Don’t they have conscience??

We have recently seen a number of scams and scandals that came into picture. Loads of money was involved in those scams. I was having a healthy discussion over it with my friend Tarun, when I came to know about one of our friends, who attended an NDTV Talk show. There he asked a question to the renowned Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam. He asked “Sir, if we look at the amount involved in the 2G spectrum scandal, it is so big that if it would have distributed among whole population of India, it would have accounted for about 1500 rupees per head. So how can these people do this? Don’t they have conscience?”

“Don’t they have conscience?”

A big question! How can a person or a group of individuals do such an act? If the amount was simply distributed among the poor citizens, it could have provided millions of families’ their food for months. Don’t they have any place for Gandhi Ji’s poor man? If you remember “Gandhi Ji ka Jantar”, which is printed on every textbook of NCERT (I hope everyone has read that at least once).

After a long discussion, we came to the common ‘semi-conclusion’, “OK, it is so! This is already happening; we cannot just ignore it and cannot undo it. We cannot control or affect everybody’s intentions and conscience. We cannot blame them either. A Raja has said, “Sometimes I feel alone. I do not want complaining heads but supporting hands.” So, without understanding anyone, we cannot just blame him or her. ‘What can we do about it’, is the next question.”

What can I/we do about it?

Well, being the unit of the whole society I can be honest, sincere and trustful at my place. And, everything that I desire in somebody in the same or at a different position. This is definitely in my hands. So, this is what I can do in minimum for the ‘society I want to live in’. If I fail to do this, I cannot blame others around me because that will be just being biased towards myself and closing eyes for my own faults, and making the unit of the society itself corrupt. Only after I achieve this I shall be in the position to change others around me.

I am not sure if I am doing hundred percent for it, but I am damn sure that my percentage is increasing everyday.

Finally, we came to the following conclusion that I want to share with everyone:

“If they don’t have conscience, I do. And, I can well use my conscience to improve things around me. So does everyone. I cannot bring a revolution and change everyone at the once, though I can work in a direction and make things move and change slowly and gradually.”

“When all the ‘I’s’ around have same concept of ‘being’ and ‘being conscience’, the concept of ‘we’ becomes beautiful.” :)

The Master is never wrong

The Master is never wrong. Never doubt a Master what he says. I’ll site a few examples in support of this statement ‘The Master is never wrong’.

If you have watched the movie “The Kung-fu Panda”, Master Oogway guides Master Shifu to hand over the ‘Dragon Scroll’ to a clumsy Panda called ‘Po’. He was nowhere in the competition for being the ‘Dragon Scroll’ holder, still Oogway chose him to be the one. At that moment, Shifu was confused and could not follow exactly what Oogway meant. But, as soon as he started training Po, he realized that something can be done about it. Somehow, he managed to train him with a few skills of Kung-fu. Even then, he was not sure of Oogway’s decision. However, when it came to the ‘Dragon Scroll’, it was only ‘Po’ who got the point, and understood the secret of ‘Dragon Scroll’ as there was nothing really to see and to understand. However, there was something to realize that ‘there is nothing to be understood’. It is just you and ‘you’ who you need to understand. ‘Po’ realized the secret ingredient of tasty food prepared by his father ‘Ping’ the goose, which was ‘nothing’. He stood up with the ‘nothing’ and proved to be the real warrior that Oogway foresaw in him. And, he managed to defeat the snow leopard ‘Tai Lung’ and saved the ‘Valley of Peace’.

The second example comes from the life of Sri Sankaracharya, when he visited Gokarna. At Gokarna, he met a Brahmin named Prabhakara, who asked him to cure his deaf and dumb son. Without giving a second thought, Sankaracharya asked the boy, “Who are you? Whose son are you? Whence do you come and whither do you go?” Everyone was surprised what he is doing. Or, he is gone mad! But, the boy immediately replied, “I am neither a man, nor a Deva, nor a Yaksha; neither Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya or Sudra; neither Brahmachari, Grahastha, Vanaprastha or Sanyasi. I am Bliss Absolute.” Soon the boy became one of Sri Sankaracharya’s disciples, and was then known as Hastamalaka.

