My friend, your theory of humankind's insignificance is premised on the principles of Duality. This attitude is the root cause for much of the problems that the world faces today.
The great teachers of antiquity, on the other hand, have emphasized Oneness(Advait) and interdependence(Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam) as the organizing principles of Life.
This confusion is understandable. Our bodies give an illusion of Separateness. But the body is essentially made from the Breath, we are all equalized in the breath,derived from the same air and Aakash which envelops all life forms from here to infinity..If we look deeper, the body is nothing but a congeries of electro-magnetic energy. And this is derived by reducing Spirit to the lowest frequency. Conversely, the Spirit is nothing but matter raised to the highest frequency.
So there is a seamless interconnection, a unity and utter inter- dependance of all life forms. It is this interchangeability between matter and energy(or Spirit) that is missed by the materialists and the Dualists.
The tragedy of the human race is that it confuses itself to be a drop instead of the entire Ocean itself. As a drop of water it is, indeed, insignificant and powerless. But, as the Ocean, it has the entire power of the Cosmos working in him and with him.As essentially Energy, that we are,how can there be a Separateness of the drop from the Ocean.
Attitude is everything, my friend. We make our life what we will.And Aanapansati, being with the breath, that the Great Buddha taught, equalizes us with all life forms and teaches us the principles of oneness,love and the sheer effervescence of all life forms, principles so critically needed in this world of endless inequality and strife.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Trust the Mass Media at your Peril
Yahoo! MailUpdates occur every 1440 minutes.
Automatic page updates causing problems with your screen reader?
If you are using a screen reader and having problems using Mail, it might help to disable automatic page updates. Please note, this will also disable chat and text messaging within Yahoo! Mail. You can toggle automatic updates on and off using the link below. Disable automatic page updates.
Skip to search.
Hi, Avinash Profile Account Info You are signed in as: asahays Sign OutNewest version of Y! Mail Help HelpTutorialsBlogFeedbackUpgrade to Safer IE9
Notifications Help .Mail My Y! Yahoo!.Yahoo! Mail Search Search Web
Breaking News Visit Yahoo! News for the latest. ×Close this window
.MailContactsCalendarNotepadWhat's New?Mobile MailOptions Mail OptionsColorsMail PlusSwitch to the newest Yahoo! Mail
Options
Mail Search
Get the newest Yahoo! Mail You can save
$480 on Auto
FoldersInbox (2)Drafts (1)SentSpam[Empty all the messages from the Spam folder]Trash[Empty all the messages from the Trash folder]Search ShortcutsMy PhotosMy AttachmentsChat & Mobile Text[Hide]I am Invisible7 Online Contacts[Add]anand kumar - Busydipankarg85 - doc - guddu - Naval Kapoor - praveen kumar - shivaji sharan - Not Listed? New Chat4 Mobile Contacts[Add]Ananya Sahay +1 (860) 751-2882Preksha Bajaj +91 8806-325250Simar Chahal +19024400324Sruthy 0061410047539Not Listed? New TextSettings My Folders[Add a new folder - Edit folders]importantMessages from ...MNYL (10)Quest-NetSynced Message...
Go to Previous message
Go to Next message
Back to MessagesMark as Unread
Print
ReplyReply AllMove...importantMessages from LIFEMNYLQuest-NetSynced Messages Flag this messageFw: Who's Anti- Women, Modi or the Media?Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:01 PMFrom: This sender is DomainKeys verified"avinash sahay"View contact detailsTo: "Avinash K. Sahay" , "Atul Pranay" , "Devashish Roy Choudhury" , "Anuradha Mukherjee" , "Durga Charan Dash" , "Mahendra Singh" , "Jagtar Singh" , "Sridhar Karavadi" , "K. Nageshwar Rao" , "Sailendra Mamidi" , "Mohammad Wasimul Haque" , "Nitin Gupta" , "Rakesh Bhaskar" , "Pramod Kumar" , "P.K. Shrivastava" , "Bommareddy Gangadhara reddy" , "R. Bhama" , "Ruby Srivastava" , "Ramesh Kumar" , "Susie S. Varghese" , "Shyam Kumar" , "Smita Jhingran" , "S. Venkateswarlu" ... more
Friends,
I am no votary of any political party.In my view all political parties have ceased to lead the polity to provide any real well being to the great masses of our fellow men.I fervently hope and wish for another Chanakya, Gandhi or Mandela to rise and bring light and rationality to this beloved country of ours which was the richest country in the world, at least till AD 1800. Meanwhile many superpowers rose and fell while others took over. But for this great land there has been a steady decline thereafter.
This story, by a respected journalist, is forwarded only for the purpose of highlighting the utterly biased reporting of the TV channels of which our chattering classes, which includes us with a capital U, fall hook, line and sinker for.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com
Date: Thursday, 15 November, 2012, 5:29 AMThe Indian ExpressThursday, November 15, 2012
Who’s anti-women, Modi or the media?
By Madhu Kishwar, Women's Right Activist & anEminent Editor
We know what Narendra Modi said about Sunanda Tharoor. But we weren’t told about the rest of that speech !!
