Love

Bible I Corinthians Chapter 13:1-7 talks of love it goes like this:-
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding going or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”
Love should be unconditional. Youngsters should be thought to differentiate between lust and love, infatuation and love etc.

Death

Once a person dies, he is forgotten after sometime unless he is very famous like Shakespeare or notorious like Hitler. Each religion has its own theory of what happens to the soul after death. One thing we must realize is that when we are on this earth, if we do something worth while for our fellow human beings, other than being selfish, we can die satisfied. If it is not the case, all the wealth we have amassed or the knowledge we have gained or the degrees we hold or the number of religious places we go to won’t give us any satisfaction and we will die a terrible death. The last minutes or days or even years in our life will be spend regretting our actions. The thought that if we had one more chance we could undo all the awful things we did will haunt us day and night.

Some religions believe that the rites performed after the death of a person would allow a person’s soul to go to heaven. One thing the living relatives of a death person should keep in mind is that the money they spend on the last rites and the feast after that is of no use. How they served the dead person while he was alive is what counts. There is no use spending money on a corpse. It would be better to donate the corpse’s eyes or any organ which can be used, to bring relief to any living person.

Crime & Punishment

Criminals like thieves, dacoits, murderers, pedophiles (child abusers), rapists, bribe takers etc. are people with psychological problems. There are many crimes committed for self existence which can only be dealt with stern policies taken by the government. Some crimes could be avoided if the criminals exercised self control.

Many won’t commit crimes if they have an element of fear. So if we had rigid laws to punish criminals the crime graph would come down. If we had such laws like cutting of hands of robbers and bribe takers, making eunuchs out of rapists and pedophiles, blinding murderers, rewarding whose who give the whereabouts of even small criminals and keeping their name confidential, the crime graph would show a downward trend after each year and most of the jails wouldn’t have been filled above capacity. Before giving these harsh punishments the criminal should be studied by eminent physiologists to check out if the crimes had been committed just for the money, pleasure or kick of it or if it was due to some deep rooted physiological problem which can be cured through psychiatric treatment and counselling.

Upbringing of Children

Most parent/s have no idea how to bring up their own children. Some bring up their children like puppets, at a single command they are expected to obey. Some bring up their children without any discipline. The parent/s are controlled by the children. Children are also individuals like the grownups. They also have egos that can be hurt and that can be boosted.

The children are the responsibility of parent/s till they are old enough to look after themselves. The parents should be their first role model to prepare them to face this beautiful/ugly world (depends on the outlook).

But it is also true that the parent/s have only one life to live and that they should live their life according to how they want and the kids in no way should dictate how they live their life if they are emotionally and physically provided for. This applies to the parent/s too. The children should be allowed to live their life, marry whoever they want, follow any religion and only give advise when asked unless if they don't advise the outcome will be fatal. The children should be taught to think for themselves. In short parent/s and children should be best friends. If this is the case the world would be a wonderful place to live.

Age 1- 10 is the time when special attention should be given to the character formation of the child. The parent/s should realize that what they are bringing up are not pets but citizens who will shape the future of our country, our society. So they should be shaped to be an asset to the society and not a liability or as anti-social elements.

If a child passes in all tests but if he fails in test of life it will be a great disaster and the parents are to be entirely blamed for it but if a child passes in the test of life it may or not be to the parent/s credit.
If we give more time and love to our children and bring them up in a proper way, a lot of violence from this world will vanish. It is not the amount of time that you give your children that matters but the quality of the time you give them even if it is not very much.


Alcholic Father and Sons

Once upon time an alcoholic man had two sons. The man used to come home drunk every night and beat up his wife and children.

The children grew up, the younger son grew up to be an alcoholic and a criminal. In Jail he blamed his father for ruining his life. “If I had a good father instead of an abusive one I might have been a better man today, he ruined my life from the beginning” he said.

The elder son studied well and became a great lawyer. He was teetotaler, he married and had a great family life.

