Life After Death PART XXXI (A Moment Called Death)

Wasn't it yesterday that I met you at Kovalam beach? You looked very handsome and so full of life. Your spouses were dazzling and gorgeous . Children were sparkling around you with joy. I see you all tomorrow as a bundle of bones mixed with a few wedding rings and gold toppings of decayed teeth! Like it or not, the sound of the coffin in the earth is an utterly serious thing. “Life at its best” said Mark Twain “is a losing proposition. Nobody ever came out of it alive”. Sometimes, some lucky ones get some extra hours to stay and complete a century. If you are lucky, you should complete it. However, the end of the game is a forgone conclusion. In a way, our whole life is a long preparation for death. Each day we build a new foundation for death. Ultimately, it comes as an event as ordinary as the fall of rain drops or the arrival of an unwelcome guest. Death is the black camel that kneels before every door.
Poet W. H. Auden said, “The grave proves the child ephemeral”. Death is something that has disturbed me since my first close encounter with it as an eight year old boy. I was standing along with my parents at my grandmother’s death bed. I can vividly remember her vacant eyes and the receding cadences in her breath until her last sigh. My grandfather didn’t want to witness those solemn moments. Even when the news of the final departure was conveyed to him, his body didn’t show any movement, neither did his eyes well up in tears. May be he was in deep rumination about his beloved. When I reached twenty, I had seen two more deaths in my family. My gentle grandfather and my beloved mother sailed in the boat of charon. In 1999, it was my father's turn to board that eternal flight. Events, for me, have reinforced the meaning of Elias Cannetti’s words “Every breath you take, is someone else’s last As a child, one of the most dreadful sounds that haunted me for years was the slow and sepulchral band music played during Christian funeral marches. Each beat of that band would echo a thousand times in my heart throwing it into a violent rhythm. I could never close my eyes at night without the warm, gentle and protective hug of my father. As I grew up, I found it more and more disquieting to reconcile with death. I am now an inveterate hater of death. I am there to wage a war against death, hunt down into its very last hiding place to kill its false charisma, well, may be until my last sigh!
Everyday events in nature teach us that seeding, birthing, maturing and finally withering is an inevitable part of the living kingdom. The cycle of our life is a cycle in time itself. We are all creatures of a day. As a character mourns in the great drama “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Becket “They give us birth astride the grave. The light gleams for an instant. Then it is night once more”. It conveys the hopeless vision of life as a brilliant moment between the womb and the tomb.
This absurdity pervading our life is again brilliantly evoked in the words of the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. I quote, “Remind yourself constantly of all the physicians, now dead, who used to knit their brows over their ailing patients; of all the astrologers who so silently predicted their client’s doom, the great commanders who slew their thousands, as if they themselves were gods who could never die. Recall one by one each of your acquaintances; how one buried another, only to be laid low himself and buried in turn by a third, and all in so brief a span of time. Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of ashes.”
Yet, unmindful of the malady of death, man continues his barren conquests for power and glory. Some people measure their lives by the number of pennies they have earned; others by the years they toiled and many men map or condense their life story in the wrinkles on their faces. Each day we bravely march forward chanting our tomorrows while looking back we see a parade of fools called yesterdays lighting up the trodden path of our follies. When we reach the end of our path, we shudder to face the precipice in front of us as death has acquired more solidity. Overcoming this fear of death is the greatest strain in our life. As Woody Allen said, “It is not that I am afraid to die, I just don’t want to be around when it happens”.
But, we have to live with this certainty, though, living with a certainty is more disconcerting than living with an uncertainty. To live is to build a ship and a harbor at the same time. And to complete the harbor long after the ship was drowned.I march forward taking solace in the words of Dag Hammarskjold “Do not seek death, death will find you. But seek the road that makes death a fulfillment.“

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Heart Speaks or Soul Talk

Do words mean so much or does life mean so much?

I feel so comfortable when I feel love around me. No matter whether it is an article I read about love, or a movie, or any drama, anything and everything about love affects me deeply. But I have to accept one thing one powerful vision that drags me in to the soul and makes me listen to all my soul conversations is the media, especially some lovable movies that are classically made. I wonder sometimes how powerful these feelings are. They just eat me in when I think about them. You may wonder what I have been leading to. I am talking about the beautiful feeling that happens inside me when I watch some beautifully made movies. And how they affect my thoughts and drag me towards my own thoughts. When I say the word "love" it is not restricted to just one feeling that exists between a man and a woman. It is inside every form of object. It needs to be perceived in a proper way else it vanishes unrecognizably or else is misinterpreted badly. It’s like oxygen, which is all around us but which can never be noticed only be inhaled.
When I think about some person whom I wanted to be with always or at least wanted to spend little time talking to them I feel touched and moved, emotionally blocked sometimes. But if they are not there or they are busy in some other job and refuses to meet me I feel shattered. I feel very angry and hurt about that situation. Irrelevant questions about what or who is more important to them begins to crowd my mind. I cannot concentrate on all my other jobs. Well, all of them become so unimportant all of a sudden, whatever their earlier priority in my life may have been.

If a friend with whom you have lost touch remembers your birthday and sends a card that is engraved with emotional words, the moment when you read it a great joy pumps in and you feel the whole world is revolving around you. Every time you think about that person you seem to see them as your most favorite person. And all of the sudden you feel like you are being noticed by every one. Every instance that happens around you looks as though its been made for you specially. The breeze that flows on your face, the little street dog that wags its tail when it notices u, a butterfly suddenly tapping your shoulder, every single incident no matter how silly and normal they are, appear to be laden with great importance to you. Your face is filled with great joy and a beautiful smile the whole day. That day would have a great importance in your life. Perhaps a memorable day that you would always recollect with fond memories and a smile. All because someone sent you a birthday card. Sounds simple right?? Yet so full of meaning affecting your life not just one day but for on and on.

What is that great ingredient that made one day of your life so important? Its simply nothing but the feeling that tells you that you are being liked by some person you never thought of. The feeling that helped you realize that you r being cared by some one unexpected. That simple greeting with most powerful words on earth would be preserved by you more carefully than a diamond. Life seem to be so meaningful.

Sometimes a few minute commercial song means so much when you hum it. You feel that happiness and completeness in you when you sing it. If you look behind the reason for it, you find that there is some beauty you liked hidden behind those commercial song's lyrics. It would probably reveal that passion in you that you never realized. Love is around you in every single form that you can never predict. Some of us have the habit of preserving silly things like chocolate wrappers, feather, bottle caps, a thread from your favorite dress etc. If some one accidentally throws them you really get wild. Can you explain the reason if some one asks for it? Well definitely not! Its that soothing feeling that is with you whenever you are with those lifeless objects that make your life more lively.

Some say that these are meaningless things. I can declare one thing about such people. They are all people who successfully found the meaning of their life and failed to experience the meaningless joy around them every fraction of second. Love is definitely a whole packet of energy that makes you climb the sky. It makes all your seconds more valuable. Love always exists between every one you mingle with. It has no boundary, enemy or friend. You would also discover some good thing in your enemy, there is always a good thing hiding inside every heart. And whenever a living thing comes in contact with this good thought it blossoms into love. No matter how much you hide them from others; you cannot hide this truth from yourself.

Though you have this love and affection for others it is always ‘the time’ that explains it and makes it more meaningful. So do find the right time to make others understand your affection. Never feel too bad to wish your friend ‘belated wishes’ no matter how late it is. It is not always too late to tell some one that you care about them a lot. This ‘belated wishes’ would then turn to be the best birthday present your friend ever received for birthday. The thought of love and care for some one is considered ‘valuable’ only if that is understood by the person whom you like. "It is utter stupidity to sacrifice your life and your affection for someone who never ever bothers about you and your feelings. Instead of wasting your time to make them understand your care for them, try to understand the trust and faith others have on you." This sentence is especially for those teenagers who waste their life on unrequited love totally unbothered about the faith and trust their parents have on their future!

If you want to make your life more valuable and fun-filled then don’t be calculative in each and every single conversation you have with others. Do not always expect things from others and if at all you expect something from others and it fails then try to learn something about the situation. Don’t try to blame someone for it and don’t change your attitude about that person you have all the sudden. There is some good, lovable quality in every worst thing you consider. Love is a secret password inside you if you can hack it and try to use it in every global system ( every living things in world) then you can have all the secret password of every other system. You can make any place a peaceful world where god and goodness join their hands, sharing the life’s secrecy with all !

A Tamil saying in Tanglish : " Anbirku unndo adaikum thazl …" – " Love has no boundaries…."

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Physics to Metaphysics

For India's great realizers, the primary evidence in support of their thesis is revealed scripture (sastra), such as the Vedanta-sutras. This evidence is considered to originate beyond the limits of human reasoning. Yet, especially for Westerners, as an introduction to the virtues of scriptural evidence, it may be prudent to first discuss the concept of a transcendental personal Godhead in the context of modern science and quantum mechanics in particular.In the transition from Newtonian classical physics to quantum mechanics, several scientists have explored the possibility of a connection between physics and transcendence. This may be due to the more abstract nature of quantum mechanics as opposed to classical physic.
For example, classical physics attempts to describe the physical reality in concrete, easily understandable terms, while quantum mechanics deals in probabilities and wave functions.

Quantum mechanics, however, is much more rigorous in its attempt to describe reality and it explains phenomena that classical physics fails to account for. The "quantum leap" has given several physicists the hope that the transcendentalist's experience of consciousness can be explained by quantum mechanical theory. Although quantum theory does not account for consciousness, it has become popular to attempt to bridge the gap between the transcendentalist's experience and the quantum mechanic worldview. Some people have loosely called this attempt the "new physics."

