Happy Independence Day

Today is a big day for the nation. NSS, IIT Kharagpur wishes all a very, very happy Independence Day.

In unfurling the national flag, Prof. N. R. Mandal, Dean, Student Affairs and Acting Director made us aware of our inner core that always seeks freedom but out of ignorance takes different paths - one leads to deeper bondage and greater agony, the other leads to enlightenment and blissful experience. Full text of speech is given next.

My colleagues, students of IIT Kharagpur, students of our neighbouring schools, ladies and gentlemen, a very good morning to you all.  

It is indeed a great pleasure to see you all present here, celebrating the 68th Independence Day of our Motherland. On this auspicious occasion, we pay our respectful homage to our countrymen who sacrificed their lives and earned this freedom. The freedom thus earned, is the job completely done? Should we then sit complacent with this or look ahead? 

I understand that what we have is only physical freedom and what we should be aiming is internal and spiritual freedom as well.  

One may gain political and social independence, but if one is slave to his passions and desires, one cannot feel the pure joy of real freedom. Our aim now should be to move towards this real freedom.
Everything that we perceive around us is struggling towards freedom. When the line of action taken is not proper one, we call it evil; and when the manifestation of its proper and high, we call it good. But the impulse is the same, the struggle towards freedom. The saint is oppressed with the knowledge of his condition of bondage, and he wants to get rid of it; so he worships God. The thief is oppressed with the idea that he does not possess certain things, and he tries to get rid of that want, to obtain freedom from it; so he steals. 

The freedom which the saint seeks is very different from that which the robber seeks; the freedom loved by the saint leads him to the enjoyment of infinite, unspeakable bliss, while that on which the robber has set his heart only forges other bonds for his soul. 

We must become free. We must give up all slavery, all bondage of whatever kind. We must not only give up our bondage to earth and everything and everybody on earth, but also to all ideas of heaven and happiness. The idea of heaven after death where the good live a life of eternal happiness is a vain dream. 

Wherever there is happiness there must follow unhappiness sometime. Wherever there is pleasure, there must be pain. This is absolutely certain, every action has its reaction somehow.
The idea of freedom is the only true idea of salvation - freedom from everything, the senses, whether of pleasure or pain, from good as well as evil. 

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. We are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. 

Therefore, let us proclaim our freedom and be what we are - ever free, ever blessed and thereby let us unfold our immense potential that is latent in us. With this only we shall be able to place our Motherland in its true glory and the rightful place in the world. 

Jai Hind.