Saturday, September 29, 2007

Marraige...........

Is marriage really the end of love?
By Swami Chaitanya Keerthi


Socrates had a quarrelsome wife but when disciples asked him whether they should marry, he always advised them to. "If you are fortunate you'll get a good wife. If you get a wife like mine, you'll still be fortunate as she will help you become Socrates!"

But people like Socrates are rare. Most men cannot handle the misery, and either escape or get frustrated. The same goes for women as well. In her marriage, a woman may find the most terrible person who makes life hell for her. In fact, in most Indian marriages, women suffer more than men. What is the way out of this misery?

German politician Gabriele Pauli recently proposed that marriage contracts should be valid for seven years; after that couples who didn't feel the proverbial itch could renew them, else walk away. This may sound radical but it isn't.

People are divorcing faster today and most of the marriages in the so-called first world don't last more than three years. Those that last have little life in them.

Love is like a real flower. It doesn't live longer than it's meant to. But when love is converted into marriage, it starts to lose its tenderness. It acquires a plastic nature; plastic lives for as long as you wish it to but doesn't pulsate with life.

Love, like life, is always insecure. It cannot promise to be forever. That's why it is really very precious. One moment of real love is more valuable than an eternity of plastic life. But most people with deep insecurities go for a plastic marriage rather than wait for the real throbbing life of love, for they are scared to live alone.

Osho calls marriage the ‘coffin of love'. He says: "They all say that love is eternal, never dies. Absolutely wrong. Real love dies sooner than unreal love. Unreal love can live long; it is unreal, how can it die? If you are pretending, you can pretend as long as you want to."

Osho also tells us: "Love needs only one thing, and that is courage. Courage to die into the other, to drop your own identity, your ego. Millions have decided not to love, but then life is misery, life is hell."

"If one really wants to live, one must be ready for insecurity, and love brings the greatest insecurity in the world because love cannot promise tomorrow. Love is of the moment, for the moment, in the moment. Love can only speak for this moment, not for the next; the next remains open, vulnerable, insecure." "Love may be, may not be. Love has no guarantee whatsoever. Which is why people choose marriage over love. Marriage is secure and safe, guaranteed by the law and the government and the society and the church-something they can depend upon. But in that very choice they commit suicide for they will never really live."

"Life itself is insecure. Life knows nothing of security. Death is very secure, so those who are cowardly choose death instead of life. They choose the false and the plastic instead of the real. And those who are courageous, they choose the real. They go with it, wherever it may lead. They surrender to it. They are ready to go into the uncharted and the unknown and the unseen." And they truly live...

WORDS OF WISDOM

"Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry." - Tom Mullen, author.

"Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets." - Ogden Nash, author & poet.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Ignorant minds

In India most of the people want to be fair.Let me be "advertising-ly" correct..Fair and Lovely...
But in USA there is the reverse problem.Most of the Americans want to be tanned.Most of the Indians torture a dark skinned female...The same woman in USA is actually the most popular.I once saw a episode of DR.Phil (show) in which an American girl was on the verge of getting skin cancer because she was using all the harmful techniques of tanning.(chemical and other poisonous ones)
In normal discussions with my friend's I start blaming the celebrities who endorse such product and ruin millions of lives.Then I blame the government for actually allowing such ads to be run on television.Its partly their fault.Mostly it's the fault of the ignorant minds.Most of the educated people are also so unconscious to their own needs.
They believe ads and adjust their life style according to that.Wearing branded clothes is seen as a status issue.I have met so many people who think buying clothes from a smaller shop/mall/sales is beneath their dignity.
They forget that the Mahatma Gandhi,Mother Teresa ,Rabindranath Tagore became famous not because of their specific clothing brand.The outer self is just an appearance.The skin colour cannot be changed.You can lighten it...but if the person does not like you (for what you are)then its better to be yourself and find someone else.Wearing good clothes does not alter your inner self.Good looking people have specific advantages.Studies have showed that taller boys are preferred by most of the girls in the world.Beautiful girls are preferred by most of the boys in the world.But there are other things by which a person is also judged and chosen.By showing good looking(smiling and happy) people endorsing the product does not mean that a person who is not attractive will suddenly become very charming.It just a marketing strategy.I hope people realize and spend money on products bit more carefully!!!


other articles on Fair culture in India.
http://vsequeira.blogspot.com/2005/07/fair-lovely.html
http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2005/07/fair-empowered.html
http://diproject.squarespace.com/weblog/2005/8/19/are-you-white-or-wheatish.html

Situation in Vidarbha/Suicides

This is one of the documentary which tells about the suicides of Vidarbha.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/vidarbha/index.html

Friday, September 21, 2007

A story about non violence

How my father taught me non violence

By Arun Gandhi

I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa, in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies.

One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father ask me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said, 'I will meet you here at 5:00 p.m., and we will go home together.'