The rational, spiritually minded community cheered the appearance of Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters. Several years later, David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order was similarly praised. Although there is good reason to applaud these authors' work and the work of others like them, their theories, scientifically speaking, do not bridge the gap between physics and transcendence. However, these scientists have to some extent become "believers," and their theories have turned many educated people in the spiritual direction.

Of all the recent attempts to show the "oneness" in what physicists and transcendentalists speak of, Bohm's implicate order theory is the most worthy of consideration. In comparison, Capra's "realization" that the dance of Siva and the movement of atomic particles is one and the same-although profoundly beautiful-falls more in the realm of poetry than science.

Bohm's explanation of reality involves what he calls an "implicate" and "explicate" order, with vague references to love, compassion, and other similar attributes that may lie beyond both the implicate and explicate orders. The implicate order is the ultimate reality, which underlies our present perception of the world. The reality that we perceive is what Bohm calls the explicate order. All order and variety, according to Bohm, is stored at all times in the implicate order in an enfolded or unmanifested state. Information continually unfolds, or becomes manifest, from the implicate order as the explicate order of our experience.

Bohm uses the example of the hologram to help explain his theory. A hologram is a photographic plate on which information is recorded as a series of density variations. Because holography is a method of lens less photography, the photographic plate appears as a meaningless pattern of swirls. When a coherent beam of light-typically a laser-interacts with the plate, the resultant emerging light is highly ordered and is perceived as an image in three dimensions. The image has depth and solidity, and by looking at it from different angles, one will see different sides of the image. Any part of the hologram will reproduce the whole image (although with less resolution). Bohm would say that the three-dimensional form of the image is enfolded or stored in the pattern of density variations on the hologram.

A further understanding of the nature of Bohm's implicate order is somewhat more difficult to grasp. In the transition from the classical description of physical objects to a quantum mechanical description, one is forced to use mutually incompatible descriptions. The concept of complementarities, conceived of in the 1920s by the physicist Niels Bohr, says that to understand the behavior of electrons, it is necessary to describe them as point like particles and extended waves. This leads naturally to the thought that electrons or their ultimate substrate, may not actually be fully describable in mathematical terms. Thus the ultimate physical reality may be only partially definable, because some of the partial descriptions will inevitably contradict each other. This is Bohm's idea regarding the nature of his implicate order.

Although Bohm accepts a whole containing distinguishable parts, he maintains that ultimately reality is fundamentally devoid of variety or individuality. Bohm believes that individuality is a temporal or illusory state of perception. According to his theory, although the parts appear to be distinct from the whole, in fact, because they "enfold" or include the whole, they are identical with the whole.

The hologram provides an easily understandable example. If portions of a hologram are blocked off, the resultant image remains basically the same. This helps to illustrate metaphorically the concept that the whole is present in each of its parts. Consider, then, a continuum in which all patterns ever manifested in any part of the continuum are represented equally in all parts. Loosely speaking, one could then say that the whole of the continuum in both space and time is present in any part of the continuum. If we invoke the precedent of quantum mechanical indefineability, we could leap to the idea of a unified consciousness encompassing all space and time in which each part of the consciousness contains the whole of the consciousness and thus is identical to it.

Although Bohm's theory of the implicate order is partially based on the standard methodology of physics, it is also apparent that it involves ideas not found in traditional science. Most of these ideas are clearly the influence of a preconceived notion of non-dualism. Richard Thompson, author of Mechanistic and Non-Mechanistic Sciences, has brought out some of the weaknesses in Bohm's theory, which he feels are due to Bohm's prejudice toward monism.

Thompson points out in his critique that while Bohm emphatically states that it is not possible for unaided human thought to rise above the realm of manifest matter (explicate order), he proceeds to carry on a lengthy discussion about the unmanifest (implicate order). Bohm also states that all things are timeless and unitary, and therefore incapable of being changed. Later, he proposes that through collective human endeavor the state of affairs can be changed. This is similar to the contradiction of advaita-vedanta in which ultimate oneness is thought to be attained even though it is beyond time and is forever uninfluenced by our actions.

Bohm's theory is sorely in need of a logical source of compassion so as to provide inspiration enabling finite beings to know the infinite. Although he speaks of compassion, it is only in a vague reference to an abstract attribute. The idea of an entity possessing compassion is avoided by Bohm (although he almost admits the need). He retreats from this idea because the standard notions of a personal God are dualistic and thus undermine the sense that reality at the most fundamental plane is unified.

Bohm's idea that the parts of the implicate order actually include the whole is not fully supported by his physical examples alone. Indeed, this is impossible to demonstrate mathematically. The part of the hologram is not fully representative of the whole. The part suffers from lack of resolution. It is qualitatively one but quantitatively different.

Bohm's explanation for the corruption in human society is another shortcoming in his theory. The theory alleges that evil arises from the explicate order. This is in contradiction with the basis of the theory, which states that everything in the explicate order unfolds from the implicate order. This means that evil and human society, or something at least resembling them, must be originally present in the implicate order. But what would lead us to believe that an undifferentiated entity would store anything even remotely resembling human society? How could there be evil in the implicate order if it is the source of love and compassion?

These are some of the scientific and philosophical problems with the theory of the implicate order pointed out by Thompson. These problems are resolved by Thompson, however, by replacing advaita-vedanta with acintya-bhedabheda. Simply stated, acintya-bhedabheda means that reality is inconceivably one and different at the same time. Acintya-bhedabheda holds that the world of material variety is illusory but not altogether false. It insists that there is a transcendental variety and spiritual individuality that lies beyond illusion.

The history of philosophy bears evidence that neither the concepts of oneness (nondualism) or difference (dualism) are adequate to fully describe the nature of being. Exclusive emphasis on oneness leads to the denial of the world and our very sense of self as an individual-viewing them as illusion. Exclusive emphasis on difference divides reality, creating an unbridgeable gap between man and God. Yet both concepts are essential inasmuch as unity is a necessary demand of our reason, while difference is an undeniable fact of our experience. A synthesis of the two can be seen as the goal of philosophy. In the theory of acintya-bhedabheda, the concepts of oneness and difference are transcended and reconciled into a higher synthesis; thus, they become complementary aspects of Godhead, for whom all things are possible.

The word acintya is central to the theory. It can be defined as the power to reconcile the impossible. Acintya is that which is inconceivable, because it involves contradictory notions, yet it can be appreciated through logical implication. Acintya, inconceivable, is different from anirvacaniya, or indescribable, which is said to be the nature of transcendence in the monistic school of thought. Anirvacaniya is the joining of the opposing concepts of reality and illusion, producing a canceling effect-a negative effect. Acintya, on the other hand, signifies a marriage of opposite concepts leading to a more complete unity-a positive effect.

An example drawn from material nature may help us understand the concept of acintya-bhedabheda. We cannot think of fire without the power of burning; similarly, we cannot think of the power of burning without fire. Both are identical. While fire is nothing but that which burns; the power of burning is but fire in action. Fire and its burning power are not absolutely the same, however. If they were absolutely the same, there would be no need to warn children that fire burns. It would be sufficient to say "fire." In reality, the fire is the energetic source of the power to burn. From this example drawn from the world of our experience, we can deduce that the principle of simultaneous oneness and difference is all-pervading, appearing even in material objects.

Just as there is neither absolute oneness nor absolute difference in the material example of fire and burning power, there is neither absolute oneness nor absolute difference between Godhead and his energies. Godhead consists of both the energetic and the energy, which are one yet different. Godhead is complete without his various emanations. This is absolute completeness. No matter how much energy he distributes, he remains the complete balance.

In the theory of acintya-bhedabheda, the personal form of God exists beyond material time in a transtemporal state, where eternality and the passage of time are harmonized by the principle of simultaneous oneness and variegatedness. This principle also applies to transcendental form. In the material conception of form, the whole can be reduced to a mere juxtaposition of the parts. This makes the form secondary. In the theory of acintya-bhedabheda, the material conception of form is transcended. The Supreme Being is fully present in all the parts that make up the total reality and thus is one unified principle underlying all variegated manifestations. Yet he has his own personality and is different from his parts or energies at the same time. Each of the parts of Godhead's form are equal to each other and to the whole form as well. At the same time, each of the parts remains a part. This is fundamental to the philosophical outlook of acintya-bhedabheda. It allows for the eternal individuality of all things without the loss of oneness or harmony. It also allows for the possibility that human beings, even while possessing limited mind and senses, can come to know about the nature of transcendence. The infinite, being so, can and does reveal himself to the finite. Just as the eye cannot see the mind but can be in connection with it if the mind chooses to think about it, the finite can know about the infinite by the grace of the infinite.

If Godhead has personal form, it is reasonable to conclude that a transcendental society exists that resembles human society and could unfold as the explicate order. In this conception, the explicate order is a perverted reflection of the ultimate reality existing in the transcendental realm. The reflection of that realm, appearing as the explicate order, is the kingdom of God without God. It is without God inasmuch as God, being the center of the ultimate reality, no longer appears to be the center. This produces illusion and thus corruption. The basis of corruption is the misplaced sense of proprietorship resulting in the utterly false notions of "I" and "mine."

According to acintya-bhedabheda, the individual self is a minute particle of will or consciousness-a sentient being-endowed with a serving tendency. This tendency for service is a result of the individual self's dependency on the Supreme Self. The Supreme Self is the maintainer, while the individual self is maintained. This minute self is transcendental to matter and qualitatively one with Godhead while quantitatively different. The inherent smallness of the atomic soul in contrast to Godhead makes the atomic soul prone to illusion, whereas Godhead is not. This is analogous to the example of the hologram in which only a portion of the holographic plate is illuminated. The resultant image, although apparently complete, is slightly fuzzy and does not give the total three-dimensional view from all directions that one would observe if the entire holographic plate were illuminated.

