"Whatever may be said, whosoever may say it - to
determine the truth of it, is wisdom" -
Thirukural
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tamilnation.org
[A well organised, and extensively annotated guide to
Tamil-related resources - ed.]Research usefulness[essential
- v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential
"It is remarkable how much a thirty-second
pictogram of nationalism can reveal of one’s
understanding. I ask my students to
draw such a pictogram in the beginning of
the discussion (on nationalism). They
invariably draw flags and/or people with
guns. When I ask them for a pictogram of
nationalism at the end of the discussion,
the emblem changes completely: they draw a globe and
little unarmed people, who sometime say things like: "oh, my
identity!" For flags and guns do not even begin to express what is
central and most significant about nationalism..."
Nationalism and the Mind - Liah Greenfeld
quoted in What is
a Nation - Nadesan Satyendra
"I desire that I write for myself alone. It is when
that which is buried in me finds expression in words, that I myself come
to truly know what was buried in me. It may well be that the reason that I
write is because I feel that I may discover more and more and come to know what else may
be inside me. As I continue to write, and as more and more experiences
unfold from within me, and as I become subject to these experiences, it
seems to me that I may, in a way, make it possible for me to know who I
am.
There are those who find that the words that I write to
understand about myself, also help them to understand themselves. They are my
readers. When they hear that the key that I fashioned for my lock, may
also open their locks, they come in search of my house. When they come, it
appears to me that it is entirely appropriate that I should share my
understanding...
So that a writer may protect this nature, this way
of life, I value freedom of expression as the most important
freedom. I cannot say that at the present time I have sufficient courage
or awareness of truth to practice that which I have so easily
described. These are qualities that I will need to develop. I believe that it will
be possible for me to do so..." Sundara Ramasamy (translation by
Nadesan Satyendra from the Tamil
original)
"..Leader presumes follower.
Follower presumes choice... In a very real sense, followers lead by choosing where to be led.
Where an organised community will be led is inseparable
from the shared values and beliefs of its members..." -
Dee Hock - The Art of Chaordic
Leadership
Sathyam Commentary: Nadesan
Satyendra on
Maveerar Naal, 2009Revised 18 November 2009
"... 27 November 2009 marks the first Maaveerar Naal
without the physical presence of Velupillai
Pirabakaran - a leader who will live in the hearts and minds of
generations of Tamils yet unborn as the undying and heroic symbol of Tamil
resistance to alien rule. 27 November 2009 also serves to mark the
broadening and deepening of the struggle of the Tamil people for freedom - a
broadening and deepening reflected in the
self
immolation in February and March 2009 of Muthukumar,
Ravichandran,
Thamil Venthan, and
Sivaprakasam not from Tamil Eelam but from
Tamil Nadu.... The political reality is that the
defacto state of Tamil Eelam
(from 2001 to 2009) with a strong disciplined army and the
internationalisation of the Tamil Eelam freedom struggle amongst Tamils
tracing their origins to both Tamil Nadu and Tamil Eelam has led to the
spread of Tamil national consciousness into broader and broader strata of
the Tamil population living today in many lands... And it is this Tamil
nation of more than 80 million Tamil people which will bow its head on this
Maveerar Naal in the year 2009 - bow its head in memory of those Tamils who
gave their lives so that their brothers and sisters, wherever they may live
- yes, wherever they may live - may live with dignity and in freedom. In
Tamil we say thanmaanam."
more
tamilnation.org
is concerned to tell a story... It is a story about
a nation without a state - a
trans
state nation of more than 80 million Tamils living today
in many lands and across distant seas...
... But it is not a story simply about the past. It is a
story about the present and of a
trans state nation of people who are committed to rid
themselves of the divisions amongst them, be it rooted in race,
caste, religion or gender ...
It is also a story about
the future and the determined aspiration of a
trans state nation,
a nation without a state, to
live in equality,
in freedom
and
in peace with the other nations of the
world ...
"...There are victims, there are executioners, and
there are bystanders... Unless we wrench free from being what we
like to call ‘objective’, we are closer psychologically, whether we
like to admit it or not, to the
executioner than to
the victim...”
It is a story about the
growing togetherness of a trans state nation of people,
a nation without a state,
in a digital age which has rendered State boundaries
increasingly porous and where deep rooted kinship ties
are finding fresh avenues for expression...
"...when our words begin to coincide with
our deeds, principle emerges with power to influence. We
also begin to learn something about
our own ‘dharma’ or own ‘way of harmony’..."
"What is Truth?
said Pilate confronted with a mighty messenger of the
truth, not jesting surely, not in a spirit of shallow
lightness, but turning away from the Christ with the
impatience of the disillusioned soul for those who still
use high words that have lost their meaning and believe
in great ideals which the test of the event has proved
to be fallacious..."
Mao
Tse-tung quoted by Joachim Israel in the Language of Dialectics
and the Dialectics of Language
- "Without life, there would be no
death; without death there would be no life. Without above,
there would be no below; without below there would be no above.
Without misfortune, there would be no good fortune; without good
fortune, there would be no misfortune. Without facility there
would be no difficulty; without difficulty, there would be no
facility. Without landlords there would be no tenant-peasants;
without tenant-peasants, there would be no landlords. Without
the bourgeoisie, there would be no proletariat; without
proletariat, there would be no bourgeoisie."
It is an evolutionary process
which has resulted in the formation of the seemingly intricate fore brain of
man today and it is this self conscious mind of man which seeks to know,
which seeks to understand. How is this understanding brought about? In what way does an ordinary
mind comprehend?
One says ordinary mind because one can neither reject nor ignore the
experience of those extraordinary beings who have arisen on this earth from
time to time and who appear to have comprehended the total reality and who
were one with it; enlightened beings to whom time and space dissolved in an
eternity which was boundless...
The ordinary mind does not however comprehend the whole. It seems to deal
effectively only with parts of the total reality. It directs its attention
to discrete and separate parts of the whole. In order that it may
understand, the mind separates and conceptualises. It separates that which
is connected and the very process of separation distorts an understanding of
the whole.
The mind thinks in sequence in time. The present is a fleeting moment and
is then gone forever. Thoughts are so much grist to its mill. Words and
concepts are the instruments of its trade. The mind seeks to clarify one
concept by having recourse to another. It defines one word with another.
There is no end to this process nor is there a starting point.
"...reason cannot arrive at any final truth because it can
neither get to the root of things nor embrace their totality. It deals with
the finite, the separate and has no measure for the all and the infinite."
- The Future Evolution
of Man - Sri Aurobindo
But that is not to say that the mind does not have an important role to
fulfil. "...reason has a legitimate function to fulfil, for which
it is perfectly adapted; and this is to justify and illumine for man his
various experiences and to give him faith and conviction in holding on to
the enlarging of his consciousness."
- The Future Evolution of Man
- Sri Aurobindo ... " more
rating for
tamilnation.org
[A well organised, and extensively annotated guide to
Tamil-related resources - ed.]
Research usefulness
[essential
- v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]:
Essential
