The hedge that is forever trimmed to maintain the power center

Political extremists (both left and right) and religious fundamentalists try to change the masses for the worse. Cut down the people to a fraction of their potential and you have nice governable puny-heads. They serve meow meow. For instant gratification. Hate, phobias, pseudo-greatness, anger and jealousy are very convenient tools to rob someone of sanity and get cast as a hallucinated pawn in the power game. Those who are power hungry—individuals, groups and institutions—try to disempower those to be under the influence of their power. It cannot be otherwise. The power pyramid has few strong at the apex and weak masses at the base. It can never be a square, having people of same realized potential from top to the bottom. Those ambitious for power can never think of empowering the masses. In that case the pyramid loses its standing. With pseudoism and populist rhetoric they rob the masses of the balance of their judgment. Hate does it. It tilts you off the balance. You fall prey to weakness. You become lesser of a human being. The power monger’s ambition draws on the peoples’ weakness of judgment. They try their best to keep the people to be nearsighted. To tame them in a sphere, with unrealized potential, from where the launch-pad of wisdom is too far. It draws votes for the power hungry, in a day to day life but it is paid in terms of racial attacks in America, brutal killings by Islamic extremists, attacks on Africans in India, and scores of incidences when people pick up hate and run after each other.

Flip the coin and be the best from the worst

Be the seat of my strength, not weakness.

Be the seat of kindness, not cruelty.

Be the source of light, not darkness.

Be the source of energy, not idleness.

Be the source of creativity, not limited vision.

Be the source of love, not hate.

Be the source of smiles, not tears.

Be the source of happiness, not suffering.

Be the seat of optimism, not pessimism.

Be the seat of gain, not loss.

Be the source of help, not obstruction.

Be the seat of leadership, not just sheepwalk.

Be the seat of a better human being.

Be the source of a more loving person.

O my mind, my seat of potential, take my journey further.

Please choose the better half of all the dualities for me.

Keep reminding your mind. Repeatedly. Daily. With eyes closed and fervent request. It’s a very nice, nutritious pre-breakfast food.

Choosing the better side of the pair of our actions and feelings is as easy as flipping a coin in our fingers from head to tail. It's a very short journey from the worst to the best. As short as the flip of a coin. A mere realization. Acceptance. And a pledge to remember. We are pre-conditioned for the negative end of dualities. The instinct can be broken. Just early morning practice is sufficient. It’s needs much as reminding the self. Repeatedly.

The folly of treating title more important than the story

There is a house well plastered, tiled and painted on the outside walls. Its well designed and vibrant exterior catches attention. Drawn by the catchy exterior you step inside. You expect an equal attraction inside. But a surprise awaits you. You come across soot, grime, dust, unplastered walls, cobwebs, cement and stonecrush staring at you. It’s a house that has been left unattended inside. Incomplete. You will feel running out. It’s a house that needs the workers rather more than the visitors. That’s how most of us die: just houses under construction. Throughout our lives we keep on painting the outer walls to satisfy our ego through expanding our visibility, hoping attention will give happiness and peace. Little do we realize that real comfort lies in the house completed from inside. So the interior remains incomplete, disordered. Can such a house give permanent peace? No. Outer walls are important. But only to the extent of defining our world, a psychological boundary to stamp our ownership of our chunk in this world. Only this much. And the importance of the outer walls is meaningless if the interior is unfinished. Outer paint is just the title of the orderliness inside. A summary of all the cozy arrangement inside. We, but, commit the folly of treating the title as the main story. Can a title replace the main text of the story? No. The title ought to be catchy. But the story is all that matters. 

Put down your dagger and pick up a stick

The ancient days of real bloody hand-to-hand battle are over. Then daggers were more suitable than sticks. They drew more blood. And made you more threatening. These are but more of social battle times. Instead of drawing the blood, it’s about catapulting ego, anger, jealousy and complexes. It’s no longer about bloody injuries which might land one on the wrong side of the law. It’s about law-abiding invisible whiplashing. 
An advice here. As we set out to tame and slay the real and perceived enemies in the social battle, we can very well afford to carry a stick instead of a dagger. The dagger will go too deep into somebody’s ego to inflict a permanent wound. Staying there as a painful milestone to instigate the carrier to work and connive against us in future. If it is not possible to drop the weapons altogether, at the most carry a stick only. 
Instead of calling somebody bastard, thus inflicting a dagger wound, we can say your father must have been away when you were conceived. Hope it again doesn’t sound like a dagger wound. Well, I mean to say we can try to bruise the skin only, to pacify our ego, with the stick of our words, instead of stabbing the heart with a dagger. A mark on the skin is less painful. It will not leave a permanent scar. Time heals everything. But it takes some more time, and sometimes it lasts more than the lifetime, to reach the extent of the dagger’s farthest point. 
Social battles are very funny ones. Almost flimsy. So why carry lethal weapons. There are hardly any permanent enemies. Scenes and stages are shifting. These are basically funny little stage shows. People hardly care about who the last paper enemy was. So carry a namesake stick. We need not even hold it in our hands most of the time. Just keep it in reserve tied to our belt. We will feel like a well-equipped soldier ready to tackle the enemies in the social battle.
Dagger is suitable for hate. And for plain anger. Or for the unholy, dark duty to kill like in war. But how long can one can keep the fire of hate going? Long before the fire consumes our last enemy, it burns the carrier only. So it's better to be irritated only instead of going full throttle with anger and hate. And a stick is a suitable weapon for irritation. It's a lesser weapon. Irritation also is a smaller fire. It is as much of less harmful to other as it is for the carrier. 
The ultimate goal of course is to go without any weapon at all. And dropping irritation to still less harmful and gentler reactions is the goal. All that goes in parallel with the degree of control we have over our mind. Again it boils down to training the mind. And sitting in silence and looking at the real self daily is the first step in that direction. 

