Category Archives: Philosophy

Be a Good Memory for Others

It is yet another Monday morning, and I have not slept an entire night again. Well, I am not an insomniac, but excess of sleep since Friday has precipitated in another night full of thoughts, dreams and memories.  Memories, yes of my loved ones, and of my late mother. I jotted the below quote few minutes back on Facebook and this blog post seems quite connected with this one:memory

Your mother is the next important person other than your soul, and yes I say it after 8 years of harsh separation (the final one) from my mother. Today, when I visit my home kitchen early morning, and look at pieces of cut tomato leftover on the shelf (the remains of my cooking last night for dinner) and the fact that they are still there, I think of my mother. She was a dynamic cleaning agent who would not leave any piece of dirt lying on the same shelf until 2010. Mothers are naturally trained to teach kids to stay clean and healthy. I say that because I have closely observed a cat family, and the way a cat teaches its kids to clean their body, and other basic life skills. I owe a lot of what I am today to my late mother, and my dear father. My parents and my sibling (brother) have always supported me in everything I did, and continue to do so today. So, coming back to the quote again, learning from the demise of my mother and the fact that human body is transient, I do not see any intelligence in picking up petty fights with others, and then spending an entire life in taking a revenge thereon (typical of many bollywood movies where they show khandaani dushmani (rivalry that exists between various generations of enemies)). Life is too short to be spoiled with the menace of jealousy, enmity, hatred or anything else. Spread peace, and love with your entire heart!

Many of you may refute my point saying that we can’t love everyone, and there will be always competition. Yes, compete, but not at the cost of humanity, please! Be a fair player! Do ethical business. At the end of the long tunnel of life, death awaits all of us, and we will never be present to attend our funeral meeting! So, be a pleasant memory in the minds of fellow humans.

A Matter of 2 Chapatis

In a casual discussion with my friends at work, I concluded the ongoing discussion on greed for money by saying that it is a matter of two chapatis in the end. What I mean here is that anything we do here in this world – any job, any business or any act is to satisfy our basic physiological needs – food and thirst. While Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Model does outline the increasing orders of human needs, I plan to justify basic needs of food here at the crux of everything we do.

It makes me wonder sometimes, how people who make good money, end up being obese due to their sedentary lifestyle and then join a fitness center or gym and a strict diet regime to shed those extra calories and get back in shape. The joy of enjoying extravagant food is lost when one is asked to have those 2 plain chapatis. May I ask, if having 2 chapatis can make you healthy, what is the point of getting obese, and then getting back in shape. Why not be wise enough to enjoy your 2 chapatis and stay healthy?

The same 2 chapatis motivate all of us to work so that we get access to at least 2 chapatis a day. Yet, our greed does not end there, and we often go beyond those 2 chapatis to accumulate what is undesirable. Look at diseases associated with obesity – diabetes, cardiovascular diseases – all of these could have been avoided, and when you are being treated for them – the physician again asks you to have those 2 chapatis.

What I really want to convey through this post is that while as a human, you are blessed to accumulate wealth and even enjoy it; please exercise caution in your actions. Whatever you do today has a profound impact on your tomorrow. Hence, if you stick to your 2 chapatis aka simple, healthy and balanced diet; you can enjoy a longer life in comparison to a rich life poisoned with excess of healthy or unhealthy food.

P.S. Chapati is equivalent to one piece of bread (for those with non-Indian origin)

Nature Loves Consistency

nature-loves-consistency

“Consistency is the key.” A statement, one often reverberates in the form of quotes and unquotes – all over social media, and cross-domain platforms. Consistency has great power to create results, and “certain results.” Our mother nature poses multiple examples of consistency which set high standards for consistency, and have been instrumental in creating exemplary results from an infinite time. Let me justify my statement citing few examples.

Observe the time patterns in nature. Our own planet earth has a repetitive pattern to rotate on its axis for 24 hours. Earth has been consistently rotating on its axis for 24 hours, since ages. That is consistency! We also have a fixed pattern of day and night. Day follows the night, and night follows the day. Has it ever happened that nature took a rest, and the sun did not show up for days, I mean the night never ended? Leave aside solar eclipse that hides the sun for a while. These events also do not break the consistent pattern. Once an eclipse is over, the sunlight is proportionate to time. Has it ever happened that a solar eclipse taking place at 8 am ended with an evening? No!

