Swami Vivekananda

“Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached.” 

- Vivekananda

 

I sometimes feel really upset about my incapability in remembering birthdays of great people. Even if they are my heroes like swami Vivekananda. There are only two of them I remember clearly, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and of course Tagore. But even then I often forget on the date and these days, newspapers or media does not reminds us either. Gone are those sweet days when every newspaper announced the birthdays of these great personalities on the front page, now we keep track of day to day life of celebrities.

 

Swamiji was my type of hero. He dedicated his whole life for the well being of the deprived people. Left behind the legacy of Ram Krishna Mission. This still works tirelessly in the field.

 

His biography collected from internet: A spiritual genius of commanding intellect and power, Vivekananda crammed immense labor and achievement into his short life, 1863-1902 (6^th January, 1863 to July 4, 1902). Born in the Datta family of Calcutta, the youthful Vivekananda embraced the agnostic philosophies of the Western mind along with the worship of science.

 

At the same time, vehement in his desire to know the truth about God, he questioned people of holy reputation, asking them if they had seen God. He found such a person in Sri Ramakrishna, who became his teacher, allayed his doubts, gave him the vision of God, and transformed him into sage and prophet with authority to teach.

 

After Sri Ramakrishna's death, Vivekananda renounced the world and criss-crossed India as a wandering monk. His mounting compassion for India's people drove him to seek material help from the West. Accepting an opportunity to represent Hinduism at Chicago's Parliament of Religions in 1893, Vivekananda won instant celebrity in America and a ready forum for his spiritual teaching.

 

For three years he spread the Vedanta philosophy and religion in America and England and then returned to India to found the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. Exhorting his nation to spiritual greatness, he wakened India to a new national consciousness. He died July 4, 1902, after a second, much shorter sojourn in the West. His lectures and writings have been gathered into nine volumes.

 

Any one who wants to know a little more :

http://www.writespirit.net/authors/swami_vivekananda/biography-swami-vivekananda/

 

http://www.vivekananda.org/biography.asp

Aggressiveness

If we observe keenly we will sadly agree that modern world is of shoving and pushing. The more aggressive you are, the more mileage you will gain. Aggession and ruthlessness has become the mantra for success. Today the gentlemen are roughly pushed to back seat by less qualified or eligible go getters. The softer you are the worser nightmare your career life will become, no matter how capable you are if you cant fight tooth and nail for it, or opt for the “by hook or by crook” policy  you wont be able to make steady place.

 

There will be always a fear lurking in the corner that some one will grab your well deserved seat by some under the seat method.

 

If we see we will realize that its just the way the society is moving, it does not all of a sudden pops up its head once a person joins an office. Modern day children are brought up that way. Our parents used to teach us compassion, humility, affection. Today the children are taught to be competitive, ruthless, selfish. When they grow up they give the society the same. It does not have any connection with poverty, today the luxury in the life of common man is far more than it was twenty years ago.

 

We were taught by our parents that sharing never makes you poor, it makes you spiritually rich. The boys and girls who did not shared were called selfish, but today they are called smart.

 

 Some how the sharing tendency has changed to grabbing tendency. We have started to think mainly for only us, even our parents don’t fall in our private circle. We often take them as threat to our luxury too. We cant share our excess income with them, forget about bare necessities.

 

I have read in an article that its due to population explosion, a group of scientists have proved it with a group of rats in an confined enclosure. The more their numbers grew their aggression increased. If we study human society, we will see the same symptoms. There is an overeager ness for grabbing for things, which we may never need.

 

Say, for example, where is the problem in sharing our excess clothes or money with people who don’t have any? Is it necessary that we will have to make a postmortem or set up an enquiry committee to assess the worthiness of the stretched hand? How poor he really is, what does he does with the one rupee coin which we gave them or the rejected shirt we gave them? I remember the beautiful doha by rahim which meant those people who stretch their palm for favour are already dead, but those who refuse them are doubly so. They have died before them.

 

We are forgetting that every society moves together to get a goal. People bulldoze others in stampede or battlegrounds, not in a civilized society. If we turn away our face from the suffering of other peoples, burning down of their houses, our homes will not be saved either.

bear and bee

There are two types of people who get fame in world, bears and bees. Bees are those who get fame by hard work or talent and bears are those who get fame by hitting bee’s fame. That is bees built the beehive stock it up with honey and bears just paw at it and get it.

 

Everyone has heard the name of tagore, everyone loves and respects his work, I used to observe that some writers had a habit of ruthlessly attacking him and his works, as if that is the sole motto of their life. They were born for this. I almost worship tagore hence I really hated them, till one day some one pointed out a fact to me.

 

She said if you visit them invisibly you might see that they are devouring on tagore’s works, but they use him as easy way to fame.

 

She said, if they praised tagore like everyone does half of the people might not have even read the articles, but as they are acting against the tide, throwing mud at a respected figure, they are earning everyone’s glare.

 

People have forgotten a lot of people who even died for Gandhiji, but none has forgotten Nathuram Godse.

 

There are people who act like trees and there are people who are like mistletoes, thrive on them.

 

Just like the bear and bee, one piles up the honey other gets the honey by pawing on it.

Africa

The dark continent.. it was called for ages. A continent which has been ruthlessly abused by human civilisation.