Desert Palm and Mountain Oak

Every seed carries the potential to be the mightiest, luxuriant-most tree. The powerful force of creation throws the potential for maximum in seeds and species. Nature doesn’t want it to be a world of half smiles, half growths, half blossoms and half potential. There is a tendency for fullness. It draws the process of evolution. For maximum. For completion. For what we humans call greatness. You, me and all of us are born for greatness. There are seeds of greatness in all of us.

A desert seed has the potential to grow in its own way, in harmony and adjustment with the harsh environment. A seed in a lush green rain-forest has its own level of potential as per the rich soil, water and nutritious soil. Does it mean a date palm can never reach the levels of greatness because there is sand, burning temperatures, dry winds and no water? Does it mean that only a mountainous oak has the right to greatness because it has the best climes, abundance of water, cool temperatures and cradling lush green mountains?

A desert palm is great in being the signatory of life in the lifeless sand. It is great is merely surviving. In being there where life has almost no business to be. It is great in standing as a milestone of hope for some lone traveler who might come and rest under the shade for some time and then take on the journey onward. It is great in throwing a piece of shade on the burning sands. It is great in showing the light after a long time and prompting the traveler to carry on and reach out to the lifeful oasis.

Like desert palm you might be born in poorest of poor conditions. But that doesn’t mean you are not born with the potential to be the greatest. You are! Just that your greatness is different from the mountain oak and the people lucky enough to be born in luxurious circumstances. Greatness shouldn’t be compared. When we do, we just cannot appreciate the worth of our journey.

We are born in the predetermined soil of our destiny. We have our own individual destinies. Destinies are but not bigger or smaller. They are just bothered about the realization of the full potential. Nature is kind enough to give us the maximum potential to grow as per the conditions.

A desert palm can be a mighty achiever and feel proud of itself if it doesn’t compare itself with the mountain oak.

Strive hard, rake up the soil of your situations, nourish it with the moisture of your sweat and actualize the potential you are born with. And be great in your own way. Don’t compare your greatness with anyone around. Instead of comparing the tiny size of your greatness with the tall structures of success around, look at your own growth from the dusted toughness around the place where you took hold and rooted yourself to grow. You might be happier in tough situations with lesser growth than unhappy people with taller growths in best soils. The moment you realize you have sucked out all the potential that was given to you since birth to grow and survive, the date palm can be happier than the mountain oak. 

The thin line between duty and revenge

In Japan someone killed a Samurai’s master. Now it was the tradition to avenge one’s master’s death. The Samurai went after the murderer. It was not before two years of relentless pursuit that he laid his hands upon the criminal in a deep forest. The Samurai raised his sword to kill the person. Just before the strike the man spat on the Samurai’s face. Possibly he expected a quicker death in one stroke. He had tried to further aggravate the anger in the Samurai. The unexpected happened. The Samurai held his sword back and asked the man to take his sinned face off his eyes.

The murderer was surprised. Much relieved to be still alive, he but couldn’t check his curiosity. “Why did you spare my life?” he asked.

The Samurai was visibly trying to overcome his anger. “For two years I was following you to kill you. But there was no anger in that pursuit. There was no hate involved. I was just following the tradition of avenging my master’s death without bringing my ego in between. But when you spat on my face. You changed all that. You got me angry. You brought my ego into play. Now if I kill you it will appear like I killed you because of being angry after being spat upon. It won’t be an objective, egoless pursuit of my duty. I cannot kill you as an angry person. Please go away. For the time being. If I can detach this personal anger from the cause of my duty, your death, I will go after you again.”

Sometimes a doing, carrying the same effect as an act committed under a spell of anger and hate, can be beyond the germs of ego, hate and anger. It then becomes a duty. The challenge lies in finding where duty stops to turn into revenge or hateful reaction. Check your ego. Tame it within the limits of duty. This world will become a far better place and life more enjoyable. 

The Seeds of Rape

Long before we see the flower, the process starts at the roots. Fruits are the result of a long process that began with the seeds. The deeds or misdeeds are not sudden sprouts; they also carry their seeds, their incubation, their structural building and growth before the final appearance.

Another crime against women in India. It happens so many times that it doesn’t sound like news anymore. Harassment, molestation, eve-teasing, domestic violence, rape and murder. Te evil deeds. These don’t occur just randomly. They have their poisonous seeds. Their building processes. Long before they sprout with thorny branches, the soil is generated. It is a common social soil. It’s a cumulative shit that piles over generations. It takes a long time, this process of soil formation. Tradition and patriarchy rake it up over generations.  

The rapist only doesn’t carry the burden of culpability on his sick head. The social system that breeds such thorny seeds shares cumulative crime. A poisonous seed doesn’t land from another planet. It has its supportive forces. It has its environment.  

Rules of conduct and tradition certify your sociality and civility if you pander the taboo. Avoid women. Stay away. Only pour out your frustration through passable, ignorable acts of minor mistreatments. These are passable offenses.

Away from the skin-deep purification of the taboos, the beast lies in the mind. Tied with the ropes of patriarchal conventions. The ropes are strong, it takes some time to break and claim criminal freedom. Before that there is a long drawn out phase of passing remarks, molestation, eve-teasing, staring, criminal visualization in mind. The beast is struggling against the ropes. Ropes aren’t getting stronger. The beast is claiming power at a furious pace. The beast of skewed ideas in deprived brains has unlimited potential to grow strong and break the ropes. It is no longer satisfied with passing lewd remarks and brushing against the taboo in crowded buses. It wants more. It’s an untamed criminal now. It has got a helpless body to carry out its evil design.

