Life and Spirituality

J ust as individual lives are enriched by reserving a portion of their time, effort and money towards service of others or the world around them, corporations are similarly enriched; and just as individual lives become self centered, greedy in a paranoid way and narcissistic without that element of service so do corporations. However, a report in the Times of India today says that India Inc is complaining about a new law mandating a two percent spend on CSR ( TOI, June 16, Page 9 ). High performance of a company is traditionally measured against business imperatives including competitive differentiation, sales, attracting and retaining talent, operational efficiency, return on investment and profitability. But that is no longer enough. Today, a new element of leadership is making a profound difference in assessing business organizations - the attitude to Corporate Social Responsibility. Some companies are even considering going a step further by making customer satisfaction ...

  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...

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 ...

, A  path  leads to the gate at front of author's home O ur world has both, the beautiful and the ugly at different times and different places. While focusing on the ugly tends to dissipate us, the beautiful charges and inspires. Yet, it does become necessary to focus on the ugly whenever a desire arises to see it eradicated. It is from this point of view that this blog focuses time and again on it, as in the last post attention was drawn to severe income and wealth inequalities that exist in our world today causing severe distress for very many humans and an earlier one on the violence humans perpetuate even in acquisition of food. While talking about this in a group discussion, a friend, Aditya Thakur, said that these have always been around and even if the one percent of the world were removed, another one percent would come to replace them. My answer was that some such things did happen after the French revolution and the communist revolutions of bygone eras, ye...

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...

The Almond Tree F ood for life comes from life, one form of life deriving its food from another life form and in some cases even their own kind. Humans acquire food from plants and animals, two different kinds of complimentary life forms. In acquiring this food, violence is often perpetuated. While it seems natural for most animals to acquire their food any way they can, humans, who are capable of reasoned thinking, may wish to deliberate if violence is an essential part of acquiring food or if food may be acquired without any violence. Perhaps as humans evolve further away from their animal past, they shall learn of non-violent ways to meet all their basic needs that include food. The central question is, if it is possible to get fully nutritious and healthy food for mankind without the need to perpetuate any violence at all. Whenever humans eat meat as food, an animal has to be killed. Civilized humans attempt to kill an animal in the least painful manner but violen...

CAANS Systen Dress Color for Hillary Clinton O n the lighter side, t his blog has a couple of posts on dress color ( here and here ). Seeing that it was so much fun to find these dress colors out for some famous persons and seeing that it seems to have benefited them in their public pursuits (except President Obama in a private pursuit perhaps :) the thought occurred that it would be nice to discover the CAANS system dress color for Hillary Clinton in case she chose to run for President. If she did that and used this dress color for her public profile images or an appearance and won, perhaps she would then send me a thank you note. Many years ago her husband had sent me a thank you note from the White House while I lived in Canada when he was sent a copy of the Novella – Mystic and the Blossoms – that talks of development of third world villages and much else. These could then be framed, both notes together, for a wall piece, perhaps as an intensely narcissistic conver...