When someone asked his motivating force “My father” he replied. “I saw how badly he behaved with his family and now he degraded himself after drinking so I made up my mind that I will never be like him, that I will never drink or abuse my wife or children”

Marriage

Is marriage a necessary institution?

Once there was a reality show on star world “Temptation Island”, where 4 couples who were considering marriage, plan to put their dedication to test. The four couples were separated and tempted by 26 singles for 14 days on an Island. What an excellent way of testing if the couples are ready to be true to each other for the rest of their life.

Many youngsters especially in India are sex starved and they just consider marriage as a free license to sex. As a result they don’t stay faithful to each other for a long time because most of the time the children doesn’t have a say in the matters of their marriage other than whether they find their future spouse physically attractive. Even if it is a love marriage the youngsters just take the sex angle into consideration. Children above eighteen should be taught about safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, encouraged to go out on dates and allowed to choose their partner.

Marriage is made a costly affair in India, where a lot of rupees is spent. Most of the time the bride’s family has to bear the burnt, like paying a huge a huge dowry and bearing the costs of the marriage. Is all these necessary?

For people who are pro marriage, marriage should be a resolution taken by two people to spent the rest of their life together and be faithful to each other. If they want to give a party to celebrate their marriage it should be the couple who bear the cost and not their parents. If a few people take the decision to conduct such marriage then after some time a positive trend can come about which can decrease the inequality between the sexes.

After marriage it is also very necessary that the husband and wife live separately from their parents. If either the husband’s or wife’s parents are dependent on the children for their expense they should provide and when the parents (either the husband’s or wife’s) are too old to look after themselves the children should look after them. If there is only a single parent who happen to live with the couple, the parent should make it sure not to interfere in the couple’s affair and only to give advice when asked for without any bias and without taking sides in a quarrel.

For the people who are against marriage, they should not be forced to marry. Marriage should not be seen as a necessary institution. There are many homosexuals in this country who wants to marry. Why do we deny them the right?

Equality

The main type of inequality which should be wiped out is that between the genders. If we take a closer look those who consider women inferior are women themselves. They are the ones who let men get away with the view that women were created to serve and obey men. The women should realize they have equal rights as men, in no way are they inferiors. Men and women are different, not better or worse, just different. There is no need for them to give a dowry to get married. The women should realize that they don’t need looking after. They should not marry a man who wants dowry. They should get a job to stand on their own feet. Once married the house hold chores must be equally shared by both.

Let us take a look at a few present situations. The tension between mother-in-law and daughter-low, the female secretary who takes advantage of the married bosses sexual advances, women allowing themselves to be shown as a sexual commodity or servants at home in advertisements, serials and films, the women who always have to live in constant fear of their husbands, the women who nag their husbands at home, the women who feel compelled to give in to their husbands sexual advances, the high rise of female infanticide with the mother’s consent, the women whose only interest in life is attending parties to compare their attire to those of others present, and many more. The root cause of all these and many more are due to the fact that there is no equality between the sexes.

Why should the women always take her husband’s name after marriage? In that case why should children take the father’s name? Can’t the children be allowed to choose their first, middle and last name and their own religion when they are old enough to think for themselves? Should parents have children with just the selfish intention of having someone to carry their name, obey them and then take over their property? One thing a woman should keep in mind is not to be carried away by a man who is extra courteous to her. Most probably he will have only one thing in mind – to have sex with her.

There are businessmen like Mr. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Whose vision was to make even his driver a millionaire one day. There are lots of businessmen in our society who earn lakhs of rupees every month but are not interested in paying their employees well. What such employers should keep in mind is that by paying their employees well, they are indirectly making profits for themselves. Let’s take the example of an employer who owns a button and fastener(zip) company . If he pays his employees well, the purchasing power of his employees will increase, they will buy more clothes for themselves and their family as a result the demand for button and fasteners will increase. The employer can employ the best talent and also reduce his frequent recruiting costs .