Now that the pious outrage over Narendra Modi’s tasteless remark describing Sunanda Pushkar as a “50-crore rupee girlfriend” of Shashi Tharoor has subsided, I hope we can examine the issue in perspective.
I write this after viewing Modi’s entire speech on YouTube, delivered during the election campaign in Himachal Pradesh. It provides an illustrative example of how our media steadfastly avoids discussion on serious issues and picks up only sensational and titillating tidbits, especially with regard to women, even while pretending to be guardians of women’s rights and honour.
The bulk of Modi’s speech dealt with burning issues such as price rise and Centre-state relations. He focused in particular on the impact of inflation on poor households and addressed specific issues concerning women among the masses. For example, when talking about the effect of the quantum leap in the price of gas cylinders, he expressed concern that the unrealistic quota of six gas cylinders per household per year would affect people in the hill regions more adversely since the cold weather increases the consumption of gas.
He pointed out that it would force poorer households to revert to using firewood.That, in turn, would increase women’s drudgery, since they would have to spend hours cutting and gathering fuel wood from forests leading to further deforestation.
He then described how the Central government had torpedoed the piped gas supply programme of the Gujarat government, claiming that the state had already provided cooking gas pipelines in 300 villages covering seven lakh households. His plan was to have covered 20 lakh households by this year. Piped gas costs half as much as cylindered gas. But the UPA government passed a law stipulating that only the Central government can supply piped gas.
As per Modi’s claim, that project would have saved the Centre Rs 15,000 crore worth of cooking gas subsidy and spared three crore gas cylinders for use elsewhere, but it was sabotaged because the Congress felt threatened by the growing support for Modi among the women of Gujarat. He then declared that he had filed a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge this needless encroachment on the powers of the state government.
Modi also talked of perennial power shortages and blackouts in the rest of the country while Gujarat had succeeded in providing uninterrupted electricity to every single village and household.
Access to affordable and efficient forms of cooking is an issue of utmost importance for virtually every woman in India. It is a life and death issue for poorrural households where women have to spend hours walking miles on rough terrains scrounging for fuel wood, cutting thorny bushes and trees and carrying loads of firewood for cooking on smoky chulhas that further endanger their health. Deforestation is also a life and death issue for people who live in hilly regions, especially women, because with disappearing forests, fuel, water and fodder become scarce and landslides become a common occurrence.
Thus it is evident that the basic and fundamental essence of Modi's whole speech was his strong sense of concern towards the rural group of women ( who bear the major brunt of Congress policy) vis - a - vis the modern uber-rich upper strata women like "you know who" .
So where is the question of sexist or anti-feminine attitude ? On the contrary, if anything !!
Yes, the choice of words and pronouncement was rustic, inappropriate and could have been more subtle or diplomatic - but then, people like Digvijay Singh, Renuka Chowdhary ( hear her use unwomanly languageesp when reffering to Baba Ramdev ) and Manish Tiwary have been definitely much more Crass and downright rude & austic even when at their very best !!
Finally, Modi critiqued Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi for bragging in election rallies that the Congress party was the one facilitating development by giving money grants to state governments while state governments ignored or mismanaged development works. Modi echoed Nitish Kumar, saying that the Congress talks as if the money coming from the Centre is its personal wealth, which it is distributing as charity.
Neither print nor electronic media chose to investigate and discuss whether the claims made by Modi regarding the piped gas project and universal rural electrification in Gujarat are accurate or exaggerated. Similarly, the Congress party’s use of Central funds to arm-twist chief ministers undermines federalism and vitiates Centre-state relations, impairing the health of our democracy.
The Centre’s near-total monopoly over key sources of taxation leaves state governments at the mercy of the Delhi durbar, distorts state policies and development programmes. For example, most state governments end up pushing liquor sales because that is one of the few sources of revenue they can impose directly. Villages that lack clean drinking water have a plentiful supply of government-patronised liquor shops. This drains out incomes of poor households, leads to greater domestic violence and strengthens the hold of political goondas who own these liquor thekas in villages.
But the media did not spend a fraction of the time discussing these vital issues concerning women and democracy. Instead, for hours and days on end, we heard militant feminists and uppity journalistsbreathing fire and brimstone and TV anchors emoting profusely only over the insult levelled by Modi at Shashi Tharoor’s wife !
If Modi’s concern for reducing women’s drudgery is genuine, if he has actually delivered piped gas to seven lakh rural households and intends to cover all the rest, if every household in rural Gujarat is getting round the clock power supply,then his frivolous remark against Sunanda Tharoor is not enough to damn him for being anti-women. Mere lip sympathy for women won’t do. I prefer politicians who care for women’s well-being in concrete ways.
The purpose of writing this is neither to defend Modi, nor brush away his uncouth remark.
It is only to highlight the fact that when serious issues are shoved under the carpet and a highly disproportionate amount of time is spent on relatively frivolous issues like cricket and films by our national media, is it not fair to complain that large sections of our journalist biradari, especially our 24x7 news channels, are trivialising politics in general and women’s concerns in particular in their insatiable hunger for high-decibel cockfights over sensational sound bytes?
