Self-Control

No one can be saved without self-knowledge.( St. Bernard  of Clairvaux)

Self-discipline is always rewarded by a strength which brings an inexpressible, silent inner joy which becomes the dominant tone of life. Great is the security of the heart when a person has no worldly desires. Because if the heart longs for the attainment of earthly things, it cannot enjoy security and peace, for it is either wishing to  possess what it has not or is afraid to  lose what it has. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience. 

Nobody’s life is smooth and easy. Everybody has ups and downs. We’ve got to expect that. And, since we should expect it we should also be ready for it, prepared for it. Then, when it happens we accept it naturally, as a challenge, as a measure of the stuff of which we are made. Indeed, we may even be eager to try ourselves out, to discover how capable we really are. Our maker gave us two hands. One to hold to him, the other to our fellow man. If our hands are full of—or struggling for- possessions, we can hold in neither God nor humanity. If, however, we hold fast to him, loving spirit will flow through us and out to our neighbour. That is the way to joy, love, achievement and inner peace. So, get busy on yourself. You are the one person for whom you are entirely responsible. Your world, your life can be better only if you make it so. As you improve yourself, you influence all others around you. Keep in mind that you came into this life with a purpose to perform.

A disciple came to   Sufi with a purse containing five hundred gold pieces.

“Have you any more money than this? asked the Sufi.

“Yes, I have”.

“Do you desire more?”

“Yes, I do”.

“Then you keep it, for you are more in need than I; for I have nothing and I desire nothing. You have a great deal and still want more.”

Sr (Dr) Lilly Thokkanattu SJL

Non Attachment 3

It is not that non-attachment is the nature of a few. Wherever consciousness is it is always beyond attachment and aversion. Our highest intelligence transcends both clinging and aversion. It is a different matter that in its behavior, consciousness attaches itself to something or rejects something else. But that is behavioral side. If I am left exclusively with my consciousness, will I be attached or detached in that moment? I will be neither. Attachment and aversion invariably happen in relation with others- person or thing. If I say Mr. X is attached or averse, you will immediately ask, “To whom?” or “To what?” or “from what?” It is because aversion or attachment is possible only in relation to someone or something. Both clinging and rejection reflect our relationships, and they belong to our behavioral side. 

It is very important to understand the behavioral side of self-nature. And since it is a question of behavior, we can be attached to a person today and can reject him tomorrow. And the irony is that we can be both attached and averse to someone or something at the same time. It is quite possible we can be simultaneously attached to one aspect of his personality and averse to another. Behavior is not possible without the other. It is impossible when we are alone. Self-nature means that which is all alone. Aloneness is the intrinsic quality of self-nature. Both attachment and aversion are utterly irrelevant to aloneness, because they are reflections of relationship. Once we are out of all relativeness, we are all alone- unattached and untouched. 

I am discussing it at length so that we rightly understand the meaning and significance of non-attachment, its context and its associated words. And once we understand them rightly, this understanding itself will take to a level; we will not have much difficulty in coming to non-attachment. So a person of attachment is a slave, and a person of aversion is a slave of the opposite kind. Take away the vault of one who clings to wealth and he will die. Put a vault of valuables in the room of who is averse to wealth and he will not be able to sleep. It is the ‘other’, both attachment and aversion turns us into slavery, bondages, in both cases we are dependent on others. 

Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, Mitran foundation- the stress management people

Universal Consciousness

In the mid-eighties, I came across a saint known as Swami Shyam in Kanpur. He had come there to stay with a close friend of mine, who was his disciple. I was quite influenced by his discourse and developed a liking for him. Swami Shyam lived in the Kullu town of Himachal Pradesh, where he had a well established ashram. Most of his disciples were from the western countries and belonged to the upper class of the society. Many of them were scientists of great repute. 

After meeting him, I also developed a wish to visit his ashram. This opportunity came to me in November 1993, when I was appointed as an election observer for the Himachal Assembly election. At that time, I was posted in Delhi and the district allotted to me was Manali, which was adjacent to Kullu. For reaching there, I had to first fly to Kullu and then travel by road. I had to visit the district of my duty three times and twice I visited Swami Shyam’s ashram at Kullu. Fortunately, Swamiji was at his ashram at that time and so I could interact with him closely. Once I had an enlightening interaction with his disciples also, which was an honour for me, as Swamiji had desired me to address them. 

During my second visit to the ashram, I had a personal interaction with Swamiji. At that time, the Kabir Peace Mission, which had been founded only three years back, was in its formative stage and I was crystallising my agenda to serve the society through this mission. Keeping this in mind, I put a question to Swamiji as to how one could best serve the society. To this, Swamiji responded in a very pragmatic manner and gave me a message, which I carry till today. I am sharing the same here. Swamiji said that in true spiritual sense, it is ignorance to think of serving others. All our good pursuits are eventually to help others only. Since each one of us is a part of the cosmic consciousness, all our actions have an effect on it. When we transmit positive energy to this universal consciousness, everyone gets benefited including ourselves. Same is the case when we transmit negative energy to it. So the best way to serve others is to raise our own consciousness level, so that the level of universal consciousness also goes up. This in the process serves all. This raising of consciousness can be done both at the physical and the mental level. He also said that the service at the mental level is superior to the physical level service. Adding further, the help can be even better at the spiritual level. According to him, there are many persons who serve the society much better without being known or even seen. Since then, I have been trying to follow his words of wisdom to help in raising the level of universal consciousness.

