SOUL-WHAT'S IN A NAME:

Eyes are said to be the windows to our soul, but alas! No one has ever seen, what the soul looks like, but then, is our soul a window to ….what, a Supreme Power, to God, or to the very central core of our beliefs, or to the deepest domain of our thoughts, well the answers will be varied, as per the individual’s beliefs, but again all-hypothetical.

So let us not lower ourselves into the deepest of abysses, to extract the proof, for giving credence to the existence of one’s soul. Instead of complicating matters further, let us dwell within ourselves to find the answer. Isn’t it that within us, there is an inbuilt guiding force to make us choose between what is right, or for that matter, what is wrong, some have named it as conscience, others call it our soul, as Shakespeare had said, ‘What is in a name.’ A “Rose” won’t smell any different, if called something else, will it?

One thing is sure in my mind that our core of beliefs, our domain of thoughts, is to where, this window fans out to. After all, deep within this core, in this domain, it is all ingrained in our subconscious, imprinted in our genes, down the lineage, to the rights and wrongs of life and thoughts, the do’s and don’ts, the good the bad.

This, I am not writing to prove or disprove the existence of soul, because, when we do differentiate between, morality-immorality, when we debate upon virtues, ethics, principles, then somewhere we do accept the existence of our soul, our conscience, now it is an all together different matter, as to where this window opens, for an atheist it may open to some supreme power, for a believer to the God, but for a person like me, it is important to accept the existence of soul or conscience, which ever name you like. ‘What is in a name?’

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IS IT DESTINY:

Are we all destined to take our place on this earth, to be born, scientifically we do know, how we are conceived, but then there are thousands of healthy couples who are capable, but still they are unable to conceive a child, for which science is having no definite answer

as to why this happens, so are we really ordained?

If we yes then, should we not construe that, “If life is by accident then death is imminent.” There has to be someone who is writing our destiny, over the tens and thousands of years, the sages, the philosophers do have called this creator of life, as God, a Super Power.

Down the ages, mankind has got divided in various religions, sects, each having their own versions of God, ultimately the Creator was also destined to be divided in different forms, with diverse names, man divided his own Creator.

Was this also our destiny, or was it a mistake on part of our Creator, how come God was fallible, was He? Or was it His own way of teaching us, that what you are doing is the wrong thing, do not divide yourself, that you all are same; all are equal in His eyes. If that was the case why did we fail, was our personal ambition, our greed as overwhelming as to, not pay heed to our very own Creator’s teachings

It is but obvious that few adamant, greedy, over ambitious individuals, turned into radicals, decided to play the role of god, they were not satisfied in splitting humanity on grounds of religion and took one step further towards the nadir, by splitting the masses into classes and sub classes, different factions, castes and creeds, spreading a wave of hatred, pitching men against men, brothers against brothers, sisters against sisters, up in arms against each others.

A process started by fanatics, today being fuelled by preachers, by politicians for their own personal immoral gains, without any compunction, these very handful of unscrupulous elements are ruling the world, somewhere drastically something has gone wayward, or is that God has taken a back seat, contemplating what destiny should be written or is the era of godliness over, has God gone into hibernation and Satan taken over.

Looking at the chaos all around us, the mayhem that is taking place, the bloodshed in the name of religion, power and material gains that has been let loose, as some wild dogs on the scent of blood trail and hounding behind their prey, it seems understandable that, God has taken the back seat, so as to rewrite the destiny of mankind and in the meanwhile, allowed an open field to Satan.

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SIXTY-FIRST INDEPENDENCE DAY.

ON THE OCCASION OF

INDEPENDENCE DAY, ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, THE WORLD’S LARGEST DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY,

ALLOW ME TO WISH

EVERYONE

A

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

DREAMS

We all of us have dreams, don’t we, if you say NO, than either you are a incurable insomniac, or a chronic liar, but then, ‘for a chronic liar, his faith is unshakable in every lie he speaks, because for him, every word he utters is a, gospel truth.’ Maybe it is true for him; or a highly successful person may answer, these were his childhood dreams-in fact, in his childhood he may never had dreamt of this-a point blank lie and you ask a disgruntled, failure in his life, the answer would be, he had never ever dreamt in his dreams, that this would ever happen to him, after the sheer hard work, how could he have failed.

So from where do these dreams originate, are they meaningful, are they of any value to us, or are they just senseless, above all why do we dream? We have been puzzled by these questions, from the dawn of humanity, For instance, the Australian Aborigines believe that what we consider the realm of dreams is the real world (the Dreamtime), and the world we experience with our senses is a dream.

According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are spy holes into our unconscious. Fears, desires and emotions that we are usually unaware of make themselves known through dreams. To Freud dreams were fundamentally about wish-fulfillment. Even "negative" dreams (punishment dreams and other anxiety dreams) are a form of wish-fulfillment; the wish being that certain events do not occur. Very often such dreams are interpreted as a warning.

