Life and Spirituality

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...

War and Veterans T his author is from a largely military family and knows that some of the happiest and jolliest of humans in society are war veterans. That has been the experience of many other persons in many countries of the world and even now India and Europe has many happily retired war veterans who live on a comfortable pension and are invited by the Queen for a luncheon and a jolly get together every now and then. But what is this we are hearing now? War Veterans of America suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? They say the bombs and gore of war did it. But why did it not happen elsewhere and before? There is a simple explanation; many of earlier wars were fought for self defense and a righteous cause. Such wars fill the heart of war veterans with pride and replace the sound of bombs with that of a celebration with loud fire crackers. The blood of the war fields transforms in the mind to that of evil vanquished. However when the cause of war is for pro...

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...

How to make peace, how to make war W hile many horrific wars continue in many parts of the world and humans are forced to abandon their homes and flee for their lives, the countries that contributed to creating wars often withdraw from helping out distressed refugees. Just as the character of a human is revealed in times of stress and difficulty, so is the character of nations. Anyone with his own children knows how stressful it is to walk even a mile with a babe in arms or a toddler holding a finger but the world now witnesses thousands fleeing hundreds of mile in this very situation. While they are welcomed in some countries, they witness harsh cruel behavior in others, not sympathy and help. It is even more difficult for an old or handicapped person to walk across to the corner store as every old person knows and here we see some forced to walk hundreds of mile. How upset all of us get when a prized personal possession in our homes gets damaged or lost and here we...

You brought us to the world, now we belong; If you keep us safe, we'll sing  you a song A painting of children at play by Karen Arnold W hile childhood is supposed to be the happiest and loveliest part of life for humans, it is very tragic that large parts of the world have become increasingly unsafe for large numbers of children. Despite much progress in other areas of life, humans appear to be failing when it comes to children. Unless this trend is reversed it will not augur well for the future of mankind. While poverty due to economic greed, exploitation, corruption etc. is a serious cause for hunger and malnutrition amongst children, the present note is not about that since that is not a problem specific to the modern age, even though some of it has returned to the most developed parts of the world too as economies have returned to their historic trickle up mode after a brief lull of around fifty years and wealth inequalities have increased. There are ot...

Three month old Rudra of Malin Village A few days ago at a place called Malin Village in Pune, India, a landslide brought an entire hillside crashing down and wiped out over 40 homes. Tens of bodies have been found and the count is rising; 150 are still missing. Earlier in the year the hillside above had been cleared of trees for farming and the hillside that had held solid for hundreds of years came crashing down in the rain because there was nothing to hold the soil together now. In a small home a mother was feeding her three month old baby Rudra when the crash happened. All around them their home came crashing down and they were trapped in tons of rubble. She screamed for help but none heard and she eventually fainted as did the grandparents of Rudra in another corner of the same home. But Rudra continued to cry and yell from time to time. His cries were picked up by listening instruments of a rescue team. The rubble was cleared carefully and underneath was Rudra ...

American Crisis C hildren scared out of their wits are fleeing their homes, even two year old children, a violence fueled by War against Drugs that appears to have been initiated and encouraged by America, not just in Central America but around the world by pressing unwilling governments such as those in India to classify cannabis as an illegal drug, a herb that has been held as divine for thousands of years. Prior to 1985 many a poor farmer under distress from debt and drought calmed himself with a drink or smoke of cannabis. Now he commits suicide instead to the howls and wails of his screaming children and wife left behind. Alcohol is not an option, it is considered a crime causing and addictive poison in many an Indian village, which in fact is true. Thank you America but the world is not surprised when you can do it to your own Veterans who defended your country and now suffer from PTSD, compel them to ruin their guts and livers for big pharma profit perha...