Rakesh Mittal I A S

Defective Humanity - 2

     

  2. The Myth of Inter-Birth Sin (Janmanthara Pap):

Hinduism is a way of life more than a religion. As a way of life it is the eternal religion or righteousness (Sanatan Dharma) or right living. Nothing related to life and living is excluded in Hinduism. Sages and Rishis through ages of relentless sadhana (ascetic practice) naturally developed, systematized, and codified some of the most sublime philosophy and theology related to the Supreme Being (God) and humans in history. While the Hindu Scriptures (especially the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita) embody some of the most sublime human thoughts, Hinduism institutionalized some of the most bizarre and inhuman and cruel practices such as caste system, sati (the self-immolation of a wife on the funeral pyre of her husband), human and animal practices. Mind-boggling myths, stories, and legends abound in Hinduism. Even the most famous exponent of Advaita Hinduism, Sankara, was tainted by the curse of caste system until he got freed from it through miraculous intervention on the bank of the river Ganga in Kasi. In modern times, Mahatma Gandhi, the most well-known representative of Hinduism and a true saint in practical life in every way, and, above all, a lover of humanity  believed in Varnasrama (caste division and function related to each stage) seemingly in his self-abnegation, while Narayana Guru, a great teacher of humanity, denied caste distinctions and advocated total religious reform. Sri Narayana  Guru went to the extent of saying that the human needs to be good and right, no matter what one’s religion.

In Hinduism one’s salvation or liberation depends on the law of karma (deed). By the mere fact a human is born into the world, he or she is in the bondage of sin which in turn is due to one’s karma in the past life. Liberation takes place after a series of births, deaths, and re-births. Good deeds lead to one’s birth in a higher state of life while bad deeds lead to births in a lower state. Births and deaths go one until one is fully purified and returns to the final godly stage which is one’s true nature to begin with. There is no explanation as to why one lost one’s true and original God nature. That one who has the nature of God in the beginning can do something wrong that will pave the way to descent into the realm of imperfect humanity is totally absurd. Like the myth of Original Sin that makes humanity in Christianity defective right from the beginning, the mere fact of being born makes humanity defective in Hinduism. The series of births are due to bad karma or sin. Thus we find a parallelism between the myth of Original Sin and the myth of Inter-births Sin. I contend that both myths, or speculations to use a socially desirable term, do no service to humanity. Both speculative streams lead to the same conclusion that there is something substantially wrong with humanity in its origin.

All except human beings in nature are what they are supposed to be. The human, the only one endowed with freedom, is defective right from the start according to Christianity and Hinduism. This is unacceptable as well as absurd. We need to do some re-working of our speculations so humans are alright from the beginning.  Why did our own speculations lead to our own self-condemnation? God alone knows. As we made ourselves unwholesome through our creative and life-denying speculations we can make ourselves wholesome through our no-less creative and life-giving speculations. Our belief systems generate our speculations that imprison and program us. What we have for sure is this life. And in this life what we have really is the present. The past and the future are well taken care of when we live well in the present. By living well in the present, eternal life is also secured.

Swami (Dr) Snehananda Jyoti

Mistuned Chords

Of all the texts that crossed me last month, I think that it was a conversation between a teacher and a student that caught my special attention. It goes like this: One day, a teacher asked his student, “Johny, what will you do after growing up?” Johny, “Facebooking.” Teacher, “No, I mean what will you become?” Johny, “Admin of facebook pages.” Teacher, “Omg! I mean what will you achieve in your life?” Johny, “Facebook Admin Rights.” Teacher, “Idiot! I mean what will you do for your parents?” Johny, “I create a page for them on facebooK.” Teacher, “Stupid! What do your parents want from you?” Johny, “My facebook  password!” 

Johny, no doubt, represents the 3rd generation. I don’t know if the present system of education has gone terribly wrong? We have with us a generation which thinks that it is the brightest, fittest and strongest. I remember the story of a sample bright and wise young man. Once, a Mom visited her son, who lived with a girl roommate. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn't help but notice how pretty his roommate was. Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between him and his roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, his son volunteered, “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, we are just roommates." About a week later, they found that a silver plate is missing. He sat down and wrote to his mother regarding this. Several days later, he received an email from his Mother which read: Dear Son: I'm not saying that you ‘do' sleep with your roommate, and I'm not saying that you ‘do not' sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping on her own bed, she would have found the silver plate by now, under her pillow.

Today's reality has become: big houses but small families, more degrees but less common sense, advanced medicine but poor health, high income but less peace of mind, good knowledge but less wisdom, lots of friends on networks but no true love, lots of humans but less humanity, very precise time keeping machines but no time. Sometimes, I myself doubt if the world as a whole has gone mad. 

All of us are destine to grow into a zone where, kidnappers may not have any interest in us, things we buy will never wear out, we no longer think of speed limits as a challenge, our joints have turned more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service, our secrets are safe with our friends because they can't remember them either. It is said that at the root of every gray hair, there is a dead brain cell. At the root of all turmoil we face, there is a mistuned 3rd generation guy. Using the little black hairs left, think of a generation that follows the examples we set.

Joseph Mattappally

Maturity

The characteristic of the mature person is that he affirms life- H.O.Overstreet

Maturity is the capacity to face unpleasantness, frustration, discomfort, defeat, without complaint or collapse. Maturity is the ability to control   anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.  Maturity is perseverance, ability to sweat out a project or a situation in spite odd opposition and setbacks. Maturity is the ability to make a decision and stand by it. Maturity is the art of living in peace with oneself- with what we cannot change and courage to change that which should be changed and wisdom to know the difference. Maturity is dependability, keeping one’s head high in times of crisis. 