Living in illusion, the atomic soul sees herself as separate from Godhead. As a result of imperfect sense perception, she makes false distinctions, such as good and bad, happy and sad. The minute self can also live in an enlightened state in complete harmony with the Godhead by the latter's grace-which is attracted by sincere petition or devotion. This is so because while independent and unlimited, Godhead is affectionately disposed to the atomic souls. The very nature of devotion is that it is of another world, and for it to be devotion in the full sense, it must be engaged in for its own sake and nothing else. This act of devotion is the purified function of the inherent serving tendency of the self. It makes possible a communion with Godhead. In this communion, the self becomes one in purpose with Godhead and eternally serves Godhead with no sense of separateness from him. If we accept this theory, there is scope for action from within the explicate order, such as prayer or meditation, to have influence upon the whole. At least it appears as though the atomic soul can have influence on the whole, although in reality the inspiration for prayer and meditation comes from Godhead.

Acintya-bhedabheda cannot be fully appreciated without reference to the Vedic literature, or revealed scripture. The truth of the personality of Godhead, a supreme controller and enjoyer, will never be demonstrated in the laboratory of the controlled experiment. We can only control that which is inferior to ourselves. Revealed scripture is one of the principal means through which Godhead chooses to make himself known to us. While we can explain Sri Chaitanya's theory of acintya-bhedabheda and conception of a divine person to some extent in the language of logic and modern science, a more comprehensive understanding of his truth is derived from the essence of the revealed scripture.

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स्वजन तंत्र

राजनीति विज्ञान के शिक्षक ने जनतंत्र की परिभाषा तथा विशेषताएँ बताने के बाद भारत को विश्व का सबसे बड़ा जनतंत्र बताया तो एक छात्र से रहा नहीं गया. उसने अपनी असहमति दर्ज करते हुए कहा-
' गुरु जी! भारत में जनतंत्र नहीं स्वजन तंत्र है.'
' किताब में एसे किसी तंत्र का नाम नहीं है.' - गुरु जी बोले.
' कैसे होगा? यह हमारी अपनी खोज है और भारत में की गयी खोज को किताबों में इतनी जल्दी जगह मिल ही नहीं सकती. यह हमारे शिक्षा के पाठ्य क्रम में भी नहीं है लेकिन हमारी ज़िन्दगी के पाठ्य क्रम का पहला अध्याय यही है जिसे पढ़े बिना आगे का कोई पाठ नहीं पढ़ा जा सकता.' छात्र ने कहा.
' यह स्वजन तंत्र होता क्या है? यह तो बताओ.' -सहपाठियों ने पूछा.स्वजन तंत्र एसा तंत्र है जहाँ चंद चमचे इकट्ठे होकर कुर्सी पर लदे नेता के हर सही-ग़लत फैसले को ठीक बताने के साथ-साथ उसके वंशजों को कुर्सी का वारिस बताने और बनाने की होड़ में जी-जान लगा देते हैं. जहाँ नेता अपने चमचों को वफादारी का ईनाम और सुख-सुविधा देने के लिए विशेष प्राधिकरणों का गठन कर भारी धन राशि, कार्यालय, वाहन आदि उपलब्ध कराते हैं जिनका वेतन, भत्ता, स्थापना व्यय तथा भ्रष्टाचार का बोझ झेलने के लिए आम आदमी को कानून की आड़ में मजबूर कर दिया जाता है. इन प्राधिकरणों में मनोनीत किए गए चमचों को आम आदमी के दुःख-दर्द से कोई सरोकार नहीं होता पर वे जन प्रतिनिधि कहलाते हैं. वे हर काम का ऊंचे से ऊंचा दाम वसूलना अपना हक मानते हैं और प्रशासनिक अधिकारी उन्हें यह सब कराने के उपाय बताते हैं.'
लेकिन यह तो बहुत बड़ी परिभाषा है, याद कैसे रहेगी?' छात्र नेता के चमचे ने परेशानी बताई.
' चिंता मत कर. सिर्फ़ इतना याद रख जहाँ नेता अपने स्वजनों और स्वजन अपने नेता का हित साधन उचित-अनुचित का विचार किए बिना करते हैं और जनमत, जनहित, देशहित जैसी भ्रामक बातों की परवाह नहीं करते वही स्वजन तंत्र है लेकिन किताबों में इसे जनतंत्र लिखकर आम आदमी को ठगा जाता है ताकि वह बदलाव की मांग न करे.'
गुरु जी अवाक् होकर राजनीति के व्यावहारिक स्वरुप का ज्ञान पाकर धन्य हो रहे थे.

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A Life and Death Situation

Most of us have a virus protector on our computer. Unfortunately the world is full of sick minded people and we have to be very cautions and guard against many attacks. But what shield do we possess to help our minds cope with the stresses and strains of modern day living? The answers is a simple one. We are living as a human being, but we are in essence a loving soul. The essence is eternal whereas the human beings mind & body is a temporary identity. A few weeks ago I was asked to explain the sensations of the soul by a delightful lady.I started by saying;
A soul is the essence of intelligent energy that recognizes true wisdom within the senses of Love in Joy. The soul becomes part of the physical human being, the moment the first cell is born. It is the true "life" identity of a human. Just look at a babies face when it has food and comfort. It embodies a pure bundle of joy.The lady then asked me,

Most of us have a virus protector on our computer. Unfortunately the world is full of sick minded people and we have to be very cautions and guard against many attacks. But what shield do we possess to help our minds cope with the stresses and strains of modern day living? The answers is a simple one. We are living as a human being, but we are in essence a loving soul. The essence is eternal whereas the human beings mind & body is a temporary identity. A few weeks ago I was asked to explain the sensations of the soul by a delightful lady.I started by saying;
A soul is the essence of intelligent energy that recognizes true wisdom within the senses of Love in Joy. The soul becomes part of the physical human being, the moment the first cell is born. It is the true "life" identity of a human. Just look at a babies face when it has food and comfort. It embodies a pure bundle of joy.The lady then asked me, There can never be death of a soul. The body expires but intelligent energy cannot disappear.Joy is the core understanding of a soul. The only true feelings are love and joy and all the positive feelings that grow from them. Once we are aware of our love & joy in our physical life, then the spirit of past loved ones are sparked in our minds. We are aware there presence is "Alive" and connected to our souls. We are still connected to all the loved ones who have transcended back into pure spirit.This understanding should be the true mental picture of the myth called "life & death," otherwise we will just hold a memory of a physical being and that brings a loss and sadness. We will feel a loss, which attaches to a negative emotion, instead of our souls joy. We love our family and friends but love is not a possession. There are no permanent structures in a physical life. Why concentrate our thoughts on a finite individual that is a temporary visitor. Isn't it better to be aware of our continuous true self?She then inquired;
Do you really want to say "The ONLY true feelings are Love and Joy"? Doesn't this invalidate people that are feeling other things such as grief, sadness, loss, anger right now? Those feelings are indeed also very real, necessary for the grieving process and true...aren't they?I answered;
Only in the eyes of the physical beings conditioning dwells grief and suffering. This ego (Ease God Out) image of ourselves is only a temporary condition and not true reality. We cannot live by such basic, illusionary emotions, or we will waste most of our life in a negative thought mist. This may sound harsh, but the opposite is true. To live in joy, spreads joy, to live with grief, spreads grief. Giving joy is caring. Spreading grief is selfish. We grieve for our loss, not for the loved one, for their physical presence has gone.There is a big difference in words “emotions”- “feelings” although they mean the same in the dictionary. We can only hold grief when there is a loss. Physically there is a loss and our emotions feel that loss. In our true state of feelings of love & joy, there can never be a loss for spirit cannot die, for it was not born. It flows through us as the wind brushes our cheek. That is our true identity. The whole of the cosmos is our domain. How can we grieve over an eternal energy force that we are? It makes no sense to cry and go against the realities of infinite wisdom.The emotions that seem so real are part of our ego's view of the world and not real at all. Reality means lasting and nothing in the physical lasts. This is a deep subject which many folks take a lifetime to learn and then it is too late. Most people never do comprehend the true meaning that surrounds "life & death."Folks need to continually ask more questions and the more questions we ask, the clearer our reality becomes. The only true, eternal feelings, are love & joy. There can be no other reason to exist on earth without these feelings. We are not put on earth to suffer as many religions preach.Over many thousands of years, we have been trained to be-lie-ve grieving is a normal response to the death of a loved one. Especially a sudden death. But that does not mean it is natural to grieve. To understand it is like peeling an onion. Each layer will make us cry until we get to the end. Once we eat it, we will stop crying and just enjoy it's flavor and goodness. After a while we learn If we cook it first, then peel each layer, we will not cry. Why live life in the raw?We need to accept who we truly are and the recipe for that take time and practice. If we function with half baked ideas, we will get indigestion very often. If we live only by emotions, we will cry very often. We will all feel negative emotions, for that is how our bodies have evolved. But the fight or flight emotions we originally felt, are today replaced with many other emotions that injure our immune systems and put us in an early grave. Our minds have not adjusted to modern day living and some religious rules & regulations only make matter worse. The spiritual essence of each religion is pure, but mankind changes it to suit it's own power base.The simple answer to the meaning of life is, 'God put us on earth to enjoy every second,' no matter what chaos, catastrophes and tragedies surrounds us.
Now who wants to argue with God?
If we do, we will cry and grieve a lot. When we walk with Spirit in each step we take, no harm can befall our essence of de-light, so what is there to be unhappy about? Health, wealth and joy will flow freely in our direction if we allow spirits nature to flow its course. Once we can accept our true identity, we can live as an authentic member of the universe. What is the point of subsisting detached from a higher reality, as an ego being, with no club card into spirit's truth? A soul's energy ... is life's potency. Where there's life, within and around a being, there resides a loving soul... Our sole purpose is to en-joy from an air of love. What are you waiting for... After all; it is not as though your boxed in a life or death situation?

