Category: Philosophy

It has been a little more than three  years since I put up in this blog ‘Best Of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ and fifteen months since I put up here ‘Best Of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ – Part II’. In these three years or so since the first blog-post and 38 months since I started with the Facebook Page called ‘Make Your Own Quotes’, a lot has happened. One, from a membership of just 30 or so, the Page has a membership of more than 600 now. Two, I started two series: one, about Leadership Lessons and the second about ‘I Thank You, O’ God’. Both are favourite topics with me. I believe that we have to be thankful to God for whatever He/She/It has given us even when we feel that we haven’t got enough. I sincerely feel that gratefulness is the beginning of the journey into happiness,

Why did I start with the page? As I mentioned in the introduction of the first post, “I noticed that on the Facebook and elsewhere, there is a great penchant about putting up Quotes. These range from quotes about Love, Friendship, Politics, Life; indeed about each and every subject. Whilst reading these quotes I was stuck by the realisation that somehow we have this feeling that the sages, saints and wise-people of the past had abundance of sane-advice on all kinds of subjects; but, by a curious quirk of fate, we ourselves and fellow citizens have nothing great to offer in terms of such advice. When I started analysing this, I reached the conclusion that there is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; the answer is really blowing in the wind; it is everywhere. We only have to gather these pearls around us and weave them in a garland”. That’s how I started this Facebook page called ‘Make Your Own Quotes’ with an introduction: “There is nothing simpler than giving sane advice; you don’t have to follow great teachers. Make your own quotes and let others follow you.”

This venture started on the 25th of Feb 2013 and, as I said, I have finished three years of it and it is still going strong. I have received tremendous interest from friends in these Quotes and I am told that around the world these Quotes are being circulated in all kinds of garbs. I have nothing against these since I shall never be making this into a commercial activity.

I like all quotes on Facebook; these provide quick and easy solutions to life’s seemingly complex problems. I believe life is as simple as Facebook; what you get is dependent upon your “settings”.

I started off by giving tips to people on how to make their own quotes, eg,:

Great Quotes Tip #1: Compare Life, Love, Relationships etc to something mundane and infer “great” sounding advice out of it.Here is an (original example): “Friends should be like electricity wires; opposite poles, running parallel and lighting up lives by meeting”. For effect, inscribe this on a totally unrelated picture of, say, a Frog in a Pond. Wanna try your hand at it; go ahead….nothing is simpler! Try comparing Life to Beans!! Go ahead, now that you have joined this site, you will eventually follow your own quotes!!!

Here is therefore the third tranche of Best of ‘Make Your Own Quotes’, but, on a unique topic of finding reasons to thank God.

I may not be a traditional believer in God, the one who personifies God and identifies with Him or Her with innumerable idols and pictures. In the ‘Philosophy’ section of my blog there are a number of posts about how the current concepts of God and Religion are causing more harm and even evil than the evil these were conceived to eradicate. Of particular interest to readers would be a blog-post titled: ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’ that I wrote five and a half years ago. I am into God as a supreme force that should guide us, bind us together, keep us from doing wrong and look after us as children. I am also a believer in the concept of ‘Ik Omkar’, a concept given to us by Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji, and which translated means: ‘God Is One’ and hence there isn’t a separate God for Hindus or Muslims or for that matter Christians or followers of any other religion (Please read: ‘Nanak Shah Fakir – The Movie And Its Message’).

Now that I have explained my concept of God, please go through the following quotes as addressed to that God and not to Ishwar, Allah, Jesus or Buddha.

Lets begin.

The first one is something that we take for granted: our five senses; particularly the sense of seeing. Here is what a friend Puneet Narula had to write about seeing: “We went to a restaurant in Singapore called “NOX- Dine in the dark”. You are served in pitch dark (No watches and mobile phones allowed) by visually impaired / blind waiters. Amazing experience. You can feel and eat- can’t see a thing. The food tastes better because your entire focus is on taste and not how beautiful it looks. You realize how lucky we are that we can see, hear, feel and smell. Check out http://www.noxdineinthedark.com/”

I believe that God has really made this world beautiful. However, all the beauty that God made would have been lost on us if God hadn’t given us the good sense to appreciate this beauty. So here is a quote about it:

Thank God, we have been given the ability to smile; to make light of our troubles, burdens and situation. If it hadn’t been for this ability, we would have led and lead such hopeless lives:

We can never, even if we try our best individually and collectively, to thank God enough for giving us the emotion of Love. God gave us Dark, so that we know the importance of Light. Likewise, God gave us all the other emotions so that we would realise that Love indeed is the best:

We are often frustrated, especially in arguments, that the other person has a different point of view. But, what if God had given us all the same way of looking at things. It would indeed be such a dull and drab world:

There is no end to God’s Creation. Just at the time when you feel that you have got handle on some part of it, another world opens before your eyes and other senses. It is pointless trying to see the beginning and the end of the universe as if God’s creation is finite. It would be better to adore its infinity and rejoice that there is enough for us for all times to come:

We feel it is intrinsic and innate. However, we refuse to believe that God gave it to us. There is great merit in believing that God gave it to us since, when the chips are down, and darkness engulfs us, we can ask for more. My own experience is that when I have asked for more, God has given it to me:

The holy book of the Sikhs have repeated mention of this Music that is beyond ears. Even if we talk only about the aural experience (within the reach of our five known senses), it is still heavenly. Who else, but God would have thought of giving us this wonderful gift:

There is considerable debate about what is Right and what is Wrong, about Good and Evil. Since all virtues on earth are relative (Please read ‘Absolute Virtue’), it is quite possible that someone’s Wrong is another man’s Right and vice-versa. However, Reverend Emerson once said, “God, don’t let me prove right with arguments that I know to be wrong.” This quote is about that ability and I sincerely feel that God gave to most of us, if not to all of us:

God gave us Life – a four lettered word. He gave us Love – another four lettered word – and most of us love the life that God gave us. For others, God ensured that another four-lettered word was given to them so that even if they won’t love their current life, they would know that the future would be better. God gave us Hope:

We often bemoan the fact that nothing is permanent in this universe. One form is always evolving into another. In some cases it is so slow that we ain’t conscious of it. However, it surely is changing. Whilst we think of it, many a times, as a bad thing, the fact is that it would have been hopeless if we were to encounter a permanent situation and world:

We require worldly knowledge. However, worldly knowledge also confines us and puts limits on our imagination and innovation (I have several posts on this such as ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become?’ and ‘Being Non-Sensical May Be Far Sighted’). A child, in this aspect, is better than us. I am fond of giving this example that when a bus tumbles down a hill in an unfortunate accident, often the children and infants are saved. There is, therefore, merit in looking at things afresh as a child; somewhat different from the pejorative expression: ‘Putting one’s foot in one’s mouth’. Have a look:

The next one is related to it. We sometime feel that we haven’t been given the requisite skills to live and survive. However, the fact is that God has provided for us to live and survive. Here is from Sri Guru Granth Sahib:

“Sail patthar mein jant upaaye,
Taa ka rizk aage kar dharaya,
….Un kavan khilaave, kavan chugaave,
Man mein simran karaya”
(The one who gave birth to creatures in moist rocks,
It provided for their nourishment there too,
…..who makes them feed, who provides for them,
Think about it in your mind)

Here is my quote about it:

The next one is the simplest of the quotes and should have come much earlier:

God made no secret of it. God didn’t send us on a wild-goose chase. However, it has made sure that its own abilities (being the Creator) would be far beyond the sum total of all our individual and collective abilities. Here is the quote that was born out of this:

Yes, there is God, if not as a person or a being, but as a Force or Creator. But, of what use these knowledge had been if God had not blessed us with the ability to reach out to it. And since God made everything, it is conceivable that God only gave this ability to us. Hence lets thank God for having given us this ability:

The concept of God as that Force to whom we can pray to solve our problems provides us with tremendous relief. Just imagine that if we hadn’t invented God we would have felt alone and helpless. Here is the quote for that:

God’s Creation is totally discover-able by us; like they say: Seek and thou shalt find. Here is the quote for thanking God for that:

I have discovered – and I am sure each one of you who is reading this would have – that there is newness in God’s Creation everyday, every hour, every moment. It has been medically established that millions of cells in our body are dying everyday and being rejuvenated. Have a look at this, put up by me on the New Year Day of the year 2016:

We have thoughts and emotions and ideas and we want to convey to others and listen to theirs. Over centuries, various languages evolved to convey these to others and those who understood these languages had not much difficulty in understanding thoughts, feelings and ideas of others. However, there is a language of humanity that God gave each one of us and it is beyond the languages that we ourselves made. This is a language that is beyond verbal and text means. It is the language beyond all senses too. It is a language between hearts. Here it is:

I have maintained that there are more reasons to thank God for than we can think of. We feel that the most precious gift that God has given us is Life. However, each one of us in our lifetime discover that there are many things that God made, for which it is worth giving up life. Taste this:

This is something that most of us discover during our lifetime but many of us never think of thanking God for. The fact is that despite our putting a price on many things – the more precious we feel they are, the more is the price – there are quite a few of the most precious things of life that are absolutely free. Have a look at this:

We fall in the habit of cursing our memory and the oft heard crib is: “I don’t seem to remember many a thing”. We reason it out that all that God had to do was to give us elephantine memory so that we would never forget anything. However, think again after seeing the following quote:

Every once in a while the chips are down for us and we feel that the whole world and even God is lined up against us. I am convinced that God never gives a problem to us without giving us the skills and abilities to solve it. And, it adds to our happiness when we have solved it.

And the last one in this part of the series is about Faith, Hope and Love, the building bricks of the house of our happiness. God is, I am convinced, not like human beings (whatever its shape, size and form be). It isn’t seeking happiness by making us think of it all the while. It is purely in our interest. Hence, if you want to have Faith, Hope and Love without ascribing these to God, there is nothing ungodly about it. That knowledge has also come to you from God that I believe in. I would rather thank it for these since I obtain enormous satisfaction and happiness by thanking it for it:

I am sure by now I have convinced you to subscribe to ‘Make Your Own Quotes’. What do you have to pay for the subscription? Nothing; not a cent, pence or paisa. It is totally free. All that you have to do is to like the Page and these Quotes would be delivered to your timeline automatically. You can, on the page, make your own Quotes and share these too with others. Dozens of subscribers have done it already.

