GOD"S OWN COUNTRY!!

                         Bhagvad Gita is a simple but a most important part of epic Mahabharata for this country owned by God.


It contains the conversation between God and Man.


Without any doubt God has the final say.


Is He right?




The man is Arjuna the great warrior deprived of his kingdom.


God is none other than Krishna in human form, his charioteer.


Please visit the battlefield:


Two confronting armies.


Whole of the royal kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent and their armies have committed to one side or the other of this epic battle.


Arjuna and his Pandavas on one side; Kauravas , their cousins, who have wrongfully usurped the kingdom are on the other side.


Arjuna foresees what is going to happen. With genuine and sincere feelings at heart he is tormented by those profound doubts  about fighting maiming and killing people of his side , other side, his relatives and close friends - all human beings.


The cause , of course , is right. But is that enough?


Will that justify enormity of death and destruction?


Should I take personal responsibility for this mass killing and massive destruction?


What mistake these thousands of people have committed who are going to be killed except being loyal to one group or the other?


Krishna brushes aside all these consequences.


He in fact takes an extreme position by urging Arjuna to obey him and fight the violent war IRRESPECTIVE OF CONSEQUENCES>


Krishna ignores significance of human conscience, and value of human lives.He also disowns  a person"s personal responsibilities for the consequences of his action. For Krishna basic human emphathies have no role.


Krishna disowns consequence of action.


Mahabharatha is ultimately a tragedy: We witness weeping, lamentations and cries, grief and destruction accompanying victory and the end establishes that God is wrong and Man is right.

Easy Way Out!

You and I  and each one of us are self opinionated. Some one said , we are dogma prone right from our mothers" womb. You know, that is an  easy way out.to live our life.

All that one should not forget is this: irrespective of our convenient fixed beliefs, human culture is changing and evolving.Human knowledge too is all the time evolving.Each generation is building upon the accomplishments of previous generation.

Raw facts are always difficult for us to comprehend. Not many of you are enjoying these thoughts.
 Convincing and cunning stories are  hot sales always because it is easy for human mind to buy it.
Things that fit narrative are easily remembered by us. That is why rather than true events reconstructed events make history more explainable.
  Mind always try to establish linearity.Whereas non linearity rules our lives. What is the linearity between pleasure and drinking water.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains in his mind blowing masterpiece many such mental blocks. For example we never examine the silent evidence. In faith healing the silent evidence is this: "Who prayed but not healed" In this world there are innumerable unsung heroes. What are their stories?  silent evidence. How many manuscripts epics and account of history are  destroyed and lost for ever. What silent evidence they carry?

Psychological Black Plague

Criticisms and failures are components of conditioning.criticisms compound criticisms and failures compound failures.

A distorted thinking process thus sets in.which we call as inferiority feeling.In later  stages it assumes the form of neurotic character.
It is rooted in the young adult"s experience of helplessness, weakness and dependency and intensified  by comparison.

The inability to reach a fictional subjective goal of success nurtures this inferiority feeling.Such perceived  negative feeling will recall the original inferiority feeling which was embedded in early stages of life and the composite effect is overwhelming.

The causes are traced to parental attitude , physical defects, mental limitations, social disadvantages and discrimination shown to people.
A temporary patch to solve the inferior feeling is to make oneself feel superior. Such superiority complex is also a disguised form of inferiority complex only.
In inferiority complex which is psychological disorder creative imagination is wrongly employed. That is an image one makes evoking unworthiness , shame and failure.

They say great military leader and emperor such as Napoleon was driven from the insecurities of being short. This' they say , one exposes by aggressive behaviour. A smaller structure is not necessarily a true handicap but by employing wrongly creative imagination one perceives it as handicap.A woman with such complex is threatened by an attractive woman. She overcompensates this feeling by teasing , criticising, and displaying various insecure behaviour.

Test

What is my attitude towards people who are better off than me in certain areas of life?

How do I feel towards people who are more attractive than me?

