Life and Spirituality

    O nce upon a time, nestled between pretty green hills lay the happy kingdom of Joy. It was a rich kingdom and the royal family was a kind and generous one. The people were happy and well cared for. Therefore, while world moved on to adopt other forms of governance like democracies, some even dictatorships, Kingdom of Joy continued as an absolute monarchy. Every evening,  people of  Kingdom would gather around the Palace to sing and dance and cheer the King wishing a long life for him. In the fiftieth year of his reign, the King organized an international conference on governance in his kingdom so as to get updated with changes taking place in the world. Leading experts from different countries were invited to the conference. In the opening address, the King requested that in the final plenary session, delegates prepare a one sentence long conclusion in simple language for benefit of all. There would be a day of sight seeing after that and  ...

I n recent times, an idea has asserted that it is only a few in the world that control most of its wealth and power. It is said that even in democratic countries the top 1% own most of the wealth and control how our world functions to the extent that Nature permits. In fact such control is by much less than the 1%. It is by few among the 1% with the rest of the 1% being their families, associates, aids, employees and principal puppets and slaves.   It has further been concluded by many thinkers that a just world requires that this domination and control of the 1% come to an end and that shall happen in part when capitalism ends and is replaced by communism or socialism. That might be even worse as past experience of mankind has shown because one important point is often missed in all this, and it is as follows, It is not the control by 1 percent that is bad for the world, it is how that control is acquired and perpetuated. If lies, unethical and criminal means, ...

Saint Paul in Athens by Raphael D emocracy is a form of government in which people through a vote choose representatives to govern them for defined periods, except in a few African and other states where a glue  appears to stick democratically elected leaders to their seats of power forever, metaphorically speaking. The precise form of democracy varies from country to country. Most have a written constitution that describes principles through which a state is governed. In many cases, though not all, democracies have produced greater welfare of people than other forms of government such as dictatorships, or monarchies. However, democracies as exists in most countries today are not free of defects, some serious. This brief note cannot go into various advantages and defects of democratic forms of government but it may be mentioned that the biggest short comings of democracies arise from the role of money in elections and later in law making so that people often end up ...

Eugene Delacroix , Horse Frightened by Lightning R ecent decades have seen an unprecedented progress and proliferation of technology and democracy on the planet. While this has provided much progress to humans, one of the most essential things required by humans – peace and happiness may not have increased at all. Rather we are seeing a huge rise of wars and refugees on the one hand   and a rise of economic inequality, stress, homelessness and child poverty even in the most developed parts of the world. The most developed country in the world, the US has the highest rate of citizens in prison than mankind has ever seen since the dawn of civilization. The question to ask is why is this happening despite democracy and technology? While people offer different reasons, most are superficial ones. The real answer is quite simple; evil can make use of these things just as effectively as forces for good. In the most recent election covered widely in the media, a Party P...

by John Singer Sargent . Oil on canvas, "The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous" George Orwell   Y esterday I watched with much interest a debate that took place in the British Parliament on whether to bomb in Syria or not. I also visit twitter frequently and had noticed that there were many tweets against any such bombing and the polls too seemed to indicate that an overwhelming majority of the good British people were against any such adventure. The experiences of similar ones in the past have been sad and disastrous and the public is wary of the arguments politicians put forth in favor of more. A completely new concept has been invented for the war in Syria - ‘degrade’ and not ‘win’ as has been the case with wars through human history. Some politicians have explained, this implies a war going on for a generation or more, perhaps because then it produces a steady stream of income for a long, long time for the military- industri...

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poor_and_rich_in_Thailand.JPG W e know from history that in the past, much of the world’s wealth was held by a few rich and powerful kings and emperors. Has that changed now? Have you wondered how the world’s wealth is distributed in the new modern democratic age where we have rule of the people, by the people for the people. It seems that the emperors may not have gone away. They have perhaps just changed their style and address. Nevertheless as human civilisation advanced inequalities on the whole reduced or moved up and down over the centuries, then something dramatic happened around thirty years ago in 1985, inequalities began to rise again at ever faster rates. See here for precise scholarly data on this and simple ways to fix it. According to a report in the guardian,  The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a n...

Democracies for the few U ntil a few centuries ago and even now in some countries, the prevalent form of government was a Monarchy. One single person, chosen by hereditary or with the help of the sword was an absolute ruler. Since the governance depended on this single person, it was a great or horrible one, depending on this single person. In recent times monarchies have been abolished in most countries but humans have still found power centered in a single person in the form of dictatorships. Some have been abolished in Arab countries after the recent Arab Spring, when dictators like Gaddafi were unceremoniously removed, even from their cozy hidings in the sewer lines. In a country like North Korea, the form of governance is some form of communism but the ruler ship is also dictatorial and monarchy-like being transferred through hereditary rights. In some other communist countries, it appears that the ruling power is spread between select groups of persons. In this...