No politician dare marginalise the life concerns of the mass of our women as systematically as large sections of our media do, with their disproportionate attention to glamour dolls and the doings of the fashionable elite. It is easier to call monstrous politicians to account than media monsters.
I know that by writing this piece I will be damned forever by my “secular” and "feminist"friends.
To those who see Modi as evil incarnate and want to see him defeated, I can only request: Please have the courage to stay close to facts and fight him on his home ground. Taking potshots at a straw man or caricature will only weaken the case against him.
Give the Devil his due, viz be fair to a person in totality and not by picking on isolated or selective utterences.
Thewriter is professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, an active Feminist and founder editor ‘Manushi’.
Automatic page updates causing problems with your screen reader?
If you are using a screen reader and having problems using Mail, it might help to disable automatic page updates. Please note, this will also disable chat and text messaging within Yahoo! Mail. You can toggle automatic updates on and off using the link below. Disable automatic page updates.
Skip to search.
Hi, Avinash Profile Account Info You are signed in as: asahays Sign OutNewest version of Y! Mail Help HelpTutorialsBlogFeedbackUpgrade to Safer IE9
Notifications Help .Mail My Y! Yahoo!.Yahoo! Mail Search Search Web
Breaking News Visit Yahoo! News for the latest. ×Close this window
.MailContactsCalendarNotepadWhat's New?Mobile MailOptions Mail OptionsColorsMail PlusSwitch to the newest Yahoo! Mail
Options
Mail Search
Get the newest Yahoo! Mail You can save
$480 on Auto
FoldersInbox (2)Drafts (1)SentSpam[Empty all the messages from the Spam folder]Trash[Empty all the messages from the Trash folder]Search ShortcutsMy PhotosMy AttachmentsChat & Mobile Text[Hide]I am Invisible7 Online Contacts[Add]anand kumar - Busydipankarg85 - doc - guddu - Naval Kapoor - praveen kumar - shivaji sharan - Not Listed? New Chat4 Mobile Contacts[Add]Ananya Sahay +1 (860) 751-2882Preksha Bajaj +91 8806-325250Simar Chahal +19024400324Sruthy 0061410047539Not Listed? New TextSettings My Folders[Add a new folder - Edit folders]importantMessages from ...MNYL (10)Quest-NetSynced Message...
Go to Previous message
Go to Next message
Back to MessagesMark as Unread
ReplyReply AllMove...importantMessages from LIFEMNYLQuest-NetSynced Messages Flag this messageFw: Who's Anti- Women, Modi or the Media?Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:01 PMFrom: This sender is DomainKeys verified"avinash sahay"
Friends,
I am no votary of any political party.In my view all political parties have ceased to lead the polity to provide any real well being to the great masses of our fellow men.I fervently hope and wish for another Chanakya, Gandhi or Mandela to rise and bring light and rationality to this beloved country of ours which was the richest country in the world, at least till AD 1800. Meanwhile many superpowers rose and fell while others took over. But for this great land there has been a steady decline thereafter.
This story, by a respected journalist, is forwarded only for the purpose of highlighting the utterly biased reporting of the TV channels of which our chattering classes, which includes us with a capital U, fall hook, line and sinker for.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com
Date: Thursday, 15 November, 2012, 5:29 AMThe Indian ExpressThursday, November 15, 2012
Who’s anti-women, Modi or the media?
By Madhu Kishwar, Women's Right Activist & anEminent Editor
We know what Narendra Modi said about Sunanda Tharoor. But we weren’t told about the rest of that speech !!
Now that the pious outrage over Narendra Modi’s tasteless remark describing Sunanda Pushkar as a “50-crore rupee girlfriend” of Shashi Tharoor has subsided, I hope we can examine the issue in perspective.
I write this after viewing Modi’s entire speech on YouTube, delivered during the election campaign in Himachal Pradesh. It provides an illustrative example of how our media steadfastly avoids discussion on serious issues and picks up only sensational and titillating tidbits, especially with regard to women, even while pretending to be guardians of women’s rights and honour.
The bulk of Modi’s speech dealt with burning issues such as price rise and Centre-state relations. He focused in particular on the impact of inflation on poor households and addressed specific issues concerning women among the masses. For example, when talking about the effect of the quantum leap in the price of gas cylinders, he expressed concern that the unrealistic quota of six gas cylinders per household per year would affect people in the hill regions more adversely since the cold weather increases the consumption of gas.
He pointed out that it would force poorer households to revert to using firewood.That, in turn, would increase women’s drudgery, since they would have to spend hours cutting and gathering fuel wood from forests leading to further deforestation.
He then described how the Central government had torpedoed the piped gas supply programme of the Gujarat government, claiming that the state had already provided cooking gas pipelines in 300 villages covering seven lakh households. His plan was to have covered 20 lakh households by this year. Piped gas costs half as much as cylindered gas. But the UPA government passed a law stipulating that only the Central government can supply piped gas.