A mature person is one who is able to control his impulses. A mature person never feel too great to do the little things and never too proud to do the humble things. He keeps himself alert in mind and is too big to be little .He is not afraid to make mistakes. Maturation of personality is a process of repeated giving up, relinquishing, rejecting of what has been painfully learned, in order to establish a new and replacing pattern, a new role, or to establish a new relationship more appropriate to  enlarging capacities, experiences and opportunities.

Visitor: “How old are you Sunny?”

Boy: “That’s   hard to say, sir. According to my latest school tests I have psychological age of eleven and moral age of ten. Anatomically I’m seven, mentally I’m nine. But I suppose you refer to my chronological age. That’s eight but nobody pays any attention to that these days.” 

Men come to their meridian at various periods of their lives. Card. Newman

Sr(Dr) Lilly Thokkanattu SJL

Non-attachment 2

As long as we are attached or averse to something we remain an ordinary person. Extra ordinariness comes with non-attachment, not before. Only who has transcended both attachment and aversion is extraordinary. So the question is,how can one attain to non-attachment? Before we go into non-attachment, let us understand the matter of attachment itself. How is it that one ceases to be non-attached and becomes attached to persons, things and ideas? 

According to Krishna, non-attachment is embedded in the very nature of a human being, in our very being. Non-attachment is our basic nature, our original face. So the real question is how one deviates from his nature. We have only to know how we have gone astray from our nature. Non-attachment is our self-nature, we are born with it. So it is strange that in life, we all become victims of attachment and aversion. If attachment is nature, we cannot averse to anything. If aversion is our nature, we cannot fall prey to attachment. For example, when boil water it becomes hot, and when we cool it, it becomes cold, because water itself is neither hot nor cold. Water’s own nature transcends both hot and cold, so we can easily heat or cool it as we like. If renunciation was our self-nature, we could not cling to a thing, but we cling like leeches. It simply means that neither attachment nor aversion is intrinsic to our nature. Therefore we move in both directions- we now become attached and then averse to something. Because our innate nature transcends both these states of mind, we can move conveniently into them. 

So the first thing to understand is that non-attachment is our self-nature, we are born with it. Secondly, we have to understand that it is only our self-nature that we attain to. Because, we can never attain to that which is alien to our self-nature; really we can achieve only that which we already are at some deeper level of our beings.  A seed grows into a flower because it is already a flower in its depth. It is one of the fundamental laws of life that we can become only that which we already are at the center of our being. Therefore non-attachment is our self-nature- not attachment or aversion. 

More analysis is to come in the coming weeks!

Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, MITRAN foundation- the stress management people

Breaking Steel Ingots

  Mandi Gobind Garh is a medium town of Punjab known for its steel industry. The entrepreneurship of this place is appreciated all over the country. The industry here is engaged in almost all activities related to steel. I had the opportunity of visiting this town several times when I was posted in the department of steel during 1991-96. On one such visit, I observed a very interesting process of breaking steel ingots (big steel blocks coming directly from the steel plants). In this process, steel ingots were first marked by a chisel and then hammered at a line around the periphery of the ingot from where it was to be broken. This was normally done in the evening and the ingot was then left open during the night. In the morning, the portion to be broken was hammered repeatedly. During the course of this process, the ingot used to break in one of the hammerings. The beauty of the operation was that the ingot broke in one hammering only, but it was not certain in which one would it happen. 

It could be the fifth or the tenth or even the seventy-fifth. I was told that in some rare cases it happened in the first hammering also. Even with my mechanical engineering background, I could not clearly understand the science of this process. But certainly, I tried to give it a philosophical meaning. The message I got from this was that when we have a goal before us, our duty is to proceed in the direction of its achievement. If we strive with full sincerity and zeal, the goal would certainly be achieved. It is a different matter whether it is achieved after one failure or more than one failure. If we achieve our target after a few failures, it would not be proper to say that the failures before success had no purpose. In a way, each failure is a step towards success provided we don’t give up after failure. 

I often compare this process with our freedom struggle, which began in the year 1857. To begin with, it was felt that independence was just round the corner but it was not to be so. It took us 90 years after that to get freedom. In the meantime, thousands gave up their lives for its sake. But to say that their sacrifice had no role in achieving this freedom would be totally wrong. In fact, each sacrifice was a definite step in the direction of freedom and should be acknowledged with gratefulness. Let us live life in this spirit and if we do so, we enjoy our failures too, as much as we do our successes. 

Rakesh Mittal I A S

Defective Humanity - 1

The four major religions of the world -  Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism - have major problems as they have  wrong philosophies of life and world-views that have crippled humanity, and have so far brought only discredit on themselves. These religions comprising of most of the world’s population have wreaked havoc on humanity. They fight among themselves and do not have a common minimum program for humanity to reach the One God or Power they all worship. They  have a bloody history that cannot make humans to feel good and proud of themselves. Original Sin, in Christianity and Inter-birth Sin in Hinduism and Buddhism (Janmanthara Pap), and consideration in Islam of unbelievers (Kafir) as evil and worthy of being destroyed and killed  have not served humanity well. They grievously contaminate humanity, and affect negatively every aspect of human living.  Here I am going to consider only the Myth of Original Sin in Christianity and the Myth of Inter-birth Sin in Hinduism.