At the end of the last year I wrote an article titled: ‘Debatable Philosophies of Life’. I gave you five of them that have become obsolete and don’t make sense anymore.

You may be tempted to ask as to which are the philosophies that would help you. In this article, I have listed some that have helped me.

Philosophy #1 Have a World of Your Own

This follows naturally from the first debatable philosophy: We should be selfless.

It is not possible to be selfless. Hence, make space for yourself where you are by yourself, comfortable, and without having to explain to others the why and how.

Two anecdotes shall make it clearer. One is about our cat Minnie. Out of all the toys that we have for her, she likes an empty cardboard box the first. Every once in a while she goes and sits in her box and imagines that no one can touch her there.

The second one was related to me by an ex army officer during the recent Pathankot terror attack. He told me about the time when he was in a unit in J&K engaged in anti-terrorist operations. One evening, after they returned from an encounter in which two terrorists were killed, he looked down from his room to the river bank where some children were playing in the sand. He watched them for sometime and noticed they were totally oblivious of terrorists or other distasteful things of life. It won’t have mattered to them where they were: in India or Pakistan; their play was much more important to them. It was a world of their own.

Now, I am not suggesting that you become a recluse or isolate yourself from everyone. All I am saying is that you should have a world that you can retreat into when you want.

My world, for example, has music (old Hindi songs) and writing. When I am in this world, for the duration of time that I spend here, the other world ceases to exist even with all its seemingly urgent chores, problems and tribulations.

Try it; it is not escapism. Everyone requires a world of one’s own.

Philosophy #2 Train Yourself Not To Have Regrets

I have proved it in my earlier article about Debatable Philosophies Of Life that the philosophy ‘We shouldn’t live in the past or we should forget the past’ is ludicrous, not pragmatic and is against the progress of civilization through knowledge since all knowledge is essentially past knowledge.

I have also discussed in an article called Absolute Virtue that all virtues in this universe are relative; the only absolute is God. It is the same for evils too. The realisation that neither your virtues and evils nor of any other person or persons on earth are absolute (and can only be better than some and at the same time worse than others) should automatically lead us to the pragmatism of the philosophy that I am suggesting.

Indeed, it is not just a question of more or less; sometimes, it is difficult to make out the difference between good and bad, virtue and evil. As the English say: one man’s meat is another’s poison.

Hence, whilst remembering your past (that you cannot get rid of), you don’t have to have either regrets or false pride; you can be worse off than some and better off than others.

It should also fill you with relatively guiltless existence or life. If you have consciously done what you were convinced was right and good and it actually resulted in a catastrophe for people you know or do not know, you don’t have to constantly or relentlessly curse yourself.

In one of my essays, I have brought out that when Christ on Cross said, “God, forgive them for they know not what they do”, He certainly didn’t mean it spitefully or superciliously. He was conscious that human beings will never have absolute knowledge of the cause and effect of their actions; it would be Godlike if they did.

One can, therefore, keep one’s conscience clear.

In case you haven’t trained yourself, it won’t come to you simply because I suggest. Gradually you will learn to be free of regrets and guilt-feelings. It is a great liberating feeling.

Philosophy #3 Have Least Expectations From People Close To You

You are a good man or woman and you have a world of your own and have not many regrets. However, it gnaws you a lot to know that people are both unreasonable and ungrateful. No matter what you do for them, they do not appear to have any gratefulness at all towards you.

A close friend of mine in the last one year, to his utter shock and horror, found out that the person whose career he had nurtured with his own hands for the last two decades suddenly chose to tell everyone that he had become what he had become due to his own hard-work, professionalism and vision. Now my friend is not the one who is prone to say ‘Et tu Brute’ to all those who ditched him. He is a great leader and a great realist. But, it proved to me that none of us are beyond expectations. The least that we expect is for the recipient of our goodwill to acknowledge and say, “Thank you”.

However, the realisation that being selfish is hardwired into man for his survival over centuries and that to expect a person to see things from your point of view is totally unrealistic should help us to gradually calibrate or moderate our expectations until we bring them to near zero.

Good leaders, for example, do not motivate people by just telling them what they (the leaders and the organisation) would get out of following the leaders’ schemes or plans; but, they do tell them what they (the people) would gain from them.

Your expectations of people become more realistic and viable if you are able to align them with their expectations.

Philosophy #4 Train Yourself To Be Filled With Hope

It is a four-lettered word like Life, Love and Time. Many a times when it sounds most unrealistic (a myth), start believing in it, build stories around it, relentlessly think of it and you will see it works. The fact is that the whole world is a myth too. You are what you believe you are; you see what you believe you see (Please read: ‘The Virtual World’). There is a saying that if you think of a virtue repeatedly; it would soon become yours. Hence, it is possible to be trained to become Hopeful.