Employees should be devoted to their job and be responsible. They shouldn’t have a servile attitude towards their employers. Even in this 21st century there are people who consider themselves superior due to their caste or colour. It is high time they realised that the plight of the king and the pauper is the same, one day both of them become dust. There are people who belong to the lower caste who think it is due to their fault and they don’t mind being treated cruelly. It is time everyone realised irrespective of sex , caste, creed, colour that all are equal. People should live and let live.
The main evil of inequality is that some people are victimized. There are various NGOs which work for such people.

Homosexuality

Can we criticize a person who has blonde hair or is left handed? Same way we can’t criticize a person who has a female brain in a male body or vice versa. Statistics show that over 30% of teenage suicides are committed by gays and lesbians and that one out of every three trans genders commits suicide. It seems that the realization of being stuck in the “wrong body” for rest of their lives is too much for them. Most of these homosexual teenagers were raised in families or communities that taught hatred and rejection towards homosexuals or in religions that had tried to save some of the victims through prayer or therapy. There is scientific evidence that shows that most if not all homosexuality is inborn. Gays and lesbians do not choose their sexual orientation any more than heterosexuals. Scientists have shown that homosexuality is an orientation that is unalterable, it is not a choice. Many religions criticize homosexuality saying that it is against nature. Sex for procreation is natural and should be between a man and woman. Sex for pleasure or bonding can be between any two consenting adults.

Lead a Happy Life

Looking around we see a world that has lost its priorities. Is life all about eating, drinking and making merry? Should happiness in life be equated with the wealth one amasses irrespective of the means? This world can be made a better place only by people who know what real happiness is.

Let us see what life is and what changes we can bring about in life to lead a happy life. Life is an interval between birth and death. The length can be between one minute and 100 years. Even shorter or longer. Many things we do in life are based on our past experiences, upbringing and the values imbibed by us from our immediate surrounding.

All of us want to lead a happy life. Here are some important rules to live a happy life:-

1st Rule – Do to others as you would like them to do to you. You don’t like to be cheated, you want to be loved, you want to be respected, and you want others to behave well. I f you behave well with others, others will behave well with you.

2nd Rule – Be slow to anger. If you think being short tempered is a fashion you are mistaken. The most admired person will be the one who has learned to control his anger.

3rd Rule – Don’t be a hypocrite or a person having two faces, one in front of others and one evil side which only you are aware of. Always translate into action the good you preach.

4th Rule – Put some principles in your life that is going to bring happiness to you and others.

5th Rule – It is always better to give than to receive. When you do favors for others don’t expect anything in return. Once in a while do favors to people who won’t be able to repay you.

6th Rule – If you are not a professional lender of money, lend money to those people from whom you don’t mind not being paid back. Lend only the amount you can afford not to want back. Borrowing and lending of money has spoiled many relations.

7th Rule – Learn to say ‘No’ to people some people are “people pleasures” they just don’t like to displease people by saying “No” even though they have no intention of keeping their “yes”. This will eventually make you an unreliable person.

8th Rule - Be fast to forgive.

9th Rule – Train yourself to always use the magical words “please” “sorry” and “thank you” in your conversation. Mean it also. It can do wonders for you.

10th Rule – Do not let your right hand know the kind deed your left hand did. People want to be appreciated, people want to be somebody. So most of the time their deeds are directed towards getting the necessary outside attention, even when they are doing charity work they make it a point to be sure that people have seen it and they will be glorified.

11th Rule – Always have an urge to refine yourself from what you already are.

12th Rule – It is not what goes into your mouth and then your stomach that makes you impure, but what comes out of your mouth, as a result of your evil thoughts and your evil actions that makes you impure. Many religions make a big hue and cry about eating non-vegetarian food. Even vegetables have got life.


13th Rule – if it is up to you to avoid a fight or quarrel please do it. You can disagree with people or say firmly no to people without crossing the line to end up in a quarrel or even a fight.

14th Rule – Be a disciplined person. Always set a time table for yourself. The time you get up, time you go to sleep, time you spend working, time you spend with your family, the things you want to do with your family, the time you spend for yourself, the time you spend partying etc.

15th Rule – Always be a student. Throughout your lifetime, try to acquire some new skill or another. Do some correspondence course.

