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<p align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center; line-height:150%;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><b
style='mso-bidi-font-weight:normal'><font size="4">The Trinity of </font> </b><st1:place><b style='mso-bidi-font-weight:
 normal'><font size="4">Bengal</font></b></st1:place></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><i><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>RAMMOHAN, Bankimchandra,
Vivekananda – these three personalities represent the three steps in the
process of evolution in modern <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>. Like the three
strides of Vishnu these three great souls have occupied three stages of the
evolving consciousness of <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>. The soul of modern <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>
awoke in Rammohan, and then its mind blossomed in Bankim, subsequently its
life-energy burst forth in Vivekananda.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.05pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
fact we may generalise that all disciplines and ways of creation proceed in the
same order. The truth that is to manifest in the material world in a concrete
physical form appears at first in an apperception of the inner heart, <i>hrdi
pratisya<span style='font-family:"Arial Narrow";mso-bidi-font-family:
"Arial Narrow"'>. </span></i>The mind then seizes upon it and gives a manifest
form, <i>manasa abhiklapta. </i>Next it takes a step ahead and becomes
more distinct and secures vitality and leaving the core it starts revealing
itself without. Finally, it incarnates in a body, possesses a gross physical
form, <span class=GramE>becomes</span> concrete and real.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.3pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
the stirring of the Soul, in the intuition of the psychic being, the truth, in
its dynamic expression, takes birth; there is its seed-form, its essential
being. In the mind, the diverse lines of growth are first sketched out, the
play, the kaleidoscope of myriad possibilities. In the vital it becomes living
and forceful with a definite mould. At last it brings down into the body its
material shape.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:9.6pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span
class=GramE>First then the awakening of the psychic Person.</span> When this
central being of a man becomes conscious, when it is<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 219<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>awakened</span>
from slumber or trance or from self-absorption, it opens its eyes to the
outside world and its manifest organisation and demands its due right and
fulfilment. In common parlance, it is then said that the call has come to the
man or his time is ripe. But the truth is that at the profound depth of the
consciousness, in the inmost subtle world, there has been this awakening. The
awakened force or the truth of the Soul-Reality begins to work as though from
behind a veil or a curtain. Normally it is not always possible for man to
apprehend its full influence and motive in his normal consciousness.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:11.5pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Thus,
in Rammohan is visible the primal stage of the consciousness of <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>.
It is he who may be called in this sense the psychic being or the causal being of
modern <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>. He alone before all others has brought
forward the consciousness of <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place> to the free air and
light of the modern era from the antiquity, the mediaevalism of the past. He
has initiated the country into the religion of the new era. In him sprouted the
first seeds of all future creations. Each flash of consciousness, intense with
a deep and pregnant <span class=GramE>meaning, that</span> sprung in his
intuition gradually blossomed into a lush of foliage and flowers and fruits. He
brought a new birth, a new life and a new' creation everywhere in all the
fields of the collective life of state, society, religion, culture, literature
and language. He made the fundamental scheme, the blue-print for the future
fulfilment of the country. It is he who laid down the first principles. The
future architects have made a new and solid structure on these as their basis. Rammohan was indeed the soul in the heart. The Upanishad says that the nerves
of the body-vessel are assembled in this heart-centre and from here they go
out everywhere in all directions. Likewise in Rammohan too a new orientation
in the mind and life of the nation, the modern consciousness in all its
branches of culture has centred and from him all flow out into activities and
enterprises of a new achievement.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;'>Page – 220<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:9.8pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>When
the truth takes birth and grows considerably in the soul then only it can
reveal itself in the mental plane. Reason and intelligence seize on h and
apprehend it to know its meaning and endeavour to bring it to the fore of the
critical perception of an enlightened intelligence.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:10.05pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>We
have already said that the mental being (Manomaya Purusha) of the country awoke
in Bankimchandra. It is he who gave a fluent expression, in thought and in an
outer attractive language, to her hopes, aspirations and inner feelings. And it
is in him that the first revelation of a new curiosity, inquisitiveness and
sensitiveness is to be found. His was the inspiration and channel for an
unceasing quest, a many-sided research through mental seeking and logic and
argument which inundated the entire country like a flood. Many are the lines of
investigation and imaginative display that bear testimony to the mind's
manifold inquisitiveness. A deep longing, a luminous perception of the Soul
developed and expanded in hundred branches. The mind's business is to manifest
and apply a soul-intuition in as many fields and forms, in as many directions
as possible and one form through which mind finds expression is literature.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:.15in;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In
the literature of Bankim the mind of modern <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place> has
begun to take a definite shape. If there is in the Bengali race a capacity to
understand and appreciate readily and easily modern thoughts and new ideas, if
there is in the Bengalis a keen earnestness to discover and follow revolutionary
principles and ideals, then that found an adequate instrument and initiation in
Bankim. An alert and capable mind, an intellect shot with lucid humour, not
dryly arguing, but inspired with an intuition – dynamic ideas that demand
fulfilment, be it in the practical field or in <span style='mso-bidi-font-style:
italic'>the<i> </i></span>realm of imagination, by giving a shape to their
beauty – this is the domain created by Bankim, this his great gift<i> </i>to
the consciousness of modern Bengal.<i><o:p></o:p></i></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:9.8pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Now for the next stage,
whatever has thus become manifest and taken form in the mind, becomes living,
dynamic<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 221<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:
none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class=GramE>and</span>
concrete when it descends into the vital. Vivekananda is the living embodiment
of the life-energy of modern <st1:place>Bengal</st1:place>. Not simply in the
world of mental imagination, not in the mere sport of thought, but in the flesh
and blood of life, to make the truth dynamic is the arduous tapasya of
Vivekananda. It is from Vivekananda that the life-force, the vitality of the
nation has taken a new turn, a fresh and full-flooded stream – the light of a
new achievement has glimmered into the people's daily practical life. What was
in Rammohan a recondite and deep realisation of the Soul became a dream,
imagination, hope and ideal in Bankim and culminated in Vivekananda as an
unavoidable necessity of life, as an object to be realised, as a supremely
desirable material asset.<o:p></o:p></p>

<p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify;text-indent:12.0pt;line-height:
150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>If
we look into the personal history of many a Bengali youth of the modern age, we
would find almost everywhere an initial inspiration and the influence from
Vivekananda. True, not all are influenced or likely to be influenced by this
colossal soul so as to follow him solely in the field of religion and spirituality.
But it was his ups oaring vitality that quickens the ideal into a reality for
which Vivekananda was so dear to one and all.<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p>

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<span
style='font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;'>Page – 222<o:p></o:p></span></p>

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