ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT LIFE AND GOD

This appeared in the Times of India, Chennai edition of 27 Oct 2008 under the Sacred Spaces column. I found this very very enlightening and so I thought of putting it down on my blog. Made lots of sense to me. Here are the writings:

"By whom willed and directed does the mind alight on its objects? By whom commanded does the prana(vital breath, that precedes all, start? By whom willed do men utter speech? What intelligent power directs the eye to see, the ear to hear?"
- Kenopanishad 1.1

"It is the ear of the ear, It is the mind of the mind, It is the speech of the speech, It is the breathing of the breathing, It is the eye of the eye...."
- Kenopanishad 1.2

"The teacher proceeds from the known to the unknown....We all know that we hear with our ears. But a set of ears on their own are as deaf as a post. Follow the sound vibrations through the eardrums along the nerves. It is the brain which is actually hearing those vibrations. But that is not the end of it. If the Consciousness leaves the brain you won't hear. Even if that Consciousness simply shifts the focus of your brain for a moment, the ears still transmitting the sounds to it as it ticks away, but you are deafened...

Consciousness is the see-er in the eye, the mind in the mind, the speaker in the speech. That says the teacher, is the source of existence, is God(Brahman). So God is the subject of all you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, feel or understand. Therefore, God can never be an object of perception or comprehension."

WE THE PEOPLE

I love reading the column, 'The Siege Within' by M J Akbar in the Sunday Times of India. This week he has written on a subject that should make every one of us pause and think. The article 'Identity wars trump class wars for India's poor'. This article is just brilliant and captures what is going on in our country today. It is indeed shameful to see the barbaric acts of some of our countrymen - probably misguided by narrow political considerations. Whatever be the reason, we the people of India must ensure that we live up to the grand visions of our founding fathers , as enshrined in our Constitution.

I have to quote the last few lines verbatim, as there can be no better way of expressing my feelings too on this particular subject than what has been written by M J Akbar. He says, 'Indian Muslims are bitter, but it would be foolish of them to permit this bitterness to ferment into bile. Any government is a passing phenomenon; the nation is a permanent asset. Governments can fracture; a nation must hold. When those in power fail, it becomes vital that we, the people, Hindu and Muslim and Christian, reach out to preserve the common good. Common sense is often the best recipe for for the common good; alas, that is the first thing that a victim abandons'.

How true Mr. Akbar. I do hope that better sense prevails. Our strength is unity in diversity. Let us not make it our biggest weakness. We the common people must resist this divisive politics by every means possible. Jai Hind.

COFFEE CUPS!!!!

I received this article in my email today. It sort of answers the question that I received in one comment yesterday about ' what makes us so busy in our lives to leave them alone at this age??? So, I am reproducing the article, as received. There are other issues too, but they would need to be addressed some other time.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups- porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite-telling them to help themselves to the coffee. When all had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said.

“If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what you drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups. And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups They are just tools to hold and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us. God brews the coffee, not the cups. Enjoy your coffee! The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.”

LIFE OF A PARENT!

I was away to Chandigarh to celebrate the 60th wedding anniversary of my parents, which fell due on 10 Oct 2008. We kids never even knew the date of their wedding anniversary, as it was not the fashionable thing to celebrate one's wedding anniversary during the time when my parents got married, and also the weddings were done according to a different calender which has a different relationship to the calender that we use. My father was motivated to celebrate it this time, when he was invited to attend my brother's 25th wedding anniversary. To cut a long story short, all five of us siblings, and some other members of our families, got together in Chandigarh for the occasion. I have since returned to Chennai, and my blog. The event left me thinking......

My parents married 60 years ago, had five children, who are alive - four sons and one daughter. All of us married and had two children each, in due course. This whole big family last got together about a decade, or more, ago, I think. My daughter is now married, and has had a baby girl, 'Meher' on 29 Sep 08. This time, we were many members short of this huge big family. My parents missed the ones that were not present, but had a good time, and basked in the attention that was showered on them. My mother could not hold her emotions...she did not say anything but we could sense her loneliness in her old age.

Imagine, having been directly or indirectly responsible for bringing so many of us into this world, they live by themselves. Three of my siblings live independently in the same city along with their families, and two of us live in Chennai and New Jersey respectively. My kids live in Toronto. My mother still manages her own house, and kitchen, as best as she can. It's not too difficult for us to fast forward 20 years.

We are all parents and would have to go through the same fate, when we grow old - the fate of having to be content with just memories of happier and fulfilling days, or of days spent in waiting for the off springs to drop by whenever they have the time and the inclination, or for an occasion, or for some bad news. Everyone has to go through this cycle of childhood, parenthood and then waiting........watching your off springs following some 25 years behind. The Kaal Chakra never stops!!!!!