16th Rule – Grow old gracefully. Even if you are physically old, you can be young at heart and keep your body in shape.

17th Rule - Always be ready to gift a smile and have a sense of humor. Let the butt of your jokes be always yourself.

18th Rule - Don’t use foul language. If you do you will fall in the eyes of others and in your own eyes.

Make India a better place

Being an Indian have we tried to find out why India is still a developing country when Japan which was atom bombed and destroyed in the second world war is a world power to reckon with, why the so called powerful western countries won’t dare to take China for granted. Even a small country like Bangladesh can attack India and get away with it, thus getting for India an adjective ‘soft’. To change India’s present plight we will have to change the outlook of our population root out many social evils.

India is still a developing country after five decades of independence not because India lack natural resources or human resources or the technical know how or the financial know how but because Indian society has some evils which happen to be the root cause. It is the duty of each Indian citizen to think what role to play in rooting ut these evils to make India a better place.

I love my country. Each Indian citizen can appreciate the country and lead a happy life in the country if each of us knows our rights and fulfil our duties.

Fruits of Science – Importance of Scientific Temper

“A little learning is a dangerous thing drink deep or taste not the perennial spring”.

William Shakespeare

Unless we realise the importance of scientific temper, we cannot make this a better place. An educated fanatic is more dangerous than his uneducated counterpart. In the middle of the nineteenth century in 1989 a book was published in England which brought the conflict between the dogmatic and the scientific outlook to a head. The book was “The origin of the species” by Charles Darwin. Darwin’s book was epoch making , it produced vast impression and helped in changing the social outlook more than any other scientific work. He used this to show how species of animals had changed and developed by natural selection. Many people had thought till then that every species of animals including man had been separately created by God and had remained apart and unchangeable since then. Darwin showed by a mass of actual examples that species did change from one to another and this was the normal method of development . A few years later Darwin published another book “ The descent of man” in which he applied this theory to man. This idea of evolution and of natural selection is accepted by most people now , though not exactly the way Darwin and his followers put it forward. Darwin theories have been criticized by many scientists , but his general idea still hold. It is quite common thing for people to apply this principle of selection artificially to the breeding of animals and the cultivation of plants and fruits and flowers.If man produce such changes and new species in a relatively short time interval , what could not nature do in thousands or millions of years.

We have modern technology , but our thinking continues to be primitive in many ways. We still believe that far off stars govern our future or the lines on our hands has something to do with our fate. Everybody would like to have the fruits of science but the scientific temper is not so popular. The entire history of humanity shows that it is the scientific temper which is the most precious heritage of humanity.

What is scientific temper? Scientific temper is an attitude of mind which calls for a particular outlook and pattern of behaviour. The spirit of inquiry and the acceptance of the right to question and be questioned are the fundamental to scientific temper. It is the result of constant human labour , search and struggle. While science is universal, established religions are divisive. Science and technology does not have solutions to all human problems at any given time. But science does not sit down and pray for things to happen but seeks to find out why things happen. There lies in science the search for truth on one hand and the betterment of humanity on the other.

“Scientific temper is an attitude of mind, an open rational mind, questioning curious, critical mind – a tomorrow’s mind instead of yesterday’s mind, resistant to rigidity and resilient to change”.

H. Nayudamma

“The mind that questions and questions with a serious intent and purpose and tests and verifies the answer it gets, has a dynamic quality about it which enables it to forge ahead in the world of thought and things.”

Swami Ranganathananda

It was due to this scientific temper that many scientific discoveries were made. May of the scientific discoveries like the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile and later the aeroplane changed the life of the people greatly. Science measured the farthest heavens and also the invisible atom. It lessened the drudgery of man and life became easier for millions. Science also evolved many methods of destruction. But this was not the fault of science. Science increased man’s command over nature but man with all this power did not know how to command himself.