Now, you are bound to argue with me that two of the failed philosophies, viz, All men are born equal, and ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ actually do not leave much room for Hope. People who are meant to get better of you will get better of you, you will argue. Very true; however, Philosophy #2 above: ‘Train Yourself Not To Have Regrets’ should, if followed correctly, should fill you with Hope. We never have complete knowledge of causes and effects concerning us. How can we have this about others? Hope is simply about the wellness of the outcome concerning you. It is not lessened by their doing well too. The more you dream it is all working out well for you, the more it fills you with Hope.

Philosophy #5 Do Not Chase Friends, Love And Happiness

All these three are a natural fallout of social existence of man. How can Happiness be a fallout of social existence, you may ask. Agree; but, chasing Happiness is. Amongst all the virtues that are relative, the one where we do most comparison is Happiness. Many a times people feel happy and content but are saddened by comparison with those that they think have more.

My close friend whom I have mentioned above in the article is fond of telling about officers feeling happy about being given Excellent grading in their annual performance review. However, such happiness is short-lived when they discover that some others whom they regarded as good-for-nothing have also obtained Excellent grading.

Chasing Happiness is like chasing a rainbow; anytime you feel it is close and you can almost touch it, it appears far away. I have come across many people who would have been happy but the chase after Happiness has left them fatigued and sad. I must have Happiness at all costs even if that makes me miserable they seem to say like the Manna De song in the 1974 movie Aavishkaar: Hansane ki chaah ne itana mujhe rulaaya hai (the longing for laughter made me cry a lot).

Chasing Friends is a hobby that one indulges in similar to collecting stamps and trophies; the more one has, the happier he or she would be. Various philosophies are thrown in such as Life without Friends is meaningless and No one understands you better than your friends.

Yes, indeed, Friends are important in one’s life. However, making Happiness dependent upon having them as friends is not called for. At the back of one’s mind should always be the thought that another person on earth is as unique as you are. No one can really be selfless; it is not in the nature of the man. People would naturally be your friends of their interests and needs coincide with yours. Chasing them won’t get you anywhere. The opposite may actually be the result.

Finally, even though Love is the best emotion on earth, chasing Love is unrealistic. It is a bird that would sit at your window when you don’t go hunting for it.

I read a poignant piece by a middle-aged lady who awaits her children visiting her in the same fashion as she used to visit and spend time with her parents. She bemoaned how the very definition of love between parents and children have changed; the latter don’t appear to have time for the former. Love demands a lot of time thinking about the loved ones and spending with them. This lady should have realised that the nature of people is always selfish; only the degree of selfishness changes with people and time. If this lady had somehow read this article and paid heed to my usable Philosophy #1 about building a world of her own whilst concentrating on building one for the children, it would have never come to this pass. Chasing Love, now, or any time isn’t going to help.

There, I have given you my short list of usable philosophies. When you do a thing over and over again, it becomes a habit. God has intended the world to be like this wherein like the earth rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun, each one of us is required to achieve perfection by repetitions. So, first time in case the practice of these philosophies do not come easily to you, do them again and again and your mind, like a trained dog, would follow your command of Go fetch it.

Best of luck.

One of the biggest truths about God’s Creation is that He/She/It made all virtues and evils Relative. The only Absolute is God Himself. Thanks to Albert Einstein, the Relativity of Time in the Universe is now somewhat well known to us. For others, please read my Absolute Virtue if you entertain any doubts.

What an essay, at the end of the year, you may remark. The fact of the matter is that end-of-the-year itself is not universal or absolute reality. It exists on Earth simply because of rotation of Earth around its axis and its revolution around the Sun. It doesn’t universally exist. It is a convenient method adopted by us to anchor our lives to a dimension called Time, which too is purely our own creation. You may argue with me that Time does exist; after all, we do get older, trains and aircraft are scheduled by hours and minutes (and sometimes seconds), we get our salaries because of it and if there was no Time, our world would collapse. Fair enough; but do remember that our invention of Time is actually an effort, on our part, to give a beginning and end to things, events and people on Earth only and has relevance only to our minuscule part of the Universe, ie, very micro part of God’s endless Creation as a whole.

One of the fundamental laws of the universe that we have discovered (not invented) is the Law of Conservation of Energy. The law of conservation of energy is a law of science that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only changed from one form into another or transferred from one object to another. This law of science is actually a pointer towards the ludicrousness of considering our self-invented dimension of Time so as to define beginning and end to things and people.

That leaves Events, Ideas, Thoughts, and Emotions. Lets take Events first. All Events actually result in Energy and Mass to be changed from one form to the other and hence it is covered in Law of Conservation of Energy. As far as Ideas, Thoughts and Emotions are concerned, we often claim to be the first person to have come up with a thought or idea; whereas, all these already exist in one form or the other. We only re-discover them. Mercifully, as far as emotions are concerned, we never claim to be the first persons to become angry, happy, fall in love with, hate etc. We have no idea how these evolved and who was the first person to get angry, love-stricken, hated or happy.