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Life After Death PART XXX (Right to die)

When life is woe and hope is dumb, the world says go! The grave says , come!

How many people have you met in your life span who you think should die (because of poor health or mental conditions or some thing else)? Last night i saw a very old lady lying on the road side in outskirts of Delhi, her condition cant be described in words. After i saw her I stopped myself and came out to meet the lady and talk to her. She barely uttered a word. She must be around 80-85 years old. All she could say that some of his relative dropped her on roadside to die!
A NGO called 'aastha' take care of old and needy people in NCR. So I some how managed to contact them with help of my journalist friend, Geeta Pradhan, who is also associated with social works in NCR. The old lady was later carried by NGO to their old age home. There are several such old people who are just waiting to die. In holy places like Haridwar,Rishikesh,Allahbad,Varanasi,Bodh Gaya, Nasik etc there are special home for these kind of people who are abandoned by their so-called relatives. After I came back home and as usual after a long drive i prefer smoking few cigarettes s then carry on with rest of works. While smoking i was wondering Why dont these people have right to death?

Well speaking legally I dont have much of knowledge about the rules in India or for that matter any other country. as far as i know....
Ours is a democracy which means that it is by the people, of the people and for the people. Constitution locates power that resides in the people. It is the people's power for people's benefit. Constitution creates rights and duties. All most all our demands get converted into rights-even our feelings, emotions is governed by the rights and duties we have.
Constitution is a social document. It is the society in its political aspect. We can't understand its nature without understanding the chief characteristics of the society. If the constitution is such that it has taken into its consideration, the social set up, then only will it stand the test of time. constitution and society grows, develops together and gets intertwined in each other. The constitution takes into account change and developments in the society. Instances of them are:-
a) Right to education: below the age of 14yrs has been guaranteed by Article 21-A. recent developments are about guaranteeing education in the technical, higher educational institutions.
b) Right to clean environment
c) Right to life : is widely interpreted to include the right to dignified living-this includes rights guaranteed to prisoners, inmates of protective homes, right to release and rehabilitation of bonded labourers , right to legal aid, and the right to know.d) Right to go abroad. e) Right to privacy. f) Right against solitary confinement.

I have the right to die? As we have already seen, no country's Constitution can be an enduring Constitution if it does not take into cognizance the interest of the people for whom this Constitution has been framed. And so there are various arguments given by people who believe that one should have the right to die. Their arguments go as follows:1. If I have been guaranteed right to life, I should be guaranteed the right to die as wellC A Thomas, 86-year-old retired school teacher of Thrissur, who was the first one in India to demand the right for voluntary death had argued that Article 21 indeed bestowed on every citizen a right to life and method of death. Our Constitution guarantees the right to life. The right to life is incomplete without the right to death. The karma of life is a wheel that is completed only when birth is complemented by death. The right to die is built into the right to live.
Supreme Court in Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab3, said that it is well settled that the right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution does not include the right to die. The Court held that Article 21 is a provision guaranteeing protection of life and personal liberty and by no stretch of the imagination can extinction of life be read into it. To give meaning and content to the word 'life' in Article 21, it has been construed as life with human dignity. Any aspect of life which makes it dignified may be read into it but not that which extinguishes it and is, therefore, inconsistent with the continued existence of life resulting in effacing the right itself.
The 'right to life' including the right to live with human dignity would mean the existence of such a right up to the end of natural life. This also includes the right to a dignified life up to the point of death including a dignified procedure of death. In other words, this may include the right of a dying man to also die with dignity when his life is ebbing out. But the 'right to die' with dignity at the end of life is not to be confused or equaled with the 'right to die' an un-natural death curtailing the natural span of life.
It is argued that right to die respects the individual's right to self-determination or his right of privacy. Interference with that right can only be justified if it is to protect essential social values, which is not the case where patients suffering unbearably at the end of their lives request to die when no alternatives exist. Not allowing the right to die would come down to forcing people to suffer against their will, which would be cruel and a negation of their human rights and dignity. Every person has a right to live with at least a minimum dignity and when the state of his existence falls below even that minimum level then he must be allowed to end such tortuous existence. In such cases relief from suffering (rather than preserving life) should be the primary objective.
At this juncture it would not be out of place to mention that the liberty to die, if not right strictu sensu, may be read as part of the right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution of India. True that the Supreme Court has held that such an interpretation of Article 21 is incorrect18, but it is submitted that one may try to read the freedom to die as flowing from the rights of privacy, autonomy and self-determination, which is what has been done by the Courts of United State and England. The Constitution states certain unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Since we have this right to life, it is our right to decide what we want to do with our lives. And people should be free to live their lives as they themselves think best.
2. If I have been reduced to a corpse, suffering from an incurable, interminable disease, I don't deserve to live with so much pain
3. Our religion supports a person who wants to dieC. Thomas a Christian, quoted the Gita and Ramayana to prove that " vanavas ", the ancient Indian tradition of merging with the Supreme was the most honourable system. "It is the western jurisprudence we now follow without thinking that considers taking one's own life a crime". In his argument he said that Jain preists after reaching a certain age starved themselves to death and the rishis and munis of those times also willfully ended their lives after attaining enlightenment.4. I fear death and the pain that will come with it, I want to have a sound sleepC. Thomas believed that death would be a pleasant experience if one were to die at an advanced age on his won volition with some medical help once he or she thought had fulfilled all possible duties of life. Most of the old people today spend their lives fretting about their death and that causes a lot of mental agony and suffering. Guaranteeing a person the right to die would dismiss the fear of death and mourning now prevalent in people. 5. I want to donate my organs before the disease affects itVenkatesh, a 25-year-old muscular dystrophia patient, wanted to be granted the right to die. He sought to enforce the right so that he could donate organs before they were affected by his illness. The plea was rejected a day before his death by the Andhra Pradesh high court. The court ruled that the petition sought to violate the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1995, which had no provisions that allowed individuals to donate organs before they were brain dead. The court's caution in this case is understandable considering the implications of easing restrictions in organ transplant. However, the order indirectly reiterated the stated legal position that an individual had no right to end his life voluntarily. This is not the only case where someone of their free will wanted to donate their organs, to serve a noble cause and wasnt allowed to do so. Otherwise in our country illegal trade of human body parts and organs is taking place at a massive rate and when a person approaches law and seeks its help, he is denied the same.
You do not have the right to die; you only have the right to live
1. I do not want to die, I want to live but they won't let meWhat stands as the biggest fear in the minds of the people is the exploitation that will occur once right to die is legalized in our country. One example is that many of our age old social customs like sati pratha may get legitimacy once right to die is legalized. In a recent case of Roop Kanwar who performed sati in Rajasthan, there were many local people who supported her and asked everyone to do what she had done so bravely and uphold the Hindu traditions and long followed customs of the village. It can be falsely propagated by Hindu fanatics to serve their purpose saying that a woman has a right to die by throwing herself in the funeral pyre of her husband while the whole while she herself did not consent to it. It is the vast majority of illiterate people who will be targeted. They will be told to give up their lives for their religion and they will do so very gladly saying that they have a right to die, whatever be the reason.
The Sati (Prevention) Bill, which mandates:
1. one to five years imprisonment for any woman who attempts sati; 2. the death penalty or life imprisonment for abetment of Sati; 3. one to seven years imprisonment for glorification of Sati; and 4. Suspension of civic rights of anyone convicted of abetting or glorifying Sati, i.e. disqualification from holding any public office. However this very piece of legislation will stand negated once right o die is legalized in our country.
2. India is a poor country where there are many feeding mouths and resources are lessIn light of the increasing pressure on hospital and medical facilities, it is argued that the same facilities should be used for the benefit of other patients who have a better chance of recovery and to whom the said facilities would be of greater value. Thus, the argument runs, when one has to choose between a patient beyond recovery and one who may be saved, the latter should be preferred as the former will die in any case. But one should not forget that in a country like India where there is tremendous pressure on the available medical facilities, it is all the more necessary for the maximum utilisation of the limited facilities. 3. There is a risk of abuse of this rightIt is again, a conflict between the humane, the ethical and the legal. it is not always that the patient wants to die. The relatives of the patient are also allowed to decide whether to let the patient live. In addition, even where the consent is that of the patient it may be one obtained by force. Use of physical force here is highly unlikely. But emotional and psychological pressures could become overpowering for depressed or dependent people. Moreover, financial considerations, added to the concern about being a burden, could serve as a powerful force that would lead a person to choose to die. Moreover, it is argued that when a healthy person is not allowed to commit suicide then why a diseased person should be allowed to do so. It is pointed out that suicide in a person who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness is no different than suicide for someone who is not considered terminally ill. Depression, family conflict, feelings of abandonment, hopelessness, etc. lead to suicide regardless of one's physical condition. Studies have shown that if pain and depression are adequately treated in a dying person as they would be in a suicidal non-dying person the desire to commit suicide evaporates. Suicide among the terminally ill, like suicide among the population in general, is a tragic event that cuts short the life of the victim and leaves survivors devastated.
It is feared that placing the discretion in the hands of any individual would be placing too much power in his hands and he may misuse such power. This fear stems largely from the fact that the discretionary power is placed in the hands of non-judicial personnel (any individual in this case). This is so because we do not shirk from placing the same kind of power in the hands of a judge (for example, when we give the judge the power to decide whether to award a death sentence or a sentence of imprisonment for life). Generally people who attempt suicide or want to commit are under a lot of emotional stress. For example a patient receiving chemotherapy might want to end his life because of the physical and mental trauma but once he feels better, he might change his mind. Decisions in case of such patients are fluctuate. Also relatives can use the law to achieve their own interests. In India, the crime rate is increasing faster than the population growth. The one main reason behind the crime rate is greed. The old people are very vulnerable.
The near kith and kin want to usurp their property and other possessions. We come across this in almost everyday in news papers. Once euthanasia is legalised, old people will become the main targets. A doctor will declare a patient terminally ill for a paltry some. It will have dangerous repercussions on the society. We should respect life. Life is the most precious thing the God has bestowed upon us. A youth of our age, depressed to see his parents fight every night, depressed as he does not have a job and has the burden of his family on his shoulders, depressed as he failed in board exams, will not think twice before killing himself! And this will result in gross degradation of a human beings life. His family and society at large will lose an otherwise bodily and mentally healthy person whose rich experience in life and his own skills can be a great asset. 4. slippery slope argumentThe slippery slope argument, in short, is that permitting suicide would over the years lead to a slide down the slippery slope and eventually we would end up permitting even non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. 5. mind, body and soul. We are discussing here the rights of a very few people vs. the whole possibility of murders and suicides that can follow from such a law. Besides, if one understands the life and soul and how it works, one will understand that Euthenasia is actually irrelavant and unnecessary. The Spirit or Soul in us decides when to leave. When the MEST life (this physical universe) gets too challenging, the should carves in and gives up to find another body and to start afresh. That's the way the spirit/life works. So if that be the case, the death will come as soon as the Soul decides it. And the fact is that the Soul does not continue in a body a minute longer than it can bear to be there. One could argue about the pain of those around the suffering and dying person. But it's not of our selection that someone we love is suffering. It's a part of life. But legalizing this would mean a gaping hole that many can take advantage of.

