Of Wastage and Accumulation

I just noticed a couple of days back that humanity has two peculiar, and contradicting tendencies. This idea struck me when I got up early in the morning and made my way into the bathroom. One of the taps was open and water was flowing out, no one to care.

On one side, we are big wasters. We waste every possible resource available to us. I have seen a million times how water simply runs out of a tap. Carelessness is the reason. Worse, if water runs out right in front of our eyes, and we do nothing about it. Just see for yourself next time you wash your face. Odds are that your tap runs continously while you actually collect water from it only intermittently. We do this again and again, while brushing or shaving. Is there any figure we can give to the amount of water wasted? Not just water, but electricity. I too am guilty of leaving the fan running when I am not in my room. Food is another commodity.

On the other hand, we accumulate wealth. There is no end to our pursuit to gather more and more wealth. No one is satisfied. A rich man wants to get richer, save more and more money in Swiss Bank.

What I find funny here is that we miss an important point...that every resource is money in a different form. Isn't it really funny that we indulge in two contradicting activities, without realising it?

Money for Others

When the coast of south India was struck by the devastating tsunamis, and left millions homeless, there was one kind heart that stood out - that of actor Vivek Oberoi. His gesture to adopt Thevanampattinam, a hamlet of fishermen is more than just commendable. Whether he did it as publicity stunt, or of a genuine interest to rehabilitate the victims, is a topic for his critics to discuss about. But what remains as a fact is that he helped, and he helped generously in a way where the help reached the needy directly, without passing through many hands that would have, needless to say, slyly stole a few bucks here and there.

I am not here to praise Vivek Oberoi, but he displayed a certain value, and that is why I am making this post in this blog. He showed a few things that is worth emulating specially by the rich of this country. It is quite possible that many other celebrities in India have contributed more in cash than all the money that Vivek has spent in rebuilding this village. However, what stands out is, Vivek's contribution has shown results at an extraordinary pace, while no one knows where the contributions made by the rest went. He showed that he was not just wanting to help, which most people in country wanted to, but that he was ready to do it himself. Just imagine what would have happened if all the rich men in India just followed Vivek's example. Needless to say, the lives of millions would have been put back on track, or nearly so, in about a fortnight. All that would be left will be to provide them boats, which the Government can easily take on. No need to build temporary relief shelters.

No one can say that India does not have as many rich men as the number of affected villages. Just hink of the number of actors in Bollywood, Kollywood, the cricketers, the politicians, and the industrailists. India is not a poor country, it is just that wealth is concentrated in a few hands. A complete uneven distribution of wealth. While there are families where children fight for the food their parents give, there are also families where the children fight for the property their parents leave. No doubt the Ambanis have provided many a means of livelihood. Yet the amount of wealth they have can feed a few generations of children in their lineage. The question arises - what does man do with so much wealth? Of what use is wealth if it cannot help someone?

A man should first earn for himself, then for his family. If his family has surplus, he may invest it on some venture that can provide jobs. At some point, one should begin to give out the rest for charity, to help the needy. There is no use saving that extra which in any case we cannot enjoy in our lives. There is a limit to the amount of wealth one should accumulate.

Finally I have to sum up. The money that we earn must be of benefit to others. All surplus after saving for oneself must go for charity. The money that goes for charity must reach the people who need them, and if it is possible to ensure this by some means, one should undertake efforts for that.

Love for human development

Growth is a basic quality we see in human beings. Growth can be categorised into three types: physical, mental/intellectual, and spiritual. Physical growth and mental growth is rather well known. But spiritual growth is something that is hardly known, and even less unnderstood. Spiritual growth is the transformation of an animal-man to a man-man, and further to a divine-man.

To be called as a human being, one must atleast be a man-man. By that, I mean that a man must reside in the human body. All individuals which are called by zoologists as homo sapiens need not have a man inside them. Even if he has the body of Arnold or an IQ of Einstein, he may have an animal inside him, inside his heart. Thus, physical growth or mental growth does not ensure a man being a man inside. What makes a man a real man is this spiritual growth. This means, one has to let go of all animalistic tendencies and evolve to a higher level of existence, where his tendencies are man-llike. (By now, I should make it clear that man also means woman).

Body cannot grow without food. Intellect cannot grow without education. Similarly, for spiritual growth to occur, a spiritual-food is required. The food needs to be nutritious. The food that we eat must have all the vitamins, proteins so that the body is healthy. Similarly, the education we receive should be a good one. Now, having said that, what is the food for spiritual growth? I believe it is love.