A rape happens. And of course murder.

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The double-edged sword: Life and death

There was a gang of robbers in a forest. Its leader was a bloodthirsty soul. He took pleasure in robbing people of their wealth and possessions. It gave him strange, paranormal pleasure. He relished that look of fear in the victims’ eyes for losing the valuables. But he needed more pleasures from the victims. More than the fear of losing valuables, he was addicted to the fear in their eyes as his people hurt them, tortured them before the final kill. This fear of injury and blood in the victims’ eyes gave him even more satisfaction. His pleasure reached its peak when he saw the ultimate fear in their eyes, the fear of death as he went for the kill.

One day his band came across an old ascetic. The brigands hadn’t robbed and killed anyone for the past one week. They were thus thirsty for money and blood. A mendicant though won’t give them any valuable but the fear in his eyes while facing death was no less a possession for the gang leader’s evil soul. They tied the ascetic and a huge bandit raised his sword to behead him. Death was imminent. The outlaws expected an outpour of fear from the bearded old man. Their ears were ready to receive the very same plight of crying words, asking to be spared alive.

The head-bandit was looking at the old man’s face. His bloodthirsty soul was waiting water-mouthed at the spectacle of fear and cries in the face of death. But the old man was as serene as before. Totally unaffected. To break his calmness the leader even brought death an inch closer by ordering to count till ten. The beheader was to strike at the count of ten. The head bandit thought now it was impossible to escape fear as death approached in just ten steps.

One of the bandits started the count. With each count a smile surfaced on the old man’s lips. Before the final count the bandit leader stopped his striker. The old man kept on smiling.

“You are smiling. You have no fear of death!” the head-robber asked.

“I have experienced death and its pain. It’s not as scary as we make it. To stay alive can be more painful,” the ascetic replied.

“But the experience of death makes it even more fearsome,” the bandit frowned.

His ego had been puffed up over the years; swelling on peoples’ fears for their possessions, injuries and finally the life itself. It had been his driving force: a bloody calculation of his progress in life; a measurement of his devilish desire; the scale of his monstrosity which he took as excellence and superiority over fellow human beings.

Now the foundations of his treasure were breaking down. There was a challenge to his bloody conviction.

“I was a warrior one time. Was renowned for the power of my sword. I had enemies and unable to defeat me and inflict wounds on my body, they killed my family. I cried in pain over their death. Then I slaughtered them to the farthest known links of even distant most relatives,” smile had gone from his sagely face.

The bandits listened in rapt attention.

“I bathed in their blood. Laughed to the capacity of my lungs over their painful cries. I was trying to bury my pain under the pile of their bodies. Though I increased the number of my revenge killings, the pain inside but won’t go. I was thinking that I am removing my pain, I was but making it mountainous. Then I came across the wife of someone who had himself beheaded my wife and children. Killing her would have given me the maximum pleasure. I raised my sword to kill her. She was pregnant. Just a week or so from delivery,” he closed his eyes.

The bandits sat down. Laying their weapons by their side. It was an audience now.

“She was imploring me to kill her after she delivered the baby. She said she would consider it the kindest act done to her if I spared her life till the baby was born. She was in a way asking me to spare the baby. I told her that it won’t serve any purpose because in any case I will kill the newborn as well after her. But not in her womb or before her eyes, she asked this much favor. She was holding my legs. I was trying to shake her off but something stopped me. She was a mother. I remembered my own mother, the way she must have been killed. That left me shaking. I was ready to kill an enemy’s wife for revenge. But my hands were shaking to kill a mother,” tears were rolling down his bearded cheeks.  

The bandits were listening as if to a sermonizing seer.

“I decided to postpone my revenge for a week, thinking t will add to the pleasure in killing two lives. She gave birth to a girl after a week. The momentum of killings was still on my head. It still possessed me. I killed the mother. When I stabbed her I was shaken by the look in her eyes. She still carried the look of acknowledging my kindness in postponing my revenge. She had it all through the week. I had thought she was trying to save herself with that look. Trying to increase my pity to spare her and the child’s life. But I was wrong. She had fulfilled her promise that if I spared her life for a week she will consider it the kindest act done to her by anybody. That look on her face while dying showed it clearly. It robbed me of my hate. It killed the devil in me. And it condemned me to die each moment till I really die,” the old man looked into the sky.

There was pin-drop silence. One of the bandits even felt like offering some water to the old man. But he checked himself.

“The baby girl was my punishment for the revenge killings. I tried to kill it but my hands gave in. The game of death had possessed me. It had gripped me with such force that I was not living. I was already dead. I was roaming around as a dark agent of death. I was not living, I was already dead. I died long before my body will die. I went mad with repulsion. I hated my bloodied hands. Leaving the girl under the care of a friend and paying him for her upkeep till her marriage I ran away. I was running after my death. But even death seemed to have discarded me. It laughed sinisterly from a distance. I tried to kill myself. But I was so weak that even self-injury won’t come. So I roamed around. Neither accepted by death, nor by life. A ghost. Years of roaming around have left me detached both from life and death. As I take a step forward I don’t know if it is meant for life or death. This melting of difference between life and death has at least removed the scars of blood from my soul. I can sleep for a few hours. Peacefully. And I can smile. Death thus has lost any meaning to me. So has life. Nobody can restore life for me. That’s impossible. With so much blood on my soul. But if you give me death, I will consider it as a favor,” the old man seemed to implore the bandits to come and strike.

