Random Thoughts:On the self proclaimed right to heaven

Swami Vivekananda says "Be not surprised at anything of this world." Getting to experience newer things, many a times strange ones, keeps on reminding me of the breadth of human imagination and the extent to which people can go to fulfill them. It also keeps reminding me of the strength that a "deep rooted idea" can wield..
I was listening to a talk by Sri.Rajiv Malhotra on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3LVHHEe2vc) and followed up on a couple of things mentioned there and was a bit shocked to read the contents there.
The first project that I looked into was the 10-40 Joshua Project. A reading of the contents in this page http://www.joshuaproject.net/joshua-project.php, should be enough for a rational person to be able to see the narrowness of the assumptions.
People's inability to broaden their horizon of thought has been a perennial problem. And when narrowness combines with literacy, it is a dangerous problem to have. At this point I get one more interpretation for the difference between being "Literate" and "Educated." "Literate" people make a philosophy dry by confining its meaning to just "dictionary words". An educated person would exemplify the beauty of a philosophy by allowing it to blossom and embrace a more logical and lofty ideal.
The project I mentioned above seems to be driven by "literate" people. It is shocking to see the illogical interpretations that are given to teachings of the Christ. For example, at one place they say:

"Jesus said in Matthew 24:14 "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." Jesus directly links His return to the fulfillment of the Great Commission."

Well, what an exalted interpretation of a teaching and tirelessly working to bring our "END" nearer!!!!

I admire the Christ and have seen a lot of people having been inspired by his message doing tremendous selfless work. But when people distort philosophy/principles and use it for number games, it becomes a cheap trick.
If "Love of fellow beings" is your motto, then I see no logical explanation in having to convert someone. But if your love is confined to people of a particular religion, then that is no love, it is "Business." Somewhat of a "You are either with me or against me" attitude.

The intention of this short post in to just convey to that I had a "Nice Little Laugh" at the "Only savior" and "Waiting to be redeemed" assumptions of these people and I sign off praying "The savior save you" !!!

Cheers,
Anikethan

Random Thoughts: Drops of water make an ocean

"Drops of water make an ocean" is something many of us keep using frequently and no doubt nature at every moment reflects the same.. From a small idea that grows into a phenomenon capable of transforming millions of lives, From a small seed that gradually grows into a giant tree, from an insignificant stream of water that gathers force to form rivers capable of sweeping across cities.....everything is a gradual assimilation over a sustained period....
I say the above things because somehow in daily life we tend to ignore these small droplets of water and thus miss out/reduce the possibility of the formation of an ocean.... Was having a discussion with a couple of friends and we were discussing the difference that each of us could make to society. And my case here is specifically of the youngsters involved in the IT industry (Although this will be applicable to others too.) The IT industry is a highly potent force which both at an Organizational level and at an individual level can make a huge difference to the society around.. Here are few things that I think each of us can involve ourselves in, depending on our convenience and abilities:

• Contributing at least 5% of our salary towards charity, every month: There are a lot of genuine Organizations working for the less privileged and they need all the help (I should rather say "duty") that we can give. Because finally a society's greatness is NOT judged by merely the grandeur of its elite but by the security and respect that the weakest and the less fortunate enjoy.. And it is the responsibility of all of us in helping improve their condition
  
• Spending at least 2 hrs during the weekend at a place where there are underprivileged kids: "The children of today are the citizens of tomorrow." If we need informed, socially proactive, concerned citizens, the molding has to start early. The first step towards this is "By giving them things to dream about." None of us can deny the power of dreams. And to such children, who see nothing but squalor and suffering, constant interaction with even common people like me is enough to ignite their dreams and set them towards the same. Because in us youngsters, they see a reflection of "themselves in the years to come."
• Consciously trying to "discuss" positive ideas for at least 10 minutes everyday: An impression made on wet clay lasts forever. And what better time than "Youth" to get our convictions right and strong. In our daily rush and in our eagerness to explore the world, we tend to forget that sometimes it is also necessary to "Hold back" and to try and get our foundations right. So, to be more forthcoming from my side, what I mean here is that it is also necessary to discuss things apart from the usual "woman and money" topics... Such discussions in fact broaden our horizon of understanding of things around us and the best part is that it creates a closely knit group of friends united by common ideals.
  
• Spending qualitative and quantitative time with our parents and siblings back home: "Charity begins at home." No amount of social activities that we do can compensate for the need to spend time with people back home.. Man is a social being and our society especially is held together by an intricate system of human relationships. This might turn out to be cliche, but the sad point is that we still ignore it. A happy family everywhere is a happy neighborhood. A happy neighborhood everywhere is a happy colony..... And so it continues. So what better way to make our very own people happy than by giving them our "Time qualitatively and Quantitatively.."

