Life and Spirituality

One of the seven hills of Nainital T he  image on top of this page is one of Nainital town in the Himalayas. My childhood home in Nainital was just around the center of this image, a little to the right, now behind the cloud on the hill.  This was the area where most army families stayed because it was close to the military Cantonment. As a child of four or five I loved to climb up to window height and look at colorful sail boats in the lake. On rainy days there were no boats but it was nice to look at the patterns the rain water made on the window panes. The same hill is shown in clouds in a Picture I snapped a few years ago from the opposite hillside. I spent a lot of time in the spacious open kitchen too, especially at times when mother was away to meet her friend by the name of Tunnu next door, where our wonderful cook and family guide all rolled into one - Hira Lal - who belonged to a nearby town of Almora and had learned his skills and English with a British B...

J ust as we have persons who belong to some religious sect or other or none at all, humans can be divided on the basis of their food choices in broad categories – vegans, lovegans, vegetarians or others who eat fish and meat from various animals without any philosophical compunctions but with some preferences for the animals they choose e.g. some will eat cats and dogs too but others will not eat them. Many in India will consider eating or even killing a cow a most unholy thing to do a because it too is a loved domestic pet and a motherly one at that  since it provides milk for children and others. The prohibition on eating or killing a cow is because that is unholy, repugnant and unsacred act not especially because a cow is sacred. All life is sacred. The assertion that cows are not eaten merely because they are sacred is a western twist. Cows roam about in Indian neighborhoods just as cats might in western one. However, in  recent years it has been restricted in citie...

Y ou would have come across a piece of advice that says, trust your feelings. It is not recommended by this blogger unless one knows what the source of those feelings are. An individual consciousness is plugged both into the universal consciousness of which it is a part and the individual mind where it dwells for the most part. Feelings arise from both of these sources. The source of feelings of compassion and motherly love as well as many others derive from the all knowing infinite source that sustains all life whereas feelings of greed, ego, lust and anger arise from the individual mind and habits born out of its working. You would have heard the old adage that the mind is the devils workshop. Hence it is appropriate to say that God dwells in the heart and the Devil in the head ( certainly not all heads though :-). Therefore, whereas a person rooted in love, truth and simplicity may do well by trusting his or her feelings, another who is rooted in lust, anger, greed or p...

Jose Mujica on his farm W hile democracy has spread across the world,  many politicians are not regarded very highly by the population at large in several countries. Several are seen as working for their own interests or to protect the interests of a vested minority and sing the song of the one percent. However on this scene there is a clear exception. He is Jose Mujica, the President of Uruguay, a politician who is loved by his people. José Mujica has been President of Uruguay since 2010. Mujica was born on 20 May 1935 to Demetrio of Basque Spanish ancestry and Lucy, a daughter of Italian immigrants. Mujica's father was a small farmer who faced bankruptcy. At a time when many world leaders impose austerity on their citizens, Mujica himself maintains a simple and austere lifestyle. He has been described as the world's poorest president due to his austere lifestyle.  Yet in his heart he regards himself as the richest and most fortunate of human beings. The joy ...

  Forest Fire Protection W hile several earlier posts in this blog have advocated the creation of more forests and planting more trees as a measure to mitigate adverse climate changes, forests pose a danger to humans too. This danger arises when forest fires occur and engulf a human habitation. The ensuing damage can be tragic. Some areas such as those in California and Australia are more prone to such damages than others and preventive measures need to be put in place in order to avert tragedies especially in areas prone to this danger. One possible preventive measure is the creation of an agricultural strip or body of water such as a lake between the human habitation and the forest as shown in the adjoining schematic. If such a strip is being newly created an excellent design for the surrounding agricultural land is the use of AM strip farms. This type of farm was proposed in an earlier post as a job creation measure but it has excellent application in the pr...

A s mankind burns fossil fuels to meet its energy needs, carbon emissions are added to the atmosphere. Some of them such as particulate matter are short lived but others such as carbon dioxide is a long lived component. A previous note explored the impact of carbon dioxide emissions on climate change: (http://someitemshave.blogspot.in/2014/04/a-new-perspective-on-climate-change.html )  It was concluded that a much higher level of around 1000 ppm of carbon dioxide appears to be beneficial for the green side of life – plants and trees – because carbon dioxide is to plants as oxygen is to animals. It was also stated that the full impact of such increases on global ecology is a matter for further study.   The present note touches upon a topic that has received little attention so far – The impact of increased carbon dioxide on human physical and spiritual evolution. It is assumed that both go hand in hand as regards humans. The present brief note merely makes initial comme...

C limate changes and global warming do appear to be taking place due to man-made causes but hitherto it is possible that the cause of it all may have been incorrectly identified by a majority of experts. Statistical correlations can mislead and it appears that the assigned cause - carbon dioxide emissions - may be less relevant to the issue at hand than has been presumed. While a minority had expressed dissent from the start, they were not heeded, perhaps because of socio-political and psychological reasons that fall outside the realm of scientific reasoning. It seems, humans believe more readily what they wish to believe. The simple and straightforward cause to climate changes aside from natural cycles may be a a reduction of forest and tree cover on the planet over the last century rather than minute increases, in percentage terms, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Far larger quantities of another greenhouse gas - water vapor- have been present in the atm...

A picture of my god-grandson Golu (Naynesh) C hildren because of their innocence remain in close companionship of the Almighty God. In a sense they are the gentle and loving facet of God. That is why they inspire love in all who interact with them. It is only when we become adults that we either disbelieve or avoid even ignore the Source of our wondrous and infinite universe. This is also true for many who say that they believe in the Lord. However, if we can lose our own sense of pride and greatness while inculcating love and innocence, as is common with  children, we too can come close to God, even as adults. It does not matter if we view God as a person with a human-like form, as nature or as the formless Infinite, as a Christian or Jew; as Hindu or Buddhist or Muslim. All that is required is to be seeped in Love and shun hatred for there can be nothing further from God than hatred. He is all about love, or even as an Independent theist who would rather stay away fro...

On the banks of Sattal ( Seven lakes region of Himalayas) T he photo above is one from the District of Nainital (The seven lakes region) in Himalayas showing this author along with his adopted son and grandson in the summer of 2010. This district is still full of lovely trees but sadly that is not the case with many other parts of the world today. Over the last century as human population has increased on the planet the population of trees has gone down drastically due to human activity. This has led to a deterioration of the environmental quality of the planet as well as climate instabilities.   A reduction of trees on the planet and the resulting change of wind directions may well be the cause of recent Saharan dust pollution in Europe. Global deforestation sharply accelerated around 1852. It has been estimated that about half of the Earth's mature tropical forests—between 7.5 million and 8 million km 2 of the original 15 million to 16 million km 2 that unt...

My five year old grandson Golu trusts and loves the Lord When Man is mentioned here in the title what is meant is, man, his words, his beliefs, science etc. His here includes her and the mention of man is for both men and women. However a lack of trust does not in the least imply for me a lack of love for mankind. Rather my compassion and love for humans has increased because of it. I do not reject science altogether because I am a scientist myself and to do that would be to reject a part of myself. What is implied is that not just the science and technology of man but also his philosophy is at all times accepted by me and I hope by every wise person with much reservation and fistfuls of salt. When it comes to human medical science, interfering with human, animal and plant biology such as GM foods this caution even turns to dread. For much that many would go to a human doctor for, I have turned to Almighty God as many of my posts may have revealed, and this too has been ...