What was there for the bandit-head to feast on? This old man didn’t possess any valuable. More importantly he did not even have the fear of death. What will he take away from this killing? The food, this game of death, appeared stale, meaningless. He asked his group to throw their weapons. He had tears in eyes. He knew it was easier to continue the life like before and some day die at the hands of some more ferocious robbers or soldiers. That would be the fine end to it. And exciting. But to live differently to die another way was almost impossible. In fact that would be the real punishment. This old man had meted out the punishment to himself by dying every moment, dying while life thrived abundantly in the forest around him, leaving him alone, not touching him in any manner. So he decided to change. Not for a better life. Not for lesser punishment either. But for a prolonged death, recalling all his sins. Drawing sips of death instead of life for years before death claimed a body whose soul had escaped long time back.

Helping others;helping yourself: same same

Two monks, one young and the other old, were crossing a stream. A beautiful woman was also standing on the bank. Lines of worry on her beautiful face. Her mind calculating the risk. The steam appeared daunting to her elegant, feminine self.

The old monk looked at her. He understood that she needed help to cross the stream. His training to be kind brought the idea of helping her in his mind. But the mere thought of touching a woman shook him up. He got goose-bumps. His rules of celibacy forbade him from touching a woman. So chanting mantras to clear his mind he moved onto cross the stream.

Reaching the other end he was horrified to see the spectacle behind him. The young monk was crossing the stream. The woman was sitting on his shoulders. The older monk was gripped by scores of emotions. He felt jealous of the younger monk. For taking the initiative basically. Of becoming someone he always wanting to but denied himself from being. He then forced his jealousy into anger for breaking the code of monastic conduct. He was seething with helpless anger. The thought of touching a beautiful woman was gnawing at his heart. He was again denying some basic instinct like he had throughout his life.

The younger monk helped the woman down. She thanked and smiled. He bowed and followed his religiosity to the extent of keeping a straight face and moved away peacefully. They monks moved towards their hermitage.

They had been walking for hours. It was evening when they neared their place of penance. The check-dam of old man’s thoughts broke. Finally he burst out.

“You touched a woman. You have broken the code of conduct. I will complain against you once we reach,” he was still wondering whether he was jealous of the young monk or was it plain anger over the rules book.

The young monk smiled. He put a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“I left her on the river bank itself after helping her. You are still carrying her in your mind,” he said politely.

The older monk was ashamed. He tried to put her out of mind as they walked. The younger monk meanwhile walked with a rested mind, appreciating the marvels of nature in the forest.

The message is clear. The things that ought to simply be done, should just be done. Otherwise their shadows linger in the mind. They grow heavier with the passage of time. This invisible weight is heavier than the stones we see around. Simple, harmless acts of appreciation, of enjoyment, of helping somebody cross a stream are better done and closed with a full stop. It’s better for a healthy mind.

A missed chance of being good will definitely cast a shadow on your mind. A forced or even missed chance to be bad, on the other hand, will hardly leave an imprint on your conscience for later reflections. Only goodness has a legacy and a future. Badness is just a bad example and repentance sometime. To do good is instinctive for a human being, another matter that we stifle the urge most of the time. To do bad, on the other hand, is not instinctive. It is wrongly reflective, a miscalculation, a tragic bypass of the instinct of goodness.

Pegs in brains, ropes around soul

The night was falling. A camel caravan was passing through a desert. The caravan-head decided to spend the night at a serai. There were hundred camels and the store wagon had pegs and ropes for each one of them to keep them safely tied though the night. Ninety-nine camels had been safely tethered in front of the inn. But they had lost one pair of rope and peg.

The caravan-head was much worried. If the camel was left untied it will run away and claim its freedom. He asked the inn-keeper for a rope and a peg. The old man had none. But he had a solution in his experienced mind. He asked the traveler to playact the whole process of setting the peg and tying the rope in the dark to the camel. The middle aged weather-beaten, tough traveler laughed at the joke. Still he decided to take it as a comedy even at the cost of losing a camel.

They made a false show of the process. Made sounds of hammering a peg into the ground. Then one of them fiddled around the camel’s neck, making it feel that it is being tied with a rope. Much to everyone’s relief the camel was found sitting comfortably next morning. It was almost a miracle. The camel had allowed himself to be tied to a non-existing peg with the invisible rope.

The caravan prepared to leave. They untied the ninety-nine camels and they got up to move onto the journey. Thinking that the hundredth camel will also get up to join the rest because it was already free, they didn’t approach it. The camels moved. The hundredth camel didn’t. The kicked it to get up but it won’t move. Much worried the caravan leader went to the old man and told him about the camel.

“What have you done to it. I know you performed a magic but please now set it free. We have to move. We are getting late,” he was almost folding his hands before the old serai-keeper.

The old man smiled. “You had tied him in the dark. Now you have to untie him in the light. Do you think pegs and ropes exist only in reality? They exist in minds as well. And the latter are stronger,” the old man chuckled.

The caravan-head understood. Thanking the old man he asked his men to playact the whole process of taking out the peg and untying the rope. They did it and the camel, taking it to be free to move, got up and joined others waiting to move.

Pegs and ropes exist in minds also. What else are our false assumptions, fears, anxieties and worries? They tame and condition the mind to a basic level, a very small level given the unlimited potential of the human brain. They literally make one human almost a carbon copy of others in settling for smallness, in being labeled like any other, like they do in factories, just labeling for small, convenient sameness.

It is very convenient for the religio-political ruling class to tame the minds with pegs and ropes of fear, ignorance, assumptions and apprehensions. Brahamanical Hinduism does the same. It is an elaborate system of putting the peg and tying the rope in the form of rituals, taboos, do’s and don’ts. The priestly class was ever apprehensive of the capacity of free minds. A huge effort was run over centuries to instill fear in minds, to cut them to smallness, to be less daring, more obedient, less creative. It was a systematic effort to create meek followers and stifle any trait of confidence and leadership. The Brahamanical orthodoxy hammered down pegs and tied ropes around meekly accepting necks.  

