In the olden days people had lot of time and patience since there were no 9 to 5 offices or 8 to 6 factories. At the maximum one had to go to the field and do the work for few hours and had the whole day left to do many other activities.
In this information era, there are too many so called ‘spiritual gurus’ and am sure many of them have not attained enlightenment. There are too many TV Channels, which are dedicated to spiritual programs. I heard that the TV viewership in India for these spiritual programs is close to 18%, which is quite a high number by considering the population (owning TVs) in India.
Sure, I have also been seeking to find out more about truth and have read lots of books on spirituality but what surprises me is that how people start to believe all those people who appear on the TV.
In my view, in the present world everyone’s mind is disturbed, whether one is a millionaire or a middleclass person or a beggar on the street. What one need is to sit and think for oneself and analyze what is that causing that disturbance. One needs some kind of soothing talk and assurance to come out of this disturbance. All these so called God men are utilizing this weakness of the general public and are cashing in on this weakness and people are falling prey to this.
In my view, true guru is beyond money, power, fame, sex and has to guide his/her followers to the path of truth by giving them the right space. In order to achieve this you need lots of patience but we are in the fast food world and we want everything in readymade packets or we want to experience the truth instantly like instant noodles.
In my view, I consider, Vivekananda, Ramakrishana, Ramana, Buddha, as people who had realised the truth and liberated themselves and qualify to be true gurus.
What good it makes, if we go to these gurus and spend 30min or 1 hour and can not avoid our anger, frustrations, greed, desires, jealousy, etc etc. in other words we are doing this just to calm ourselves for that moment and then go back to our old habits. I know it takes time to condition one’s mind and to master it but it will not be of any help if one can not make a sincere attempt.
Though I wanted to write about this “Spiritual Bazar in India” at a later date, today I happened to see a half hour program “God men calling” on NDTV and this prompted me to write this.
I have more to write on this topic …how one can find the difference between a true guru and a fake one…… to be continued……….
Monday, June 23, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Indian Politicians (or more aptly Politicians in India)
It is not yesterday or today and I bet discussions and debates, why Indian politicians (post independence era) are untruthful, corrupt, dishonest, greedy, unreliable, crooked, inept, or one can name any thing that sounds similar, will continue to be held by all Indians in the coming days too.
As we always say in the technical world, one has to find out the ROOT CAUSE for the failure of political system in India. One can argue that the present system is the best and it is impossible to think of any other alternatives for a nation having more than one billion people.
One might wonder, why I wrote POST INDEPENDENCE ERA, does it mean politician before independence were uncorrupt, straight forward, reliable, etc. Before Aug 1947, there were not many political parties in India. The single largest party at that time was Indian National Congress, though there were few regional parties. The goal of all these parties were *INDEPENEDENT* India. We had many leaders, during the period between 1850 and 1947. (One can write or talk a lot about the struggles these leaders underwent in order to get the freedom for their country).
Present day politicians have a common goal too, and that is to fill-up their coffers irrespective what happens to our desh. They don’t care or even think about India 2020 and what all they think about is what I will be in 2020.
In my view there are no real leaders (many examples are there, and I don’t want to give any specific examples and it is for the readers to comment and debate) in Indian politics in present day scenario. The head of any political party survives because of his/her money power and votes that he/she can collect during an election. The other qualifications to be a head of any political party is
- either one’s father or mother is already a head of a party (so one gets qualified by default)
The most ridiculous part is if you are an actor (male/female) and if you have some popularity among the masses you can either join a party or you can start your own party.
I don’t blame these actors but I pity how we Indians can think that if some one act in some successful films then he/she can sit as a MP or MLA and govern the state.
Why this is happening in India? Do we know the reason? Do we have an answer? Does it happen in other countries too? What can we as citizens of India can do to bring in better politicians……..to be continued………..
As we always say in the technical world, one has to find out the ROOT CAUSE for the failure of political system in India. One can argue that the present system is the best and it is impossible to think of any other alternatives for a nation having more than one billion people.
One might wonder, why I wrote POST INDEPENDENCE ERA, does it mean politician before independence were uncorrupt, straight forward, reliable, etc. Before Aug 1947, there were not many political parties in India. The single largest party at that time was Indian National Congress, though there were few regional parties. The goal of all these parties were *INDEPENEDENT* India. We had many leaders, during the period between 1850 and 1947. (One can write or talk a lot about the struggles these leaders underwent in order to get the freedom for their country).
Present day politicians have a common goal too, and that is to fill-up their coffers irrespective what happens to our desh. They don’t care or even think about India 2020 and what all they think about is what I will be in 2020.
In my view there are no real leaders (many examples are there, and I don’t want to give any specific examples and it is for the readers to comment and debate) in Indian politics in present day scenario. The head of any political party survives because of his/her money power and votes that he/she can collect during an election. The other qualifications to be a head of any political party is
- either one’s father or mother is already a head of a party (so one gets qualified by default)
The most ridiculous part is if you are an actor (male/female) and if you have some popularity among the masses you can either join a party or you can start your own party.
I don’t blame these actors but I pity how we Indians can think that if some one act in some successful films then he/she can sit as a MP or MLA and govern the state.
Why this is happening in India? Do we know the reason? Do we have an answer? Does it happen in other countries too? What can we as citizens of India can do to bring in better politicians……..to be continued………..
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Incredible India (Tasks ahead for India)
Lots of things to write about incredible India, to begin with
- Politics and Politicians in India
- Civic sense
- Child Labour in India
- Growing Spiritual Bazaar in India
- Environment awareness in India
- World without India
- India and its neighbours
- Money and young indians
- Suffering of old aged people and increasing nos of old age home
- there are many many topics that one can pick if one starts to think about India, and I would like to share my views based on my experience during the past 40 odd years....on all these topics but one by one in the coming days..........
- Politics and Politicians in India
- Civic sense
- Child Labour in India
- Growing Spiritual Bazaar in India
- Environment awareness in India
- World without India
- India and its neighbours
- Money and young indians
- Suffering of old aged people and increasing nos of old age home
- there are many many topics that one can pick if one starts to think about India, and I would like to share my views based on my experience during the past 40 odd years....on all these topics but one by one in the coming days..........
Saturday, June 7, 2008
change
I recently received an interesting quote by email,
"The younger we are, the more we want to change the world.
The older we are, the more we want to change the young."
which made me introspect for a while. After all, I am no exception.
What happens during the journey from Young to Old ?
When we are young, the mind is very much open and not yet conditioned by all the experiences of the old. Hence while young, you tend to continuously stretch the set boundaries. This either individually or collectively, creates small incremental change over the way the world was before.
But as we grow old, we keep listening to the experiences of the old (over and over) and unconsciously start accepting them. We also get preoccupied with all the committments that we have in this society. This eventually saturates our thoughts.
So when the new generation starts to talk about change, we have gone far away from changing the world and think that the present day youth needs to be changed.
"The younger we are, the more we want to change the world.
The older we are, the more we want to change the young."
which made me introspect for a while. After all, I am no exception.
What happens during the journey from Young to Old ?
When we are young, the mind is very much open and not yet conditioned by all the experiences of the old. Hence while young, you tend to continuously stretch the set boundaries. This either individually or collectively, creates small incremental change over the way the world was before.
But as we grow old, we keep listening to the experiences of the old (over and over) and unconsciously start accepting them. We also get preoccupied with all the committments that we have in this society. This eventually saturates our thoughts.
So when the new generation starts to talk about change, we have gone far away from changing the world and think that the present day youth needs to be changed.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)