have preferred to see a complete rollback than a partial one?
Yes. And more.
If you were to set an agenda for the government, what would that be?
Cut spending and subsidies dramatically. Many studies have shown that countries start having serious growth problems when debt is 90 percent of GDP (gross domestic product). India is now [at] 80 percent and will be [at] 90 percent soon under this budget. The subsidies distort the economy in less productive areas.
Did you see any reform measure in the budget?
I see some words for some small steps in retailing and energy. We will see.
India doesn’t have a convertible currency. Neither does China. You have backed China in the past but not India. Why?
I have pointed out scores of times that China is mistaken having a blocked currency. What is wrong with you?
No country has ever become a world player or even a significant economy with a blocked currency.
Some specific global lessons or examples that India can adopt from other countries such as China?
Open your borders to foreign capital and brains. For example, foreigners cannot enter retailing in India, but Wal-Mart etc. are all over China. Your politicians close down free commodity markets every time prices rise as if the markets were making the prices rise!
Farmers can own only very, very small farms so India cannot compete on the world stage, yet India should be one of the great agriculture nations of the world.
What will it take to get you to invest in India?
Some sense of 21st Century reality. Open the economy such as retailing, energy, agriculture, etc. Make the currency fully convertible.
What are the lost opportunities in the budget, according to you?
The same things I just mentioned. Likewise why not start reducing the gigantic debt if things really “are getting better” as he claims?
You have watched India for a long time. Where do you think the country will go from here?
Continue muddling along until the reality of the huge debt to GNP hits home and stops things.
"...it is wonderful! Music itself pure and high and strong... It is delightful and leaves you waiting and wanting to hear more... It is beautiful, very beautiful..."
"...this music opens the doors of the future and reproduces admirably the musical vibrations of the higher regions."
THE MOTHERIn 1966, the Mother asked Sunil to set her readings from Sri Aurobindo's epic masterpiece Savitri to music. She wrote to him, "Toi seul peut faire cette musique comme il convient." (You alone can do this music as it should be done). Continuously for over thirty years, this music was Sunil's preoccupation and labor.
"...it is wonderful! Music itself pure and high and strong... It is delightful and leaves you waiting and wanting to hear more... It is beautiful, very beautiful..."
"...this music opens the doors of the future and reproduces admirably the musical vibrations of the higher regions."
"Oh not just once but very often, while listening to his music, a door is immediately opened onto the region of universal harmony, where you hear the origin of Sounds, and with an extraordinary emotion and intensity, something that pulls you out of yourself. It's the first time I've had this while listening to music — I myself have it when I am all alone. But I never had it while listening to music, It's always something much closer to the earth. Here, it is something very high, but very universal, and with a tremendous power. A creative power. Well, his music opens the door..."
The Mother
In the mid-sixties, the Delhi Music Archives approached Sunil for recordings of his music and asked him to say something about it. The following message was recorded in his voice and subsequently broadcast on All India Radio:
"Some twenty years ago I heard for the first time, the Mother of our Ashram improvising on the organ. In the beginning, the music seemed strange to me. It was neither Indian nor Western, or shall I say it sounded like both Western and Indian to my ears? The theme she was playing came very close to what we know as Bhairon, the whole closely knit musical structure expanding melodiously. Then suddenly, notes came surging up in battalions, piled one on top of another, deep, insistent, coming as if from a long way down and welling up inevitably, the magnificent body of sound formed and gathered volume till it burst into an illumination that made the music an experience.
Thus She revealed to me the secret of a magic world of music where harmonies meet and blend to make melodies richer, wider, profounder and infinitely more powerful. I have tried to take my music from Her.
My music is my labour and my aspiration for the Divine and what I try to convey through it are voices of my inner experience.
My grateful thoughts are with Her who has been my Guide, Guru, Mentor and Mother. One day it was Her Light that sparked my heart, it is Her Light that has sustained its glow, it is Her Light that I seek through my music. If this music brings some comfort, some delight or some message to someone, I have achieved that for which She has placed Her trust in me."
Sri Aurobindo never met Ramakrishna Paramahansa in physical life but he did gain contact through the occult planes with the latter as is adduced from various written works. For example, Sri Aurobindo notes in his journal Record of Yoga three instances when he received messages from Ramakrishna Paramahansa.
Ramakrishna Paramahansa
The first message was in Baroda, the “Arabindo, mandir karo, mandir karo”, (Aurobindo, build a temple) & the parable of the snake Pravritti devouring herself.
The second was given in Shankar Chetti’s house soon after the arrival in Pondicherry, & the words are lost, but it was a direction to form the higher being in the lower self coupled with a promise to speak once more when the sadhan was nearing its close.
This is the third message (18 Oct 1912)
“Make complete sannyasa(renunciation) of Karma.
Make complete sannyasa of thought.
Make complete sannyasa of feeling.
This is my last utterance.”
- Record of Yoga, p 128
During talks with various disciples, Sri Aurobindo discussed how his first occult contact with Ramakrishna Paramahansa spurred him to take up Yoga in earnest:
“Barin at that time was trying some automatic writing. (…) On another occasion a spirit purporting to be that of Ramakrishna came and simply said, “Build a temple.” At that time we were planning to build a temple for political Sannyasis and call it Bhawani Mandir. We thought he meant that, but later I understood it as “Make a temple within.” This gave me the final push to Yoga. I thought: great men could not have been after a chimera, and if there was such a more-than-human power why not get it and use it for action?”
- Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo, 5th Jan 1939
Sri Aurobindo also mentioned this occult guidance in a letter that he sent to Motilal Roy dated Aug 1912 :
“Remember also that we derive from Ramakrishna. For myself it was Ramakrishna who personally came & first turned me to this Yoga. Vivekananda in the Alipore jail (again, not physically but in the occult plane) gave me the foundations of that knowledge which is the basis of our sadhana
http://auromere.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/ramakrishnas-contact-with-sri-aurobindo/sadhana.”
