Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Within the Human Threshold : Anand’s New Book of Wisdom – Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma
“Large like Whitman, he contains continents”
ANAND’S essays are several pathways that the author pursues to arrive at conclusive convictions about human condition. He wonders whether machines tend to be innocent and detached. Or, do they complicate the mental and ethical progress of human mind. Another time, realizing that penury is the nursey for man to evolve into strong men and women, he wonders if parents, blinded by love for children, give them a luxury of facilities and props which contribute to a mental attitude both lethargic and secure, but this protective grooming fails to inculcate in children to survive the shocks of existence, even become weaklings.
The author finds that the instinct for survival can be the initial stage, and once certain of existential security, man is able to focus on his love for art, for ethical life, the passion to ameliorate life- situations for his fellow beings. Thus, JS Anand takes up one accepted worldview and exploring its origins and impact, he arrives at a clarity for which a man has to harness his mental faculties.
Science and technology, the author argues, do not result in enhanced quality of emotional quiescent. Knowledge cannot be allowed to strike at an erosion of innocence. Innocence must not be confused with ignorance. Like Nietzsche remarked that many men wish to trust themselves to illusions which are not about truth but about convenient worldview. However man may evade, truth will strike back, Kali will have life’s righteous revenge. Face is the index of human mind, writes Anand, print media represents society. Yet it could also be manipulated by a government, and the intelligence of men must arise and correct the imbalance and false narratives.
It’s beyond the time and frame of this statement on Jernail Singh Anand’s book At the Threshold of Wisdom. Further one moves in this multi- splendoured essay, one is struck by the audacious quality of author’s originality. It’s not just a lonely furrow, but it’s ploughing through the hard, stony passages baked by history and time. As Mauro has put in the Foreword, it’s ‘teaching without teaching’. History as we read its chronicles has a lot to tell of greed and killings, wars and usurpation. Language has no loyalty, it’s like a harlot, observes Anand, and it dances to the tune the powerful play, be it the sacred or the profane. How much of the positive architecture, of Ashok or Chandergupt, Bhamashah or Todarmal, do we actually notice and the author insists, there’s a great need for reformatting the history of human mind. Why shouldn’t we have a chair of Todarmal in the department of Economics, or a Bhamashah chair in the department of commerce?
These essays also record the progression of the evolving architecture of the author’s mind, it’s perspectives undergo subtle transformation and emerge as a launching pad to discover fresh vistas of enlightenment. Anand is aware how AI can look at the myth of Sisyphus, differently in a revolutionary way, when he thinks of Albert Camus’s celebrated thesis of the absurd.
Anand identifies with Shelley when the latter doesn’t desire just transformation as a result of psychological encounters with the West Wind but also wishes to be it’s agent. Jernail Singh Anand moves from ‘ I belong to you’ syndrome to the ‘ you belong to me’ perspective, for he sights for himself a role in being part of the cosmos, and is thrilled by the epiphanic realization that through him the cosmic forces flow to the people he is in touch with, or the readers of his poems thus connect with the sacred energy that flows in harmonious rhythm of divinity.
Large like Whitman, he contains continents. He has moved from Eric Fromm’s equation of ‘ I- It relationship’ to ‘ I- Thou relationship’ . It’s not chicanery of language but the profound interplay of history and time, ultronic vision and the threats of a world playing to the tunes of Lustus, the infinite divine and the wisdom ripples in the infinitely finite waves of his day-to-day living, this vastly complicated genius of thought which characterises Anand’s writing, aiming for space beyond the human threshold.
[Note: The Post-Truth Trilogy includes Conversations with the Infinite, Book I, and Beyond the Boundaries of Thought Book II and At the Threshold of Wisdom Book III. Prior to this, Dr. Anand has published Philosophia de Anand, a work of philosophy which includes ten of his philosophical works.]
Author of the Review:
Dr. Lalit Mohan Sharma is a seasoned voice in contemporary poetry whose reflective verses beautifully weave personal introspection with universal human experiences…his work continues to enrich modern poetic discourse with depth, clarity, and quiet emotional power, ” wriites Malini Joshi, editor, The Literature Times. Born 1952, a former government college Principal, Dr Sharma is a bilingual poet, translator and author. His publications include 16 books of English poetry, two anthologies of Hindi poems, Another Gandhi, a monograph on a freedom fighter and A Three- Step Journey, an English translation of Zahid’s Urdu poems. His poetry book On the Edge has got International Culture Award from International Academy of Rome. Icy Chill on Fire is his latest poetry book. Included in several books of repute on poetry, stories and academic research, ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ is his first book of short fiction.
DR JERNAIL S. ANAND [AUTHOR]
Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 books to his credit [20 epics] is a a polymath, and a vital architect of the 21st century ethical literature whose seminal work ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ challenges the moral complacency of our era. Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czeck Rep] and Maxim Gorky [Russia] Soka Ikeda and Mahakavi Bharati (India) Awards, his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He is an Honorary Member of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade, a Member of the Honorary International Boule and Honorary Academic Senator of International Academy of Rome, and an Academic Member of the Academy of Arts and Philosophical Sciences, Bari [Italy]. Anand has built a poetics that unites ethics, Vedic spirituality, social critique, and the philosophy of meaning. Anand presents an articulated perspective on poetry as an instrument of planetary consciousness. A moral philosopher, professor, and international speaker, Anand has devoted much of his research to the ethical dimension of language, to the responsibility of the individual within a globalised society, and to the relationship between matter, consciousness, and transcendence. Email: [email protected].
Bibliography:
https://sites.google.com/view/bibliography-dr-jernal-singh/home
Grokipedia:
https://share.google/QtiWrcFr7Sca7v0qC