Well, the above are a few seemingly simple and trifle things that when followed by each one of us can make a huge impact to the well-being of society...Well, at 4AM in the morning, this is as far as my mind can go and it is time for me to sleep :-) I am sure that you people will have a lot of things to add to these.. I sign-off saying again "Drops of water make an ocean."

Cheers,
Anikethan

Random Thoughts: Some thoughts on culture

This post is more of a "Free typing" so there might not be much coherence between paragraphs :-)

A quote that I came across long ago comes to my mind. It said "Life is a great book of which he who does not travel reads but a page." The import of that quote was not felt at that time. But now, I do see the depth that it carries. Swami Vivekananda pin points the decay that our Civilization experienced during a greater part of the middle ages (ie upto the 15th Century) to the lack of contact with the external world. We became "frogs in the well." No doubt we had developed grand ideas of the human nature and the world beyond the senses. But for ideas to flourish and to become practicable, they need to be exchanged and they need to be continuously re-looked at from time to time to verify their relevance to the current place and time. And we failed there miserably. We invented hideous superstitions, with our misplaced sense of superiority, like the ones to prevent people from crossing the sea and thus bean stagnating.....

Well, I am able to feel this even better, now that I am opening my eyes to a new culture myself.... It is too early to pass statements as to the influence that it will have on me. But one thing that I am happy about is that I am able to appreciate this new culture without giving up the values and traditions that I have imbibed from my culture back home.....

It is very easy to get very sentimental about our native culture when exposed to a foreign one and very easy to say that we "Miss it" and to pass off statements of ours being a "Better culture." But those I feel, if I am to say now, are extremely superficial, as my understanding of both my own and the foreign culture, is very limited .... Each culture is born out of an attitude that a certain set of people embrace towards life... We chose ours a long time ago and that was "To explore and to delve into the truths beyond the senses." And the result is what we have today... And the west chose to delve into, beginning with, the unravelment of the secrets of the "Tangible Nature around" and the result is what we have as the advancement of Science and Technology...


I have been thinking about the superiority of one over another, for the past many days, and to be frank, I have no answer.... I see that the world around, its evolution, is more deeper than what appears to the normal eye that it would be wrong to "give it one particular meaning" and confine it to the realms to either "Good" or "Bad." And also this thought process has brought me to a situation where I am currently finding it difficult to conclusively put things under the "Good"and "Bad" category!!! And this I feel is a fortunate thing to happen because instead of shutting out the so called bad things and denying their right to exist , it gives you an opportunity to analyze them and to try and find as to why they have a place in society.... Finally, I think this is where, ie in our ability to appreciate diverse cultures and to imbibe the good from them, the tradition we belong to and the people who have moulded us into what we are gets reflected.......



Cheers,
Ankethan

PS: Btw, I am currently in South Korea. Will follow up with more posts in the days to come about my experiences here :-)

Random Thoughts: Some thoughts on "Power" and "Choice"

This is what has been going on in my mind for some time since yesterday. The title could as well have been "The power of Choice", as we will come to see.
The first thing that comes to our mind when we say "Power" is the control we can exercise on "Someone or Something." The greater the ability of the person to control "someone/something" , the more powerful society considers him to be. But as ever I feel we have been conditioned to lose out on the subjective aspect of this "Power." In our eagerness to control things around, we tend to forget that the greatest "choice" we have is that of the "Ability to control ourselves."

Society has pre defined responses to almost every stimulus, and a person who does not respond "accordingly" is considered out of the flock. When some one abuses you, you are "expected to return the abuse". When someone complements, you are "expected to return the complement." When something does not go as per plan, you are "expected to feel bad" and on goes the list.....
And this is considered to be "NATURAL" and you are expected to follow this if you want to be "accepted by society" :-) How funny!!!! And we claim we have FREEDOM.

I still remember a quote by Rousseau, from my high school history lesson. He said "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains." How true!!! But if you look at things at a more minute level the quote could as well have been "Man is born free but everywhere PREFERS to be in chains." :-) IS it not???

The greatest power we have been vested with is the power to "CHOOSE." At every point in life, we have the option of choosing the way we react. And it is these very choices that decide how "independent" we are. Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest and whose books and lectures have been highly inspirational, hits it on the head when he says " Do not say 'He or She irritated me'. Rather say 'I chose to irritate myself on the occasion of something.' "

How very true!! This very thought, if it can be internalized, opens up the gates of freedom :-)
Something to ponder on further...