My next example for consistency comes from the human body. Our growth pattern – 9 months gestation period. It is by and large same for all human babies. You may argue with premature deliveries, but those kids then need special care. We have 206 bones in our body. All humans have 206 bones. Barring exceptions where they have 1 or 2 extra bones, all humans have 206 bones consistently. Look at human heart beat rate, it is an average of 72 beats per second. The heart is consistently beating to push blood flow in our body. When this consistency fails, we die. Life means moving on consistently, embracing and adapting to change. You are born without any teeth. Then your milk teeth start appearing. That is a change. You start crawling, and walking. You grow up, your body changes. However still, consistency continues. Humans have a set life cycle -birth–> baby –> toddler –> teenager –>adult —>middle age –>old age —> death. Has anyone been able to survive beyond 200 years? No. Birth and death are consistent rules of nature. What is born, has to die one day.

If I pick up law of science, energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. Human bodies can be considered as energy driven machines that are created for a limited period of time. The energy of a sperm and an ovum unite to create an embryo, and later a creature. All parts of human body are energy driven. Electric signals are used to transfer information from parts of brain to other human body parts such as heart. From where do we get energy to survive? From external environment – what we call food. We inhale multiple gases at the time of breathing, and exhale them after use. Oxygen being inhaled in majority, and carbon dioxide exhaled mainly. We also need to consume plants and animal foods for energy. Without a balance of gases in the environment, our own survival is threatened. Here too, consistency matters. We are consistently inhaling oxygen, and exhaling carbon dioxide. When this pattern breaks, we die.

Now when we evaluate actions of humans under the same lens of consistency principle, we can laugh at our stupidity, and weak potential. When I say we are stupid or weak, I compare our intelligence to mother nature, or the great creator of our universe. We are so inconsistent on multiple facets of our life, that we hardly achieve anything permanent. Let me give you an example. We are inconsistent in our thought pattern. One person may seem nice to us, and may turn out to be our enemy depending on our thought pattern, that may be the result of our perception, politics, or actions of the same person. We are unable to be consistent in our behavior. We do not have the patience of listening abusive words from fellow humans, and still maintaining our calm, to ensure consistent peaceful behavior. We are not consistent in speaking the truth. We may modify our speech to cope with the situation. Some of us are not consistent in following a healthy diet, that invites health related issues. A consistent fitness routine creates the best human bodies, and healthy humans; something which is well researched and documented.

In the end I would like to suggest that humans should observe natural phenomena with great patience and learn from mother nature. We must learn from trees – the art to tolerate, extreme weather conditions, and pain when we pluck flowers and fruits. We must learn from birds such as kingfisher – the key to focus or concentrate on an object. We must also understand that we humans do not have the capacity to unfold the mysteries of nature with our limited intellect. We are here to admire our nature, and undergo a journey for a limited time. This journey in space may have transcended several births, and life spans. The journey still continues in search for the ultimate truth.

Hindi Doha Collection (Offbeat)

Santan ki waani suno…
Nitya karo gun kaan..
Antah Man sheetal kare..
Bhagaye andhkar agyaan.

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Sant kahi tu hi saach hai.
So hi kah Ved ka gyaan..
To ku jaan ke baad na hai..
Koi shanka, koi agyaan..
Ek sant moh mil gayo..
Naam Kripalu kahaye…
Kahi Antah-karan sheetal karu.
De assu-an mala banaye..

—————————————————————

Kou kah mandir mein rahu..
Kou kah mazjid mein jaan..
Sant kah ouu sab jagah milu..
Kan kan mein rah samaan..