Freud believed that although our dreams contain these important messages, they are encoded - disguised. The unconscious mind doesn't speak any verbal language therefore it must communicate with us via symbols. Some of these symbols are near-universal, others very personal to us and our individual life experiences.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) put forth a theory of dreams which is quite popular today. Following in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud, Jung claimed that dream analysis is the primary way to gain knowledge of the unconscious mind. He says that the dream is a natural phenomenon which we can study, thereby gaining knowledge of the hidden part of our mind. The images are symbolic of conscious and unconscious mental processes.

But then, should we dream or should we not dream, of course one has to dream, parents they dream for their child’s future, based on these dreams they plan, draw a path, to lead their child towards success, same way the individuals as he or she grows up and marches ahead in life, have already dreamt of their would be achievements, based on these dreams, they have followed this path of fulfillment.

Just imagine, without those dreams, our world as it is today, would it had been the same, it were dreams, dreamt by so many scholars, philosophers, scientist, people from various fields and different walks of life, have made it possible and don’t forget those skeptics also. If you want to dream, than dream real big, why dreams of our solar system, why not the Universe, the bigger you dream, the more you will achieve, should be the mantra.

PS: - Acknowledgement Trevor Mendham for excerpts: Freudian Dream. Mark L Dotson, for excerpts Jung’s Theory of Dream’s.

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LIFE AND TRANQUILITY

Please someone return back those bygone days, those days filled with moments of eternal harmony and ecstasy, please someone come forward and return them back, those days from my early childhood filled with nothing but raptures and innocence, Oh! Where are those days, when I used to run about and hug and smother my parents with kisses, or for that matter my granny and grand pa or my siblings, or even the near and dear ones or my nanny, Oh! Why and where, how and when, did I ever leave them behind? Those innocent moments filled with raptures.

I am sure thoughts similar to these kind, might be traversing through the minds of nearly all the grown ups, all over this planet irrespective of their beliefs, color, ethnicity, status and sex, equally I am sure that their respective gods, will have no answer to this question, nor the power to grant them this wish, only if one could go back in Time, then and only then, it would be possible, am I right? But no I do not think so, just think about the implication this thought itself carries, I leave it to your fertile diagnostic brain. At least it makes me shudder.

In the first place, why-WHY, is such a inconspicuous and a single word, but when asked to the right person, with proper earnest, in reply, it will open floodgates of, innumerous words- yes why, did we leave them behind, that today we are in search of them, did we outgrow of our innocence, or did we get carried away on this road, which we are yet traveling, but then where to are we traveling?

Was our quest so big that it overshadowed everything around it, that in its wake, we forgot to hug, to love, to smother the very people with kisses, without giving any thoughts to their feelings. This quest created innumerous things, amongst them, religions, gods, goddesses, preaching one thing in common, ‘herein lies your way to salvation,’ all had the same agenda with a different approach and route and somewhere down the road the way was lost.

Instead of interreligious tolerance, the ugly head of non tolerance crept in, people on religious lines started hounding and baying for each others blood, wonder in these moments of crisis the gods, where they were, or the preachers of religion where they vanished, the loving arms meant for holding and hugging with love and compassion, took up arms to kill each other in the name of religious fanaticism.

Loosing our way was easy; retracing became difficult, this is where we must have lost those moments, of which we are in search of today. The Bible, Gita, Koran other religious scriptures, written by men over a period of thousands of years, teaching one thing in common, of love compassion, tolerance, sacrifice and unison, lost out on the greed of a few handful of preachers, our world, mankind stood divided, maybe this is how we lost out.

For whatsoever reason we lost out we forgot that, the road being traversed by each and everyone of us is leading to one single destination, yet we are baying, yet we are intolerant, yet we are incompassionate, devoid of love and respect to the feelings of others ideologies, their beliefs, how come, we the intelligent race, the superior race fell in this rut.

Do you know the difference between a rut and a groove? The only difference is the dimension. Grooves are good; you can slide along the path in the way you should go. Ruts are so deep you can't get out, and can't do anything different.

Let the one fallen in groove, get up before sliding into a rut and extend his hand to the ones fallen in rut, help them to, get to their feet, irrespective of who they are, pull them out and hold them, give them a long hug, which will give them the assurance of everything not being lost, giving you the much needed reassurance, that everything is yet, in the right perspective.

Maybe nothing is lost yet that it can’t be retrieved, you don’t have to search nor beg for those lost bygone days, those days filled with moments of eternal harmony and ecstasy, for those moments are still within you, because, you are searching for them, they are imbibed, in the most sacred recess of your heart and your mind.

To start with, go ahead stretch your arms, draw someone from within the family, first thing in the morning close to you, give a hug hold tightly for at least ten to twenty seconds, feel the flow of positive vibes, see nothing is lost. Let us not forget the stream of life for each one of us, will take us down the river of humanity, to ultimately merge, within the sea of tranquility, the eternal peace, the death.