1. The Myth of Original Sin:

The story of Original Sin resulting from the disobedience of the first parents of humanity to God  has its origin in the Book of Genesis common to both the Jewish and Christian scriptures.  Description of humanity as depraved and humans as worms primarily emphasizes humans’ relationship with God as that of sinners to a Savior. A humanity that is defective in its core, that is, in its substance, right from the beginning of creation, has a very poor self-image. In such a view of humanity, humans either act in on themselves and become depressed in a major way, or act out on others in aggression, and unleash various vices of domination, subjection, separation and elimination of others, and greed.  Examples of domination and subjection would be colonizing and empire building, serfdom and slavery, race and class; those of separation and elimination would be apartheid, race discriminations,  Nazi Holocaust, ethnic cleansing; those of greed would be hoarding and possessing wealth and essential goods at the expense of the vast majority.  And this is what is happening right now in the national and the global scenes.    Relationships are not based on trust but on paranoia, distrust, and hatred. Corrupt themselves and having a poor self-concept, they have very poor self-esteem, and do not accept and love themselves and others.

The concept of original sin never made any sense to me. I will never understand why I should be responsible for the sin of my ancestors. The doctrine of inherited or ancestral sin is not found in most Judaism. In the Christian scriptures, the four Gospels do not make any mention of the original sin. St. Paul (in Romans, 5: 12-21 and Corinthians, 15:22) talks about sin and death coming into the world through one man, Adam, and salvation and grace coming into the world through another man, Christ. Paul, however inspired and immersed in Christ, is just another human and follower of Christ. The concept of original sin was first alluded to by St. Irenaeus only in the second century in his controversy with certain Gnostics. St. Agustine’s formulation of original sin equating it with concupiscence deeply influenced Protestant reformers. According to them, original sin destroyed the freedom of the will. I am not going to elaborate on this. What I am saying is that we need to critically examine key concepts and speculations. We do not need to bring in original sin to justify the necessity of Christ’s entrance into history. 

The concept that is closest to original sin is predatory selfishness, to use a term of Reinhold Niebuhr, or what I would call thoroughly entrenched selfishness that needs to be systematically rooted out. Human is not depraved and defective. Christ as a preeminent teacher has a necessary role in human spiritual formation. Human is a beautiful child of God and friend of Christ, the guide. (To be continued).

Swami Snehananda Jyoti 

The Happiest People

When a great number of electrons continuously keep shifting from shell to shell, electricity is generated. If the electrons were sticking on to their home shells, they would not have been that powerful. In actual practice, same is the case with love too. Love is the movement of particles called compassion. Generally, these restless particles stay compressed in the existential centre of human beings, because of a restricting force called selfishness. Irrespective of cast or race, sex or age the particles of love sometimes breaks all restricting barriers and ooze out, causing self love. If we allow love to do what it wants, it definitely will spread over to more places, until it finally fills the whole universe. Here, the epicenter undergoes a fantastic transformation, self-love turns agape. Just like electrons may cause fatal voltages, love also may turn unimaginably powerful. This truth came to my mind as I was reading the story of a mother and a child. 

After a long history of miscarriages and physical problems, Carolyne Isbister finally gave birth to a premature baby. Unfortunately, the child was only 20 oz at birth and was not breathing. The doctors had no hesitation to pass the baby to its’ mother as she wanted, because they knew that the child is destined to die any moment. The mother hugged the baby with all the warmth love could offer. It continued, until it kick started little Rachel’s heart beating. Carolyne Isbister could not believe her eyes! 

If Carolyne Isbister was demonstrating the power of focused love, Bai Fangli, a poor Rikshaw puller from China was demonstrating the experiences of a fully love loaded human being. At 74 he decided to stop this backbreaking job and returned to his home town. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees. He knew how important education is; he returned to the city and continued pulling the rickshaw. In 2005, he passed away at the age of 90. By the time he had earned 350,000 yuans, all of which he donated to the village school. Thanks to him many poor students could make their careers successful. The heroine of the next story I share here is a poor Muslim widow from Kannoor, Kerala, who sold out all her material belongings and donated the full amount to Khidma Charitable Trust to run their free dialysis center. All that she had was just a space of ten cents with a poor house in it. The story of Shri Kalyanasundaram from Tamil Nadu is a very popular live example of unbound love. In his thirty years of life as a librarian, he did not take a single penny for himself. He donated everything, including his pension, for the poor. Stunning stories of similar people are heard from many corners. What I have found out is that the happiest people in the planet are those who willingly share themselves. If we feel that we are unhappy, it only means that the quantity of love that flows out is dangerously low. 

Joseph Mattappally

Non attachment

Let us try to understand the meaning of the word anasakti or non-attachment. Non-attachment is generally taken to mean aversion, but it is not aversion. Aversion is a kind of attachment- opposite of attachment. Someone is attracted to sex and someone else is attracted to its opposite- Brahmacharaya or celibacy. Attachment has two faces, positive and negative. We can fancy a thing so much that we madly run after it, we cling to it- this is positive attachment. And we can be so much repelled by a thing that we want to escape it, to run away from it- it is negative attachment. Negative attachment is as much attachment as positive one. Non- attachment is altogether different. It is freedom from both the positive and the negative kinds. Non- attachment is transcendence of both attachment and aversion.

In the world of spiritualism, there are many words like non attachment. Veetrag is one such word which means transcendence of attachment, but it has become synonymous with aversion. This word Veetrag belongs to Mahavira tradition. Anasakti belongs to the tradition of Krishna, and they are synonymous. But there is difference in the approach towards the two. Mahavira attains to the state of Veetrag by renouncing both attachment and aversion. Krishna attains to the state of anasakti by accepting both positive and negative attachments. And these are the only possible ways. While their ends remain the same, their means are different. While Mahavira insists on renunciation of attachment, Krishna insists its acceptance.