The second last thing to consider before we take up the main discussion is whether there are any universal truths, beliefs or perceptions that have withstood the test of time. There ain’t many; not even the most sacred ones. Consider that Adam and Eve were sent on the earth and they produced a  boy and a girl. For the world to progress, this boy and girl, brother and sister, that is, must have procreated amongst themselves. Likewise, hundreds of beliefs and tenets have changed over centuries. Hence, whilst there are no Absolute Truths in Space, there are none in Time too except one.

The last thing that I want to take up is the distinction between Natural and Artificial that we have made. Natural is defined as existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind. Artificial is the exact opposite of it; made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural. On the easier side is the difference between natural flowers with their texture, hues and fragrance and artificial look-alike flowers. On the complex side is the natural way (fire, flood, solar-action, wind-force etc) to convert one form of energy into another and artificial way of doing it say in lighting a bulb. It becomes even more complex when we think of the fact that human beings are part of Nature and there is nothing that they can do that has Free Will (Please read: ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become?’). Hence, if Natural is God’s Creation, accepting as something Artificial is like accepting that someone other than God can create. Let alone faith, it is against the science of law of conservation of energy. So much for the distinction between Natural and Artificial. God makes the temperature drop as we move away from the centre of the Earth (increase altitude) and away from the Sun (in earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun); that is natural. But, we, as human beings made air-conditioning (God had no role to play in it!) and made temperature fall wherever we are even when we are closest to the Sun in the orbit of the Earth. Now, that is Artificial.

With this background, lets look at some of the debatable philosophies of life; I call all our philosophies as philosophies of convenience to serve specific purposes or objectives. Lets examine if these are anachronisms.

Philosophy #1 We Should Be Selfless

An ideal man, it is said, is the one who is selfless. To start with, if you read ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent We Can Become?’, you would know that to be completely selfless (without ‘haume’ as Guru Granth Sahib calls it) is to find and merge with param atma. Therefore, we can only be partially selfless.

Now, lets examine how being selfless is against the grain of human nature (what a word, you may say, when seen in the light of the discussion on Natural and Artificial.

Every instinct and every reflex action of a human being, over generations and centuries, is honed towards self-preservation and survival. Indeed, Men have come up with Herculean efforts, brave and courageous acts that we have admired in furtherance of their survival instincts.

You take away self from Man and he merges with Param Atma. That means that it is not possible to be absolutely selfless for a man. Would that really be the purpose of Life that God sent us on this earth and we should always be doing everything to merge back with Him? We can only be partially selfless. However, in the bigger definition of selflessness, to do something for the betterment of one’s soul, family, nation and world still has the element of haume’ about it; one does it because it is one’s own. There is still me and mine involved in it. A mother, for example, does everything for her child; it would be somewhat more selfless if she did for other than her own child. It would be somewhat more selfless if she did it without thinking of gains for her own soul.

Philosophy #2 We Should Not Live In The Past or We Should Forget The Past

All our knowledge is in the past. The world is made safer, securer and better place to live in because of past knowledge. And yet, many of those who have the best interests of our society in mind routinely tell us to forget the past.

In our survival instincts, we are hard wired to remember the past and learn from it. We don’t have to, for example, die ourselves to learn the horrors of dying. We have knowledge of people dying and we consciously avoid all those things that can kill us; say, for example, jumping from high-rise buildings.

Think of how dangerous the world would become if all of us we were to forget the past and start discovering everything afresh. Think of how lost we would be if we were to start with a clean slate everyday or every hour. In this case, Ignorance will not be bliss.

There are people and countries such as Taliban in Afghanistan who tried to bury the past. But, these generally have disastrous results.

Another connected advice or philosophy is to live in the present. It is like living in a house made of just one straw. That’s exactly what Present is; a fleeting moment that becomes past like a bubble in a pond. Trying to capture the Present is like holding this bubble in the palm of one’s hand.

Lastly, the Past also enables us to provide an anchor to excel. So, if you are trying to break the world record in high jump, and you have been jumping, say, 6 feet, you are able to make out the gap that you must fill. Other people’s similar feats also enable us to emulate and excel.

Philosophy #3 All Men Are Born Equal

Of all the hogwash that is dished by those who are adept at making feel-good philosophies, this takes the cake.

Millions of years ago when Life started on earth, it is possible that God may have made all men equal. However, over all these years, generational and genetic memory ensured that each became unique and different. It is for this reason that even though the DNA of even twins at birth is the same, it undergoes changes as they grow up and their children do not have the same DNA.

This philosophy of convenience actually fills us with hope that we have the same chances of succeeding as, say, Bill Gates or Narendra Modi.

Every once in a while we have success stories from those who were not born with silver spoons in their mouths but did well through sheer grit and commitment. The fact is that if similar grit and commitment were displayed by the ones born with silver spoons, it would be a totally different story.

Now, I am not suggesting that it should fill each of us with defeatism that we were not born of the same mould as Ambanis or Birlas. All I am saying here is that it is okay to make peace with one’s circumstances dictated by generations of data-memory and move on to do one’s best to achieve the best under the circumstances.