Another example is from puranic ‘Hindu’ mythology. As the demon Gajmukhasura, gained powers from the boon of Lord Shiva to be unbeatable, he started troubling humans and Devas. ‘Indra Deva’ then visited Lord Shiva for help, and asked him to control Gajmukhasura’s blowing activities that he was carrying out, out of his raised ego and powers. Lord Shiva then ordered ‘Ganesha’ to beat him and stop his mischievous acts. Ganesha was a kid then. Everyone was simply amazed that what Shiva is about to do. How can a kid fight a monster like Gajmukhasura, and defeat him. But, everything was so perfectly planned and thought of that Ganesha killed the demon and brought ‘Triloka’ to the peace.

So now moral of the story, never doubt a person who is the ‘Master’. Once you start having faith in master, everything is solved. However, the only challenge today is to find a ‘Master’.

Is it ‘DEATH’?

When ‘Thoughts’ stop striking your mind,

You are ‘Not sure’ what’s going in surround,

And there is ‘Darkness’ all around;

Is it death?

When the ‘Hope’ seems fading away,

Nothing in vicinity gives you the ‘Way’,

And your ‘Senses’ leave you midway;

Is it death?

When ‘Uncertainty’ is the only possession,

The ‘Darkness’ becomes your obsession,

And your ‘Being’ projects no reflection;

Is it death?

No! Dear, it cannot be:

Death comes with certainty,

Uncertainty can’t be the death.

From emptiness, life begins,

With darkness, light exists,

From the zero, numbers emerge,

With nothing, things appear.

It’s a beginning, beginning of a new ‘LIFE’.

Intelligence

On a lonely street, I was walking towards my room back from nearby market place. The dark street and drunken me. And nothing else I was able to make out there. I had a few eatables in my hands, as after a few pegs I realized that I am hungry and need something to eat. So, I had gone to buy something to eat from a shop that remains open that time.

Suddenly, something appeared in front of me and jumped across the street. Recollecting my awareness, I found that it was a dog, which jumped over to the municipality trash bin. Possibly the dog was also hungry like me, and hoping to find something to eat in that trash. As soon, I realized what is happening around me, I immediately thanked GOD, that it was just a DOG. A DOG, with a very low intelligence. Had it been a monkey, which is more intelligent than dog, he could have snatched my eatables rather than going with an uncertainty of finding rotten eatables from the trash. Had it been a hungry human, he could have put me into trouble.  That is how the situation could have changed with the intelligence of the individual.

Oh My God!! Is it all what intelligence has done to humans?? I thought again.

Of course this is not all intelligence has given to the mankind. However, this is one of its major contributions. I somewhere felt ashamed about this, that we the intelligent beings are not worth trusting, but a DOG is.

Obedience

I was surfing about human behavior on internet and found many interesting fact/things about our behavior. So I decided to share some of these with you. First, we must know the origin and definition of the word ‘Obedience’.

Obedience
       A. Base words
1. English word "obedience"
            a. Etymology - Latin oboedire - ob = towards; oedire = "to hear"
            b. Meaning: "to hear or listen towards"
            c. Popular English usage: "to follow, heed, comply with commands or injunctions within a sphere of    jurisdiction."
2. Hebrew word shama - "to hear, listen; obey"
3. Greek word hupakouo - "to listen under; obey"
4. Old English word herknen ("hearken"); both hear and obey

There are many references in history about obedience. Like in Old Testament:

Exod. 19:5 - "if you obey My voice ..., you shall be My possession"
Exod. 24:7 - "All that the Lord has spoken we will do; we will be obedient"
Deut. 6:4 - "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one"
Deut. 11:13 - "if you listen obediently to My commandments"

And in New Testament:

Rom. 1:5 - "obedience of faith among the Gentiles"
Rom. 16:26 - "obedience of faith"
II Cor. 10:5 -"taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ"
II Thess. 1:8 - "those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus"
Heb. 5:9 - "He became to all who obey Him the source of salvation"
I Pet. 1:2 - "that you may obey Jesus Christ"

Moreover, Mohammad when asked about what Islam is, he replied, “Islam is Obedience and Abstinence”.

In Hinduism as well, obedience is considered a virtue, obedience of a spouse to wife of husband and a child to his/her parents. Likewise, we have heard or read many stories about obedience of a student (shishya) to his master (guru).

According to Wikipedia, the psychological definition of obedience is: Obedience, in human behavior, is the quality of being obedient, which describes the act of carrying out commands, or being actuated. Obedience differs from compliance, which is behavior influenced by peers, and from conformity, which is behavior intended to match that of the majority.

Starting from home, we all are trained to gain this virtue called obedience. A number of experiments and exercises are practiced on us to make us obedient. An obedient kid is always praised over a less obedient one. Our education system is designed in such a way, so that it produces obedient citizens.