As per Modi’s claim, that project would have saved the Centre Rs 15,000 crore worth of cooking gas subsidy and spared three crore gas cylinders for use elsewhere, but it was sabotaged because the Congress felt threatened by the growing support for Modi among the women of Gujarat. He then declared that he had filed a petition in the Supreme Court to challenge this needless encroachment on the powers of the state government.
Modi also talked of perennial power shortages and blackouts in the rest of the country while Gujarat had succeeded in providing uninterrupted electricity to every single village and household.
Access to affordable and efficient forms of cooking is an issue of utmost importance for virtually every woman in India. It is a life and death issue for poorrural households where women have to spend hours walking miles on rough terrains scrounging for fuel wood, cutting thorny bushes and trees and carrying loads of firewood for cooking on smoky chulhas that further endanger their health. Deforestation is also a life and death issue for people who live in hilly regions, especially women, because with disappearing forests, fuel, water and fodder become scarce and landslides become a common occurrence.
Thus it is evident that the basic and fundamental essence of Modi's whole speech was his strong sense of concern towards the rural group of women ( who bear the major brunt of Congress policy) vis - a - vis the modern uber-rich upper strata women like "you know who" .
So where is the question of sexist or anti-feminine attitude ? On the contrary, if anything !!
Yes, the choice of words and pronouncement was rustic, inappropriate and could have been more subtle or diplomatic - but then, people like Digvijay Singh, Renuka Chowdhary ( hear her use unwomanly languageesp when reffering to Baba Ramdev ) and Manish Tiwary have been definitely much more Crass and downright rude & austic even when at their very best !!
Finally, Modi critiqued Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi for bragging in election rallies that the Congress party was the one facilitating development by giving money grants to state governments while state governments ignored or mismanaged development works. Modi echoed Nitish Kumar, saying that the Congress talks as if the money coming from the Centre is its personal wealth, which it is distributing as charity.
Neither print nor electronic media chose to investigate and discuss whether the claims made by Modi regarding the piped gas project and universal rural electrification in Gujarat are accurate or exaggerated. Similarly, the Congress party’s use of Central funds to arm-twist chief ministers undermines federalism and vitiates Centre-state relations, impairing the health of our democracy.
The Centre’s near-total monopoly over key sources of taxation leaves state governments at the mercy of the Delhi durbar, distorts state policies and development programmes. For example, most state governments end up pushing liquor sales because that is one of the few sources of revenue they can impose directly. Villages that lack clean drinking water have a plentiful supply of government-patronised liquor shops. This drains out incomes of poor households, leads to greater domestic violence and strengthens the hold of political goondas who own these liquor thekas in villages.
But the media did not spend a fraction of the time discussing these vital issues concerning women and democracy. Instead, for hours and days on end, we heard militant feminists and uppity journalistsbreathing fire and brimstone and TV anchors emoting profusely only over the insult levelled by Modi at Shashi Tharoor’s wife !
If Modi’s concern for reducing women’s drudgery is genuine, if he has actually delivered piped gas to seven lakh rural households and intends to cover all the rest, if every household in rural Gujarat is getting round the clock power supply,then his frivolous remark against Sunanda Tharoor is not enough to damn him for being anti-women. Mere lip sympathy for women won’t do. I prefer politicians who care for women’s well-being in concrete ways.
The purpose of writing this is neither to defend Modi, nor brush away his uncouth remark.
It is only to highlight the fact that when serious issues are shoved under the carpet and a highly disproportionate amount of time is spent on relatively frivolous issues like cricket and films by our national media, is it not fair to complain that large sections of our journalist biradari, especially our 24x7 news channels, are trivialising politics in general and women’s concerns in particular in their insatiable hunger for high-decibel cockfights over sensational sound bytes?
No politician dare marginalise the life concerns of the mass of our women as systematically as large sections of our media do, with their disproportionate attention to glamour dolls and the doings of the fashionable elite. It is easier to call monstrous politicians to account than media monsters.
I know that by writing this piece I will be damned forever by my “secular” and "feminist"friends.
To those who see Modi as evil incarnate and want to see him defeated, I can only request: Please have the courage to stay close to facts and fight him on his home ground. Taking potshots at a straw man or caricature will only weaken the case against him.
Give the Devil his due, viz be fair to a person in totality and not by picking on isolated or selective utterences.
Thewriter is professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, an active Feminist and founder editor ‘Manushi’.
Don't be Snooty about Politics and Politicians
Friends,
This story in the International Herald Tribune has been an eye opener in ways more than one. We, the chattering classes, are prone to demonize all and sundry at the drop of the hat. This demeans us much, much more than the things and people we rail against. More often our ire is borne out of pure envy than anything else. Our morals are pathetic and our so called "intellectualism" and "rationality" more so
This article highlights why we should be giving the devil more due than we have done so far.How the politicians have to tread the very difficult task of high moral visiona and low cunning.
Criticism is crass. As Gandhi so famously said, Be the Change You Want to See in the World.