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LOVE IS BLISS

What better way to start this article on Love Is Bliss, than by quoting from The Bible itself;

“Love, is patient, love, is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is, not rude it is, not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
Love never fails.”
I Corinthians 13:4-8

Ah! Yes love never fails, than what is it, that fails? Why so many relationships that have failed, have been attributed to the failure in love. Is it loved that has failed, or is it something else that has caused the relationship to fail.

Allow me to , follow up with another quote, from, Alfred Tennyson:

“I hold it true, what’re befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”

Is it difficult to define love after all? The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

But then are we not complicating matters? Isn’t love about giving, the more you give, more in abundance you get it back, love is patient, it is kind, it never hurries you on, nor does it demand of you to keep in race with it, or for that matter with any one as such, it teaches you to be truthful to your self, in kindliness, in Godliness, it guides you on, goads you on, all the while nurturing your thoughts, fertilizing them with seeds of compassion and humility.

Do you really have to define love, if you think so, than the answer is within you, provided you really love someone, it is not self-absorbed or egoistic, go ahead ask yourself, have you ever been jealous of a person for any reason, whom you love, no of course not, one always rejoices in the accomplishments of the person whom you love, your personal sense of achievement heightens, you feel pride.

Or do we really get angry on our loved ones, if the gravity of the situation warrants then yes, but we always tend to see things in different perspectives when loved ones are involved, we are more pacifying, accommodating, definitely not to spoil them, but to make them realize about their follies, in a wider spectrum of understanding.

Love always has taught us to protect, trust, persevere and above all always hope, When you are full of hope and faith and enthusiasm, it is because you are imagining future circumstances. Hope is a full expectation of desirable things to come. Hope is one of the essential ingredients to a happy life, providing energy and enthusiasm in all your activities. If you expect massive abundance, you receive massive abundance.

I was taught to ask this powerful question daily and if need be hourly to myself, “Am I operating from a consciousness of love and abundance, or a consciousness of fear and scarcity?” Remember that the only time is now, and the present is your point of power. Most people spend over 95 percent of their life wanting to be somewhere else and sometime else.

Your life is now. Live it now. What we focus on grows. So please visualize, think, for what you want. To do that, you have to know what you want. Decide what you want. Yes, it does take effort and focus. But that is how hope works, how love teaches.

Yes, love never fails, the relationships have failed, those and only those relationships, which were, to start with, had not been based on foundation of love. After all LOVE IS BLISS, IS ECSTASY, IS HEAVEN, IS HAPPINESS, IS PARADISE, IS DELIGHT, IS HARMONY, and IS PLEASURE AND LIFE ITSELF.

Allow me to conclude with some notable quotes, from Notable personalities:-

Albert Einstein:-

a) Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

b) How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

Blaise Pascal:-

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.

Elbert Hubbard:-

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

Henry David Thoreau:-:

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Jane Austen:-

Friendship is the finest balm for the pangs of despised love.

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BEAUTY & BEAUTIFUL

Let me start this article on a hypothetical note or rather a question, not much of it though, here it is, when I say beauty, what is it that comes to your mind, is it a picture of some beautiful girl, or do you visualize a landscape, with all those vivid colors one can associate with, while taking in the beauty of nature, or for that matter, different people will be beholding different objects, in their mind’s eye at the same time, as their views on beauty, beautiful, differ.

As per the dictionary/thesaurus, the word beauty is defined as:-

1. The combination of all the qualities of a person or thing that delights the sense and mind.

2. A very attractive woman.

3. Informal an outstanding example of its kind.

4. Informal an advantageous feature: the beauty of this job is the short hours [Latin bellus handsome]

But then the crux of the matter, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, for every individual is programmed to visualize things in his own perspectives, to this allow me to add my very own maxim: If physical beauty is skin deep, than Spiritual beauty is Soul deep. I am sure many of you’ll will agree with this truism.

That reminds me of a very touching incidence, which only goes to vindicate my above stance I was at this general hospital some years back, along with my acquaintance, next to me a young couple were playing with their child, who could barely stand, was weak, underweight,, skinny and with a complexion, that of a dark charred skin.

All the while the parents were doting over their child and calling him as the most beautiful child in the world, the strongest, and the most handsome and so on and on… I was observing the onlookers bemused expressions, some with revulsion, some with dismay, all this was believe me, was not lost upon the parents but nonetheless they went on, playing with the child in the same monotonous way.

After a while I inquired as to their plight, I got to learn, the child had some problem with his heart, that the chances were dim and went on to add, that they were aware, they had a child whose appearance was ugly, but then for a creator all his creations are beautiful isn’t it, see around us what God has created, they went on, there are beautiful things and equally ugly things, but again that is our perspective, if you should ask God as to which is his most beautiful creation or for that matter the ugliest creation, would he be able, to answer this question?

I for one was taken aback and was speechless, how right they were, it was a lesson to be learnt from seemingly illiterate people, but then, learning is achieved through wisdom, but wisdom is not achieved through learning. Yes! I too am sure; God would not have been able to answer this question, after all beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. AMEN.

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