Despite of all these, there are some brave humans who still escape the training they undergo. May be they are very insensitive towards what the system is trying to seed in them. To make sure that no such person disturb others, a law jurisdiction is formed, which again asks obedience, but this time with stronger authority.
The highest level of the authority to which everyone should be obedient, is GOD. This is why Socrates says, “He must be a genius, who invented GOD”.

There have been many experiments on this human behavior of obedience, whose results may be summarized as:
1. A person without any ability or expertise to make decisions, especially in adverse conditions, leaves decision making to the authorities. Hence starts following.
2. Another reason for obedience in humans is sense of being not responsible. A person, who is following someone, can throw the responsibilities of his acts on the person he is following.

In both the situations, obedience is found to have grown in the individuals out of their weaknesses. Certain strong individuals have exploited this phenomenon since ages. And in some cases, it is seen that obedience overtakes the morality of the individuals. An example of such exploitation is the ‘Holocaust’. Genocide of about six million (two-third of total population) of Jews living in Europe was the result of obedience of the murders. On the other hand, Hindus or Muslims killing people in the name of religion are the other examples. They keep their morality aside and participate in the massacre to obey the orders of their respective authorities.

In a manner, we are no different from those participants of Holocaust as we also surrender to our authorities. The only difference is, they are trained to obey orders in adverse situations where we might move out. However, to an extent we also leave morality to obey authorities (Why not, it is considered as a virtue, even if our actions are logically or morally incorrect).

Now going back to the historical times, when the concept of obedience formed, we will find that this is not what Jesus, Mohammad, or any other spiritual master must have projected about obedience. Otherwise, Mohammad would have never said that Islam is obedience. With obedience they meant, has nothing to do with following or obeying orders.

Let us once again consider the origin of the word; it comes from Latin words ‘ob’ and ‘oedire’, which means to ‘listen towards’. What their meaning must be from my point of view is- Listen carefully; once you listen carefully, you will be able to understand what truth is. And once you know the truth, you cannot deny it, and you automatically will follow me. But the usage has changed completely.

Tribute to my “Teachers”-Part I

Today on the ‘Teachers’ day’ I decided to pay tribute to all my real life teachers who have changed my life. I’ll be posting about all of them one by one, on every teachers’ day. First on the list is my ‘Dada ji’. So here, I start with my Dada ji as my teacher:


My Dada ji (Mr. Bhagat Ram) has always been a source of my inspiration and enthusiasm. Although I got very less time to spend with him as my father is a Central Government employee and we (my parents, my brother and me) have to live where he is posted. I loved the summers when we used to visit our native place and I found some time to spend with my grandparents. Dada ji used to tell us (the whole family) the stories of his endeavors in the Army, great personalities like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar ‘Azad’, Haqiqat Rai, Prem Chand, and many more. I used to ask him to tell the same story again and again as I enjoyed them very much. He had narrated almost all the stories known to him at least for fifty times. And he would tell us the same story fiftieth time with the same energy and enthusiasm, that is why I loved the repeated stories.
Enthusiasm should not be lost… Keep your spark Alive…


He never got a chance to go to school, but studied up to class B while he was in Army. Immediately after retiring, he started his own business. He used to collect raw leather from nearby places (Mandi and around) and supplied to the processing plants at Jalandhar. But due to recession in the industry during late 80s and early 90s, he had to bear a huge loss. All the same, he never gave up; and started his own small processing plant and started supplying leather to almost all the Himachal. However, due to local rivals working against his wish, he had to shut down his factory at the peak period of its career. Though he didn’t stop and this time he came up with a small shop of raw material (used in making of shoes). Later he also worked as a Government supplier of grains for a small period.
Never give up… Conditions may oppose you... Don’t let them overtake you and your will…


Whenever I was with him, he never let me sit idle. I accompanied him in some of his activities. I remember once, I went with him to a local ‘fair’ (mela) to sell belts. Not because of financial requirement, but because it was then better to do instead of sitting idle at home. It was a little embarrassing for me, but soon I realized that no job is poor, and has a certain value.
Don’t waste time… No work is incompetent… a simplest work has its own value… respect those values…