A non- attached mind as per Krishna is one who accepts everything unconditionally. The interesting thing is that if we accept something totally it does not leave a scar on our mind. Our mind remains unscathed and undisturbed. But when we cling to something, or deny something, both of it leaves a scar on our mind. When we are receptive to everything – good or bad, beautiful or ugly, pleasant or painful- when we become like a mirror reflecting everything that comes before it, then our mind remains unscathed.

And such a mind is non-attached mind; it can be said as established in non-attachment.

Let us understand Krishna to understand Gita.

Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, MITRAN foundation- the stress management people

Wisdom

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience - George Bernard Sha

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to proper use. Scholars are a dime, a dozen, but a man of wisdom is a rare bird. Wisdom is the foundation, and justice the work without which a foundation cannot stand. Knowledge is horizontal. Wisdom is vertical- it comes down from above. There can be no wisdom disjoined from goodness. The first task of a man aspiring to wisdom is the consideration of what he himself is: what is within him, what without, what below, what above, what opposite, what before, and what after. In the face of Divine Wisdom, all that we have, or do, or know, is a gift of God, and is only an insignificant molehill compared to His fountain of knowledge. St. Augustine says, let your old age be childlike, and your childhood like old age; that is, so that neither may your wisdom be with pride, nor your humility without wisdom.

According to Plato Wisdom has four parts:

Wisdom, is the principle of doing things right.

Justice: the principle of doing things equally in public and private.

Fortitude:  the principle of not fleeting danger, but meeting 

Temperance: the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

One day, King Philip of Spain called his son to a private room in the palace. There, on a table were the sword of the King and the crown of the King. His royal majesty asked the prince to choose which of the two he wanted. The young man chose the crown. 

Then his royal father said, “No, son, first take the sword in defence of your country and win the war, otherwise your enemies will wear the crown.”

A wise man does first what a fool does last.

Sr (Dr) Lilly Thokkanattu SJL

Old Newspapers

I have a sister who is about ten years older than me. She brought me up in my childhood days and took care of me like a mother. Even after her marriage (which was at the age of 16), I spent a few years with her and had my primary education at the place of my brother-in-law’s posting. Thereafter, we kept visiting each other very frequently. She has been a very good home manager and always took good care of all the visitors within her means. 

One event, which I usually noticed with her, was the disposal of old newspapers. The deal between her and the hawker used to fail on many accounts. Sometimes it was over rate, sometimes over the weighing balance and sometimes over some other issue. As a result, quite often the old newspapers were taken out of the house and then brought back again. The deal used to conclude only after many such exercises. Seeing this, I used to feel that in the whole process, the pain was more than the gain, but my sister would not listen to any advice in the matter. In due course, as she became mature and saw life in a larger perspective, she realised the waste of energy in this exercise. Around the same time, nature brought me on the spiritual path and she started looking at me as her spiritual guide. Before this, she used to be a very sentimental woman who was prepared to sacrifice anything for others but at the same time felt sad if her sentiments were not appreciated or responded to, adequately. 

Once she realised that one should live with a sense of detachment while doing one’s duty sincerely, the texture of her life changed. Thereafter, she stopped wasting her energy on trivial matters like the disposal of old newspapers. The message of this small narration is deep. Most of us waste a lot of energy firstly in acquiring things and then in getting rid of them. The wisdom lies in applying moderation in both the areas. One should understand the essential nature of physical acquisitions. They come to us only to go. Therefore, only optimum acquisition should be our target and their going away also should not bother us unduly. While it is applicable to objects, it is equally important in terms of our relationships. One should, therefore, live like an observer in this world. Since then my sister has been a much happier person and does not waste her energy on petty issues such as the disposal of old newspapers. 

Rakesh Mittal I A S

Cosmic Spirituality

Spirituality is who we are and what we are all about. Our body is our facility to serve our spirit, where spirituality happens. Its sole purpose is to serve our spirit, our consciousness, and our immortal soul. In the modern age things got turned around. The body that is supposed to be the means has become an end in itself. The triumph of materialism made possible the cultivation and worship of the body at the expense of the spirit. Industrialization and technological advances have contributed to undreamt material prosperity. Modernization and westernization go hand in hand. The West and the Eastern countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore that imitate especially the United States have become models of prosperity for the East. The run-away affluence marked by enormous waste has created a throw-away society where persons gorged with fattening food have become over-weight and obese, and cannot be accommodated by ever-changing closet-full of clothes and ward-robes. Any more what matter are looks and body shapes. 

Character and perennial values are out of the window. Three predominant things, for instance, that preoccupy the minds of waking persons, especially in the United States, are how to reduce weight, how to seduce or conquer a boy-friend or girl-friend, even if it be for a one night stand, and weather. At least most of the conversation heard about relates to these three topics. Tolerance for pain is becoming less and less as each day passes by. Every house-hold is a veritable poly-pharmacy with quick remedies for every sneeze and sniffle, ache and pain, stress and constipation. Erectile dysfunction has become a household phrase. The most frequently used words even in minor conflicts relate to bodily and sexual functions. Self-control and self-discipline are taboo words for a permissive and promiscuous society. In a drug-culture that looks for instant euphoria and fix from boredom and emptiness, religion has lost its traditional, salutary, benign hold on people. Religion losing its moorings as well as its substance became unprincipled, and, lagging in leadership, got mired in defensive posturings. Instead of being champions of the spirit leading the way by broad, enlightened policies and sound spiritual guidelines geared to establish the Kingdom of God, they failed to guide and bring societies ashore from a constantly buffeted, storm-tossed, turbulent ocean. In this background of the general decline of culture and civilization that I would like to present a few thoughts and some important signs of what is called Cosmic or Universal Spirituality needed at this critical point when humanity is at the cross-roads looking for dire need of direction to take the right road:

• Cosmic Spirituality is the spirituality that everyone is born into.

