Are we religious?
We are very lucky to live in the era where we can proclaim to be whatever we wish without having to pass muster. One of the most coveted positions to be held is 'to be religious'. Yes, we all stand unitedly religious!
Once we call ourselves religious there is no need to justify ourselves. But some things are worth struggling for. For instance, what is the source of our religion? Oh, we have so many sources to make our religion stand on the strongest foundation possible! We have fear, faith, dogma, fantasy & of course we also have identity. All of these have such tremendous credentials that we will be called cowards if we fail to discuss these. Let's talk about these sources.
Fear...fear of what? Fear of God? Does God want us to be scared of him? If yes then why? Because he wants us to be scared of ourselves? Does our conduct call it necessary to be scared of someone? Is it a prerequisite to be so miserably disconnected with ourselves to call ourselves religious?
Faith...faith in what? Faith in God? The Almighty? Then why we need to fight to protect him if we have faith in our Almighty? Do we need violence to own the religion? Does violence supersede faith? Or is it faith in 'dogma' to keep our universe in order? Surely life is so easy that way, we need not make an effort to seek the way of living!
Fantasy...fantasy to secure a high place in the world of religion! We all want to be a part of the elite group. We never know when the responsibility of the guardian of our religion confers upon us! God bless us, we are not taking any chance here!
Identity....such an important thing to be accepted in the society of God! Identity of security, identity of stability, identity of convergence. We are not fools to lose such a beautiful thing called identity...the whole purpose of our lives!
We are so logical in our argument that it won't be fair if we undermine the force fighting our religion...the force called integrity! Integrity doesn't believe in our religion. It doesn't uphold the foundation of our religion. It believes in only one thing...the style of a soul....which is reflected in your every thought, every emotion, every action...the constant connection between you & your soul. There is no room for excuses, choice, justification. It doesn't understand our sources of religion as it is to be so blissfully intact in past, present, future that it can only be indifferent to your & my religion. It only understands its purpose, its intelligence, its method. It hates incompetence & it is incapable of living second-hand. Integrity doesn't need any means as it is an end in itself. Nothing & nobody can distort it.
Fortunately it is not glamourous enough to preach anything. Only one thing can define it & that is the undercurrent. Great! We are safe! But hold on...let's not go overboard, there is more than meets the eye. The anticlimax is that the integrity is utterly impervious to our world of religion! It can only think, it can't follow. It can only judge, it can't obey. It can only create, it can't borrow. What an obnoxious thing! It deserves nothing less than our hatred! So let's come together & hate it! Whoopee! We now have one more source for our religion! Thank God we are religious!
DEEPALI S. BASUR
Co-founder & Chief Editor,
www.ethinksharp.com, an e-magazine dedicated to the 'YOUTH'.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
At last it's light..........
It was quiet...it was dark...he was still there..standing by the window..all alone for hours together. It was not what he thought it would be. It wasn't creepy either. He was there..alive,alert,aware..totally in that moment! He started wondering why he was not feeling lonely, why he was not feeling scared, why he was not feeling disturbed..suddenly he realised something had stopped bothering him all at once. The fight started again. What was it? What had stopped bothering him?
He started speaking but not in the manner he had been doing it so far. There were no words. There was no audience and there was no form of speech. It was only the awareness that he was speaking in order to seek an answer. The answer which he could only see, feel and laugh at! The answer too simple to be framed in words! He knew that the most difficult thing in life is to find the simple truth. But he had no other choice but to find it. He had awfully escaped it enough only to realize that it was too real to escape!
The struggle was intensely fought. The journey was a long one. But what really made it an experience of life for him was the fact that the war was not with the outer world,it was indeed with the inner world...the war between 'be' and 'become'. He took that journey making an erroneous assumption that the distance was very short, the distance of only four letters. Alas! He was proved wrong.There was no distance! He was so oblivious to it that he had to glorify it as an 'inflexion point' in life! What a misery it is to be so dishonest with yourself!
He has finally arrived here. He doesn't know if it is an ultimate joy of self-assurance or an indifference arising out of clean emptiness of mind and heart! But he does know one thing that he is happy now..much different from others, not because he has got what it takes to make someone 'happy' if you were only to define 'happiness' to adorn it. In fact, the opposite is true. He is standing on the last point of the line. The line is complete, he has nothing now....
He is fundamentally incapable of becoming anything now. He has found himself...all of it! He is too small to allow any 'become'. There can never be any 'become'. He is just himself! The journey ends finally..which probably never existed!
DEEPALI S. BASUR
Co-founder & Chief Editor,
www.ethinksharp.com, an e-magazine dedicated to the 'YOUTH'.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Lame to think?
Lame to think?