I used to be with him as much as possible for me. And he also used to involve me in almost all of his activities. We had a nice time traveling together; on bus continuously for 4 days as he never liked traveling on trains; on scooter to Shimla, Karsog, Hamirpur and many other places in Himachal. We never bothered about the road conditions and the destination; the only thing he bothered about was state of mind. To rest in hot sunny days of summers, he used to ask me to stop near a tree, where we could have afternoon nap. It was then adventure for me, a lifestyle for him. Despite of his busy schedules, he always found a time for afternoon nap, no matters wherever he is.
Enjoy!! Have fun… Be adventurous… But never overload yourself, take a rest whenever required…


He used to get up at four in the morning, and light up the ‘chulha’ heat water for his bath, household use, and prepare his morning tea. Then sit hours doing nothing, facing a small temple in his room. He never used to bother anyone, and lead an independent life, doing whatever he really wanted to.
Be Independent… Disciplined… and Free…


Lessons from my Dadaji do not end here; I have learnt many other things from him. Some are expressible some are subtle. So, I have mentioned a few which I was able to explain.

A Hindu Marriage

Recently I attended a marriage of one of the close friends of mine. Apart from enjoying the marriage like any others I have attended earlier, this was one of the learning experiences for me. So, I decided to share it. Among all the procedures, I am going to discuss only those, which I observed and was able to understand.


I will start from the setup called ‘mundop’. Just before entering the mundop the bridegroom was forced to take a bath in front of hundreds of people. That can be embarrassing for anyone, but he has no other choice. Possibly, it is necessary to purify the body, mind and soul before entering into a deal that is going to change his life completely. However, no one can guarantee the purification of mind and soul, the bath at least confirms that the body is neat. Soon he was at the hot seat, and at his side was obviously the bride.


No!! it was her father. Of course, a person must talk and deal with the father of a girl first if he wants to take her (exactly she has to be taken with, as if she cannot move along) with him. That is a matter of values. Whatever! These two businesspersons were accompanied by their personalized pundits (I found all this business, so the involved persons seem businesspersons to me). It was quite logical that when a deal of lifetime is going on, there must be a guru type person (who understands everything) present at the site with both the parties. Now soon they started chanting mantras (which I could hardly understand), that seem like the terms and conditions of the agreement that is going to happen between them. This went on until the bridegroom accepted all the conditions and signed in form of some ahutis in the holy fire. Without wasting much time, the girl was brought with all respect and was made to sit alongside the businessman no. 1 (bridegroom).


Now this was the preparation of one of the ugliest business that is done on this earth. It is called ‘kanyadan’. Or in formal definition, the handing over the charge of the girl to the bridegroom. (This ritual is not only followed by Hindus, but it is in Christianity also, a Christian having a daughter, living in ultramodern New York or London also performs the same; I don’t know about other religions but there must be some similar act). Whatsoever! The interesting thing in kanyadan was both bride and bridegroom were asked to place their hands on each other’s with a bowl containing grains. This bowl was connected through a thread to the plate kept at other end, where the second party (parents of the bride) was sitting. The parents then started watering that plate with another bowl full of water (accompanied by a currency bill of INR 100) in their hands (Possibly the provision of currency bill was amended later by the pundits currently in power as it always goes into the pocket of concerned pundit). As if, they were watering the new world of the couple. As if, they were assuring their well-being.


After the handing over of the commodity (harsh but true), the focus was on the couple. They were asked to revolve around the holy fire and pledge for each other. One of the pundit started reciting the statements that has to be followed by both of them. These pledges were also a little embarrassing for me, as they were not balanced. Again, they treated the bride as commodity (if not commodity they treated her at a lower place than the bridegroom for sure).


I found the culture/ritual/procedure of marriage beautiful and fascinating that almost everyone does. However, there were many things to understand.

Why it was imbalanced? Why there was ‘kanyadan’ not ‘vardan’?  that might prove good for the couple.

What is the need of these rituals at the first place? Especially when nobody understands that what is going and why. (Possibly not even the pundits know, if they know what, they must not know why).


If we try to go back to the days, when these procedures were being written by the then pundits. They designed the system so well that no one dare to suspect. And time to time amendments were done as per their requirements only (I can’t believe that everything was same at that time). They could have amended the procedure of kanyadan as ‘ladka=ladki’ today. But they were not concerned about this. Their concern has always been people’s ignorance, so that they can introduce as many currency bills as possible in the system. These procedures are long followed by people and are still following possibly with higher enthusiasm than ever.


I find nothing wrong in this system but the problem is people are following unknowingly and are following everything. Some of which are not updated by our pundits and are out of date.


I wanted to write more but due to lack of time, I cannot continue right now. I’ll be more than happy to discuss things over it.