• This spirituality is common to all humans as they are created in the image of God, and destined to join God as the final goal. 

• It goes beyond religions. While religions have exercised some benign control on the wild impulses of their members, they have not succeeded in moving humanity beyond a point. They have become anti-signs as they fight among themselves, and as they do not have a common minimum program for humanity wherein they can constructively cooperate.    Humanity currently does not look to religions and their leaders for creative solutions to humanity’s pressing concerns and problems. 

• As God communicates God’s Self fully and adequately in various modes and manifestations of nature, this spirituality is automatically imprinted in every human at the time of birth.

• A sublime order of nature (Prakriti Dharma) manifests for the whole humanity this unique spirituality.

• The Eternal Righteousness (Sanatan Dharma) as a way of life is another way of describing this spirituality.

• This spirituality believes in one God, one religion, one race or caste, and one class.

• It does not recognize any kind of discriminations on the basis of color, caste, creed, gender, and ethnic origin.

• It believes in the brother/sisterhood of humans and the oneness of humanity.

• It considers God to be the Truth that sets everyone free.

• It defines God to be the Love that administers justice with compassion.

• It sees everyone as unique and equal.

• It respects human rights and everyone’s dignity.

• It thrives in harmony with nature, and in forgiveness and reconciliation among humans.

• It takes from nature only what it needs.

• This spirituality is guided by one’s conscience that distinguishes right from wrong, true from false, and good from evil.

 In Cosmic Spirituality everybody finds his/her bliss while concerned about the well-being of the entire humanity.   

Swami Snehananda Jyoti  

Wicks and the Shadows

Laws control everything, virtually everything we come across. What I share with you today is two crucial laws in life. The story of the first law opens as a taxi driver was on his way to an Airport. Quite unexpectedly, the driver slammed on the brakes. The car skid away from the track a bit but saved a collision by a few centimeters. Another car had jumped into the drive way as if from nowhere. The other car driver whipped his head and began yelling at the driver in the story. The passenger in the car was surprised to see his driver smiling and waving at the other as if he is a good old friend of him. The passenger asked him,

“Why did you do that? He would have almost ruined us.”

It is this unknown taxi driver, who explained for the first time, perhaps the best finding of the century – ‘Law of the garbage truck’.

He said to the passenger in a soft voice. 

“Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day.”

This story came to my mind when I was listening to a brief talk done by a Catholic priest who was addressing a one day fast against corruption in politics organized by Dharma Bharathi Mission under the spiritual leadership of Swami Sachidananda Bharathi, the emerging exponent of the Second Freedom Struggle in India, which is intended to rebuild India into a poverty free, caste free and corruption free nation. The venue was Gandhi Bhavan Ernakulam and the day was 3rd Sept. 2013. The priest said that every religion and profound philosophy talk about a light in their centre. He easily established his point that being a light everywhere always is the purpose of human life. He shared one more thing, the Law of the Wicks. He warned us that living like an unlighted wick is not purely as harmless as we all assume it to be. He asked us to imagine a burning wick with another hundred unlighted wicks around. It was easy to visualize that the light we get is shadowed by the other wicks. He concluded saying that a life unlighted is always an obstruction to lighted wicks on earth. 

Joseph Mattappally

Good Manners

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

Good manners are the blossom of good sense and good feeling. If the law of kindness be written in the heart, it will lead to hat disinterestedness in both great and little things- that desire to oblige, and that attention to the gratification of others, which are the foundation of good manners. Whatever expands the affections, or enlarges the sphere of our sympathies-whatever makes us feel our relation to  the universe and all that it inherits in time and in eternity, and to  the great and beneficent cause of all, must unquestionably refine our nature and elevate us in the scale of being. Manners are like the cipher or zero in arithmetic; they may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal to the value of everything else.

Manners are the ornament of action and there is a way of speaking a kind word, or doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances its value. What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of condescension, is scarcely accepted as a favour. Manners are of more important than laws. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in .Manners is everything with some people, and something with everybody.

One day when famine had brought great misery in Russia, a beggar, weak, all but starved to death, asked for alms. Tolstoy searched his pockets for a coin but discovered that he was without as much as a copper piece. 

Taking the beggar’s worn hand between his own, he said “Do not be angry with me my brother, I have nothing with me”. The thin lined face of the beggar became illumined as from some inner light, and he whispered in reply: “But you called me brother—that was a great gift”.

Good manners are the small coin of virtue.

Sr(Dr)Lilly Thokkanattu SJL

Know Thy Self, Never Imitate-4

Nicholas Roerich, the renowned artist, happened to live in Himalayas for a long time. If we see his paintings, they will give us quite a different perspective of the same mountains of Himalayas. We will see them with the eyes of Roerich. He came to Himalayas from Russia at a time when there were no proper roads in Himalayas. Once he saw Himalayas he made them his lifelong home. He never left Himalayas again. If we have been in the Himalayas for some time, and I don’t think we look at those mountains much. We might have seen them for a little while the first few days we arrived and we will be finished with them. They are nothing more than the mountains. But Nicholas Roerich spent his life time watching and painting the same Himalayas. The eternal and inexhaustible beauty of these mountains continued to enchant him till his last day, he never felt sated. His thirst, passion and love for Himalayas remained undiminished. 