In the end, we also would do well to remember the following words of Mahatma Gandhi:Death is our friend, the truest of friends. He delivers us from agony. I do not want to die of a creeping paralysis of my faculties a defeated man. So the outcome as it seemsIt seems to me that suicide probably ought to remain illegal, because many people who attempt it (especially young people) are either a) not fully in charge of their faculties, b) treatable patients with one or another form of mental illness, and c) would probably thank us later for resisting their attempt. These aren't strong arguments (it can still be argued that suicide "doesn't hurt anyone but the doer"), but they are good enough for me. The state should do everything it can to discourage people from committing suicide. On the other hand, it shouldn't penalize people who attempt it and fail. If the 'crime' of suicide is punished, you run the risk of the old totalitarian joke: he tried to commit suicide, and failed, so they executed him.
So perhaps suicide should remain generally illegal (but not punishable), and there should just be an exception granted to people who are terminally ill and in excruciating pain (like L. Venkatesh). But doctors often disagree on what defines terminal illness. And while there will certainly be some cases where death is inevitable, there will be many cases where death is fairly far off in the future, and there is some hope, however small. Moreover, critics can object that there is always the possibility of a medical miracle -- that 1 in 10,000 chance that a patient will recover -- so isn't it worth keeping the patient alive in case that happens? Opening up the Right to Die as an exception in the law against suicide would only work if the likelihood of death were overwhelmingly high, and if the "miracle cure" argument were thrown out on a cost/benefit basis.
Thus, it seems like a viable argument to say that the right to die should remain generally illegal because of the confusion that could ensue if it were legalized. This is the status quo, and the suffering of people like Venkatesh is unfortunate, but perhaps justified because it does serve the greater common good.
On the other hand, if I could be convinced that doctors could specify the cases where euthanasia is the best option with upwards of 99% certainty (this would require a classification of terminal illnesses and probably the statistical ascertainment of survivability), then may be legalizing righ to die would also serve the common good.
The basic moral question that arises is whether by legalizing a person's right to die, we will degrade a human beings life and stop respecting human life. No one can deny that there is nothing more precious than the gift of life which every human being enjoys. Why then should man decide when his life should end? Most religious people believe that life is sacred and one should not waste time in planning about their death but planning about how to enjoy life. Terminating life is not an answer to pain. All along life's journey man will suffer pain whether it is physical or mental or emotional or psychological. Will legalization of right to die be done to relieve oneself from the physical pain only?A person weakened by illness may not be in a position to review his decision to kill himself. Decision to die by coming under some financial or social obligation is also very dangerous. Somewhere down the line we may end up violating the right to life while legalizing the right to death. When life is woe and hope is dumb, the world says go! The grave says , come! Whose voice will you hear? Will you be a faint heart and say that I want the right to die or will you in your sorrow and misery and pain be a brave heart and say, dear god give me two more precious moments because I want to cherish the precious gift of life.

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Life After Death PART XXIX (The Catch Basket Concept)