How do I feel about my superiors  at work?
Do I feel inferior to them?

Do I feel better than them?

Do I feel the urge to pull them down by criticising them?

Or do I feel excited or thrilled to see their success?

Realisation

All people have flaws. Most people in this world have major flaws.

Goals and yardstick of success and failure are purely subjective.

We don"t  need to reach the perceived goal to enjoy ourselves.

We can enjoy the journey with the kind of progress we make . In that process we are very confident.

We are unique. You are unique. No matter you do. You are unique.
About 90% of the people feel they are inferior (without realising  the concept of uniqueness)- so our perceived standard is a joke, One should be able to realise finally how silly it is to compare- compare ourselves against false measurements.

Fruit Gathering

ALL WRONG

In their Book "IN Search of Excellence" Mr.Thomas J.Peters and Robert H.Waterman has brought to attention the fact that what we think responsible as basic rules for running a company efficiently are all wrong.

The lessons are drawn by them by intensive study of America"s best run companies.

Belief  number one; Big is better. We get economies of scale. WRONG

                          two:To win, make it low cost.                            WRONG

                         three:Analyse everything. Set targets always.Forecast everything. WRONG

                          four:Get rid of fanatical champions                                                    Wrong

                            five:Decision making is the crucial high level job.Implementation follows . Terribly
                                                                                                                                                   WRONG

                            six:Control everything...WRONG

                        seven:Give incentives.productivity will follow; WRONG

                           eight; Control quality ;WRONG

                           nine:Be business minded and professional oriented.People, Product and Services are all  resources to achieve profits: WRONG

                           ten:Top Executives are the ones very important. They are more important than markets. Terribly wrong.

                        eleven:Growth is everything. If you stop growing everything is over. WRONG.


           

Fruit Gathering

CANNIBALS WITH FORKS

It seems now the world pays attention to no more ideologies such as socialism, communism - the only ruling ideology appears to be money making.

This is title of the Book written by John Elkingston who sought the attention of the corporate world to seven revolutions. He warned in his visionary book in 1999 that the world will turn into Cannibals with forks if TRIPLE BOTTOMLINE of PROFIT PEOPLE and PLANET are not equally pursued by the corporate world.

The SEVEN REVOLUTIONS he proposed are:

1.transparency

2.Corporate Governance

3.Lifecycle technology

4.Value driven

5.Market driven

6.Private  - Public Partnership

7.Market responsiveness.


Euthanasia- better to die than live

When people begin to feel that they depend upon their family members for their passing of this earthly life on day to day basis- without love they begin to feel themselves that it is better to die than live.

Person like Aruna need not take that course.  These wonderful people who are no way related to her
are lovingly supporting the cause of her life. Aruna should not die.

Stealing credit

Stealing the recognition that rightfully belongs to other is most painful thing in life! Many of us have undergone this pain. We feel the same pain when we hear that this happens to someone. Dancer Lane claims Natalie Portman (this year Oscar Winner) did only 5% dancing in "Black Swan" and 95% is hers.Most incredible dance movements in the Oscar Winning film were performed not by Portman but they were Lane"s  but were digitally placed on Lane"s body!!!

Healer Bhaskar

My sister gave me a CD containing Healer Baskar"s philosopphy. His ideas have coincidence with sathguru"s teachings. Our human intelligence is not confined to brain. Our body has intelligence. A highest degree of intellect whcich converts an idly into a body. Like soil is converted into food.Like a child is created out of foetus; like cell renews itself 6000 crore times; like repiratory system ;like  reproductiove biology;like hunger; like thirst.If we try and hear what body thinks and expresses we may cure all our diseases in a natural way, says Healer Bhaskar from  Coimbatore.