A continent which has greatest diamond mines, most fantastic wildlife and a rich cultural heritage literally lives on alms of the rest of the world.

Thousands of children and pregnant mothers perish because of too much poverty. They still go to untrained village nurses instead of modern medical facilities either because of poverty or because of lack of education. Another darkness closely related with poverty.

It was sheer misfortune of this continent to be sucked in the slavery, that most probably stopped all the growths thereafter. I am not an expert but somehow I think that must be the reason. Each and every able bodied man and woman was used as a slave for centuries, the shoulders which build countries were slaving away. The remaining just survived.

Their resources were used by others and they were slaves even in their own countries. Naturally their economy crashed when these people left the rule in their hands and they become busy in squabbling among themselves.. one bloody war after war ravaged them.

Then the menace of AIDS gripped it as the latest blow. It will be really very tough job if their own people don’t wake up and pull themselves up like their asian counterparts have done.

In today’s violence torn world people are so busy saving their own homes that they are slowly losing the tendency to go out and help others.

Wake up Africa before its too late, and rest of the world, please cast a glance at them.

Love and trust

My best friend sent me an sms today, his sms said trust is greater than love and a lot more was added after that to prove the sentence right. I instantly agreed with that.

 

Trust is an necessary ingredient of lasting love. If you want a love to last, there should be a deep trust for the person you love.

 

If you cant trust a person, that love wont last for long, its funny, I always go by this. The friend of mine who sent it to me is one of those rare persons who instantly win trust. Even though we are net friends and have met only twice, yet since the first time I saw him an immense trust was formed, a deep faith which stayed ever since. He is one of those rare persons I can trust with my eyes closed.

 

Love is blind, wise people say that, that is why it needs the walking stick of trust. During all those yearning, quarrel, jealousy and possessiveness only trust can keep two young hearts together.

 

Matured age love usualy doesnot suffers these trials unless they are too passionate. After crossing the warmth of youth, people usually create relationship with trusted people, they first judge whether the person is trustworthy or not, then work toward the relationship. They know that time is too short to keep on experimenting with different types of people, they keep a few, very trusted persons close to their heart and love others unconditionally.

 

After earning wisdom people look for security and trust, they know that if we can trust a person, and feel secured with him, love will automatically burst forth like a fountain. Its just like the birdsong, the moment they feel the surity that sun is just below the horizon, the song bursts forth. Its just like the feeling of warmth that envelopes a cold traveller when he is turning the last turn to his home.

 

Whereas youth first creates relationships then tries to trust that person. As a result he suffers more than matured persons. Youth goes by the outer layering and tries to search the pearl inside that shell later. First he spends his time exploring the oyster, then only with time he ends up with or without the pearl.

 

One thing should always be kept in mind when pursuing any relationship. It can be the relationship with a mate, spouse or friend. That trust is the foundation of any and every true relationship. Its just like the soil, which holds the tree of our life together. Every thing else depends on it.

 

A weak grip of soil will bring down even the most strong and beautiful tree. It will uproot it at the first strong blow of wind. If the soil is poisoned it will poison the tree, in gist, the tree of love or life is fully dependent on soil of trust.

 

So, I think any one who is looking for lasting love, should first try to judge how much trust they have for each other, not passion or attraction.

A strange syndrome

Well, I have only one feeling toward politics .. I hate it. in my eyes it’s the greatest business in today’s world which reaps golden harvest without any investment or with the investment of sheer sweet nothings. So I observe the activities of politician completely without interest..

 

Lately it has started to appear that indian politicians have started to suffer from a clinical condition where the skin of a person becomes extremely thin.

 

First the incident of shashi tharoor, second the incident of the kerala cop who called rahul gandhi “our friend”.. every thing points towards it. I think rahul gandhi is very sincerely trying to prove it that he wants to bridge the gap between the true citizens of india (people who live in mud walled huts) and the would be prime minister of india. Though just like majority I too don’t like the way he ignores his safety. I have a deep trust that he will turn out to be a good prime minister and most probably he will do something for the deprived people of the country.

 

Now back to the clinical condition, as I don’t count rahul gandhi among one of my enemies.. I have nothing against the poor cop who called him “friend” I think that showed his sweetness.

 

Is it our dignity that gets hurt in these incidences or ego?

Love and affection

I think these two are two different feelings altogether, their base may be the same but then like the branches of the same tree they grow up quite differently from each other.

 

In this piece I am using love as romantic love, usually I use love in its wide meaning.. it envelops all the forms of affection.  But here I am talking about the love of mates, spouses and lovers.

 

We become a little choosier when we are looking for a mate I believe, there are a lot of things which we can easily ignore in others but not in our mates.

 

For example a lot of persons will accept an extremely poor person in a lot of other relationships but a loved mate or spouse. That poverty can be of look, intelligence, wisdom or style. One person may accept poverty of intelligence in mate while it can be unacceptable to another, this measurement stick varies from person to person. Let’s just take the example of intelligence. A person may live happily with an unintelligent mother, son, friend or relative happily but may not accept an unintelligent person as a spouse or mate. May rather prefer living a bachelor life than committing to an unintelligent person.

 

I too belong to this category, there are lots of thing which I will happily accept in anyone else but my mate. What is the mystery behind this I wonder!

 

We can lay our affection on everyone but when it comes to love we become choosy. May be it is the animal side of us, which looks for the best mate possible.