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By Anushka Suri

The Beauty of Our Creator

I thought to write this post and express my views on the Creator – God. I have not been a philosophy student but lately I have been enlightened with facts which we all ignore in our daily lives. We are proud as a species – we create problems for ourselves and then say loudly oh, we found solutions! Recently I was told by a friend that scientists have found solutions to global warming. But I would like to ask all intelligent souls – what is the need to create such problems and why cannot we live in peace. We invent atom bomb and then atom bomb kills us (recently in Japan). We are so egoistic about our so-called knowledge and intelligence, that we dare to challenge supreme power sometimes in our unconsciousness. We feel pride in cloning and discoveries of new objects, but are we not using the ingredients already existing on earth?

Our knowledge is so limited that we are still not able to understand with our logic, the chemistry behind an atom. We know there is a proton,  an electron and a neutron. But who tells these sub-atomic particles to have a definite charge and mass? We are not able to identify that supreme power governing the universe even at sub-atomic levels. We are making efforts in identification of number of galaxies, planets and so on. But we are not willing to accept, it is infinite.

In our daily lives, we accept small things without logic. When we are ill, we go to doctor and he says you have a serious problem, we immediately surrender to him without logic that how to know if doctor is genuine and we will not take treatment. We trust that doctor will treat us well. But when it comes to accepting the authority of scriptures, Vedas, Bhagwad – language of God, we have our doubts in place!

God resides in every one – living and non living. But we have our doubts and we continue to feel that we are alone and do sins. It is impossible to gain complete knowledge with our limited minds, limited eyes we can’t see beyond few meters, limited ears we cannot hear below and above a certain range, limited voice – we can’t speak beyond a pitch and volume and limited diet – we cannot eat beyond a certain limit and we vomit in case of over-eating. We know we are limited but we are not willing to accept it due to our ego.

God who is the creator of this universe sits peacefully and in eternal divine bliss. He is complete in Himself and He smiles at our foolishness. We go to temples and worship Him with our physical body. We do meditation without imagination or thoughts about Him. All these go futile in spiritual world.  Love for God which is felt with heart is true spiritual love. All I wrote above will sound Greek to some of us, but thanks for reading!

In the lotus feet of my spiritual Guru.

Post your comments please. 🙂

I want to be a loser

I want to be a loser.

I want to lose my ego.

I want to lose my pride.

I want to lose my selfishness.

I want to lose my lies.

I want to lose my greed.

I want to lose my anger.

I want to lose my unhappiness.

I want to lose my hatred.

I want to lose my irritability.

I want to lose my fear.

 

 

What matters the most?

It was a normal day today. Just recovering from poor health problems. Some other minor issues which bothered me, but fair enough I am still alive and I am able to write this post. I am thankful to God for this.  I am an unqualified philosopher I guess. It was just that I switched on the idiot box after a lot of time (1 week) and I was surprised looking at few advertisements promising people to make them richer and one of these said – be a crorepati and indirectly said stop thinking about small things.  So I want to ask you now, what matters to you the most in life? Is it fame, money, love, relationships, family, status, ego, crime, jealousy, power, luxury or health?

If you carefully look at advertisements, marketing efforts in newspapers, phone calls or any other media, people promise you : good health in the form of biscuits with high fiber, biscuits with high glucose – more energy, glucon d – instant energy, juices without preservatives, mutual fund companies want to promise you more profits/returns on your investments, retailers offer you festive discounts, film directors/actors offer you entertainment – so buy movie tickets!

You might feel, I am trying to be some saint or a person who wants to shed all worldly belongings, but it does not really matter to me what you are thinking about me as a person. What really matters is that what is it that you really want? Is it happiness which we all are chasing or is it these misconceptions which we are accepting as realities of life.

Let us look at education sector today. We spend a lot of time and money on imparting quality education to our kids. But we forget the role of moral education in creating good human beings. We should teach our kids about how they can set example for others. There is nothing wrong in being honest, being truthful to self and others, lending a helping hand to those in need, giving money to needy, being friends with a servant’s kid and many more small things which matter in the long run. When your kid turns into adult – he will be more forgiving towards others, he will be able to curb bad company, bad habits – smoking/drinking/drugs, he will be honest with you and will be a good person as a whole.  Along with good moral values, good stress handling capabilities can bring out the best in humans.  It is not abnormal to have stress, tension, be depressed. But what really matters in the end is how you deal with it.