Life of a ‘Butterfly’

Butterfly is one of the beautiful creatures on this planet. Its presence never disturbs or challenges others’ existence as it feeds on leaves and flowers of huge (as compared to its own size) plants or trees. Rather, they are beautiful, helps pollination of plants they feed upon and sometimes end as the food of merciless predators. We have many things to know and learn from the small and attractive creature called ‘Butterfly’.

The life of a butterfly is divided into four stages, namely egg, larvae or caterpillar, pupa and adult butterfly. Throughout its life, it is only the adult stage when we come to notice its existence. However, it takes a long time for a butterfly to become an adult butterfly taking small and eye-catching flights from one flower to other.

Starting from the egg laid by its mother fly, which is well equipped with nutrition it requires to grow and enter the next stage of larvae, it silently grows and emerges as larvae. Once a larva is formed, it starts eating and eating lots of leaves to grow as what we call a caterpillar, without disturbing others. As soon as it is satisfied with the collection of food it has done during the stage it wanders for a peaceful place, hiding from its predators and starts resting. The larva weaves a dense net around itself, which appears like a nut called ‘cocoon’. It is the pupa stage of the life of butterfly, when it rests in love and peace and utilizes only its own store of food. During this stage, it segregates itself from rest of the world and rearranges the nutrition available with it to develop the most vital organs including the tiny wings. Although it now has all the components required to be a butterfly, everything is still covered into the small net of its own. Now, it has to overcome the walls that are created by it. Only after that, it will be ready to FLY.

I am thankful to GO D that it has so perfectly created the butterfly that a pupa never requires anything or anyone to motivate it to smash the walls and exit the self-created web to have a flight in the beautiful world and to add to its beauty.

Road trip to ‘Chamba’

After a long planning to go ‘Dharamsala’ this weekend to witness two IPL matches, the plan was screwed by a small system error while making the payment for tickets through ICICI gateway. After a long period, fortunately, IPL management returned the amount deducted honestly. With our screwed up plan, we (me and Tarun) decided to visit Chamba. And we started our journey early in the morning Yesterday. After a ride of six hours through one of the most dangerous roads I have ever seen, we reached the dreamland called ‘Chamba’. The first thing we did there was sleeping. We slept like dogs (though dogs never sleep like that) all the day.

The morning (today morning) was windy and pleasant with some clouds hovering around the hills. Despite the weather, we enjoyed a bath on one of the silent and shallow banks of Ravi for about an hour and again started our journey back with two of our friends (Sandy and Baikunth). But this time via a different route. We went to the famous Khajjiar Lake. Fortunately, we were able to view the great Kailash Range from a view-point, even with the cloudy sky. The beauty of the place is beyond words, so I will not try to use dead words from my dictionary to describe it. Only thing I must say about it is “Shimle ni basna, Kasauli ni basna; Chambe jana Zaroooooooooor”.

The place and surroundings were so tranquilizing that we forgot about the journey we had ahead of us and ignored the weather, which was now turning into rain. As the drops started showering, it reminded me of our state of affairs. We had no jackets, no sweatshirts, no woolen clothes and no time to stay there either. Therefore, we had to come back so we said bye to Sandy and baikunth and started the ride. The road went through the wild life sanctuary, so there was no shelter where we could wait for the rain to stop and keep ourselves dry in the cold weather. After a few minutes of heavy rain, it became chilling cold. I felt the numbness in my hands and feet. I wished that if we could find a fireplace there in Lakkadmandi, which was about fifteen kilometers away. For our fortune, just a few hundred meters behind Lakkadmandi I saw some PWD workers sitting around a fire. I smiled and pulled the disk brake with my shivering hands. Thanks to Himachal Government, for paying these people for clearing roads and helping people like us. We dried our wet clothes and charged ourselves up for the long journey ahead. After smoking a cigarette, I got back to the bike and we started again; by then the rain was also stopped.

Lakkadmandi was the topmost point our journey (about 2500mts above sea level). As we crossed the place, a down slope of about eighty kilometers followed. The route went through beautiful Dalhousie. It is worth mentioning that it is a point that showcases the bird eye view of the enormous Ranjit Sagar Lake.

Though we did not have the time to stay there, we enjoyed the views from roads only. I am now thankful to the system error that ruined our plan to watch IPL and made a platform for this road trip. The trip went adventurous and happening with so many good and bad things, I am not able to mention all of those. However, the worst part of it was that we did not have camera. The second worst thing is its aftermath (our paining butts).