When we are young, it is the parents who feed us, who take care of our education and who pour love into our hearts. This helps us in our early growth in all three areas. However, as we grow up we find that we need to fend for our own food, we need to educate ourselves. But we fail to recognise the need to love ourselves. By 'ourselves' I mean our spiritual self, which ultimately decides whether we are an animal-man, or man-man or divine-man. It is therefore necessary to love ourselves firstly if we have to achieve any spiritual growth, which is the index of what we really are.

IAHV and Ravi shankar

Geneva-based International Association for Human Values, founded by Ravi Shankar, will commit volunteers to help restock and rebuild the much-needed facilities such as hospitals and schools as well as create trauma centres in Iraq.

The IAHV, which is also a United Nations accredited non-governmental organisation, is calling on volunteers from all ethnic, cultural and faith traditions to join them in delivering aid to the Iraqi people.

The first group of volunteers to be drawn predominantly from the association's Mid-East offices will work to provide resources to institutions made destitute by the war and subsequent looting. The initial step will be to assess needs and to see how the skills of the volunteers can be best applied.

"Basically what Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is saying is that this (rebuilding) is not a job of one or two organisations or governments. He says that all the major religions of the world have resources and they should utilise these resources to help Iraq. That is what is needed now," one aide said.
"He wants people from other faiths to come together and say 'yes' to helping the hapless people of Iraq."
The humanitarian crisis in Iraq, according to IAHV that has a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, may very well be one of the most serious in recent years and because of this it is calling volunteers from around the world to form a multinational coalition of rebuilders.
"The provision of aid through a multinational and multifaith coalition will demonstrate that this is an opportunity to bring greater unity and cooperation to the world," Ravi Shankar said.

- courtesy rediff.

This laudable effort from Ravi shankar, i sincerely appreciate the positive approach and seeing the opportunity in aversity; to demonstrate, that there is level above religions to work on this. hats of to you sri sri.

Human-mind and Human-values

The human mind has great potential is known truth. Great people have proved it time and again to human kind that, astonishing deeds can be achieved with mind/brain powers. Almost anything is possible by putting your mind to it.

In physics potential is the cause for the flow from higher level to a lower level. In electricity it is the flow of charge with voltage difference, in mechanics it is the flow of fluid because of potential energy etc. If there is channel to flow any thing will flow given enough potential difference, But work needs to be done to increase the potential. This is precisely the tendency of the mind too. Mind is like water(out of the 5 cosmic elements) . So what are human values in this analogy, human values are the foundation for the like check damns of discipline(societal rules and regulations.) or rather they should be.


The degenerative tendency of the mind is known phenomenon. You don't need to do anything to go mad, just don't do any constructive activity and allow you mind to do what ever it likes. Body based pleasures, emotional involement, worries, huge attachment, egoism, vanity, envy, addiction etc. Infact all the problems we face are problems of our mind. adwaitic philosophy goes one step a head and says, the whole world is just an artifact of our own minds. Everyone lives in their own mental world this is the truth if, I am right with my psychology and mind studies. No two individuals are similar in this world, no even two electrons, leave alone anything else.

(I have merely stated that these are degenerative, without give a detailed explanation.
This is huge question by itself,which I would probably try answer in the future and mostly you could find answers yourself.)

who is a human?

Man is a social animal- is a general saying. while, there are many animals which have societies(Ants have some kind of society i believe, many other animals move in herds). hu-man does add something to man, because there is something exceptionally different in man,compared to any other species on earth.

The ablity to think,express, and understand the the world. The knowledge component is what is makes human truely different.yes we have great resources, volumes of knowledge, probably more than a trillion giga bytes of knowledge. Knowledge by itself is useless without discipline and practise of the discipline(hope i don't need to explain this one).

Inspite of the huge amount of knowledge and various attempts to discipline ourselves, most of us sccumb to the basic animal tendencies. Infact a great amount of business, depend quite a bit on sex. (The advertising industry, most of the Film industry, fashion industry, cosmetics industry, pornographic industry, prostitute/brothel business, nightlife business etc). someone like frued, went to write a whole human psycology based on sex.

Does sex deserve this much attention.are we trying go back to animal instincts or try to move away and move into better things in the world? should we waste our efforts on sex or work for basic necessities for all, like food, clothing and shelter. are these Need based businesses or vanity based businesses?

while, millions are starving and running around naked, and live in unhealthy condtions,we work for vanity. is this why we call overselves marvels of creation. while we are potentially marvels of creation. are we?

while no ones freedom is questioned here, are we discriminating our actions, is our discriminating power used in the proper way?

Open Invitation

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kindly get in touch with an intro for group blog here.

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thanking you

sincerely

~krishna.