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.