Philosophy #4 As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

There is absolutely no proof of this philosophy except in folklore. It appears to be a plaintive cry for divine justice by the meek and the downtrodden and fills him with hope when he sees that the thugs, ruffians, and cheaters in the world seem to be doing well in comparison to the good guys. The latter imagine the former burning in the fires of the hell and paying for their sins.

In South India there is a respectable chain of restaurants. At the entrance of these restaurants is a picture of the founder with huge sandalwood garland around it. You are filled with great respect for the man whose vision, sagacity and generosity enabled him to set up mass eating joints at affordable prices. Decades later many had forgotten that he had spent time in jail for making counterfeit money and that he was enjoying the fruits of his earlier labour after his jail term.

These days, the rich and the influential don’t even have to go to jail before enjoying the fruits of their deceit and swindles.

In a recent article titled ‘Is Truth Worth Fighting For?’ I had concluded that all that the conscientious and the saintly do get is the hope that, in the end, they would die happily. So the reward for them to have spent their lives in constant toil and misery is the promise of happiness when the body and soul part. Some compensation that.

Most people are nowadays already aware of it and leave the count of those that live wretchedly but are promised happy deaths.

When the evil don’t appear to be getting just punishments, we cover it up by saying that someone somewhere in one of their previous lives has done something good or that they would suffer in their next lives.

The charade goes on.

It is absolutely debatable whether your deeds, good or bad, will repay you in kind.

It is time we found a new philosophy.

Philosophy #5 Religions Started Centuries Back Should Be Preserved Till The End of the World

Lastly, all present major religions in the world are based on the premise that God or Son of God arrived in this world only during a certain period of time in history, started the religion for all times to come and all those who are loyal adherents of these religions are pious and righteous. The rest are as good or bad as pagans. God will one day punish the non-believers.

The followers of all major religions also believe in and practice the philosophy that even violence and war, in the name of God and Religion are just and justified. Hence, Religion and God are worth laying down lives for – one’s own and those of one’s enemies.

Lastly, the followers of all major religions in the world believe that since the founders of the religions were God or descendants, these have been writ in stone and nothing in these should ever change.

In my ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’ I had brought out that when, for example, Mohammad told his followers that men should marry many women, he had in mind the war widows of the 7th century AD in Arabia who were young and required shelters, which could be provided to them if men married them. He won’t have made this as a law for all times to come.

There, I have given you at least five philosophies and beliefs that are debatable and suffer from obsolescence. Let me hear your views, if you so desire, in the comments below.

Beliefs, perceptions and philosophies take a long time changing. Why, even expressions do. We still use the expression, for example, skeletons in the cupboard though the last person to see them must have been a hundred years ago.

It is high time we change them in keeping with the modern times. Please remember that when religions were founded they changed the existing beliefs and philosophies of those times. It can’t, therefore, be sacrilegious to do so.

Happy new year 2016 to all my readers and friends.

It suddenly appeared across the hill, across the river and the rocks. Before it appeared in its seven visible vibgyor colours, there was a wedding of giddad-giddadi (he and she jackal); as was the folklore to describe rain and sun appearing together.

It appeared so near and yet so far. As a young boy I ran after it, to catch it in my little soiled hands, to bathe in its vivid hues, even to climb up and look down on the world through its prism. At that time it appeared far; it was near when I didn’t want to own it, when I wasn’t very conscious of its existence; it was far when it crept over my consciousness, when I wanted to hold it and possess it.

I have had the same experience with Time.

Before I lost myself in the rapid whirlpool of later-life Time, it flowed like a gentle stream. Indeed, at times it stood still and placid like a pond, like a lake. I didn’t know how much of it I had but it appeared vast, endless, infinite.

I played lukan-chhipi (hide n seek) with my friends and graduated to marbles, gilli-danda, football and cricket. I was small but Time was big. It was everywhere and totally free. I bought kaafal (a type of berry sold near my school, Vijay High School, Mandi), ice on stick, and an anna a booklet of film-songs lyrics. But, I never had to buy Time.

Perhaps because it was freely available, I didn’t place too much of value on it. As a young boy, I read Herman Wouk’s Caine Mutiny and as was normal for me during those days, finished it in a night’s time. How much I still remember; I am surprised. “Wasted hours” it said somewhere in the book, “Are just as painful in the beginning as in the end; only, in the end, it becomes more apparent”.

And now, looking back in time, that halcyon period of my life, when I had all the Time in the world, passed so quickly. I never tried to catch it but it appeared and disappeared like a rainbow; it was here a moment ago: red, orange, yellow and so on and now it is gone; not even the fading colours beyond violet and below red are there now.

Last to last night I saw the Hindi movie Maya that I wanted to see with its beautiful Salil da numbers based on Western classical music beats: Tasveer teri dil mein, jis din se banaayi hai and Jaa re jaa re udd jaa re panchhi. It turned out to be a trash movie and I rued the two and a half hours’ time that I wasted watching it. Two and half hours; in my boyhood days, I used to spend many times that time just day dreaming, writing worthless poetry or catching butterflies.