Today, the common man is not much bewildered by many of the discoveries of science not because he has grown accustomed to the surprises of science but because the paradoxes are too technical to understand. Since the beginning of scientific revolution in the 16^th century it has transformed the globe and radically altered human society. It led to the industrial revolution and the development of electronic and computer technology. It has given us the conveniences of modern life, made rapid communication and travel possible, including the great adventure into space. Scientific progress has dramatically increased food production, enabled us to control many diseases and has contributed enormously to the betterment of the human life. For large sectors of the population science is simply equated with the latest technological innovations, which are gladly accepted because of their economic benefits.

Superstitions are easy to make but hard to destroy. Scientific attitude and rational outlook should become a way of life. We want scientific thinking to destroy superstition which has darkened our lives.

“ I think men of goodwill, men and women who are interested in science will try to enlarge the areas of light and try to fight darkness”

Mrs. Gandhi

Religion – "Look Before You Leap”

Religion has been the basic dividing force between human beings. We saw it on Aug 15 1947, we saw it in the destruction of the mosque in Ayodhya, we saw it recently in the riots in Gujarat

More blood has been shed in the name of religion than any other cause each religion claim to know the truth. Even goes to the extent of saying theirs is the only truth. In fact what they know is just the half truth it is like the story of the four blind men and the elephant.

I am a Christian, I go to the church, I take part in the communion, but I don’t believe Jesus is the son of god or a divine being. I take Christianity as a way of life. I consider Jesus a great man. I want to obey his teachings because by following most of his teachings I have learnt to lead a happy life. I would like other to take up Christ’s teachings because Christianity in its purest form can reduce a lot of evil from this world. This doesn’t mean I don’t consider myself spiritual. Being spiritual should be having the spirit to do right to others and to yourself.

As of now there is no concrete proof to show if man created god or god created man. If there is god, he/she/it will be the only god. As of now no religion seems to have concrete proof that there is the true god. There are many religion the basic message of every religion is to lead a good life. Islam’s mainstream message is of peace, but many of Islam's fanatics undertake terrorist activities saying “There is no better way to show god you love him”. They quote verses from the Quran to justify themselves. No wonder a great writer indirectly called the verses satanic verses. Ramayana and Mahabharata are great books, but its characters have become Gods and Goddesses. Even in this 21^st century, intoxicated with religious fanaticism, many people want a temple build at a place where there was a mosque. Their claim is that it is the birth place of Lord Rama and the Muslim invaders to India had destroyed a temple and build the mosque there. Isn’t this Talibanisation of India? If Harry Potter was written by Mrs. Rowling thousand or two thousand years back, the young wizard Harry Potter would have been a child god and worshipped by millions now.

Many people do good to please God and go to heaven, isn’t it selfish? Many people believe confessing after each wrong committed will enable god to forgive them and they don’t have any qualms about doing wrong. Many believe that taking a dip in some so called holy river will wash away all their sins. In some religion people worship animals and don’t mind killing human beings.

Graham Stains who did a lot of good to the tribal and backward people of Orissa was brutally murdered. One of the main accused Dara Singh is considered as a hero by some religious fanatics he escaped punishment and he contested the elections too. The religious fanatics say he was fighting against Christian terrorism. If our government and educated people allow such horrid acts to go unpunished, even allowing the fanatic illiterate people to elect the ones behind this horrible crimes as their representatives to parliament, then what right do we have to speak against cross border terrorism? Against Islamic fanaticism?

We don’t mind being in the dark. Why don’t people do good to be refined beings? Why can’t people train themselves to think only those thoughts which they won’t feel embarrassed about it they were thinking it aloud? Why not people do only those things which they won’t feel ashamed to talk about to others? By “others” I mean righteous people, people who have a spiritual aura about them. There are also many people who do a lot of wrong but are not embarrassed about it doesn’t feel ashamed to talk about it to others. Such people are chronic Psychological patients and needs treatment. Many of our political leaders who have a history of crimes should be under treatment in asylums or behind bars and not in the parliament.

In the January 2002 issue of Readers Digest there was an article by Vince Rause which said that there was evidence that humans are hardwired to believe in God. For some “God is just a perception generated by the brain” while for others “The brain has been wired to experience the reality of God”. Which is true? Let each consider his version true and not look down on the other or become fanatics holding on to his beliefs.