I found the following article, yet again, while searching through my computer files. I had completely forgotten writing it. It seems a shame to waste it, so here it is. It explains a little about who I am and where I am coming from, and why I write the books and articles I do. My life; it's been a learning process in every sense of The Word. In the mid-to-late nineteen-eighties, I experienced a serious belief system challenge. Glaring contradictions arose at every turn, between my ongoing hard-life experiences and popularly accepted New Age concepts of spiritual reality. I struggled to comprehend and integrate my experience with this paradigm, being forced time and time again to accept illogical compromises. But adaptation of my life experience soon became impossible and I began suffocating under its awkward burden. The popular model rapidly became unworkable in a practical sense. Either I was going crazy and experiencing consistent, repeatable delusions, as were all the people I was helping, or something was decidedly rotten in downtown Denmark.
Like many people down through the ages, I had spent my life searching for spiritual truth and meaning to life. For many years, I had sat in development groups, prayed, meditated, visualized and read until my eyes burned and my mind reeled under the massive contradictory onslaught. I developed psychic abilities, had spectacular OBE's, visions and mystical experiences. I made good progress, but still I need more. . .I was eventually reborn and transformed when I raised my kundalini to its highest level around 1987 (this was when the enigma of my life became apparent to me). But raising kundalini, in itself, does not bring instant enlightenment. Kundalini has to be raised regularly and mastered, just like any other ability. The first time kundalini is raised it causes 'abstract' enlightenment, not actual enlightenment. You know everything while kundalini is raised, but cannot realize this when you return to a normal level of consciousness (the base level of consciousness in the normal waking state). There are no shortcuts, and there is no way of avoiding all the hard work and hard-life experience necessary for the abstracts to filter down into your conscious mind and physical reality.
All of this gleaned me glimpses of the greater spiritual reality above, with a few tantalizingly abstract snippets of abstract higher truth thrown in for good measure. But my increasingly strong contact with the greater spiritual reality provided me with a flood of contradictions to the popularly accepted model. This intellectual burden grew and grew as my belief system was stretched way beyond its design limits. It rapidly approached critical mass. I was offered a solution in 1990. I had a major experience where an angel, or my higher-self (hard to tell which, and somewhat of a moot point really) manifested to me as a powerful objective voice. I could have recorded this had I a tape recorder handy; it was that audible. I was wide-awake and standing up. I had just stepped out of the shower and was about to start my evening meditation, around 9 pm. It was the most beautiful voice I have ever heard: deep, masculine, eloquent, loving, forgiving and wise. The atmosphere was intense. I felt like a small child might feel when standing before God in a great cathedral for the very first time. The sense of awe and loving fatherly forgiveness is overpowering. As I write, just revisiting my living memory of this causes tears of deep spiritual longing to flood down my face; such is the emotional impact of this experience. NB: This was the same objective voice that had spoken to me a couple of years earlier, when it then instructed me to begin teaching myself how to write. Since I barely finished grade eight, this was no mean feat in itself. I had worked hard, and by the time of the second visitation, had already mastered the basics of English and grammar. Even so, I still felt I had not done enough. But direct contact with spiritual beings from the greater reality always has this effect, especially when they come to you. The voice asked me to sit down, and then proceed to explain a great many things to me, the most important of which was advice on how to proceed on my quest for higher spiritual truth and knowledge. I was instructed to dismantle my belief system, and then to intelligently rebuild it from scratch. I was told to be disciplined in my approach and to use personal experience, logic and commonsense to build a new foundation belief system, upon which to continue my quest for true enlightenment. The foundation belief system lies deep within the subconscious mind. This comprises a set of conceptual mental filters and shields, which are fundamental to one's physical and spiritual existence. These shape and affect your thoughts and perceptions by filtering ideas and inspirations, making these conform to a central theme, as set by your foundation beliefs. All knowledge lies within your heart. But accessing this is extraordinarily difficult. Everything has to pass through your conceptual filters before it can be perceived or realized. If one's fundamental beliefs are even slightly flawed, information trying to pass through becomes distorted or blocked. Imagine new truths as being delicate square crystals, and flawed conceptual filters (contradictory beliefs) as being coarse round holes. New truths are effectively blocked. If one forces them through, the results are splintered octagonals, i.e., fractured, distorted or incomplete truths. herefore, if a higher intelligence (be it God, one's higher-self, holy guardian angel or spirit guide) tries to pass contradictory new truths through a flawed belief system, these truths are conceptually blocked or distorted. The greater the fundamental errors in one's belief system, the greater will be the distortion. All things being equal, this is why some people can receive inspiration (be it scientific or spiritual) and others cannot or receive only poorly.This concept that you create your own spiritual reality is nothing new. Versions of this can be found in a great many books of spiritual philosophy. But actually realizing how this works and applying it to one's own foundation belief system in pursuit of higher truth and knowledge is an entirely different matter.I was given detailed instructions on how to accomplish this. The next day I sat down and made a list of all the things I believed in concerning my spiritual reality. I then analyzed and erased all the things I had not actually experienced or proven for myself. After many days of pondering and revising, I ended up with a very small list indeed. It went something like this:
OBE is real: I've had Astral projections all my life.
Clairvoyance is real: I've seen auras and visions all my life.
Healing is real: I've both given and received it, seen and felt its power.
Kundalini is real: I raised mine to its highest level in 1987, and many times since.
We survive death: I've seen people after their deaths and have visited the spirit worlds.
A higher force is concerned with human existence and its spiritual evolution: I've experienced this many times -- the voice I heard above is just one example.
Angels, masters, deities and good spirits are real: I've interacted with these many times.
Bad spirits are real: I've experienced poltergeists and psychic attacks, been possessed and self-exorcised, and helped many people and children with similar problems.
Gone were personal spirit guides (while I had learned to believe I had one, I had never actually met or openly communicated with him). Gone was the involvement of spirits in just about everything spiritual and psychic (I had no hard experience to support this, only vague assumptions). And gone was the entire organized spirit structure above us that I had been taught to believe in (I had no real proof this was accurate). I also had a quandary. Apart from angels and other such exalted beings (which have such power and presence they are impossible to mistake for who they truly are) I had no reliable way of telling good spirits from bad spirits. Therefore, logically, I had to reject all lesser spirits until I discovered a reliable method of discernment.The above might sound extreme, but it is eminently logical. Given the source, I took the advice I had been given to heart. I would learn to live this new way of truth and to apply it to my life.
My final list was real and true, as I had personally experienced everything on it. As instructed, I would build on what was real and discard everything else. I was told to shelve items of 'possible' truth aside, until proven or disproven. However, this is easier said than done and I went into what I can only describe as spiritual shock. I felt empty, alone and depressed. I had to keep stopping myself from talking to my spirit guide during prayers. If I was to do this at all, as instructed, I had to go all the way. In time, this new foundation belief system settled more comfortably within me. I got over my emptiness and began filling my aching void with practical truth and knowledge. From this point onwards, slowly and surely, everything started to come together in my life. As instructed, I began writing a journal of my thoughts and ideas. I used the writing process to nurture my inner genius, to free up the flow of inspiration between my physical-self and my higher-self. This flow, I had been told, was blocked not only by my previously flawed conceptual filters, but by the vast differences in consciousness: between the level of consciousness of my normal awake mind (my base level of consciousness) and the more rarified and abstract level where my higher-self resided within me.
I turned my unanswered questions into journal articles. These contained everything I experientially knew to be true about each subject. I found myself putting in many logical subtitles and question marks to represent gaps in my knowledge. I used the writing process (revision, sleep, revision, sleep, and so on) to coax the truth from my dreams, and from the deep recesses of my higher spiritual-self. As instructed, I began shutting myself away in a dark, silent room for several hours at a time, discovering a profound new level of deep trance thinking. I thought, dreamed, meditated and wrote on seemingly unfathomable arcane matters.
In time began receiving inspirational ideas. My dreams and visions swam with sparkling clues; tiny pieces of the jigsaws I was trying to build. My logical and inspirational processes began working overtime, far more powerful than ever before. I found myself waking many times during sleep, compelled to reach for pen and paper to record new ideas. Mundane conversations and events triggered intellectual storms through the mental associations they caused, necessitating much frantic note-taking as inspirational ideas surfaced like glistening dolphins leaping from the murky waters of my subconscious mind.In time, I accepted this process and began working with it. I felt like I had been reborn. This is how I developed my Catch Basket concept. During the day, I set my catch baskets by pondering unanswered questions. These are baited with rich crumbs of personal experience, tantalizing ideas and juicy pieces of logic. In the morning, I check these for fruits that have been cast into them from above. I record everything and add each small harvest to my questioning articles. Pretty soon, these began fleshing themselves out and filling in the mysterious gaps. In truth, my work teaches me just as much as it teaches those I share it with. Over the years since I began this process, my catch basket repository began groaning with ripe esoteric fruits. As instructed, I began pouring these into the articles, tutorials and books I eventually began writing.Over the years since my arcane riddle began, my inspirational process grew into a finely-tuned subtle mechanism. Now, if I have a serious question the answer always comes to me. Sometimes it surfaces immediately, sometimes days, months or even years later, but the clues that lead me to the answers always come. This has given me drive and purpose, plus an ever-increasing fascination for this many-splendored thing we call mortal life. Whatever the future holds in store, I look forward to living it with great interest. I hope the above explanation of where I am coming from is of some help to people who might be struggling with their own beliefs. It is neither my intention nor my joy to cast doubts upon anyone's heartfelt theories and beliefs. But if my work causes you belief system discomfort, then how solid were your beliefs to begin with? While faith is a priceless jewel, if one accepts anything blindly one risks polluting one's essential foundation belief system with the curse of mindless dogmatism. Please keep an open mind to the possibilities I have introduced here. The popular New Age spiritual model contains a great deal of beautiful, comforting philosophy. But it can fall down quite badly in a practical sense, especially when applied to dark supernatural problems. If one clings to this model, the development of new concepts and the gathering of higher spiritual truths becomes virtually impossible. The parameters of current popular spiritual models simply do not allow for this. Because of this, many people today bend the rules and invent elaborate explanations to get around these problems, while dogmatically holding true to popular beliefs. But this increased complexity prohibits a more direct approach. It leads to belief system obfuscation and ineffective methods being developed. A Little Sage Advice To Close On:Question everything, especially the sacred cows of dogma. Always think for yourself. Experiment and learn from all that life has to offer you. Listen to and consider the wisdom of others, and try on their ideas as you might try on a new coat for size. Never buy a new coat just because it seems to fit; it must be practical, within your price range, and look good on you too. And above all, build your own foundation belief system from the wealth of your own personal life experience.

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Life After Death PART XXVIII (All Existence is Spiritual)

THERE was an officer among the retinue of Simha who had heard of the discourses of the Blessed One, and there was some doubt left in his heart. This man came to the Blessed One and said: "It is said, O Lord, that the samana Gotama denies the existence of the soul. Do they who say so speak the truth, or do they bear false witness against the Blessed One
And the Blessed One said: "There is a way in which those who say so are speaking truly of me; on the other hand, there is a way in which those who say so do not speak truly of me. The Tathagata teaches that there is no self. He who says that the soul is his self and that the self is the thinker of our thoughts and the actor of our deeds, teaches a wrong doctrine which leads to confusion and darkness. On the other hand, the Tathagata teaches that there is mind. He who understands by soul mind, and says that mind exists, teaches the truth which leads to clearness and enlightenment."