After hurriedly completing my chores, I went straight to the nearest movie theatre. I got so engrossed in a John Wayne double-feature that I forgot the time. It was 5:30 before I remembered. By the time I ran to the garage and got the car and hurried to where my father was waiting for me, it was almost 6:00. He anxiously asked me, 'Why were you late?' I was so ashamed of telling him I was watching a John Wayne western movie that I said, 'The car wasn't ready, so I had to wait,' not realizing that he had already called the garage. When he caught me in the lie, he said: 'There's something wrong in the way I brought you up that didn't give you the confidence to tell me the truth. In order to figure out where I went wrong with you, I'm going to walk home 18 miles and think about it.'

So, dressed in his suit and dress shoes, he began to walk home in the dark on mostly unpaved, unlit roads. I couldn't leave him, so for five-and-a-half hours I drove behind him, watching my father go through this agony for a stupid lie that I uttered.

I decided then and there that I was never going to lie again. I often think about that episode and wonder, if he had punished me the way we punish our children, whether I would have learned a lesson at all. I don't think so. I would have suffered the punishment and gone on doing the same thing. But this single non-violent action was so powerful that it is still as if it happened yesterday. That is the power of non-violence.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Words

I feel we live in the culture of words.Everywhere we are demonstrating our love/hate through quotations and expressions.I don't react to compliments or insults.Because both cause us grief in different ways.We someone says us something we mix it up with our own insight and then examine it.We all are the masters of our own selves.We can easily know what our negative and positive points are.Many people feel an extreme need to praise others because they are dependent on the person.When we are in a bad mood we insult others vehemently.All judgments also come from lack of self esteem/self confidence.All labels which cause so much hurt also come from people who are not comfortable in their own skin.

Most important use of words is to ask relevant questions.This questioning ability which was the most important thing in Indian culture has been lost.To analyze ourselves rationally and to realize the truth ...which is the corner stone of spirituality.Most people go to temples,follow blind rituals without questioning the reason behind it.They bribe lord to get what they want.

One of the books which talks about the relation between Self and the God is "When bad things happen to good people".It is written by a Jewish Rabbi Harold Kushner.He explains that Nature and God are two separate entities.What we should not ask is "Why did God do this to me"...Because according to him nature has its randomness which causes misery.But he goes further and explains that God gives us strength and courage to withstand the assaults of nature.

Silence is the only solution to knowing the effects of words.When we gradually become silent for particular periods of time we realize what our words mean to us.How important are useless chats ???
The impulses of anger and misery.... and also our own voice which gets lost sometimes.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Nature and Spirutuality

A spiritual seeker becomes naturally conscious of nature and its effects.Our external environment becomes our first teacher.Most of the complaints we have are the ways in which people behave.
Trees gives shade to everyone.
Flowers impart perfume to everyone.
There is no partiality towards anyone.We expect a lot from everyone around us.But we forget that all of us reflect our inborn nature.The inborn nature is sometimes hidden against other qualities.When some person is rude to us and we know that essentially that person has a bad attitude towards everyone ...we don't take it personally.
Every living thing has the same amount of truth as us.

Nature is sometimes merciful towards us...sometimes it ruins us with floods,earthquakes,volcanoes...Our lives are bounded by the same parameters..To find something in us which never changes is the only guard against anything.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

To err is human...

The price we pay of being a human is sometimes we make mistakes...Some so huge ..that it ruins our life,some are so small that we forget minutes after we have committed it.Most of the mistakes which we have committed in our childhood turns into neurosis.This happens only when the adult punishes the child without making the kid understand what went wrong.Hatred towards animals,eatables,public speaking,communication,anxiety are all the gifts of the negligence committed when we were young.Everything is not doomed and I strongly believe that each habit can be re-learned.Most of them help us learn more about life and become channels for self growth.Parents make mistakes with their children and other than forgiving them we cannot have any other good option.

As adults we make loads of mistakes.The basic attitude which we should assume is
"You are not a mistake"
You are a human and Human makes a mistake...
We fail but we are not Losers..

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Irrelevant Question

I had gone to one of the best hospitals in Hyderabad(Kims- Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences).
On one of the forms they had mandatory question?

Religion-

Why does the doctor needs a religion to cure me..I am surprised that instead of asking me my previous medical history they asked me my religion...

Friday, September 07, 2007

WHERE IS GOD!!!

Where is God?



A couple had two little boys, ages 8 and 10, who were excessively mischievous. They were always getting into trouble and their parents knew that, if any mischief occurred in their town, their sons were probably involved.

The boys' mother heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The clergyman agreed, but asked to see them individually. So the mother sent her 8-year-old first, in the morning, with the older boy to see the clergyman in the afternoon.

The clergyman, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Where is God?".

The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open, wide-eyed. So the clergyman repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God!!?" Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the clergyman raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, "WHERE IS GOD!?"

The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, "What happened?"

The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time, dude. God is missing - and they think WE did it!"

Taken from Intentblog.com

Monday, September 03, 2007

PAIN

What is pain?

The book "The Prophet" explains it well


And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.