Religiosity was kept limited to the skin of mankind. A check-dam created to tame the free flow of the rivers of human spirit. No inward looking and self-realization to reach the light of an enlightened, aware soul. Elaborate system of pegs and ropes. So you just get conditioned to your inherited miseries, your caste status, your untouchability, your bad karma and the mirage of getting better luck in future births through meek following of the skin-deep religiosity. So that you just keep sitting, accepting your fate, like the camel with a false peg and rope. So that you don’t look deep into you and beyond the narrow confines of your outer world. So that your spirit doesn’t roam free, breaking the barriers of false fears and exploiting rituals.

We had a chance of practicing mindfulness, of breaking the shackles, of melting the fears, of realizing the potential, of being the leaders. It was Buddhism. Buddha taught nothing but mindfulness so that you become aware of your potential irrespective of your low caste. When you go beyond mere rituals and meditate, most of the false ropes and pegs burn away. You roam free as per the limits of your free-roaming and liberated mind.            

Unfortunately Buddhism was bundled out from the land of its origin. The shrewd Brahamanical connivance packed it off to faraway lands. It thrives in East Asian countries. You can very well compare the chained and liberated minds. Buddhism cuts the chains through training the mind. Brahamanical Hinduism chains the mind through fatal conditioning with the help of fear and meek acceptance.

Look at Japan! Such a small country. Look at their technological excellence. It is nothing but the fruits of centuries of avenues of setting the mind free, through training the brain. Meditation helps you reach the top of awareness, to know more, to dissipate ignorance, to be more of a human being, to become different and daring. Blind rituals are just the first step leading to the endless flight of stairs to evolution and freedom. Unfortunately Brahamanical  Hinduism just kept the people grounded at the first level. To keep them the prisoners of minds. Their selves chained to false pegs and ropes of fears and taboos.

Happy Holi!!

Happy Holi. Celebration of colors. Nothing symbolizes colors more than love. So if you want to move beyond the celebrations literally, take one more step towards celebrating it in spirit. Sprinkle the colors on your spirit. The colors of love, care, kindness, sympathy, empathy, compassion, forgiveness and understanding. A human soul needs these colors as much as our skins pine for gulal on Holi. Involve your soul in celebrations also. Drive out the black color of hate and imbue yourself with vibrant colors of humanity and tolerance.

It may take some effort to better your worldly conditions, your profession, your job and your business. But it is really simple and easy to turn for the better as a human being. It doesn’t carry any cost. It comes free. It doesn’t even need time and drill of effort. Just aim the pichkari at your soul. Let out a spurt of colors. Only this much. Job is done. It will drive out the shades of dark and gray. Smile more. Smile over someone’s luck even if you are still waiting for your own. It will arrive shortly, changing your smile to laughter. Forgive your enemies. Look at them with a smile. They will be shamefaced of their dark thoughts about you. Feel happy just to be alive and healthy. The problems of life will seem just routine investments of effort as much as you invest in climbing a flight of stairs.

Religious hatred has killed more people than the number of souls who have received real peace from religion. Religious divides keep on killing like in medieval times. So where is the advancement? The only way left out for humanity is inter-religious harmony. Festivals are the bridges. Abandon your hate and allow the colors to reach the other side as well. Put the festivals out of the barricade. Let it be for everybody.

During Mughal period, Muslim emperors and courtiers sprinkled abeer and gulal. It fell on people of all faiths. Colored waters of tesu flowers sprinkled spring-time festivity on mundane clothes of a common humanity. It was Holi as well as Gulabi Eid. Festivities merged.

Wishing everybody a very happy Holi! When you take a bath after the celebrations, please ensure you retain the colors of a better human being on your spirit. 

Traps of self-annihilation

You must be really happy. You take pride in the fact that you don’t smoke, don’t drink, exercise daily and keep up a best diet plan. So everything is supposed to be OK on the health front. O wait. You may still be ingesting toxins into your body. Slow poisoning stretched over a period of years.

Long after the symptoms become visible, quite ironically, the thing responsible might still stand unaccused, putting blame on more tangible things like lifestyle, diet, pollution, biological accident, etc., etc. It’s better to know this unseen source of suffering. It’s the uncontrolled mind. It’s as potent a risk factor as any other visible agent of ill health like smoking, drinking, imbalanced lifestyle, or accidents.

The consequences of an uncontrolled mind are no accident. This self-destruction takes a long and winding route to its destination. The spin-outs of an uncontrolled mind—hate, anger, greed, jealousy, impulsiveness, anxiety, worries, illusions and false assumptions—are as bad for our body as they are for the social life we lead. It’s even better to be an alcoholic or smoker than having an untamed mind. An unkempt mind fluxes toxins into our blood stream, corroding the basic principles of self-preservation. It’s unnatural.

What is mind? It’s just the operational aspect of our brain. Put up the operations in order. The brain will save yourself from becoming a self-destroyer. Long before there is any outside enemy, we have to spot the enemy inside, the trait of being utterly irresponsible towards our mind. That is the real enemy. Put it in order. The outer world is a mere reflection of the invisible world inside. Hold the reins of your mind firmly and you become the master of your destiny.

The challenge lies not in trying to control the external environment. The real task lies in managing the mind. Isn’t it mere folly that the thing that keeps the potential to limitless happiness is allowed to go out of loop and spin into a chaotic trajectory where it releases poison into our organs?