The officer said: "Does, then, the Tathagata maintain that two things exist? that which we perceive with our senses and that which is mental?"
Said the Blessed One: "I say to thee, thy mind is spiritual, but neither is the sense-perceived void of spirituality. The bodhi is eternal and it dominates all existence as the good law guiding all beings in their search for truth. It changes brute nature into mind, and there is no being that cannot be transformed into a vessel of truth."
Identity and Non-Identity KUTADANTA, the head of the Brahmans in the village of Danamati, having approached the Blessed One respectfully, greeted him and said: "I am told, O samana, that thou art the Buddha, the Holy One, the All-knowing, the Lord of the world. But if thou wert the Buddha, wouldst thou not come like a king in all thy glory and power?" Said the Blessed One: "Thine eyes are holden. If the eye of thy mind were undimmed thou couldst see the glory and the power of truth." Said Kutadanta: "Show me the truth and I shall see it. But thy doctrine is without consistency. If it were consistent, it would stand; but as it is not, it will pass away." The Blessed One replied: "The truth will never pass away."Kutadanta said: "I am told that thou teachest the law, yet thou tearest down religion. Thy disciples despise rites and abandon immolation, but reverence for the gods can be shown only by sacrifices. The very nature of religion consists in worship and sacrifice." Said the Buddha: "Greater than the immolation of bullocks is the sacrifice of self. He who offers to the gods his evil desires will see the uselessness of slaughtering animals at the altar. Blood has no cleansing power, but the eradication of lust will make the heart pure. Better than worshiping gods is obedience to the laws of righteousness."
Kutadanta, being of a religious disposition and anxious about his fate after death, had sacrificed countless victims. Now he saw the folly of atonement by blood. Not yet satisfied, however, with the teachings of the Tathagata, Kutadanta continued: "Thou believest, O Master, that beings are reborn; that they migrate in the evolution of life; and that subject to the law of karma we must reap what we sow. Yet thou teachest the non-existence of the soul! Thy disciples praise utter self-extinction as the highest bliss of Nirvana. If I am merely a combination of the sankharas, my existence will cease when I die. If I am merely a compound of sensations and ideas and desires, whither can I go at the dissolution of the body?" Said the Blessed One: "O Brahman, thou art religious and earnest. Thou art seriously concerned about thy soul. Yet is thy work in vain because thou art lacking in the one thing that is needful. There is rebirth of character, but no transmigration of a self. Thy thought-forms reappear, but there is no ego-entity transferred. The stanza uttered by a teacher is reborn in the scholar who repeats the words. "Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream that their souls are separate and self-existent entities. Thy heart, O Brahman, is cleaving still to self; thou art anxious about heaven but thou seekest the pleasures of self in heaven, and thus thou canst not see the bliss of truth and the immortality of truth. I say to thee: The Blessed One has not come to teach death, but to teach life, and thou discernest not the nature of living and dying. This body will be dissolved and no amount of sacrifice will save it. Therefore, seek thou the life that is of the mind. Where self is, truth cannot be; yet when truth comes, self will disappear. Therefore, let thy mind rest in the truth; propagate the truth, put thy whole will in it, and let it spread. In the truth thou shalt live forever. Self is death and truth is life. The cleaving to self is a perpetual dying, while moving in the truth is partaking of Nirvana which is life everlasting."Then Kutadanta said: "Where, O venerable Master, is Nirvana?" "Nirvana is wherever the precepts are obeyed replied the Blessed One. "Do I understand thee aright," rejoined the Brahman, "That Nirvana is not a place, and being nowhere it is without reality?" "Thou dost not understand me aright," said the Blessed One, "Now listen and answer these questions: Where does the wind dwell
"Nowhere," was the reply.
Buddha retorted: "Then, sir, there is no such thing as wind." Kutadanta made no reply; and the Blessed One asked again: "Answer me, O Brahman, where does wisdom dwell? Is wisdom a locality?"
"Wisdom has no allotted dwelling-place replied Kutadanta. Said the Blessed One: "Meanest thou that there is no wisdom, no enlightenment, no righteousness, and no salvation, because Nirvana is not a locality? As a great and mighty wind which passeth over the world in the heat of the day, so the Tathagata comes to blow over the minds of mankind with the breath of his love, so cool, so sweet, so calm, so delicate; and those tormented by fever assuage their suffering and rejoice at the refreshing breeze."
Said Kutadanta: "I feel, O Lord, that thou proclaimest a great doctrine, but I cannot grasp it. Forbear with me that I ask again: Tell me, O Lord, if there be no atman [soul], how can there be immortality? The activity of the mind passeth, and our thoughts are gone when we have done thinking."
Buddha replied: "Our thinking is gone, but our thoughts continue. Reasoning ceases, but knowledge remains." Said Kutadanta: "How is that? Are not reasoning and knowledge the same?"
The Blessed One explained the distinction by an illustration: "It is as when a man wants, during the night, to send a letter, and, after having his clerk called, has a lamp lit, and gets the letter written. Then, when that has been done, he extinguishes the lamp. But though the writing has been finished and the light has been put out the letter is still there. Thus does reasoning cease and knowledge remain; and in the same way mental activity ceases, but experience, wisdom, and all the fruits of our acts endure."
Kutadanta continued: "Tell me, O Lord, pray tell me, where, if the sankharas are dissolved, is the identity of my self. If my thoughts are propagated, and if my soul migrates, my thoughts cease to be my thoughts and my soul ceases to be my soul. Give me an illustration, but pray, O Lord, tell me, where is the identity of my self?"
Said the Blessed One: "Suppose a man were to light a lamp; would it burn the night through?" "Yes, it might do so," was the reply.

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Life after Death PART XXVII (Buddhist View)

From a Buddhist Monk in Dehradun,Uttarakhand,India
"As a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief. "
Death and the impermanence of life In the teaching of the Buddha, all of us will pass away eventually as a part in the natural process of birth, old-age and death and that we should always keep in mind the impermanence of life. The life that we all cherish and wish to hold on. To Buddhism, however, death is not the end of life, it is merely the end of the body we inhabit in this life, but our spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment, attachment to a new body and new life. Where they will be born is a result of the past and the accumulation of positive and negative action, and the resultant karma (cause and effect) is a result of ones past actions. This would lead to the person to be reborn in one of 6 realms which are; heaven, human beings, Asura, hungry ghost, animal and hell. Realms, according to the severity of ones karmic actions, Buddhists believe however, none of these places are permanent and one does not remain in any place indefinitely. So we can say that in Buddhism, life does not end, merely goes on in other forms that are the result of accumulated karma. Buddhism is a belief that emphasizes the impermanence of lives, including all those beyond the present life. With this in mind we should not fear death as it will lead to rebirth.
The fear of death stemmed from the fear of cease to be existent and losing ones identity and foothold in the world. We see our death coming long before its arrival, we notice impermanence in the changes we see around us and to us in the arrival of aging and the suffering due to losing our youth. Once we were strong and beautiful and as we age, as we approach our final moments of life we realize how fleeting such a comfortable place actually was.
Grieving It is natural to grieve the loss of family members and others we knew, as we adjust to living without their presence and missing them as part of our lives. The death of a loved one, or even someone we were not close to, is terribly painful event, as time goes on and the people we know pass away along the journey of life, we are reminded of our own inevitable ends in waiting and everything is a blip of transience and impermanent.
At a certain moment, the world seems suddenly so empty and the sense of desperation appears to be eternity. The greater the element of grief and personal loss one tends to feel sorry for oneself. Some of us may have heard the story of the women who came to the Buddha in great anguish, carrying her dead child pleading him to bring the child back to life. The Buddha said Bring to me a mustard seed from any household where no-one had ever died and I will fulfill your wish. The woman's attempt to search for such seed from houses were in vain and of course she could not find any household in which no-one had ever died and suddenly she realized the universality of death.
Karma According to Buddhism, our lives and all that occurs in our lives is a result of Karma. Every action creates a new karma, this karma or action is created with our body, our speech or our mind and this action leaves a subtle imprint on our mind which has the potential to ripen as future happiness or future suffering, depending on whether the action was positive or negative. If we bring happiness to people, we will be happy. If we create suffering, we will experience suffering either in this life or in a future one. This is called the Law of Karma, or the Law of Cause and Effect. Karmic law will lead the spirit of the dead to be reborn, in realms which are suitable appropriate to their karmic accumulations. According to His Holiness, the 14 th Dali Lama of Tibet, that to cultivate the good karma, our good actions are an excellent way prepare for our death. Not performing evil deeds, keeping our heart and mind pure, doing no harm, no killing, sexual misconduct or lying, not using drugs or alcohol has very positive merit which enable us to die as we have lived.
The way we pass reflects the way we lived our lives, a good death putting a good stamp on a good life. As Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote in his notebook; Just as a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings a happy death. If we have lived a life of emotional turmoil, of conflict selfish desire unconcerned for others, our dying will be full of regrets, troubles and pain. It is far better to care for the lives for all around us rather than spending a fortune in prolonging life or seeking ways to extend it for those who can afford it, at the expense of relieving suffering in more practical ways. Improving the moral and spiritual quality of life improves its quality for us all rather than the selfish individualism that benefits the elite few who draw most resources.
Preparing for death and Buddhist rituals associated with dying Buddhist clergy often remind their followers about closeness of death, emphasize the importance in getting to know death and take time to prepare for their own demise.
How do we prepare for death?. It is really simple, just behave in a manner which you believe is responsible, good and positive for yourself and towards others. This leads to calmness, happiness and an outlook which contributes to a calm and controlled mind at the time of death. Through this positive and compassionate outlook of life, always being aware of the impermanence of life and having a loving attitude towards all living things in this transient existence we will be free of fear in opposite to grasping selfishly to life due to not having experienced happiness in life.Having lead a responsible and compassionate life and have no regrets when death approaches enables us to surrender without a struggle to the inevitable and in a state of grace which need not be as uncomfortable as we are led to believe. A dying Buddhist person is likely to request the service of a monk or nun in their particular tradition to assist in this process further, making the transitional experience of death as peaceful and free of fear as can be possibly achieved.
Before and at the moment of death and for a period after death, the monk, nun or spiritual friends will read prayers and chants from the Buddhist Scriptures. In Buddhist traditions, this death bed chanting is regarded as very important and is ideally the last thing the Buddhist hears. Buddhists believe that we can actively assist and bring relief to the dying members through assisting the dying through the process of dying.
Through Buddhist doctrine we are told by Buddhist masters that the final moment of our consciousness is paramount, the most important moment of all. If the ill person is in hospital and the diagnosis is grim that the person cannot possibly survived, the family should call in the Buddhist priest to pray for the loved one so that at the final moment, the right state of mind has been generated within the person and they can find their way into a higher state of rebirth as they leave the present lives.
The nurses and family members are not supposed to touch the corpse, having to wait 3-8 hours after breathing ceases before touching the body for any preparation after the death. We Buddhists believe that the spirit of a person will linger on for sometime and can be affected by what happened to the corpse. It is important that the body is treated gently and with respect and that the priest can help the spirit continues its journey calmly to higher states, not causing the spirit to becoming angry and confused and may be more likely to be reborn into the lower realms.In the Mahayana Buddhism, especially, Vietnamese tradition we pray for the dead for 49 days after passing away, 49 being the estimated time it takes for the spirit to be reborn again into a new life. Some spirits are reborn 3 days, 21 days, 49 days or 100 days after death, and in some cases even 7 years.
Rebirth The concept of rebirth or reincarnation has become more popular in the west in recent years due to the influence of Tibetan Buddhism, especially, the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (by Sogyal Rinpoche, 1992) became a best seller in the USA and has been widely read throughout the developed countries by new generations who are concerned with alternative thinking and eastern cultural perspectives. Naturally people concern with life beyond death was stimulated by the ideas contained in such philosophies and beliefs.
Nirvana The supreme aim of Buddhism is to obtain nirvana or enlightenment. This translated means a state of liberation or illumination from the limitations of existence. It is the liberation from the cycle of rebirth through countless lives up and down the 6 states of existence. It is obtained through the extinction of desire.
Nirvana is a state that is obtainable in this life through the right aspiration, purity of life, and the elimination of egotism. This cessation of existence as we know it, the attainment of being, as distinct from becoming. [1] The Buddha speaks of it as unborn, un-originated, uncreated, unformed, contrasting it with the born, originated, created, and formed phenomenal world. Those who have obtained the state of Nirvana are called Buddhas. Gautama Siddhartha had obtained this state and had become a Buddha at 35. However it is now believed that it was only after he had passed away that he reached such a place of perfect tranquility, because some residue of human defilement would continue to exist as long as his physical body existed. According to Buddhism if a human does not obtain nirvana or enlightenment, as it is known, the person cannot escape the cycle of death and rebirth and are inevitably be reborn into the 6 possible states beyond this our present life, these being in order from the highest to lowest;
Heaven. In Buddhism there are 37 different levels of heaven where beings experience peace and long lasting happiness without suffering in the heavenly environment.
Human life. In Buddhism we can be reborn into human life over and over, either wealthy or poor, beautiful or not so, and every state between and both as it it is served up to us. Anything can happen, as is found in human life and society all around us as we are familiar with in the day to day human world in is myriad of possibilities. What we get is a result of our Karma of what we have dragged with us from previous existences and how it manifests in our temporary present lives.
Asura. A spiritual state of Demi-Gods but not the happy state experienced by the gods in the heavens above this state. The Demi-Gods are consumed with jealousy, because unlike humans, they can clearly see the superior situation of the gods in the heavens above them. They constantly compete and struggle with the gods due to their dissatisfaction with their desires from the others.
Hungry Ghost. This spiritual realm of those who committed excessive amounts of evil deeds and who are obsessed with finding food and drink which they cannot experience and thus remain unsatisfied and tortured by the experience. They exhaust themselves in the constant fruitless searching.
Animals. This realm is visible to humans and it is where spirits of humans are reborn if they have killed animals or have committed a lot of other evil acts. Animals do not have the freedom that humans would experience due to being a subject constantly hunted by humans, farmed and used in farming, also as beasts for entertainment.
Hell. This realm is not visible to humans. It is a place where beings born there experience a constant state of searing pain and the various types of hell realms reads like a variety of horrific torture chambers. Those with a great deal of negative Karma can remain in such places for eons of time. To conclude, as already mentioned, none of us can avoid death and if we are not free from the vicious cycle of death and rebirth, we are doomed to the endless cycles of life and death and its paradoxical nature of suffering, of happiness and sadness, youth and ageing, healthiness and sickness, pain and death, all because we are so attached to the existence in the first place.The Buddha urged us to prepare for death, to prepare for that journey by cleansing the mind and not being so attached to things, to be able to let go and release ourselves for needing to be, from needing to have. Through this we will not suffer so much as we pass through the final stage of the present life, we can let go, be grateful for what we had but not clutch to it, not try to ensure permanency and cause ourselves to suffer more than we need to. This way we can end the cycle and leave forever, obtaining nirvana and release from the cycle of death and rebirth.