" Jesus Interrupted" and "Misquoting Jesus"

Historical analysis archaeological findings Hebrew and Greek historical inquiries have brought stunning new facts but nothing is going to change the fact that Bible is the single most significanr Book for our civilization. Bart D Ehraman a born again christian who studied in Moody Bible Institute was studying in Princeton University where his Professor admitted one inaccuracy in Bible and  floodgates opened.He claims that Second Epistle of Peter is forged.And six of 13 letters allegedly written by Paul are false. BookI of Timothy , he, tries to prove , claimed to have been written by Paul was in fact written after Paul died.

Bible makes more sense when contradictions are accepted. Those days books were copied in hand. Even carbon paper was not discovered 2000 years back. And oral traditions became texts with an interval of time. So there are chances in plenty for alterations and additions and inaccuracies.

COCOCOLA CONSPIRACY

The ingredients of Cococola are deadly poisonous says Dr.Robert Lustig.;sodium ,salt coffeeine, and sugar.

In his talk on "Sugar; The Bitter truth" he reveals an insight hitherto unknown to many of us.
Fructose is nothing but deadliest villain and has bad effects in body metabolism which is equal to ethanol found in alcoholic drinks.
Though Frutose is a toxin , he says' God has packaged the poison with antidote. The antidote is fibre.
This is how vegetables and fruits are made as harmless combination. BUT the sweetened beverages  and soft drinks do not have the antidote are directly related to obesity and hypertension, says Dr.Lustig.

Fruit Gatherer

Ratan Tata and Work ethics
 I asked my daughter who belongs to quality domain in IT and working for a British firm to comment on Ratan Tata"s criticism of work ethics of British managers who "do not go the extra mile"
unlike Indians.When emergency meeting is scheduled at 5.00 pm "sorry I have my train to catch" is the usual excuse.

Pat came the reply from her:

"I don"t agree with Tata.Indians can slog day and night but that is not proof of their smartness.It is true that  they don"t mind giving up hobbies and recreation because in our environment these are optionals. Plus we,Indians , cut corners in quality,with every chance we get. Doing quality work in limited hours
is need of the hour than slave labour which is difficult to be trusted.

Save A life Please!

An Appeal

Rajalakshmi is at the verge of dying. She is 27 years old, married to a Driver employed in a small firm with monthly salary of rs.5000/-. The couple have a child of one year old.

Rajalakshmi is suffering from a highly critical heart ailment which doctors say if not attended shall eventually cause death.

A Stent is to be implanted urgently through keyhole surgery and if done immediately there is scope of life for this woman but the cost of stent alone is between Rs.2.50 lakhs to 3.00 lakhs according to the cardiologists.

Vinesh the Driver (who approached my son ) being total stranger to us we personally verified the medical records consulted the Cardiologists who has already examined the patient and confirmed the facts.We also consulted number of good hospitals in the city Apollo at Chennai and CMC Vellore.

On behalf of my family  I have  paid Rs one lakh towards the cause and now look forward for donors whom I request to please remit even Rs.500 or Rs.1000 since drops make ocean. I request you to contribute the amount directly to the hospital or alternatively to Karen Nivedita Foundation if you need 18 G exemption and the Trust will in turn remit the amount to hospital on your behalf.


For all clarifications please contact this blog author at akshek@gmail.com.

"I see God in every human being, When I wash the leper"s wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord Himself"

Mother Teresa

Million Dollar Question!

Osama Bin Laden is dead. What next?

CHANGE OF HEART! That is the theme of this article.

Let us halt witch hunting. Remove our shoes for a while and wear the other person"s shoes and think.
BECAUSE, for peaceful coexistence sweeping the issues under the carpet is not the solution. The critical need today is to keenly realise  the fact that your upholding other person"s right to his opinions principles and faith is first and foremost step towards reconciliation.

What we are fighting for? What kind of a world we are going to leave for our posterity?

In the bathtub today I read Sujatha quoting Shakespeare:

"Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing"

In 1992 a centuries old place of worship was struck down by hooligans quoting mythology passed on for generations hundred thousand years back. Which faction here can be branded as fanatics or fundamentalists?