Cheers,
Anikethan

Random Thoughts: About Civilization and Sensitivity

As I stood in the breakfast queue in office about half an hour ago, I was speaking to my mother over phone. The conversation drifted to a family friend of ours, who is in some trouble due to no mistake of hers(I prefer not to go into the details of this). The source of this trouble is the attitude of people towards their fellow beings. We claim to have become "Civilized"!!! But civilized "in what sense?" Well, if you ask me, I am quite sceptic about our so called civilized mannerisms. All that we see in society, at least most of the times, is about "projection" and "abstraction." We have been conditioned to "Judge" people. We judge people by their "looks", by their "position in society", by the "power" that they wield etc etc..... And finally we relate and interact with them based on the image that we have of them, after all these abstractions.
This greatly reduces our ability to truly relate to people and a relation so established (with the above projections) is highly dependent on the person retaining those through eternity...This is one part of it.
The next one is our "sensitivity" towards our fellow men. Have these so called civilized mannerisms brought out the "empathy" and "love" that we need to have towards our fellow beings?? A look at the "Urban, Progressive, Civilized Cities" will give an answer to the above question. How many times in a day do we consciously, leave alone unconsciously, try to help those around? We are more intent in securing ourselves to saturation (which never ends), building walls around us.....and the list goes on.

These are some thoughts that often crop up in the mind. There are few other interesting and pertinent questions. But those in the next post... Am in office and need to start working now :-) Did not want the thought flow to fade away. So posted it immediately.

Cheers,
Anikethan

Random Thoughts: About beginning random posts

Well, after more than 2 years I forced myself to make a post in the blog yesterday. I was left with no other option as I had quite some content to be posted, that had to reach people, and Facebook, fortunately or unfortunately, offers only a few hundred characters to be posted. So in a way "Life" decided to take the fate of breaking the "jinx", of my not posting, into its own hands as I seemed very unlikely of doing the same (Hope the sentence is understandable :-P)

The major hurdle to my posts was the benchmark from my side that the content had to be written after quite some serious thought :-) This, I now find, is quite impossible considering my shoddy time management skills. So, in order that I don't lose my writing skills, I have decided that I shall be posting as regularly as possible and the content will have NO formal structure. These shall be random thoughts aimed at putting into more concrete forms my own thought flow. And as I mentioned earlier, this will be "Random" in the literal sense.

The past few months have been kind of "NEW" to me, considering the "NEW IDEAS" that have cropped up in the mind. It has been a period of questioning, where long held ideas about many things, some serious and some not so serious, have had to be questioned. The process is still on. Not that I have gone into some intense period of study or introspection, but just that the readiness to "question" and to "come out of the comfort zone" seem to have improved.

With clarity of both the "questions" and their "answers" being not much, I might not be able to justify all that I post here :-) This is sort of a disclaimer.

So, hope I am able to minimize the "Randomness" of the posting of "Random thoughts" series (Well I should not bother much even if I stop posting with this very post :-P)

Cheers,
Anikethan

A rally against corruption in Mysore

Dear All,
Below are the contents of the mail giving details of the rally being led by Dr.Balasubramaniam, founder of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement. Please read on and also pass on the information to other people. Also please make it a point to participate in this "Rally against Corruption." We have no doubt won a battle, by having secured the Government's nod for the setting up of the Committee for the drafting of the Lokpal Bill. But the WAR against corruption is yet to be won. And winning that depends on out retaining our intensity and will to fight it to the last.
This rally is one of the steps towards the same. This is each one's responsibility and as George Bernard Shaw says "Democracy is a device which ensures that people are governed only as good as they deserve."
The onus is now on us, the citizens, to become more deserving by pro actively participating in the democratic activities and also by accepting the responsibility for the same.

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Corruption has now become a serious issue and has pervaded all walks of Life. A group of concerned Indians under the banner of “Indians against corruption: and under the leadership of Anna Hazare are asking the government of Indian to bring out people’s lok pal bill. This bill called as the Jana lok pal bill and jan lok Ayukta bill has been drafted by justice Santosh Hedge and team.

This movement has now become people’s movement and Indians ,in lakhs, are participating and supporting the call by Sri Anna Hazare to support this movement and strengthening the same. A continued effort is essential otherwise the movement may dissipate. The flame that has now been lit up should shine and spread. Therefore the founder president of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, Dr R Balasubramaniam is leading a continuous program to eradicate this menace of corruption.

As part of this program on Sunday the 10^th of April 2011 a rally as been organized between 10am am 12 noon with the support of the people of Mysore city. The rally first attempts to educate the people of our city to make Mysore a corruption free District.

The route for the rally is as follows:

The rally will start from Crawford Hall circle and proceed through Radhakrishna Avenue, Sitavilas Agrahara, Ramavilas Agrahara and turn left on Sayyaji Rao Road and proceed through Krishnaraja circle to Chamarajendra Circle and the Clock tower and end at Gandhi square.

The public of Mysore, NGO’s, progressive organizations, the youth and students and all self help groups are invited to participate in this walk and make it a success as well as oppose the menace of corruption.

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Kindly do participate in large numbers.