It is the same sand, passing through the same small opening in the hour-glass; why does it appear to be draining out much faster now? There appears to be lots to do and very little Time to do it. How do I slow it down? Should I catch it now before it gets still faster and makes me akin to a twig being pushed through the flow against my wish? Did I ever have the power to slow it, to stop it; if not to reverse it? Could I have ever caught the rainbow?

I don’t even think about how it would have been if I had thought, planned and done things differently. I am not even filled with ‘If Only’ regrets. But, it still gnaws me to think about whether I ever had the power to do things independently in my own way or whether I have been in a puppet in the hands of Time, trying to catch rainbows and doing things what have been writ for me including writing this article?

ज़िन्दगी में
ज़िन्दगी की तलाश में
ज़िन्दगी को पाने के लिए
कहाँ कहाँ नहीं गया?
क्या क्या ना किया?
पल पल, छिन छिन,
ज़िन्दगी मोम की तरह
पिघलती रही
ना जाने क्या थी?
ना जाने क्या है?
चंद लम्हे और मिल जाते
लौ कुछ और देर जलती
फिर क्या होता?
वक़्त का सितम
ठहर जाता क्या?
यादों के मरहले
खड़े होके क्या ना बिखरते?
कौस-ओ-क़ज़ाह
हाथ में आ जाता क्या?
ख्वाब की
ख़याल की
सराब की
असलियत समझ आ जाती क्या?
किस को मिली है आज़ादी
वक़्त की ज़ंजीरों से?
कौन समझा  है?

Zindagi mein
Zindagi ki talaash mein
Zindagi ko paane ke liye
Kahaan kahaan nahin gaya?
Kyaa kyaa na kiyaa?
Pal pal, chhin chhin,
Zindagi mome ki tarah
Pighalti rahi.
Naa jaane kyaa thi?
Naa jaane kyaa hai?
Chand lamhe aur mil jaate
Lau kuchh aur der jalati
Phir kyaa hota?
Waqt ka sitam
Thehar jaata kyaa?
Yaadon ke marhale
Khade hoke kyaa na bikharte?
Qous-o-qazah
Haath mein aa jaata kyaa?
Khwaab ki
Khayaal ki
Saraab ki
Asleeyat samajh aa jaati kyaa?
Kis ko mili hai azaadi
Waqt ki zanjeeron se?
Kaun samajha hai?

There is no stronger and more wide-spread philosophy than the Philosophy of Convenience. Indeed, I have proved it in another article: ‘How Innocent Or Unbiased We Can Get?’ that there is only one way to get pure innocence or pure un-bias and that is the Concept of Free Will, which can be achieved only outside this universe. We have self or as Sri Guru Granth sahib calls ‘haume’ writ large on the footprints of our lives.  None of us can hope to get out of this loop of seeking something for ourselves, our interests, our family interests, our community, village, town, nation; indeed anything that is ours.

The Philosophy of Our Convenience was born the day Self, Ego, ‘haume’ ‘my or mine’ were born; ie, the day the universe was created. Lets take the Concept of Happiness for example and lets say you are one of those self-sacrificing saints who does ‘everything’ for others’ happiness. In the end, you still have to reckon with this claim: “It gives me happiness to make others happy.” There is no way you can take ‘me’ out of even seemingly ‘selfless’ deeds.

One fallout of this ‘Philosophy of Convenience’ is that most – if not all – of us wish to be regarded as virtuous, no matter what we are doing. The reason is that most – if not all – of us feel that people when they look at our deeds they don’t really understand what goes through our minds when we do what we do. At other times, we detest the tendency in people to misread the thoughts of our minds and give them a different colour than the one we had intended. And the best part is that our intention is also dynamic that keeps pace with our current and ever-changing philosophy of how to be virtuous and seen as virtuous.

Our collective and generational philosophy of convenience made us invent the following (Read: ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’, ‘The Virtual World’ and ‘Absolute Virtue’):

• God.
• Religion.
• Good, Bad, Virtuous and Evil.
• Time.

Each one of these were and is necessary for community or societal living. The first three are easy to understand as the products of our desire to make rules about our lives in a society or community. The last one is also not difficult to comprehend: we invented Time only for our part of the Universe, ie, one rotation of the Earth around the Sun would be 24 hours and during the revolution of the Earth in an orbit around the Sun seasons would be there depending upon if the Earth is closer to the Sun (Summer) in its elliptical orbit, or away (Winter). Living in a society on Earth, Time and Seasons help us to convert a Relative Phenomenon (Time is dependent upon the velocity of light) into an Absolute one; so much so that we tick off people who are late for work by a few minutes; or, call it a New Year at the stroke of midnight, wherever we are.