By quoting a connection three thousand years back or  mystical evidences of hundred thousand years back and armed by a UN.Resolution Zionists invaded a territory  and conquered it in total blindness to the fact that the Palestine Arabs who were made homeless were rightfully owning it for centuries! Who is fanatic or fundamentalist here.

Let us look at the reality for a while.When i escorted my wife very recently for a Good Friday Mass
I was stunned to see the church compound inundated by seamless crowd which is only a fraction of believers from that single church- that is., Tamil Catholics in the particular area of the city!
Religions will stay. They will continue to decide the life and destiny of the large number of the people of  world.
What a modern mind fails to recognise is that  along with the package of cults rituals prayers mystic practices liturgy and superstitions religion deep inside has message to mankind applicable to all ages.

On the other hand modernity has empowered human lives, opened up new worlds, broadened up our horizons and changed the way we think and act.
But then why it created wars and destruction? Why it stopped being humane mutually beneficial and empathetic?
Because it has its limitations. It has to depend upon the opposite camp for a healthy value system.
Human reasoning on which modernity is entirely based on is not designed to pursue the truth.This is what neuroscientists and psychologists have discovered recently.By evolution human nature is engineered to encourage and protect self interest and self interest only.Reasoning , therefore , need not necessarily lead to common good. The horrors perpetrated by modernity stands testimony to this. I find no need to elaborate.Kant had indicated this weakness of modernity long back,It is really impossible for human beings to escape from their own psychology. And hence modernity can never pursue absolute truth because it is not the agenda for modernity.Freud too showed that human beings are slaves to powerful uncontrollable irrational forces of the unconscious.

What is the point I am trying to make? Religion and its accomplices (shall we call them fundamentalists) and its peace loving followers and also terrorists live in one world.
Their involvement shall not confine to one area. It has its implications in politics, Governments(Arab Spring?) spiritual, social, personal,military, and economic spheres of human life.Osama"s world has not faded and gone. It is there to stay.

There is certainly another world where all modern minded are willing to live. A world with a natural tendency to see facts as facts and empirical. A scientific rational principled and honesty seeking world.

Though opposed to each other human history has showed us both has contributed and borrowed from each other.After all,  fundamentalists and fanatics right from Ayatollahs are benefiting themselves from cutting edge technology. For universal message of Love ., compassion, empathy , brotherhood. repentance., and forgiveness modern world is always benefited from religions of the world.
The line is drawn. The options are not many. Either it is understanding magnanimity benevolence and tolerance for peaceful going or perpetual conflict. What sort of legacy we propose to hand over to the next generations is million dollar question!

Life Without take off

Speaking from personal experience let me put it this way: People who are deprived of a quality education right in time have their lives never started.It applies even for the fortunate ones endowed with inborn wisdom.
It is a vicious cycle - ignorance leading to all manifestations of deprivation.
A human being suffers on both counts- intrinsically as well as extrinsically for lack of proper early education.
I attach special meaning to our right towards proper and quality basic education which is being denied.to majority of the population. Victims are children who lack power to enforce this right. Their so called spokesmen are the real villains.
No education is far better than bogus or fraudulent or evil education.
A  school which has teachers who do everything except educating. A teacher who utters something  not even remotely connected to text book or knowledge and pretends to teach only on hearing the approaching footsteps of Head Master with a long stick.A teacher who spends entire time in self praise.A teacher who only educates for students enrolled for private tuition. A teacher who supplies answer sheets to tuition students or leaks question paper.
A teacher who teaches good moral values by taking you to a nearby village Meela vittan from Tuticorin and instructs you to tell parents and HM that you were taken to Vaigai Dam for picnic.THUS and in this process
The student gets kicked up to tenth standard where he finally faces the Government Exams.Now prophecies are made one after the other by so called elders on the impending disasters and traumatic failure awaiting the youngster.
It is these elders who are suckers who fail to see talents for the children are not imparted uniformly.
That is the vicious cycle. Ignorance breeds ignorance.
Why we had forced family planning sometime back? Knowing well it  never works that way?t is obviously because of the reason that we lacked the awareness that having a small family will prevent production of  educationallyDISABLED persons.Newly added members in the already overpopulated families confront stark realities of fraudulent or bogus education.
When we speak of justice and when we speak of freedom let us realise we have none of it in a environment that does not guarantee quality education for its citizens.(Individuals cannot enable this) A person without quality education is not expected to contribute good to the society. He himself is threatened with extinction. There is no place for expressing true sense of freedom of thought speech belief and action.There is no scope for broadening one"s objectives and his social commitments. And hence there is no take off in his life. There is no meaning for such life.