Why We Love Politics
We live in an anti-political moment, when many people — young people especially — think politics is a low, nasty, corrupt and usually fruitless business. It’s much nobler to do community service or just avoid all that putrid noI hope everybody who shares this anti-political mood will go out to see “Lincoln,” directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner. The movie portrays the nobility of politics in exactly the right way.
It shows that you can do more good in politics than in any other sphere. You can end slavery, open opportunity and fight poverty. But you can achieve these things only if you are willing to stain your own character in order to serve others — if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical.
The challenge of politics lies precisely in the marriage of high vision and low cunning. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” gets this point. The hero has a high moral vision, but he also has the courage to take morally hazardous action in order to make that vision a reality.
To lead his country through a war, to finagle his ideas through Congress, Lincoln feels compelled to ignore court decisions, dole out patronage, play legalistic games, deceive his supporters and accept the fact that every time he addresses one problem he ends up creating others down the road.
Politics is noble because it involves personal compromise for the public good. This is a self-restrained movie that celebrates people who are prudent, self-disciplined, ambitious and tough enough to do that work.
The movie also illustrates another thing: that politics is the best place to develop the highest virtues. Politics involves such a perilous stream of character tests: how low can you stoop to conquer without destroying yourself; when should you be loyal to your team and when should you break from it; how do you wrestle with the temptations of fame — that the people who can practice it and remain intact, like Lincoln, Washington or Churchill, are incredibly impressive.
The movie shows a character-building trajectory, common among great politicians, which you might call the trajectory from the Gettysburg Address to the Second Inaugural.
In the Gettysburg phase, a leader expresses grand ideas. This, frankly, is relatively easy. Lots of people embrace grand ideals or all-explaining ideologies. But satisfied with that they become morally infantile. They refuse to compromise, insult their opponents and isolate themselves on the perch of their own solipsism.
But a politician like Lincoln takes the next step in the trajectory. He has to deal with other people. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” does a nice job celebrating an underappreciated art, the art of legislating.
The movie is about pushing the 13th Amendment through the House of Representatives. The political operatives Lincoln hires must pay acute attention to the individual congressmen in order to figure out which can be appealed to through the heart and which through the wallet.
Lincoln plays each potential convert like a musical instrument, appealing to one man’s sense of idealism, another’s fraternal loyalty. His toughest job is to get the true believers on his own side to suppress themselves, to say things they don’t believe in order not to offend the waverers who are needed to get the amendment passed.
That leads to the next step in the character-building trajectory, what you might call the loneliness of command. Toward the end of the civil war, Lincoln had to choose between two rival goods, immediate peace and the definitive end of slavery. He had to scuttle a peace process that would have saved thousands of lives in order to achieve a larger objective.
He had to discern the core good, legal equality, among a flurry of other issues. He had to use a constant stream of words, stories, allusions and arguments to cajole people. He had to live with a crowd of supplicants forever wanting things at the door without feeling haughty or superior to them.
If anything, the movie understates how hard politics can be. The moral issue here is a relatively clean one: slavery or no slavery. Most issues are not that simple. The bill in question here is a constitutional amendment. There’s no question of changing this or that subsection and then wondering how much you’ve destroyed the whole package.
Politicians who can navigate such challenges really do emerge with the sort of impressive weight expressed in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. It’s a speech that acknowledges that there is moral ambiguity on both sides. It’s a speech in which Lincoln, in the midst of the fray, is able to take a vantage point above it, embodying a tragic and biblical perspective on human affairs. Lincoln’s wisdom emerges precisely from the fact that he’s damaged goods.
Politics doesn’t produce many Lincolns, but it does produce some impressive people, and sometimes, great results. Take a few hours from the mall. See the movie.
This story in the International Herald Tribune has been an eye opener in ways more than one. We, the chattering classes, are prone to demonize all and sundry at the drop of the hat. This demeans us much, much more than the things and people we rail against. More often our ire is borne out of pure envy than anything else. Our morals are pathetic and our so called "intellectualism" and "rationality" more so
This article highlights why we should be giving the devil more due than we have done so far.How the politicians have to tread the very difficult task of high moral visiona and low cunning.
Criticism is crass. As Gandhi so famously said, Be the Change You Want to See in the World.
Why We Love Politics
We live in an anti-political moment, when many people — young people especially — think politics is a low, nasty, corrupt and usually fruitless business. It’s much nobler to do community service or just avoid all that putrid noI hope everybody who shares this anti-political mood will go out to see “Lincoln,” directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner. The movie portrays the nobility of politics in exactly the right way.
It shows that you can do more good in politics than in any other sphere. You can end slavery, open opportunity and fight poverty. But you can achieve these things only if you are willing to stain your own character in order to serve others — if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical.
The challenge of politics lies precisely in the marriage of high vision and low cunning. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” gets this point. The hero has a high moral vision, but he also has the courage to take morally hazardous action in order to make that vision a reality.
To lead his country through a war, to finagle his ideas through Congress, Lincoln feels compelled to ignore court decisions, dole out patronage, play legalistic games, deceive his supporters and accept the fact that every time he addresses one problem he ends up creating others down the road.