It is important to present a positive picture in every situation. My Guru Mantra is  that whenever everything seems going negative,  just think about positive things in life and let the bad phase pass through.  Coming back to what matters the most to me in life? Well it is good health, peace of mind, happiness and love. Yes I love being loved and I love loving others. Some innocent people especially youngsters do not understand the depth of word love and simply misunderstand me when I say  “love”.  Love is not only about romance between lovers. Love is a feeling which can exist between friends, family, towards God (beyond understanding for some of you!), love towards nature, animals, hobbies etc.

So friends, next time you are lured by anything which offers you fast profits, fast money, or a big piece of wealth, please do think about what matters to you in your life. Everything in this materialistic world is temporary. A lot of you are frustrated reading this from me but it is a hard fact. Your body, your age, your breadth, your wealth, your family, your job, your status, your memory – everything you own today is temporary. So take wise decisions about what you do in this short life and how you and with whom you spend your life.

I guess you are already tired reading this and if you are saying I am wrong and you instead enjoyed reading this, then please post comments! Thanks for reading! 🙂

 

 

The Vicious Circle of Self Control : Happiness Trap

The circle of self-control is vicious. For example, you escape negative feelings by avoidance. But when you face the situation, you feel anxious. If you don’t like socializing and you need to socialize you feel anxious about it. Avoiding socializing is not the solution to the problem. It only adds to the problem.

Similarly avoiding negative or sad emotions is not the solution. When you are in grief, sad emotions are but natural. Controlling your emotions is not the solution but you should accept the situation as it is. You will try to suppress negative feelings, but they will reappear sooner or later.

You can be the person you always wanted to be

In the final chapter of the inspirational book, I found one of the most enlightening thoughts. It is about self-image.  In our life, we often keep on complaining I cannot be a good singer, I am bad at maths and many other things. But the fact is that we have not tried it sincerely and our thoughts have made us believe that we are bad at those tasks. So it is good that we decide to change ourselves for the better.

Step 1 : The first step towards being a better person is that you recognize your self-image. Talk to yourself – your abilities, your strengths and dare to break your barriers.

Step 2 : Trust yourself that you can change your self-image. Yes, if you make efforts you can be a better person today. Try doing something which you have always been denying and you will feel much better.

Step 3 : Decide which kind of person you would like to be. Whether you want to be like Saints, like famous scientists or other people. Choose the qualities you want to adapt – honesty, determination, humour etc

Step 4 : Write on a piece of paper what kind of person you want to become and read it daily.

Step 5 : Spend maximum time with the person which you want to become. Read his books, know about him and think about his qualities.

The Challenge

All you need to do is identify your self and just do it practically. Have faith in God. Be a good human being.

That’s all for today friends. Cheers!! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Try till you make it

Try till you make it and do not run away. Whatever may be your situation – joy or sorrow, profit or loss, just do not quit; go on and on. It was nice to know about examples of great people who failed a lot of time in their lives but chose not to lose hope. If you fail 10 times, try 11th time and you will win. Just be strong and determined like a tough mountain and you will succeed.

When things are going wrong, which they definitely will..

When the path to success seems full of tough tasks..

When money is less and debt is more..

And you want to smile, but you are grieving..

When care wants you to stop for a while..

Wait if its is important, but do not run away..

Life is full of twists and turns..

Each of us learn from life sometimes..

And few unsuccessful people sometimes lose heart..

But if they really wanted to win, would they have run away like that?

Never quit, even if your steps are slow..

May be you can meet success in the next turn..

Mostly the goal is nearer..

than it seems to a sad and wavering person..

Mostly the people who struggle run away when..

They are almost about to achieve it..

And they realize it too late..

When the night has already passed away..

That how close they were actually to the golden crown..

Success is hidden  just behind failure..

Just like clouds of doubt have shining edges..

And you can never tell, how close you really were..

It can be nearer as well although it appears farther..

So keep the fight on, when you are in difficult times..

When things seem better, you must not run away..

(Adapted from Lines to Live By from Clinton Hovel 1972)

That’s all from my side today! Cheers!! 🙂