LINGERING INJUSTICE

                                Successive Governments and Judicial Institutions continue to cover up the gross discrimination perpetrated against minority Dalits in the name of their religious affliation.This  has been excellently brought out in a recently published White Paper By Mr.A.M.M.S.Xavier a noted writer thinker and social activist who belongs not to the group that has been discriminated against.


Humanity has never ever encountered such preposterous and cruel stratification of human beings which paved way for perpetual subjugation and inhuman life. The author of the White Paper has unfolded the sad tale: of how  the occupiers relegating the dirtiest jobs to Natives and then call them dirty and designate them as untouchables.

To cut a long story short I am asking this question: Don"t the Governments and Judiciary know that no religion that came after Hinduism has suceeded to address or cure this malaise and rotten disease which is worse than AIDs? The disease inherited by us and deeply rooted to our culture and environment for many thousands of years. Are we really fools to beleive that those thousand years habit is done away with sixty years of religious identification. I dont think so.

All of us are either victims or culprits one way or the other for poisonous and vicious cycle of shame passing on from one generation to another. We have still not found any clue for nipping in the bud the very tendency of caste identity.

I can recall my first day in Government Office.I was overwhelmed by the spontaneous affection shown by my
casteist colleague by welcoming me with  an embrace which hardly I realised was intended to locate if I am wearing my holy thread! Nor have I for gotten how my good friend Jana took me to his house for a cup of coffee much to the disapproval of his mother who did not hesitate to sprinkle water and did cleansing ritual even  before I could leave the place!
In denying the justice for dalit minority of whichever religion it could be, one cannot rule out vindication of religious fundamentalism as justifiable if pursued by Majority.

Matsyanyaya is a concept well accepted by law makers  where a big fish can devour small fish.
It is a legitimate right of majority to exterminate the minority according to the concept.

Prof.;Amartyasen * I have discussed this in one of my blogs*  in his "Idea of Justice" has brought out the excellent theme of right way of rendering justice. Politicians and Judges are required to meditate over this priniciple.

Amartyasen says in classic Sanskrit it is called Niti(In Tamil NEETHI) and Nyaya ( NIYAYAM in Tamil).
True rendering of Justice is by rendering Nyaya . As Plato has envisaged one who is possessing high degree of social awareness sense of justice,purest noblest and most righteous  will see what is happening to actual lives of the people than interpreting statutes.Failing which as one English Judge remarked in 18 th century "your judgment may be right but reasons are certainly wrong.

Walking backward

This write up describes an early experience or first encounter with Powers that be. One who is drunken with power becomes a monster. The powers are half legal and half illegal. The whole world knows this. It inevitably makes one unjust and unprincipled.Your henchmen are all your yes men. In that process you destroy all and sundry who don't matter to you.

Such violent deaths of basic rights of ordinary people and encroachment on their freedom of existence is caused by pursuing policy of favouritism which is nothing but worst form of corruption which invariably results in corruption of moral values in human life.

This is a case of a vice chancellor which office he earned as a political appointment through his M.P. relative in the ruling party those days.With unlimited powers vested with him as first Vice Chancellor (with Statutes and Regulations of the Varsity yet to be written) this all powerful "vice" chancellor misused his position day in and day out to remove people and bring his stooges to significant position.