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Hijacking of a Religion

So at last we too have ushered in a time where no longer we can blame across the border elements for terrorist strikes engendered out of jihad. At the most we can only hint at complicity of across the border elements. When we heard the name Indian Mujahideen for first time, didn’t we think that it was just another ploy of some terrorist outfits to distract the attention of Intelligence agencies? But it did not take more than three months for this bitter fact to be revealed that we, too, now harbor terrorists. We too now have our own homegrown terrorists whose childhoods were spent in the same ambiance and the same air as we breathed. Questions are rife rummaging through ill fated times for answers but with almost no success. It is beyond my ability even to come to terms with this bone chilling fact much less providing even logical insinuations.Indian Muzahideen, a terrorist outfit boasting of educated and career oriented youths as its members set out one fateful day to eliminate hundreds of innocent lives across the country by launching a series of attacks. They carried out these dastardly acts on the pretext that Muslims are being discriminated against (a fact espoused by none other than Shabana Azmi) in every walk of life. It did not matter to them that this country did not stop them from becoming engineers and management graduates, companies across the country did not refuse to let them in on the basis of their religion if they had intent and talent to accomplish what they wished. And yes, unfortunately this very country did not or could not stop them even from detonating bombs and carry out their menacing deeds. I would refrain myself from citing successful Muslim names contributing to the cause of the nation but with what ground do I concede that Only Muslims are being discriminated against and that too solely on account of their being Muslims? If today, a sentiment of being marginalized runs across the community then who is to be blamed: Indian constitution, Indian governance, Indian citizens or something else. And if the question refuses to get resolved in the context of India what about the sentiment that prevails the world over?So far as I have seen this society it is only poor and downtrodden who is most strongly discriminated against irrespective of religion he happens to hail from. It is this wretched being who is passed over and neglected in every society. Aren’t we seeing Dalits condemned to only picking up the faeces and rags and doing sweeping and swabbing. Haven’t we witnessed the ungodly act of keeping people away from places of worships on account of their casts? But today I see many if not more Dalits rubbing shoulders with us in our all endeavors and we just don’t have another option but to respect them for what they have achieved. This testifies that working hard and rising through the ranks pays, not detonating bombs. And that makes me believe as my Muslim friends tell me that these wayward youths creating mayhem don’t represent either Muslims or their views.We all can blame either State or each other for all the wrongs plaguing our country but if we deem ourselves patriotic Indians then despite our being at the receiving end of the times, we will think it prudent to look into the innards of our beliefs and ideologies rather than looking outside and indulging in the easiest way of passing buck on to whoever seems vulnerable. I admit that incidents like Babri masjid demolition and Gujarat pogrom had in them the potential to shake the sense of security amongst Muslims. And no sane Indian can afford to either overlook these two incidents but also not to censure them in the harshest language. But I would condemn Godhra incident too in equal measure. At the same time we can’t let baggage from the past hinder or even blind us from the path we have to tread on. In today’s times I confess that people will be wary of renting a room or house to any person with a Muslim name. But if Muslims think this bitter fact as a case for taking umbrage rather than setting things right then neither they would be doing a service to their religion nor to their country. Is it really hard enough to comprehend the reasons that why a person who is at ease with a Muslim colleague in office and who doesn’t have second thoughts before joining the celebrations of his Muslim friends has inhibitions about his house to be inhabited by any other Muslim? What pictures conjure up in the minds of people across the country when they see Muslim names being splashed on their television screens after almost every blast? I don’t think most Muslims are naïve enough not to understand the impact of what people read and see on their human mind. So if Muslims genuinely feel that they are discriminated against, the need of the hour is not to remain shut but to voice their protests against whatever is being done in the name of their religion. Many prominent Muslims have done that but a large scale mass movement is still awaited. Between the dual nature of opposition that is from outside and from inside it is inside opposition that is more suitably placed to impact the coup de grace to crush this serpentine of terrorism.Ponder over these statements published in The Times of India in an article by Sameer Arshad. These statements may not represent entire community but still they do allude that reasons for being optimistic are aplenty. “These are perilous times. Every time we step out of this locality we get stared at as if we were aliens” says Hafiz Sharik Hussain. But in the same breath he doesn’t forget to say that a few bad Muslims are bringing shame to the entire community. A madarsa student Zubair Ahmed admits onus is on Muslims to clear the air and change the way they are perceived and community needs introspection. Techie Shakeel Ahmed asserts that he is proud to be the citizen of world’s largest democracy and the freedom one enjoys here is unrivalled. Salman Chishti, the descendent of Khwaza Moinudddin Chishti strikes another note of optimism when he says, “nine hundred years after Khwaza came to the blessed land of Hindustan, India continues to be a blessed land and home to us. There is no question of feeling like ‘the Other’ in our homeland”.I still remember those tumultuous days of Sikh militancy in Punjab. Our neighbor who also happened to be a Sikh and our most trustful friend was so fearful of wayward Sikh youths coming to his house. He tried every possible trick in the book to shoo them away. His being a Sikh did not necessarily make him endorse a movement which was nothing but war against the country, his country, my country and our country. I am pretty much sure of the fact that any rationally thinking Muslim wouldn’t exhaust his brain nerves in thinking ill of whatever discomfit he runs in to only on account of his being a Muslim. There may be other reasons as well. Recently when an editor of an Assamese daily couldn’t be part of Prime Minister’s delegation on his trip to America he did not blink even an eye before playing the Muslim card. He vociferously claimed he was left behind because he was Muslim. If Shabana Azmi has the reasons to feel offended because she couldn’t buy a flat on account of only being a Muslim then should we also not listen to plight of million Indians who spend their entire life being thrown over from one tract of land to another without owning even an inch in entire lifetime? And what do they do if unfortunately they are not Muslims? Who do they blame? There may be truth in what Shabana Azmi said but jumping to impetuous conclusions at seeing slant pictures is not a good practice. Discrimination in itself is a blot on society irrespective of the reasons it spring from and no one discrimination is graver or worth more substantive counter action than other. Every kind of discrimination is worth waging a battle but if the battle turns out more to be just an excuse for execution of radicalization of mind and less towards addressing the disease of discrimination than the battle is nothing but absolute treachery. Doesn’t Muslim community realize that not seeing through the petty political objectives of their own narrow minded leaders and sheepishly allowing some miscreants people to bring ignominy to the religion is not going to serve any purpose? Don’t we have the common sense to realize that ultimately we just don’t have another option but to live together and work together for taking this country well ahead on the path of progress despite innumerable bumps and potholes? The sooner we stop this blame game and realize our responsibilities towards our nation better it is.

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