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.