Well, on the eve of completion of 61 years of independence of India, we have so many achievements to be proud of. It is a very interesting exercise to prepare the Balance Sheet of the country on its independence day.Our focus always tends to be on tallying it but hold on…Are we doing justice to the ‘tacit’ entries?
The most important things for any nation are growth and development. True, there is no need to talk about India’s growth story. The transformation from the Bharat’s growth rate to the Indian growth rate is definitely worth treating as a gospel truth. But are we equally confident about the ‘development’ saga? There is no other country as perfect as India to study this ‘dialectical materialism’!
The development starts with the most precious resource of the nation and that is human resource. For human beings to flourish we need both physical infrastructure and social infrastructure. While physical infrastructure is taken care of in growth, social infrastructure often fails to grab the spotlight.
Social infrastructure is defined to include material things like education, healthcare, employment etc. Quality and nature of people are largely shaped up by these things. But are we truly ‘empowered’ today to think independently? Apparently, the current generation lacks the direction, depth and devotion for flawless thinking in terms of decision making. Does only financial independence at a very early age makes them subservient to money as their think-tank or is it our fundamental incapability which stops us from evolving in true sense?
Today, we live under conditions that are drastically different from our ancestors. External environment has changed most of the things practically but we are still left with the strategic rigidity when it comes to making our own choices based on an impeccable thinking process. The answer lies neither in our ancestors nor in the current generation, it lies in our pattern of upbringing.
In those good old days all the family decisions would be made by the family head and no one would desist from the norm in an attempt to conform to the ‘value system’ which unfortunately got skewed by the ‘respect’ factor. We could never allow the thinking process to grow, to flourish and most importantly to stay intact. Today, things have changed externally but internally it is still the same. Even today, we are scared to stand out as a maverick. Even today, we feel secure to call such a behaviour taboo. Even today, we are lame to think! The only difference is that the place of our so-called ‘value system’ is hijacked by the financial independence. Today, we strive to achieve the behavioural pattern which is convenient, suitable and most importantly ‘respected’ in the world of financial independence.
We need to be truly liberated from all kinds of shackles in the path of evolution of human beings to call our nation independent. So let’s free ourselves from all fears, doubts, conventions. Let’s dare to think…about ourselves, our society, our nation, our neighbours, our universe and most importantly the need to ‘think’!.....
DEEPALI S. BASUR
Co-founder & Chief Editor,
www.ethinksharp.com, an e-magazine dedicated to the 'YOUTH'.
Well, on the eve of completion of 61 years of independence of India, we have so many achievements to be proud of. It is a very interesting exercise to prepare the Balance Sheet of the country on its independence day.Our focus always tends to be on tallying it but hold on…Are we doing justice to the ‘tacit’ entries?
The most important things for any nation are growth and development. True, there is no need to talk about India’s growth story. The transformation from the Bharat’s growth rate to the Indian growth rate is definitely worth treating as a gospel truth. But are we equally confident about the ‘development’ saga? There is no other country as perfect as India to study this ‘dialectical materialism’!
The development starts with the most precious resource of the nation and that is human resource. For human beings to flourish we need both physical infrastructure and social infrastructure. While physical infrastructure is taken care of in growth, social infrastructure often fails to grab the spotlight.
Social infrastructure is defined to include material things like education, healthcare, employment etc. Quality and nature of people are largely shaped up by these things. But are we truly ‘empowered’ today to think independently? Apparently, the current generation lacks the direction, depth and devotion for flawless thinking in terms of decision making. Does only financial independence at a very early age makes them subservient to money as their think-tank or is it our fundamental incapability which stops us from evolving in true sense?
Today, we live under conditions that are drastically different from our ancestors. External environment has changed most of the things practically but we are still left with the strategic rigidity when it comes to making our own choices based on an impeccable thinking process. The answer lies neither in our ancestors nor in the current generation, it lies in our pattern of upbringing.
In those good old days all the family decisions would be made by the family head and no one would desist from the norm in an attempt to conform to the ‘value system’ which unfortunately got skewed by the ‘respect’ factor. We could never allow the thinking process to grow, to flourish and most importantly to stay intact. Today, things have changed externally but internally it is still the same. Even today, we are scared to stand out as a maverick. Even today, we feel secure to call such a behaviour taboo. Even today, we are lame to think! The only difference is that the place of our so-called ‘value system’ is hijacked by the financial independence. Today, we strive to achieve the behavioural pattern which is convenient, suitable and most importantly ‘respected’ in the world of financial independence.
We need to be truly liberated from all kinds of shackles in the path of evolution of human beings to call our nation independent. So let’s free ourselves from all fears, doubts, conventions. Let’s dare to think…about ourselves, our society, our nation, our neighbours, our universe and most importantly the need to ‘think’!.....
DEEPALI S. BASUR
Co-founder & Chief Editor,
www.ethinksharp.com, an e-magazine dedicated to the 'YOUTH'.
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