He looked at Himalayas from hundreds of angles – during the day and the night, morning, noon and in evening, summer, winter, rains and autumn, sun, moon and stars- and in all their myriad colours and moods. So these same mountains will look very different if we see them through the eyes of Roerich. They will tell us a different story if we get acquainted with the works of this man. I don’t say that we should look at Himalayas the way he saw it. It is impossible for us to see them as this great painter did. But for sure, after seeing his works our perspective will be better and deeper. We will know these mountains better. 

Many people among us have loved, but the love of Laila & Manju was extraordinary, it was as great as Himalayas. It is better to read their story, to be acquainted about their life. Most of our love is utterly poor and fleeting. It begins and extinguishes almost simultaneously. And once gone it is becoming even to recall if it ever happened. But there are few among us who continue to love and love so passionately till the last breath. Their love is immense and immeasurable. And it will do us good to know about them. It will help us understand our love and we become aware of our hidden sources of our own love. I am not asking us to imitate Laila and Manju. It is impossible task. But it is possible that the life of Laila and Manju may kindle the lamp of love of our own life. 

Krishna, it is useful to know what a man of such clarity and enlightenment has to say about man and his mind and the ways of fulfilment. This knowledge, he brings us can touch some inner chord of our being and set us on a voyage of exploration. And there is only one worthwhile quest in life, and that is to know ‘Who am I?’ Then we will not turn into imitating anyone but a traveller on the path to become our self. More about Krishna and his life next week!

Wishing you good health & happiness,

Dr. Dwarakanath, Director, Mitran foundation- the stress management people 

I Will Buy It

One small incident during my visit to Japan in the year 1988 still occupies my mind. At that time, I was posted as the Managing Director of the UP Export Corporation and had gone to Japan to participate in an exhibition at Kobe. My commercial manager was accompanying me and we had displayed a large number of handloom and handicraft items from Uttar Pradesh. They included some silk scarves from Varanasi. The exhibition was organised by the Trade Development Authority of India, which had provided us the necessary infrastructure including an interpreter. 

Our interpreter was a young Japanese girl aged about 14. She was cute and well-mannered. We found her services very satisfactory. During the course of the exhibition, we noticed that her attention was repeatedly diverted to a silk scarf displayed there. It was obvious that she liked it and perhaps wanted to possess it. One day, when I asked her whether she liked it, she answered in the affirmative and also added that she would like to buy the same after the exhibition was over. Hearing that, I offered it as a gift from our side. I was surprised with her response to this offer. She firmly said that since she was earning her wages, in no case would she accept it as a gift. Moreover, it was against the tradition of her country. For us, it was a pleasant experience. We wondered at the sense of pride, at such a young age, for one’s own as well as for the country’s dignity. While we deeply appreciated her stand, it was equally wrong on our part to accept money for a sample, which was not meant for sale. But she would not agree with our plea and kept insisting on no amount of payment. 

The matter went on like this till the last day of the exhibition. When it came to winding up the display, I offered her the scarf as a gift and gave the plea that it was against the tradition of our country too to sell something which was not meant for sale. We also pleaded that it would give us immense pleasure if she accepted it as a gift. She was convinced with our plea and very reluctantly, as well as gratefully, accepted the same. 

Quite often, I recall the gesture of that young girl. We were left with no doubt that great nations are due to great people and unless they display character in thoughts, words and actions, no amount of economic growth can make a nation great. 

Rakesh Mittal I A S

Dream

I came to the United States from India in August to take care of some family and business commitments. I had planned to meet friends and acquaintances. As it is a strong internal sense made me get into a long seclusion that involved reading and meditation after taking care of essential demands. I started on three books: Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Studies of Pivotal Ideas) on the topic of Socialism, The Origin of the Jesuits by James Brodrick, and Parting the Waters (America in the King Years, 1954-1963, by Taylor Branch). I read these books intermittently and reflect on what I read depending on my inclinations at the time.

Democratic Socialism, where essential human freedom is preserved at the same time everyone’s basic needs are met, is certainly the clear way for humankind. It has not happened so far. Is it then a mere utopian idea?  It can only happen when the deeply entrenched individual selfishness is shaken up, tamed, and managed for enlightened self-interest as well as the welfare of the entire humanity. Human has to come to a holistic realization that one’s self-interest itself depends on common good, that is, the entire well-being of humanity. This awareness needs to be an essential part of any informal and formal educational program. It has to necessarily get into the formation of everyone’s conscience. There is nothing sacrosanct about private property that governs nearly all laws and transactions. All resources are given for all humans to reach humanity’s destiny. Authoritarian communism has failed; unbridled capitalism has failed. We need to try Enlightened Democratic Socialism that strives for consensus or near viable and practical consensus (about 67% ?) with regard to major national and global decisions.

  

The very early Jesuits (11 of them) in early 1600’s were well-educated, and came from well-to-do families. Taking a vow of poverty, they gave up everything for their cause. They carried their ministry while begging for their food and shelter. They shared with the poor what they got from their begging. Interestingly two of them with Master of Arts degrees from the University of Paris landed up in Ferrara, a university city in Italy. They got accommodation in the poorest hospice in the city where a very suspicious, spying, shrewish matron inspected them stark naked before they were given miserable beds. The Jesuit pair was finally rescued from their indignity and semi-starvation by a lady friend of Michael Angelo, who became interested in them after seeing them at their daily devotions. If there ever was a commune, this was it. I must say I was privileged to belong to a much modified version of this Jesuit commune and community life in the modern era for 25 years.