We spend literally 24 hours to control the external things in life and hardly anyone tries to control the ticking time bomb of our doom inside. The fire that is supposed to power us to excellence is hardly managed. No wonder it becomes the pyre of self-annihilation. You fight so hard to manage the worldly affairs. And you hardly care about the management of the world inside you. The guiding flicker of life, the patronizing beam having limitless potential to infinite happiness, goes out of control and becomes a wild fire. A fire out of control is destructive. It’s useful as long as it’s managed. The mind is like that fire. Tend it. Manage it. Keep an eye on it. And you will have its life-giving warmth and path-showing light for you.

It doesn’t take too much of an effort. It’s nothing in comparison to the huge effort you put in managing the world outside. It doesn’t need your sweat and blood of worldly battles. It just needs half an hour of quiet contemplation, the time even less than you might just spend in thinking about your enemy and visualize doom and destruction to him.

All it needs you is to stop running, close eyes, put up a smile on your lips, look inwards, feel your breathing and walk silently to your real self. The closer you reach that core, the foundation of your real self, healthier you become in mind and body. The better the inner world, the better still will be the external circumstances related to you.

Inhale peace and tranquility. Douse the ravaging fire. Turn it into a soulful bonfire and you like a fatigued traveler basking in healing and peace by its side while the snowy blizzards hit around. Dive deep. Leave the turbulent and disturbed surface and move towards the unmoving bottom. You will discover the futility of just wasting life on the storms on the surface.

Once you come out on the surface after the deep contemplative dive, the world outside will not be the scary choppy sea. It will be a playground of excitement. Life will be fun. Struggles will become just a game to be enjoyed. Turn life into an enjoyable game. Don’t allow it to turn into an agonizing struggle.

All it needs is just a daily dose for the mind. Some quiet moments when you leave the visible and go into the embrace of the invisible. When you go into the source of your creation and emerge almost reborn.

Are God and Satan the same under democracy?

Democracy, by modern day consensus, is the best—among others—form of governance. With some skepticism, it is agreed that it is best among the worst. It even appears so. But that doesn’t mean all is well with democracy. No system is perfect. Perfection is just a mirage. But like all political systems democracy also can be better.

My main issue with democracy is with the same voting weight carried by all individuals as voters. The best and the worst carry the same political weight, at least as voters, when it comes to contributing to the process of selecting the most suitable representatives and hence the best government. Isn’t it ironical that the people who have been fatal for society carry the same political weight as the ones who have been of real help to the society as voters? Shouldn’t the weight of votes vary as per the contribution or potential of individual voters?

Under the present system of voting Hitler, Stalin and Edi Amin, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent lives, carry the same vote weight as the healers of humanity like Gandhi, Bose, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad. Shouldn’t the people with proven records of being better human beings, having better understanding of the issues of common interests, have more voting power than the criminals, social degenerates and blood-shedders.

Common people, busy in the small domain of life to survive, carrying the good and bad in them, can have the value of one to their vote. The criminals, terrorists, law breakers and hate-mongers can have fraction of one in proportion to their crimes. And achievers and contributors in academics, sports, arts, science and culture can have the multiple of one to their vote. The latter with their better selves, more awareness and more constructive nature will turn the game of democracy far more dynamic and vibrant than it is now.

Since the best and the worst just occupy the minority edges of society in terms of numbers, it will not shake the present system’s foundations immediately. But it will act as a system of reward and punishment for the majority to maintain and improve their political ratings. Who doesn’t want to grow? And certifiedly more so. A better political rating on the basis of standing and achievement in life will look good on anybody’s CV. It will be as good holding doctorate degrees, gold medals and mushy citations. A cut in the voting right, and rating coming to a fraction of one, will add to scores of other deterrents that stop a person from going the wrong side to be lesser of a human being in all its forms.

A voting right cannot be static. It cannot be frozen for all times irrespective of best and the worst deeds of the holders. In case a person comes out worst, it should be abrogated altogether. In case of glorious achievement, the person should have multiple of one. It is a suitable political reward. It’s better to have a Hitler without any voting right. Still more suitable to have Mother Teresa with multiple of one voting right.

The Election Commission has to turn the voting right a bit dynamic with the possibilities of upgrade and degrade and even outright abrogation. It will save democracy from being the puppet of poor choices where masses, hardly knowing what they are voting for, hardly knowing the issues involves, get swayed by selfish rhetoric and emotional rabble rousing to elect pitiable leaders to power.

The differential voting rights will carry the democracy to the next stage. The elected representatives will be better and people will have one more push to be better.

The superbugs of death

There is a methodology of driving the evil, first, out of your body, second, your mind, and consequently out of your soul.

At the level of the body, the visible world, put up a conscious effort to avoid doing anything bad that may hurt someone in its multiple meanings, the physical, economical, emotional and social. Avoidance of bad at this level will help you be a law-abiding citizen. It will give you a clean social image. These are required to keep you motivated and bound to the path leading to the next level of goodness, or the path to taming the evil.

Taming the evil at the level of mind is a bit tougher. Thoughts come more rampantly than actions. It’s basically a free float. In fact these are even more suitable outlets of the bad. We can think bad to any extent in the hidden corners of our mind. We can plan any sinister scheme in the safe secrecy of our brain. We can hate anybody to any extent inside us. We can burn in jealousy about anybody on the earth. This mode of letting out badness is even more tempting because, unlike badness in action which might get us punishment at the hands of law or fall in our public image, this channel of hate does not carry the risks of such immediate, visible punishments. It but harms us in more ways than we can ever think of. The punishment crawls slowly, silently. And it is poisonous. All these negative emotions of hate, jealousy, frustration, fears, apprehensions, illusions and assumptions let out toxics on the impulse of our brain. By engaging in such thinking you are bombarding your own body with chemical weapons. You are your own enemy before anyone else. You are putting your gun at your own poor head. Slowly over a period of time these poisons, the unseen punishments of uncontrolled evil thoughts, eat away the body. Our brain, the seat of unrestricted potential to be good to the self and others, becomes the ticking bomb, letting out toxins in our blood stream, eating our vitality, our strength and drawing us to a frustrated death. That is the cruel most punishment. Your own brain letting out poison in your body. And our thoughts are the trigger for this.