Politics is noble because it involves personal compromise for the public good. This is a self-restrained movie that celebrates people who are prudent, self-disciplined, ambitious and tough enough to do that work.
The movie also illustrates another thing: that politics is the best place to develop the highest virtues. Politics involves such a perilous stream of character tests: how low can you stoop to conquer without destroying yourself; when should you be loyal to your team and when should you break from it; how do you wrestle with the temptations of fame — that the people who can practice it and remain intact, like Lincoln, Washington or Churchill, are incredibly impressive.
The movie shows a character-building trajectory, common among great politicians, which you might call the trajectory from the Gettysburg Address to the Second Inaugural.
In the Gettysburg phase, a leader expresses grand ideas. This, frankly, is relatively easy. Lots of people embrace grand ideals or all-explaining ideologies. But satisfied with that they become morally infantile. They refuse to compromise, insult their opponents and isolate themselves on the perch of their own solipsism.
But a politician like Lincoln takes the next step in the trajectory. He has to deal with other people. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” does a nice job celebrating an underappreciated art, the art of legislating.
The movie is about pushing the 13th Amendment through the House of Representatives. The political operatives Lincoln hires must pay acute attention to the individual congressmen in order to figure out which can be appealed to through the heart and which through the wallet.
Lincoln plays each potential convert like a musical instrument, appealing to one man’s sense of idealism, another’s fraternal loyalty. His toughest job is to get the true believers on his own side to suppress themselves, to say things they don’t believe in order not to offend the waverers who are needed to get the amendment passed.
That leads to the next step in the character-building trajectory, what you might call the loneliness of command. Toward the end of the civil war, Lincoln had to choose between two rival goods, immediate peace and the definitive end of slavery. He had to scuttle a peace process that would have saved thousands of lives in order to achieve a larger objective.
He had to discern the core good, legal equality, among a flurry of other issues. He had to use a constant stream of words, stories, allusions and arguments to cajole people. He had to live with a crowd of supplicants forever wanting things at the door without feeling haughty or superior to them.
If anything, the movie understates how hard politics can be. The moral issue here is a relatively clean one: slavery or no slavery. Most issues are not that simple. The bill in question here is a constitutional amendment. There’s no question of changing this or that subsection and then wondering how much you’ve destroyed the whole package.
Politicians who can navigate such challenges really do emerge with the sort of impressive weight expressed in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. It’s a speech that acknowledges that there is moral ambiguity on both sides. It’s a speech in which Lincoln, in the midst of the fray, is able to take a vantage point above it, embodying a tragic and biblical perspective on human affairs. Lincoln’s wisdom emerges precisely from the fact that he’s damaged goods.
Politics doesn’t produce many Lincolns, but it does produce some impressive people, and sometimes, great results. Take a few hours from the mall. See the movie.
Our Brain is the Greatest SuperComputer Ever Built
Super Brain Beyond BoundariesBy: Deepak Chopra on Nov 23, 2012
2973 Views
32 ResponsesCategoryScience of SpiritualityADD TO SPIRITUAL DIARYTags : God, Mind, Consciousness, Buddha, Jesus, Brain, BoundariesToday we walk around assuming that each of us has a mind, holding on to a prized piece of consciousness the way sailors once held on to lodestones. But the truth is that we participate in One mind, which hasn’t lost its infinite status by existing in the small packages of individual human beings.
We are so attached to our own thoughts and desires that we easily say “my mind.” But consciousness could be a field like electromagnetism, extending throughout the universe. Electrical signals permeate the brain, but we don’t say “my electricity,” and it’s dubious that we should say “my mind.”
…The brains of the Buddha, Jesus, and rishis reached a level that has inspired us for centuries, but as a biological creation, their brains were no different from that of any healthy adult today. The Buddha’s brain followed where his mind led, which is why all the great spiritual teachers declared that anyone could make the same journey that they did. It’s only a matter of setting your foot on the path and paying attention to the subtle signals picked up by your brain. Since it is attuned to the quantum level, your brain can receive anything that creation has to offer. In that sense, the great saints, sages and seers weren’t more favoured by God than you and I are; they were braver about following a trail of clues that led them to the very source of their awareness…
The barriers that keep us earthbound are of our own making. They include the barrier that divides the world “in here” from the world “out there.” Another barrier isolates the human mind as a unique product in the universe, which is otherwise devoid of intelligence – or so the prevailing theories of cosmology assert. In pockets of speculative thinking, however, a growing number of cosmologists have found the courage to look in a different direction, toward a universe teeming with intelligence, creativity, and Self-awareness. Such a universe would indeed know that we were coming…
Reality-making is every person’s task. There is no real look to the world, no anchor we can drop once and for all. Reality keeps evolving (thank goodness), and the biggest clue to this lies inside your brain. One reality after another is packed into it. The reality of the reptilian brain is still in there, but it has been incorporated through evolution into higher realities, each one matched by a new physical structure.
