True Love...

True Love...

Remember!

If your love for someone is true,

Then there is already a clear knowing of that person in you;

Where there is a clear knowing,

There is always a better understanding already in you;

You can’t have a better understanding,

Unless you had already seen that person clearly;

Where there is a clearer sight,

There is hardly a room for doubt;

But,

If there are doubts,

Then know that the love in your heart is not true;

These doubts will lead you to anguish,

And Anguish will eventually eat up your inner freedom;

Thus,

Whenever you have doubts,

Just be aware that you doubt;

And handle with someone,

Whose love for you has no bounds;

He is none but ONE
Who never had or will never have a doubt about you,

No matter who you were, what you are, and how you become;

He is your Creator Whom you often doubt and question,

Yet, whose love for you is indeed true,

And whose love knows no end.

         While life sustains honour, honour makes life worth living. It seems that there is a reciprocal relation between these two dimensions. Nevertheless, there is a marked distinction between them. While life survives even if it is not honoured, honour goes nonexistent in the absence of life. Then, what honour does a person gain by sabotaging his fellow human being?  How does a gotra preserve its honour by annihilating its own members? What is so honourable in Killing?

When the prince of Verona declared death penalty against the families of Romeo and Juliet, he did it with the intention of putting an end to the long running Montague/Capulet feud. But today, when the self-claimed, authoritarian, no-women-all-men panchayats issue their diktats against modern Romeos and Juliets, it is not because to put an end to caste (or gotra) division or rivalry distance that exists between them, but to reinforce it further through social alienation and excommunication often end up with barbaric assault and total annihilation. Is it what they mean by “honour killing”?

Then, why do we nail Hitler for ages in the history? Had he not done what he thought was right to protect honour? Are not our dictatorial Khap punchayats worse than Hitler? If honour is the sole reason for killing, then why only inter-caste or inter-religious marriages alone pay the prize? Why do we not line up all the prisnors and shoot them one by one for they have brought dishonour to our family, gotra, parampara, caste, Varna and entire nation?

“Honour killing” (or still worse “honour crime”), which is operated on the above mentioned key values- life and honour, is highly paradoxical that even the parliament of India has failed to define it yet. But, the perpetrators of this anti-life evil seem to know it well. Their stained swords and knives seem to have understood it fine. Victims of this brutal carnage are found in the soil of Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, rural Delhi and in south India, mainly Tamil Nadu, with no exception in Kolkata and Maharashtra.

When Rizwanur Rahman was cold bloodedly killed in Kolkata in September 2007, the plot had been undertaken by his Hindu-wife-priyanka’s father in cooperation with state law makers and their protectors to protect the honour of his family and status. When Manoj and Baoli couple was brutally tortured and killed in Kaithal district, Haryana in July 2007, and Ved Pal Maun, a 27 year old medical practitioner, was assassinated in Jind district, Haryana two years later in July 2009, diktats had been issued by respective Khap panchayats to protect the honour of their respective gotras. When Ravinder singh and family were blood-bathed in Maharashtra in may 1999, and Babitha, a 19 year old girl, was cold bloodedly massacre with her lover and his brother in Etah district in Uttar Pradesh in November 2008, diktats had been issued and executed by girl’s father to protect the honour of their families. When Delhi based Ravinder Gehlout, from Gehlout gotra, attempted suicide by consuming poison because he was denied his married Shilpa, from Kadym gotra in panipat district, just as Romeo from Montague family was denied his love, Juliet from Capulet family, and consumed poison, Honour killing, the Indian version of Romeo Juliet, made Shakespeare’s words come true: “The world is a stage and we are actors and actresses in it”

If Shakespeare were to be born today, will he be contented with the modifications done to his original version Romeo and Juliet? Or will he regret for setting an example, so influential and applicable? While Romeo and Juliet was based on the principle ‘live together or die together’, what principle the Indian edition of it is based on? Who to be blamed now, Shakespeare or khap panchayats?

What Do I Desire The Most In Life?

What Do I Desire The Most In Life? 

          

            My religion teacher, a good Catholic Nun, asked me once: “Do you eat to live or live to eat?”. That in fact was the fist time in my life I felt that my purpose of living was questioned in a way I could cot excape from answering. I felt the urgeed to come up with a compulsory and convincing philosophy in life. I believe that everyone has to answer such similar existential questions in life at one point or another: ‘What am I doing on earth?’ or ‘What is the point of life?’ or ‘Is there any purpose to life?’

        Religion and spirituality in general deal with the ultimate concerns of people trying to illuminate upon some of the most profound queries of human beings such as the origin of life. As a result, one of the functions of any religious belief system or a spiritual worldview is to provide “an ultimate vision of what people should be striving for in their lives” (Pargament & Park, 1995, p. 15), and the strategies to reach those ends. Accordingly, our concerns, priorities and goals are signature determinants of our overall quality of life.

                One's progression toward and possession of these important life goals become essential for his or her both well-being and positive attitude towards life. At first glance, it might seem odd to speak of religious or spiritual goals in the same way one talks about carrier goals, health goals, and financial goals, etc. Sigmand Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung, three leading psychologists of the 20^thcentury, have different views about man’s striving. Accordingly, in the final analysis, for Freud, ‘people are hungry for love’. While for Adler, 'people are hungry for significance', for Jung, people are hungry for security. 

              However, we speak quite openly as well as increasingly today about one's 'spiritual quest' as an indeapth search into that sacred lieu which fills and satisfies one's 'existential vacuum'. To that extent, one can say that religious or spiritual goals are a person's internal desires towards that which he or she regards as the ultimate and, therefore, is voluntarily committed. In the 1980s and 1990s, when psychology saw an explosion of inventories in the field of religion, spirituality was defined as “a way of being and experiencing that which comes about through awareness of a transcendent dimension and that is characterised by certain identifiable values in regard to self, others, nature, life, and whatever one considers to be Ultimate” (Elkins, 1988, p.10). The multilevel approach to spirituality by Robert A. Emmons assumes that spirituality is multidimensional and is related to people’s subjective experience in distinct, though related, ways.

            So, why do I live for? What is my ultimate purpose in life? What do I desire the most in life? Is it love as Freud says, or significance as Adler says, or security as Jung says? Or, is it radically a different thing altogether, the one who says "I am the Bread of life", as he alone can quenche all quests in life for once and for all.