So driving out the evil at the level of ideas and thoughts is utmost important. Right from our birth, life is all about bypassing the snares of mortality. But the inherent meaning of life is to find happiness while we avoid the snares of death. You cannot find happiness in any corner of this world, under any material comfort if your thoughts are plagued with the virus of evil, the bugs of hate, jealousy, selfishness and anger. We cannot avoid death. It will come. But we can turn it meaningless. The success of death lies in giving us a painful feeling that life was meaningless at the last breath. IF we die with a feeling that life has been worth it, we deny death its final laugh. Life prevails over death in this regard. Because there is journey after the interruption. We can do justice to life by being happy, and making others happy as well along the way, and be loving. There can be no other meaning of life.

So train your mind for better thoughts, better emotions. It will help your brain becoming a launch pad of creativity instead of a toxic tool of death. Meditation is the first step in taming the restlessness which is basically the foundation of the evil in the mind. Dislodge it from its seat. Sit down and practice restfulness. Calm your mind. Give it a space as you contemplate peace. As much as bugs of death are ever eager to finish their task of chucking out organisms and lives, the angels of healing are even more eager to sustain life. And the seat of healing is in love, in caring, in positive emotions. Allow yourself some time of stillness, repose and rest, the angels of healing, the agents of life, the couriers of love will cure you.

The practice of love and rest in thoughts leads to a healthier soul. It nourishes the souls as much as it heals the body. As a loving person you become a flower. Spreading fragrance and beauty. As a hateful individual you become a thorn. Drawing blood from the feet that are leading to their destination. Both die anyway. But look at the roles they play while in their journey.

Coming out of the cave sic grave

I come out of the tunnel. And see light. I smile and have a restful inhale of the fresh air. I open my arms and embrace this world, my world. It welcomes me back with a brotherly hug. I smile again and close my eyes to look inward. I take a sip of peace from the sea of tranquility and open eyes. The world has changed. It’s far better now. I have changed my eyes to look at it differently.

It was dark and intimidating. It was as much frightening and intimidating as it was painful. The tunnel was as much dug by the external circumstances as the negative tools of my own mind. I had entered a cave. A little recess in the mountainside of life. A routine trouble in life. Then I became my own enemy and started digging earth in the direction I shouldn’t have. I was digging a tunnel. An aimless futile struggle. My depressed, bruised mind moving earth faster and faster. It was taking me deeper into the womb of darkness. It was like digging my own grave. A bruised brain and injured mind are the potent tools of a self-grave digger.

Sweating, soiled clothes, aching limbs, now I come on the other side. On the other side of the mountain of life. Out of the self-dug cave that almost became a grave. Life has changed its meaning. The poles have reversed. I take credit for the small act of having kept on the digging job. It’s a new beginning. I know myself better. It’s a new sun. The air is so fresh. The earlier life seems futile. All this self-grave digging job. But as I close my eyes, a feeble smile on my lips, and inhale the essence of a new, redefined life, the journey seems worth it. Life is almost on a pause now. So slow in motion that I see the marvels of nature around. They are for me as much as they are for everybody. The spring sun kissing the winter-beaten leaves. Songs of birds. Gentle breeze and the swirls of a footloose bird in the sea of cool air. Bits of peace lying around.

I inhale the fathomless fragrance of peace, harmony and integrity from the farthest part of the cosmos. Cosmic harmony. Endless orderliness in orbits. Ever-going periodicity. Supportive harmony. Fury of explosions and astronomical speeds tamed to harmless, slow acts of space-time continuum. Me and my environment feel like an iota of this cosmic harmony. I allow myself a gentle smile. Ripples of peace cascade through my soul. I close my eyes again and look inwards. Deeper than the superficial world of my body and my worldly circumstances. I can travel far deeper than I ever thought. There are undisturbed paths leading to my true self. It’s a replica of cosmic orderliness. I am on the path to meet my true self. The self that is destined to be happy and at peace with itself.

It awaits there, the self, with unlimited dose of happiness, comfort, compassion and peace. We only deny ourselves the dose of this cosmic healing pill by looking out on this world. The superficial world of frustration, jealousy, hate, futile rat race, mundane cravings, illusions, assumptions, fears, apprehensions and cravings. It doesn’t allow us to smile, to close eyes and start the journey inward. No wonder we have hardly travelled in the real sense even if we are lucky to spend hundred years of chronological time in a lifetime. The journey to the real inner self, on the other hand, is not bound by the puny limits of time and funny horizons of space. It’s open and there are unlimited dimensions. In minutes one covers cosmic distances. And when you smile and look at this world outside, you see a replica, a reflection of the inherent beauty. You are better now and happier. You look at this world with a healthier mind and sturdier brain. More importantly you have a better heart. You are capable of loving more and hating less. The hallmark and definition of a human being.

There is something good at the end of it

There is light beyond the deepest dark depth,
There is a bright day after the ghostly haunts of nightmarish night,
After a barren famished fight there is a blossomed springed delight,
After pining pangs of separation there is a worthy end to the desperation,
After crashing in the gutters there is a surge and rise to bathe in holy waters,
After crying convulsions on the lips, a smile takes honeyed sips,
After the last deafest, still there is an undying urge to accomplish the feat,
Even when blind with despair, there is hope hiding and cajoling somewhere,
Even in hate love still lurks somewhere!!!!

