True Love.....

Remember!

If your love for someone is true,

Then there is already a clear knowing of that person in you;

Where there is a clear knowing,

There is always a better understanding already in you;

You can’t have a better understanding,

Unless you had already seen that person clearly;

Where there is a clearer sight,

There is hardly a room for doubt;

But,

If there are doubts,

Then know that the love in your heart is not true;

These doubts will lead you to anguish,

And Anguish will eventually eat up your inner freedom;

Thus,

Whenever you have doubts,

Just be aware that you doubt;

And handle with someone,

Whose love for you has no bounds;

He is none but ONE
Who never had or will never have a doubt about you,

No matter who you were, what you are, and how you become;

He is your Creator Whom you often doubt and question,

Yet, whose love for you is indeed true,

And whose love knows no end.

Shakespeare or Khap Panchayats?

         While life sustains honour, honour makes life worth living. It seems that there is a reciprocal relation between these two dimensions. Nevertheless, there is a marked distinction between them. While life survives even if it is not honoured, honour goes nonexistent in the absence of life. Then, what honour does a person gain by sabotaging his fellow human being?  How does a gotra preserve its honour by annihilating its own members? What is so honourable in Killing?

When the prince of Verona declared death penalty against the families of Romeo and Juliet, he did it with the intention of putting an end to the long running Montague/Capulet feud. But today, when the self-claimed, authoritarian, no-women-all-men panchayats issue their diktats against modern Romeos and Juliets, it is not because to put an end to caste (or gotra) division or rivalry distance that exists between them, but to reinforce it further through social alienation and excommunication often end up with barbaric assault and total annihilation. Is it what they mean by “honour killing”?

Then, why do we nail Hitler for ages in the history? Had he not done what he thought was right to protect honour? Are not our dictatorial Khap punchayats worse than Hitler? If honour is the sole reason for killing, then why only inter-caste or inter-religious marriages alone pay the prize? Why do we not line up all the prisnors and shoot them one by one for they have brought dishonour to our family, gotra, parampara, caste, Varna and entire nation?

“Honour killing” (or still worse “honour crime”), which is operated on the above mentioned key values- life and honour, is highly paradoxical that even the parliament of India has failed to define it yet. But, the perpetrators of this anti-life evil seem to know it well. Their stained swords and knives seem to have understood it fine. Victims of this brutal carnage are found in the soil of Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, rural Delhi and in south India, mainly Tamil Nadu, with no exception in Kolkata and Maharashtra.

When Rizwanur Rahman was cold bloodedly killed in Kolkata in September 2007, the plot had been undertaken by his Hindu-wife-priyanka’s father in cooperation with state law makers and their protectors to protect the honour of his family and status. When Manoj and Baoli couple was brutally tortured and killed in Kaithal district, Haryana in July 2007, and Ved Pal Maun, a 27 year old medical practitioner, was assassinated in Jind district, Haryana two years later in July 2009, diktats had been issued by respective Khap panchayats to protect the honour of their respective gotras. When Ravinder singh and family were blood-bathed in Maharashtra in may 1999, and Babitha, a 19 year old girl, was cold bloodedly massacre with her lover and his brother in Etah district in Uttar Pradesh in November 2008, diktats had been issued and executed by girl’s father to protect the honour of their families. When Delhi based Ravinder Gehlout, from Gehlout gotra, attempted suicide by consuming poison because he was denied his married Shilpa, from Kadym gotra in panipat district, just as Romeo from Montague family was denied his love, Juliet from Capulet family, and consumed poison, Honour killing, the Indian version of Romeo Juliet, made Shakespeare’s words come true: “The world is a stage and we are actors and actresses in it”

If Shakespeare were to be born today, will he be contented with the modifications done to his original version Romeo and Juliet? Or will he regret for setting an example, so influential and applicable? While Romeo and Juliet was based on the principle ‘live together or die together’, what principle the Indian edition of it is based on? Who to be blamed now, Shakespeare or khap panchayats?