The brain mirrors the reality that each person is making at this very moment. Your mind is the rider; your brain is the horse. Anyone who has ridden horses knows that they can balk, fight the bridle, become frightened, stop to munch grass by the wayside, or bolt for home. The rider hangs on, yet most of the time he is in command. We all relate to our brains by hanging on during the episodes when hardwired imprints, impulses drives, and habits are in control. No horse has ever bolted as wildly as a brain gone awry…
Most of the time, however, the mind is in the saddle. Conscious control is ours and always has been. There is no limit to what we can inspire the brain to achieve. It would be ironic if anyone turned away from super brain for being too unbelievable, because if you could only see your untapped potential, you would realize that you already own a super brain. From the epilogue to the new bestseller, ‘Super Brain,’ by Deepak Chopra & Rudolph E Tanzi, professor of neurology, Harvard Medical School. (Rider, Random House).
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Remembering Papa
I must thank Bhaiya and Anjani Bhaiya for their precious reminiscences.I have been caught up in the whirl of events following Appu's departure for Trinity and Munni's for the Sports Meet at Avadi.
I am pleased to know that Papa led such an active life,despite his debilitating hypertension,usually measuring 200/120.That explains his early demise and I am now caught up in the abstruse process of trying to cure him of this disease,even though he has left that body.Since Energy is indestructible,he will surely respond to this overwhelming desire in me.
Apart from this, I must share with you that, once in rare whiles, Papa does communicate with me.I remember his clear exhortation to me, sometime back, to stand by my siblings as I would stand by my children.I found this message as a stark testimony of his eternal presence,and to his unfinished task which he suggested I take on without any fanfare, as a normal fact of life.
I also remember that evening when we had done Grihapravesh of our Nasik house,probably 1999. I was meditating and I got a clear message from Papa that, while the Nasik house was very good, I must not forget Munger.It was soon thereafter that I bought that half an acre land in Mirzapur, without any clear planning, simply on a whim and an impulse. That place, with the swanky temple, clear six feet boundary wall covering even the erstwhile property and rainwater harvesting in the premises, will surely do Papa proud. And this gives me enormous satisfaction.
The moral of the story is that Death is a great illusion. Life is continuous and eternal.Papa lives on, manifesting into physical reality his innermost desires.So we must cherish, and fully live, every moment of this blessed life, dedicating our actions to the greater good of all.
Best regards,
Avinash
http://poshaning.blogspot.com/
--- On Mon, 9/3/12, ANJANI K SAHAY
Dear Bhaiya,
Sorry I could not respond earlier because on 1st Sept I had a minor
operation - surgical removal of extra flesh on my back.
Yes, it is an interesting point that you have raised. It is true that we
will never know Papa's world view excepting that he wanted the best for his
children - this was also beyond the vision of most of his contemporaries.
However, I do remember a few things.
1. Many years ago I had chanced upon a letter that he had written to Ma,
soon after their marriage. I don't know where that letter might be now. I
distinctly remember Papa writing about the internal beauty that he had seen
/ experienced in Ma and which he liked immensely. His language even then
was absolutely beautiful..
2. It is difficult to talk about his political thoughts. However, what I
remember is that he worked during Nani's elections. Also, he liked to
listen to Atal Behari Vajpayee during his whirlwind tour following Indira
Gandhi during 1967 elections. I think he also had some affinity for
socialists - Lohia and others.
3. He did write occasionally for Indian Nation, which alongwith Searchlight
were the only English dailies published from Bihar. Manjhla Nana would also
express his ideas through print media (read Indian Nation). Manjhla Nana
would wait for the weekend when Papa was in Munger, and then show Papa his
write-up before sending it to press.
4. I also remember Prof. Manoranjan Kasotiyar, HOD (English) who was Papa's
neighbour in Khagaria discussing with him Shakespeare and English poets
like Shelly and Keats.
5. I think Papa was a member of University Syndicate and would often go to
Bhagalpur, the University headquarters, for meetings.
6. He would take active part in the affairs of college - a frequent visitor
to Kuso Babu who was the big boss of Kosi College which was then a private
college.
7. During summer vacation he spent most of the time in Munger correcting
papers as Head Examiner in Economics. Many people would come for 'pairvi'
through Ma. Sometimes I thought Ma also hesitated when talking to Papa on
the subject.
Love.
Anjani
Subject
Remembering Papa
For us this day has a special meaning. Papa went when we weren't standing
on our feet,
but Maan made all the sacrifices (as did you all as you were children and
had children's desires).
I still recall that confusing telegram sent by Mummy ("Father expired").
"Whose father?" was my first
worried thought- hers or mine, my grandfather or father. Our dearest Amar,
then only 11, bore the brunt.
By the time I caught the train and reached home, our beloved Papa had been
cremated.
I have sometimes wondered about papa's world view, if there is such a
thing. This is apart from his desires
for each one of us individually. He was a product of his times, in some
ways conservative and in some ways
progressive. But I guess that's true of most of us. Nevertheless, papa's
overall thinking about life is a question that
has occurred to me. And so has an answer he himself gave. The idea is
nebulous. He didn't expand on it. After
all, I was only 16 or17 when we had this conversation. Shades of it came
through in our occasional talks later
as well.
