Life and Spirituality

W hile hermits and spiritual persons may choose to restrict interactions with other humans and focus on nature and the universe, most humans in their journey through life have to interact with huge number of persons - family, friends and associates. Children do not get much choice in the humans they interact with in life. It is decided for them, in the main, by fate and circumstance, from the family they inherit to others. However as we grow up, we may choose the people in our lives and the extent we deal with them. This choice has a huge impact on the way our life turns out to be. Ancient sages have pondered on the subject. Perhaps the most precise and brief recommendation on this is due to the ancient sage Patanjali, the father of yoga.   Happy, sad, pure and sinful are four types of souls. In these it is best to cultivate, friendship, sympathy, admiration and avoidance respectively.   Patanjali, On Yoga , Ch1, Vs 33 It must be noted that recommendations of...

I n a companion blog, I described the story of a friend from college – Alok Sagar – who after a great education, a doctorate in Engineering from Rice University in USA and a faculty job suddenly dropped it all, to take to the forests as a hermit and began service to forest Tribals, wild life and forests of Central India. He is now known as Maharishi Alok a title of great respect for the spiritual and the educated. In the comments to that post a family friend expressed disappointment and said the family had tried to convince him not to take that road. Good men and women of the world strive to succeed in their worldly careers and serve their families through that success while reserving a portion of their time, effort and money to serve the world, others in need, quietly, anonymously whenever possible for a deed of compassion does not emerge from a desire for worldly rewards. However, the saintly serve the world instead. Buddha and Jesus abandoned their families (although a...

  Florence Nighingale the Night Angel A single person here implies a person who lives alone and not as a part of a family or even a community such as in a hostel, monastery or seniors home most of the time. There are very many humans on the planet that for various reasons such as widowhood, divorces, choice or circumstances etc. are single. The internet and other modern communication devices may provide some social interaction but it is not the same thing as a real life one. It seems from an observation of humans in our world that whereas a person living as a part of a family is more likely to be an everyday man or woman, rare exceptional behavior is more often observed from amongst those who are single. Thus, whereas the wicked witch who lives in her hole on top of wailing mountain, Jack the Ripper or Boston Strangler are more likely to be single persons, so are Jesus Christ, Buddha and Florence Nightingale. Truly, the possibility for a person to lead a normal li...

Hari Rani Sahni, nee Sethi (1890-1924)  A s ide from Environment, food, spirituality, economy and much else about life, I have from time to time included sketches of my immediate family too in this blog. Recently a cousin Manoj Sahni who now lives in San Francisco, USA sent me a family heirloom, a photo of my grandmother dating from around 1916 or so. My mother (Nand Rani Sahni) had described her as a beautiful and graceful lady who died a month after the birth of my mother in 1924. I am not certain of her birthday but it may have been somewhere around 1890. She was the daughter of Lachman Dass (Sethi) and wife of Lala Gurdas Ram Sahni. At a relatively young age in his early forties her father Lachman Dass became the Chief Administrative and Judicial officer (Sherishtadar) of the Quetta –Pishin Districts of Baluchistan. This was the most developed of the six districts of the large province of Baluchistan which had been a part of the Sultanate of Oman, British India a...