The well-documented, detailed life of Martin Luther King, Jr., during the height of civil rights movement and major changes in the desegregated, racist America during the ten years (1954-1963) is fascinating. It has many parallelisms with the caste-infected India. I want to cite one interesting incident. In 1953 when King got married, resorts, motels, and hotels were prohibited by law to serve blacks, and the closest thing to a public accommodation he got on his wedding night was a funeral parlor! The anniversary of his march on Washington on August 28, 1963, and his historic dream speech has been haunting me in the last few days. There he said in such a resounding, melodious tone: “I have a dream that one day …..the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character….”

We all have a dream. What kind of a society is our dream? What is our dream for humanity? The three great evils of humanity: racism, casteism, and colonialism with their attending tragic consequences of slavery and servitude, segregation and discrimination have ended only legally on papers in the latter part of 20th century. I have a dream that all kinds of discriminations on the basis of color, caste, creed, and sex may be wiped out of the face of the earth.

Snehananda Jyoti  

Open and Unafraid

It has been almost eight or ten years since I had been writing for Indian Thoughts. I have found that the most effective technique to pass a moral is decorating the post with an appropriate life situation. As if quite aware of what I actually yearn for, Universe had been providing enough of them in regular frequencies. Of all the examples that come to me, episodes of courageously facing challenges and uncompromisingly sticking on to values have attracted me most. Everybody knows what is right and wrong, but only a few have the courage and ambiance to physically sort it as such and dare to face the consequences as well.  Today, I share with you the story of a unique family. 

A young man who earnestly believed that humanity cannot be categorized by religions and trusted in his own common sense wanted a lady of his tastes in marriage. So he put an advertisement saying, ‘wanted bride for a good looking boy (33 yrs.,173 cm) basically a rationalist, hailing from an average family of agriculturists and who intends to register the marriage with the registrar of marriages’. The name of this boy from Aluva was John Baby. He was astonished to learn that a lady by name Mini has responded. It is almost 15 years since they were married at a simple celebration held at Thrissur, Kerala.

Today, they are parents to one boy and a girl, Minon (14) and Mintu (11) respectively. Both Baby and Mini lived in utter contempt for the synthetic social style of fabricating the future of an individual. They did not send their children to any School; the main reason was that they did not appreciate the column in the application form asking for cast/religion/community. They were not ready to compromise their status of a human being. The children grew absolutely free from all sorts of social norms and the clutches of religion. At the age of 13, Minon received an award of excellence from the President of India. So far he has created around six thousand pictures using either of water colour, oil paint, acrylic, charcoal and crayon. His works were exhibited at Thrissur and Kottayam by respective Lalithakala Acadamies. He has so far received more appreciations than a classic winner in School Youth festivals. Now he is taking classes for school students on science, environment, drawing and bird watching.

Little Mintu also is nowhere behind. She is practicing dance in Haripad Saranaga under Klalamandalam Vijayakumari. Her spare time hobby is cooking and tailoring. John Baby who also is a talented artist believes that the present system of education does not serve its’ purpose. He says that Nature is the biggest of text books. John Baby is reported to have said that his children have learnt to fetch for a living and they have everything they need. It may seem that he was ridiculously risking his children. For me, I see them as a human family living in India. 

Joseph Mattappally

Love Knows no Limit

Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination- Erich Fromm

Love gives itself, it is not bought. Brotherly love for all human beings; it is characterized by its very lack off exclusiveness. If I have developed the capacity for love, then I cannot help loving my brothers. In brotherly love there is the experience of union with all men; of human solidarity; of human atonement. Brotherly love is based on the experience that we all are one. The differences in talents, intelligence and knowledge are negligible in comparison with the identity of the human core common to all men. Love is always building up. It puts some line of beauty on every life it touches. It gives new hope to discouraged ones, new strength to those who are weak, new joys to those who are sorrowing. It makes life seem more worthwhile to everyone into whose eyes it looks. All true love is grounded on esteem. The heart of him who truly loves is a paradise on earth; he has God in himself, for God is love. From the fact that one knows, and because one loves, one desires to possess that which one loves. And this is a sign of true love, that he who loves, transforms not a part of himself merely, but his whole being in to the beloved.

All loves should be stepping stones to the love of God. A spark of pure love is more precious before God, more useful for the soul and more rich in benedictions. Love consists not in feeling great things, but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved. Love and concern have no limits; Love and concern have no relatives; Love and concern embrace all, and in a special way, those who suffer, those who have no one to assist and those who are abandoned.

There is a story being told about two poor lovers. The girl had a lovely golden hair and that was the best thing she had. The boy had a lovely wrist watch, but without a strap. Both loved each other very much. On valentine’s day, they wanted to give a gift to each other, but they had no money. Somehow they managed to buy gifts and presented them each other. When the boy opened the gift, he was thrilled to find a lovely strap for his wristwatch. When the girl opened her gift, she found a golden hair band. But the tragedy was that she had no hair, for she had cut and sold her beautiful golden hair to buy the strap which her lover needed, and he, on his part had sold his strapless watch in order to buy the golden hair band. Each offered something wonderful for the other. 

Love has no meaning if it isn’t shared. Love has to be put in to action. You have tom love without expectation, to do something for love itself, not for what you may receive,” reminds Mother Teresa of Kolkota.

“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Goethe

Sr(Dr)Lilly Thokkanattu