The Philosophy of Hindu Religion is that God is beyond all emotions, biases and Time; and that if we are to be one with God, we have to detach ourselves from all worldly feelings, possessions, time and even thoughts. Finding Paramatama, therefore, calls for rising above – what we call as – worldly feelings and thoughts, needs and desires. In Sri Guru Granth Sahib this condition is called ‘Jeevatya marna’ (to kill (all worldly thoughts whilst living one’s life). Total abnegation of all worldly things and total surrender to the will of God is the biggest philosophy of convenience that we have derived for ourselves. Let us examine the lines in Sri Guru Granth Sahib:

[lineate]जो नर दुख में दुख नहिं मानै। [/lineate][lineate]सुख सनेह अरु भय नहिं जाके, कंचन माटी जानै।। [/lineate][lineate]नहिं निंदा नहिं अस्तुति जाके, लोभ-मोह अभिमाना। [/lineate][lineate]हरष शोक तें रहै नियारो, नाहिं मान-अपमाना।। [/lineate][lineate]आसा मनसा सकल त्यागि के, जग तें रहै निरासा। [/lineate][lineate]काम, क्रोध जेहि परसे नाहीं, तेहि घट ब्रह्म निवासा।। [/lineate][lineate]गुरु किरपा जेहि नर पै कीन्हीं, तिन्ह यह जुगुति पिछानी। [/lineate][lineate]नानक लीन भयो गोबिंद सों, ज्यों पानी सों पानी।। [/lineate]

It says, in simple words, with the blessing of the Guru, the person who realises and keeps himself away from worldly feelings and things, understands the Creation, and becomes one with his/her Creator just as Water merges with Water.

When we examine the Truth of this advice we realise that being beyond lust, anger, greed, belongingness, sorrow, grief, shame and pride brings us closer to our inner self and hence to God. Lets say because of one’s lust a son is born and one feels a sense of fulfillment and pride in having an intelligent son; one gets angry or ashamed when he does something wrong and one is full of greed for him to do well in life. However, he is killed in an accident and one is full of intense and indescribable grief and helplessness and even frustration with God for being unnatural in recalling the son before the father. That’s the time when the wise and the saintly, through collective and generational philosophy of convenience tell you the following:

• He was never yours (Only God owns everything and everybody) so why are you sorrowful?
• God’s creation never dies and hence your son is reborn as someone else’s son now.
• Grief and sorrow, just like happiness and pride are worldly feelings and God keeps giving us periodic hints to rise above these.
• Look at the entire srishti (Creation or Universe) as your own and you will realise that you neither gained anything when you had him nor lost anything when he went away.
• God loves us all and will never do anything to sadden us; it is just that understanding of His ways is beyond us all.

Various rituals were and are born out of this philosophy of convenience. In my village in Punjab, women from neighbouring houses and families used to congregate at the house of a family whereat someone had died and they would beat their chests and do maatam (mourning) so as to help the bereaved to take out intense feelings of grief at their loss. Death is not seen as the final “end”, but is seen as a turning point in the seemingly endless journey of the indestructible “atman” or soul through innumerable bodies of animals and people. Hence, Hinduism prohibits excessive mourning or lamentation upon death, as this can hinder the passage of the departed soul towards its journey ahead: “As mourners will not help the dead in this world, therefore (the relatives) should not weep, but perform the obsequies to the best of their power.” The period of mourning, therefore, last until 13 days and has various stages such as Uthala (Rising), and Chautha (fourth day).

Now what if we have all got it wrong? What if God had given us various feelings and thoughts to face them and not to run away from them? A strangely rebellious thought? No, on the other hand, it is realisation of the fact that nothing can be created by anyone other than by God, if there is one. If He is the all-powerful and the only Creator than He alone made all worldly things, feelings and thoughts. Lets say, over a period of Time (our own invention; else, it doesn’t exist), since the beginning of the Earth, we, human beings, intensified these feelings a hundred times and brought newer thoughts and biases to these. However, nothing can be created out of nothingness; sometime or the other, however weak, these feelings originated and would have been given to us by God. We worship Earth, Sky, Water, Fire etc because these are God’s creations. However, why does our philosophy of convenience goads us to run away from emotions, feelings, thoughts etc in order to discover Him? Did God create these as obstacles so that we’d cross these and then find Him; a sort of cosmic Hide and Seek?

And who are we trying to please by abnegating these God’s creations? Our God, and for the good of our soul. I think the dichotomy lies in the fact that the world has evolved as a society or community whereas such abnegation makes us do something only for one person or one soul that is our own. Where do you want to stay; as an ascetic in the hills and caves or as a social being in the world?

Don’t seek God, therefore, for yourself and for the peace of your soul. It is a downright selfish and un-godly feeling. Seek kindness, and goodness for another person, another soul and leave the rest to God to give your just reward or punishment.

Let alone run away from feelings, thoughts and emotions; I am suggesting that you own someone’s loss, feel his or her grief, face his anger, pride and greed and be kind to him or her rather than at all times being worried about obtaining Paramatama for yourself.

Three years back, Mr. NR Narayana Murthy, the founder chairman of Infosys gave a speech at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, on 09 Oc 2009. The speech was titled ‘Learning From The West’. It is worth reading this speech and I have given you the link. See what a shift of philosophy from the individual to the society can do for us Hindus. It is the need of the hour; we need it more than at any time in our history.