Life and Spirituality

As a senior citizen and retired person, I have the leisure to look back at life and wonder how the world changed over the last half-century or so. Perhaps the greatest change has been in communication technologies. As a child we had holders with nibs or pens to write. One dipped the nib in an inkpot and then wrote on paper with the wet nib. There were different colored inks, blue, royal blue, green, red and once in a rare while a brown one too. I loved trying out the different colors. At times one smudged the paper with a blob of ink and there were blotting papers to soak it up. After one wrote a letter, one made a trip to the post office to get the envelope weighed, get stamps and then post the letter. It took a few weeks to reach distant lands. The reply came back after several weeks. One could make a phone call too if the recipient had a phone but one booked the call through an operator and then waited a while before she called back if the call was through to a differen

Over the last century, planet Earth and condition of all life that dwells upon it has entered a completely new phase, vastly different from any that existed in the past. The first striking difference is the burgeoning population of humans on the planet. They have crossed seven billion and are heading towards ten billion strong in the coming decades. The invention of antibiotics and vaccines has contributed to this increase. The increasing population of humans and their needs has displaced not just much animal life on the planet but also the green side of it so that many species have become extinct or are on the verge of becoming so. The second huge difference is emergence of technologies that were once visualized only in fairy tales. Computers, television, mobile devices and nuclear devices are all inventions over the last century. They have changed human lives and behavior in drastic ways. Thinkers and philosophers wonder where humans and the planet they occupy ar

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reine_panoramic_Lofoten.jpg   A s you look around the world through readily accessible media, you would find entire regions from Libya to Afghanistan through Gaza, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia are disrupted. Millions of humans, children are fleeing for their lives leaving home and all behind. Never before in the history of mankind have there been so many refugees in the world. While some of these drown in the oceans while escaping, some of the others that reach safety of countries like Australia or America stand a good chance of being captured and imprisoned in inhumane conditions, even children, even for years together. One discovers that child poverty is rampant in the richest countries of the world like USA and UK and there are homeless persons dying on the streets.   When one reflects on the situation, one would perhaps arrive at the conclusion that at the root of so much human misery is nothing other than evil. It is not la

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

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, expl

A n interesting Presidential race is on in America to choose a new President. The world watches with interest and concern. Of all the contenders in the fray, most recognize one of them – Bernie Sanders – as an honest, trustworthy and compassionate person.   He has a long history of public service to prove his position  not being a young leader who might be corrupted soon after winning an election as young leaders often tend to, or if that did not happen in the first term, by the second one most likely if the leader is not very young. Power corrupts most all. For older leaders, the greedy are easily discovered by checking out if they have accumulated an excess of personal wealth during their journey through life (unless it was thrown at them from a lottery, chance or inheritance etc.) Because of this, in the opinion of this author, if Bernie Sanders wins, he shall be good not just for America but also the world. It is a grave mistake when people choose a less trustworthy lead

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 Prima

S cience fiction writers and some utopian philosophers have at times mentioned the idea of a world ruled by a single world government rather than governments of different countries. It is a horrible idea if not a very stupid one. At times governments become bad, dictatorial or even brutal and while there is an escape for humans presently with several countries in the world, in the case of a world government there would be none. However, while a single world government is a horrible idea, the world does need badly, governance over parts by a world body, for limited periods, in order to rescue those parts from a terrible mess and ensuing suffering that is taking place in some countries. These are the failed states of the world where people have just not been able to get their act together on their own for various reasons. Present examples of such countries are Iraq, Syria, Libya and South Sudan to name some. At times the chaos leads to an exodus of refugees as families fle

W ith help of modern electronic media, we may if we wish, receive news from different parts and times of the world. We shall find in different places and times examples of extreme love and compassion, of extreme greed and cruelty, joy and misery, extreme energy and extreme lethargy, progressive places and backward places etc. Individual lives as well as those of entire communities; even nations have displayed these contrasts from the beginning of time. When intellectuals, experts and thinkers seek to analyze behavior of an individual or a nation, they arrive at reasons or causes for that behavior. However, a deeper analysis indicates that the cause traced is merely a symptom of a deeper cause. For example if we conclude that a human is lethargic because his health is not good we can analyze further to find out why that health is not good and so on. As analysis progresses, every cause traced becomes a symptom of a yet deeper cause so that at the root of it all we arrive a

W hile some of the leading prophets that walked the earth predicted that a day shall come soon when the world comes to an end, when wickedness shall be on the rise and the wicked shall be vanquished while removing the good to safe havens. Nevertheless, the world continues to throb with life. This does not mean that the prophets were wrong. Time scales can vary and what is soon for a prophet tuned into timeless Universal Consciousness may be quite different for you and me. In an earlier post in this blog, this blogger had remarked that the way population is increasing on the planet, it might become unsustainable by 2030 or perhaps 2050 and that might be the time that the Lord decides to step in to fix matters. This time would also coincide, as per the prophets, when much goodness shall disappear from the face of the earth; when selfishness, meanness, wickedness etc. shall rise. Is that happening in our world? On the whole now are humans becoming kinder and nicer folk instead

H umans as well as plants and animals live comfortably in the temperature range of 10 to 30 degree centigrade. When temperatures fall below 10 or rise above 30 it begins to get uncomfortable. Below zero or above 40 it sure is like hell. There are very few parts of the world where temperature remains in the range of 10 to 30 and therefore most humans do suffer a bit of hellish or hell-like conditions for at least a part of the year, unless they have implemented man-made measures to mitigate the discomfort.. Aside from these hot and cold hells there are also dry and wet hells on earth. The dry ones are near desert areas and the wet ones are those that are prone to floods almost every year such as in the Philippines and Bangladesh. Aside from what the climate gives, humans can do a lot to improve their living. Thus while some in Canada have made life comfortable through things like central heating, some other parts of the world have made living worse and closer to hell due to cor

T he human condition varies vastly across the planet and humans vary in their  needs and desires. Therefore if a top priority for one is good food, for another it might be healthcare. However if a scientific survey of a very large number of humans is carried out across the world one can find out out what most humans want. Precisely such a survey was carried out by My World , a United Nations global survey for citizens. It carried out a survey of more than two million persons from all countries of the world from all age groups and backgrounds to find out what most humans want to see for a better world. The top ten things humans voted for listed in the order of priority were. Good Education Better Healthcare Honest government Better Jobs Clean water and sanitation Affordable and nutritious food Protection from crime and violence Freedom from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex etc. Protecting forests, rivers and envi