A smile on your lips

A smile is like the sun on a cold, frigid, gray day. Comforting. Warm. Healing. It dispels the gloom. It absorbs the pain. It touches you with sympathy. It becomes your nonjudgmental confidante. You may not be enjoying a rollercoaster ride in life. There are pains and problems and of course you feel like crying. Of course you are not in a position to laugh. But you can smile. Just to yourself. Without any reason. Or at least try. Even a fake, feeble smile will do. It reshapes the mask of your tensions, your worries. You will instantly feel its warmth, its light. It cannot be the other way. Even a fake smile cannot give you pain, cannot aggravate your messiness however hard is the situation. Give yourself a reason to smile. Forget about the little world of your problems. The world around you is too big. And you are a part of it bounty. The things of beauty are as good for you as are for any other happy person around. Claim your share. Observe. Look around. Pick out from the unassuming treasure lying around in bits and pieces. A flower. A bird chirping. A gust of breeze. Some green tree. A sparrow’s free dart in the sky, a child’s pure smile, the sun, the stars, someone helping somebody. There are infinite reasons to let a smile kiss your lips, to help you, to sympathize, to emphasize. Just open up the door for smile. It will open up a huge gate of comfort for the inner self. Light will enter the dungeon of real and imaginary problems. There is no logic for this. It just happens. Just like you feel the healing warmth of sunrays on a cold day. Try to smile without reason. Immediately you will get a feeling of so many things to be smiled at, to be felt euphoric about, or even laugh about.     

Cow candies in patriotic barn

An effort at inciting hate is always condemnable. Be it the leftists who bind a soul to the red book so tightly that even violent options become defendable for the cause of principles cast in iron. So communists see class enemies, there are purgings, extrajudicial killings, dictatorships. Or be it the rightists, who insight phobias, sloganeering for some mythical past, blaming some section for the present woes, show exclusivist dreams. Or be it the poison-sprouting mullahs in mosques, who raise fiery speech to blur the line between faith and fundamentalist blindness. All extremist ideologies thrive on creating hate, turning a human being against a fellow human being, on flimsy, assumed, disillusioning grounds.  

There are cow patriots in Haryana. In a country where millions go deprived of even the most basic facilities, where people die for lack of clean drinking water and basic healthcare, the mythical love for cow sounds misplaced. Of course, as an animal, and like any other animal for that matter, cow needs better days, better pastures, better economical use. But cow as an instrument of fake nationalism. It sounds unjustified. Haryana government has even constituted a cow commission. But there could have been a commission for stray, homeless humans as well. In our city Sonipat, there are more stray humans than stray cows. The cow commission allocated funds. Just like the favourite Indian trait of turning any institution into the instrument of embezzling public money, it also serves as a means of siphoning funds for those in good books. There are lampoons and semi-criminalized fit-for-nothings, who having run after the saffron brigade during the election time, get reward for their patriotic loyalty. They get money to open cow shelters and cow care centres. No wonder the budgeted amount is multiple times than the amount actually spent.

They opened a cow shelter on the outskirts of the city. A good set up.  At least apparently so. A minister inaugurated the cow shelter with a fiery patriotic speech. The euphoria over cow welfare but fell too heavily on the head of a poor watchman just on the third day after the speech. The poor guy died. The main gate crashed on him. You can imagine the level of construction material. There are just a few cows in the big facility. Rest of them roam the city with stray dogs and humans like before. Nothing has changed in reality. But a lot has changed on paper. Pseudo-nationalism you know. And cow shelters proof of that. Another idler, who had been tailing after the ideologues, got a big grant to run a cow hospital. He has set up just a facility in the name of it. Groups of drunkards drink there. Cows, where? You will question if you step into it. Those who can't love people from other religions, how can you expect them to be caring for animals. Poor cow. Just a political pawn. So is Ram Mandir. So is national anthem. Oofs. What a cheap candy type nationalism. Served to the masses. Eat the candy and spit out hate. And vote for us of course. A person blinded by hate is easily taken by political tricks. Let's hope UP results put a check to their sham nationalism, forcing them to opt for healthy one, where people are progressive, loving, receptive..    

There are many eager souls to do something for the country. Feelings apart, they are incapable of doing hardly anything, not even leading the life of a law-abiding, self-responsible citizen. Following the basic principles of humanity, doing just as much as to follow the rules and regulations even if there is no chance of penalty in sight. The blood is but on boil for the cause of the nation. They fight pitched battles on social media. It won’t so much as give them the pain of a mosquito bite. It is hundred percent risk free. No dangers. All you have to do is to like, forward and gloat over hate messages. And stamp with a vote. You then become a patriot. Beyond that you can go out, take bribe, grease palms with corrupt money, break queues, eve-tease, molest, urinate anywhere, use road like it’s your courtyard driveway, pass remarks, shout, holler, do whatever. Your conscience is clear. You are a patriot. Because you just hate the perceived enemy. That is your contribution to nation-building. Still left with surplus patriotic energy, you go out and mix with ABVP zealots and attack other students who are not as patriotic as you because they have not picked up the toy gun for patriotic fun. For the extra-energied patriots there is a possible hangout. Breakroom. Gurgaon sector 29. Operated by Sanwari Gupta. Go there and smash out your hate and frustration on junk TV, microwave, radio, etc. It will soothe the angry man in you. The blood on boil will cool. And utter sense of heroism will prevail as you smash the screen. It can be a suitable punch-bag for the paper tigers of pseudo-nationalism. After pouring out hate and frustration you will come out happier and, possibly, more loving beings. You might even go beyond the tools of fake nationalism like Ram Mandir, cows and national anthem, and do something more important for this country.