The memories are not too clear in my mind. But I distinctly recall Papa
using the expression "ajaatshatru"- one who
has no enemies- as some kind of ideal toward which we may aspire. I didn't
at all comprehend the meaning of these things.
But looking back, was he speaking of inner beauty? I shall never know. It
is of course difficult to be without enemies, I
think. I don't mean personal enemies (and that fate many can escape), but
people can be opponents of our thinking or
larger point of view. But if we are possessed of inner beauty, may be the
world will overlook other failings in us.
With my abiding love to you all that will never diminish,
Bhaiya
Friday, August 31, 2012
We Have Been Victims Enough of "Development" and "Modernism"
am very happy that we have a conversation going on. I'd like to respond to Para's objection on the heading,initiated by me. Speaking for myself,I don't believe that Science is antithetical to Religion or vice versa. Things like Sati pratha,or even caste,have no religious sanction. They were evolved by vested interests for good economic reasons. Religion,like Science,is strong enough to encompass the Totality of life. But the unfortunate thing remains,Para, that Religious elites,throughout history,have aligned with political elites to divide the masses into religious groups and perpetuate their plunder of innocent people at large. There is nothing in Religion itself to advocate such division or plunder. Infact it is just the opposite. So pl excuse me if I have hurt your sentiments. And I fully agree with your fine write up. Our ancient culture and tradition has such gems covering the totality of life.We must wake up to these and enrich our lives.
Sent from BSNL with my BlackBerry® smartphone
From: "Yadav, Pankaj (GE Intelligent Platforms)" <pankaj.yadav@ge.com>
Sender: IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2012 01:55:49 -0400
To:
ReplyTo: IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [IT-BHU-BatchOf1982] Re: Don't Turn Science into another Religion
Dear BV,
I would like to present counter-arguments to a few of your points below:
· I don’t know about you, but while I prefer to be able to prove my point, if someone logically proves otherwise, I have no problem accepting I was wrong. I don’t understand why would this be different for anyone else.
· Are we qualified to express an opinion about “sati-pratha”, “dowry related bride burnings” etc., or not? If we follow your suggestion, only priests, alternate medicine practitioners, and occult science practitioners should be expressing opinions on such “esoteric” topics, since the rest of us would not be competent enough in these areas……
· If “logic comes into play only when we know entirely the working of a particular subject”, then it can never come into play because we don’t know “entirely the working of” any subject!
· Is there a reason why the coin came up heads (or tails) the particular time you tossed it? Yes, indeed. It is called probability. Exactly the reason why your man died of a heart attack that morning! Can astrology predict whether the next toss of the coin will show up heads or tails? If it can, then it can “predict the approx. time of departure”.
· So things can be proven immediately with intuitive knowledge? Should we throw away the Law books and let the Judges prove an accused’s guilt immediately with “intuitive knowledge”?
With certainly no malice towards anyone,
Luv,
Pankaj
From: IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com [mailto:IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of B.V.RAM
Sent: Friday, 3 August 2012 5:17 PM
To: IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com; jairajh@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [IT-BHU-BatchOf1982] Re: Don't Turn Science into another Religion
Sent: Friday, 3 August 2012 5:17 PM
To: IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com; jairajh@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [IT-BHU-BatchOf1982] Re: Don't Turn Science into another Religion
Dear Para,
Whoa, Whoa, Boss you really seem to be worked up !!! Take some deep breaths and calm down. Unlike most of us, you have around 40 families to take care of, apart from yours. The moot point Para here is that each of us (yours truly, at the head of the line please) have an insatiable desire to prove our point. Very often we forget the fact that we may not be competent enough to express an opinion especially when it comes to esoteric topics like religion, alternate medicinal treatments, occult sciences etc. Logic comes into play only when we know entirely the working of a particular subject - be it science, religion, medicine etc. A healthy man dies of cardiac arrest one fine morning ( and this is happening very often nowadays). The doctor can only say how he died and not why .... Then there will be a vague diagnosis like stress factor, emotional imbalance etc etc. The fact is that he died because his time was up on this planet. How is just a means of dying and not the reason. As to the reason, we still do not have any clue although astrology does predict the approx time of departure. So Para, let the logic based tribe flourish till they start believing in something which cannot be proved immediately without an intuitive knowledge. This may happen in this lifetime or may not also. Either way I think it is more important to listen to the various schools of thought and take our step as per our conscience and mental make up. So as the new generation says, Chillllllllllll....... and Be happy. Luv ( and with no malice to one and all). BV --- On Fri, 8/3/12, PANCHAPAKESAN RAMACHANDRAN. From: PANCHAPAKESAN RAMACHANDRAN. Subject: Re: [IT-BHU-BatchOf1982] Re: Don't Turn Science into another Religion To: "IT-BHU-BatchOf1982@yahoogroups.com" Date: Friday, August 3, 2012, 12:02 PM
|
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The Paranoia of the Individual as the Modern Curse
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)