An youngster was directly reporting to this tyrant; one who is supposed to write out many of his illegal orders.The youngster is conscientious filled with ethical integrity. But definitely not clever not smart not practical.It was Emergency which he had forgotten that there is no fundamental right and there is no right to approach Court of law .
These  days PhD are earned at Libraries.Relevant Doctors know this. I have no need to elaborate.In order to bring his own man to this post of Chief Librarian Gazetted Post they say) this "vice" chancellor issued orders of dismissal to  one handicapped Librarian who was highly qualified and highly experienced than the stooge of this man. Reason for dismissal: having lost a book in this Varsity library containing millions of books.

Youngster rose up in revolt. He organised Union and addressed meetings.Employees came with great support. A hunger strike was organised. But the dismissal order was not withdrawn. Instead the youngster was packed to a distant destination as punishment transfer while he had a kid of three months old. He was later reduced in rank to the post he originally joined eight years back through Public Service Commission.The youngster left the job in disgust.

This is story of an youngster who cannot compromise in his principles even an inch to avoid displeasing others but this is how his adventurous mission  open defiance and rebellion attitude was crushed to pieces.

Values

This piece of writing is dedicated to my Grandchildren Karen Christopher and Mila Mendez.

Everyone of us has a value system. Despite various things happen in course of our lives, we cling to them as a child clings to her mother.It so happened that agnostic cum atheist and down to the earth rationalistic approach to problems of life have  become second nature to many of us probably because of reasons that thinking and liberal environment in which we were born  or brought up with, i am not sure . But deep inside, one is always reminded by a value system a conscience keeper placing a check in each of our moves in this ever competitive world- the inner voice to tell you and warn you to act above utter selfishness, retrace your steps reform yourself and to find out alternative path that brings purity of your character and inner harmony to your life.
From where this value system has originated?

Digging deeper I realise that these values have been fed into my system by my mother.From where she got these values? I have to unambiguously and whole heartedly confide with you that these are Christian Values.
I was constantly reminded of these values by her not directly but indirectly in her daily conversation with Jesus -an impromptu family prayer that was a daily ritual in my childhood.

We are prone to mistakes.We are all  made that way.Christian values recognise this and help us end this vicious cycle.

Christian values for the first time in the history of mankind solves this vexed issue of helplessness on the part of the man who feels guilty about mistakes he has committed and does not know how to proceed further.

First of all forgiving a sinner was unthinkable in our pastoral past. We have now come to realise that selfish gene or self preservation is a defence mechanism built upon us by our genes culture and environment.
We are driven by this mad instinct pursuing our lives with greed jealousy anger and endless fighting.
But the defence mechanism we understand that is put in place to prolong the human race in this planet.We do not actually fulfil this objective by drawing borders of nation or religion or ideology and wage war against one another to bring human race into extinction.
.We have often misinterpreted our selfish instincts to pursue mindless egoistic path regardless of the injustices we commit in that process to
rest of our brethren .The ethical bias within ourselves make us commit more and more sins and we continue to fail in compassion and indulge in self pity.

Christian values make you realise this! It does not stop there. It offers magical solution to enable us to come out of this mess! Man by virtue of having been endowed with natural instincts of self preservation is bound to commit sin. Christianity understood the need to guide him away from this vicious cycle of reward or price system in this world.A huge difference has to come , a huge effort is to be made in this direction to alter this mindset.

Christian Values offer repentance and forgiveness as two indispensable tools to end the cycle.To close the old account and start a new account in our lives on any point of time.
Christian Values allow and enable this process of making a new beginning.We repent our mistakes and ask those to whom we have erred against and ask them to forgive us.We also unilaterally and unconditionally forgive those on whom we have grudges imaginary or real and ask them to help us to open new account.In the new account only profits get transferred which are good and noble thoughts. Losses got liquidated by forgiveness and will not find a place in our new balance sheet of our life.

In  unconditional terms I do this now.By doing this I wish to carry forward this value from my mother to the next generation this  priceless value which has given real significance to the noblest soul who gave up his life  for this one and only cause many thousand years back.