Does the size of your heart really matter?

Measure it if you chose to read this!

               

Girl-

Good evening! Heart doesn’t forget those special people for whom it cares, though daily struggle of life puts us a bit apart, you are always remembered by this little heart. 

Boy-

Thank God for having given you a little heart. May He bless you with a big heart eventually! Good evening! 

Girl-

Does size really matter? Animals and babies love unconditionally even with small, little and very little hearts. The word little in the message was to make it sound nice (rhyming), while it is being read, I thought. Anyway, have a nice day!

Boy-

Same to you! But, babies and animals? What category do you belong to? Babies or animals?

Girl-

They are just examples to prove that size of the heart doesn’t really matter. Sad you didn’t get it. It is the love that the heart radiates that matters. The Sacred Heart picture doesn’t show a very huge heart, but we feel the love when we look at it.

Boy-

Really sad! It doesn’t show a little heart either. I would have known long ago that you have a radiating heart like that picture.

Girl-

Some phrases, words, and sentences are not to be taken literally. That is the moral of the story.

Boy-

Why some and not all? While the author has the freedom to write in one perspective and interpret it in one way, the reader has the freedom to interpret it according to his own.

Girl-

You are studying too much, bro. Go, take a break! But there is one language that everyone interprets in the same way, the language of love. That was what the original message wanted to convey.

Boy-

Oh! There is another moral to the story, ha! By the way, the degree of interpretation varies according to the size of the heart.

Girl-

I shall leave the conversation at that and choose not to continue.

Boy-

I am glad you chose it. Good Night!                                    

Freud, Adler, Jung & Jesus

                     Both religion and spirituality deal with the ultimate concerns of people and that a spiritual perspective can illuminate the origins of some of the most profound human strivings. Therefore one of the functions of a religious belief system and a spiritual world view is to provide “an ultimate vision of what people should be striving for in their lives” (Pargament & Park, 1995, p. 15) and the strategies to reach those ends.

                  Freud, Adler and Jung, three leading psychologists of 20^th century, have different views about man’s striving. While for Freud ‘people are hungry for love’, for Adler, people are hungry for significance. For Jung, people are hungry for security. Thus, according to these perspectives, people’s priorities, goals and concerns are signature determinants of their overall quality of life. The possession of and progression toward important life goals are essential for both long-term well-being and positive life. At first glance, it might seem odd to speak of religious or spiritual goals, the way one talks about achievement goals, health goals, or financial goals. Yet we speak quite openly of a “spiritual Quest”, of a searching for the sacred that fill our “existential vacuums.” In form there is nothing inherently different about spiritual religious goals in comparison to any other type of goal. They are, like other goals, internal mental representations of desired states toward which a person has committed to working.  At the level of goals or concerns, spirituality is seen as a motivating force that drives and directs personalised goals that one strives to obtain.

                      Thus, it was in the 9^th standard when my sole purpose of existence was ever being questioned for the first time. “Do you eat to live or live to eat?” asked the Catholic Nun, my Religion teacher.  At some point everyone asks such a existential question ‘What am I doing on earth?’ or ‘What is the point of life?’ or ‘Is there any purpose to life?’ In 1980s and 1990s, when psychology saw an explosion of inventories in the field of religion, spirituality was defined as “a way of being and experiencing that which comes about through awareness of a transcendent dimension and that is characterised by certain identifiable values in regard to self, others, nature, life, and whatever one considers to be Ultimate” (Elkins, 1988, p.10). The multilevel approach to spirituality by Robert A. Emmons assumes that spirituality is multidimensional and is related in people’s subjective experience in distinct, though related, ways.

                      So, to answer the question asked by my Religion teacher, should I say “Freud says, ‘people are hungry for love’, and so do I”, or “Adler says, ‘people are hungry for significance’, and so do I” or “Jung says, ‘people are hungry for security’, and so do I”? Instead, I said, “Jesus says, ‘I am the bread of life.”