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Friday,
August 24, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Other face of Tehelka Pak move
against militants
Changing
colours of the media |
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My ghost
writer
Lok Pal:
America has something to teach us
Wrongs
and rights in perspective
Humorous
story turns residents sour
|
Other face of Tehelka Armsgate has grown one more arm, a weak one but very freak one. The portal has obviously offered the services of sex workers to two senior Army officers and one of them happily availed of it while the other “did not have the mind”. This tactic is totally unethical and disgusting. News-gathering should not include the odious task of summoning the services of call girls to lend a hand. Some one has dug up this nugget of information from the voluminous transcript of the 100-hour long tapes and leaked it to a newspaper that has a reputation of enthusiastically lighting unlit corners of major controversies. A day later another newspaper has come out with a clerical evaluation of the tapes and the transcript and picked a few pin-head holes. A pattern is slowly evolving. Exploit the call girls’ angle to destroy the credibility of the Tehelka expose and work for the public rejection of the authentic charges. This speculation is substantiated by the initial reaction of the Samata Party which took major hits after the scandal broke out. Its spokesman, the normally suave Shambhu Shrivastava, described the dot.com journalists as a bunch of criminals, pimps and blackmailers. He was merely giving expression to his party’s thirst for revenge for the expose rather than its acumen to think logically and react sensibly. Today there are two aspects to the tehelka.com tapes. The first is the extent of corruption in defence deals and purchase of spare parts. This is for real. Even if Tehelka is discredited, its core findings will retain their credit. To put it differently, the journalists may have been guilty of transgressing professional ethics and the normally observed restraints. This is totally unacceptable. But the bigger picture that emerges from the tapes is the porous morality of the defence and defence-related political establishment and some Army officers. The sex workers’ part may damn the dot.com but so it would the attitude of officers. If the portal produces evidence that the two Army officers indeed sought the services of call girls, the corruption case will acquire a grim angle. This is not a case of entrapment where an official is induced to commit a crime thinking that he is safe but later finds that he has sunk deep into legal mire. Americans call this a sting operation or honey trap, persuading a girl to befriend a senior officer to spill out sensitive secrets or help in the sealing of a big deal. Tehelka’s is investigative reporting gone astray on the means but right on the spot on the ends. The Venkataswami Commission should ignore the sensational interlude and concentrate on cleaning up the corrupt stables. |
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Pak move against militants When the successive regimes in Pakistan encouraged the setting up of terrorist training camps for the proxy war in India's Jammu and Kashmir, they did not realise that they were patronising a two-edged weapon. After a few years the country began to receive the wages of its own sins. In its place of birth terrorism manifested itself in the form of sectarian and ethnic killings. First it made life miserable for people in Karachi, Hyderabad and other areas of Sind province. Then it spread its roots to Punjab and other provinces. For a few years there have been efforts to give the heinous act religious sanctity. And thus was born the jehadi culture. Now shedding of innocent blood was justified if the victim belonged to a different sect or ethnic group. Among the active sectarian killer groups are the Sipah-e-Sahaba, the Sipah-e-Mohammed, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Tehrik-e-Jafferia Pakistan. The sponsorship of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Al-Badr Mujahideen, etc. specifically for the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir, worsened the situation. All of them began to collect funds from the public by using both fair and foul means, and displaying of unlicensed arms was treated as a matter of pride. The Pervez Musharraf government's campaign against these outfits is too late in the day even if it is genuine. Over the years the killer outfits have spread their tentacles throughout the length and breadth of Pakistan. They have their pockets of following. It is not so easy to destroy them root and branch. Any strong action against them may boomerang if not taken tactfully. That is why, perhaps, the military regime has launched a crackdown only on the militant outfits but not the fundamentalist organisations holding their umblical chord. Probably the government is testing the waters before moving further. But one can think of such a possibility only if the intentions are honest. If the idea is only to demonstrate before the world community that the Pakistan government has nothing to do with terrorism ( its another name is jehadism) and that it has initiated measures to eliminate it, then the military regime is only fooling itself. President Musharraf will find it difficult to satisfy world leaders during his next month's visit to New York on the occasion of the UN General Assembly session if his drive against the terrorists of various hues does not show results in Jammu and Kashmir more than in Pakistan. Islamabad desperately needs international help for improving its economic health. The jehadi culture has led to a serious law and order problem and in such an atmosphere few multinational companies are interested in risking their funds in Pakistan. There is also an unending flight of talent owing to an acute lack of security as during the past few years 63 doctors and 34 lawyers have been done to death by
militants. It is time the military regime realised that the monster of terrorism was nobody's friend and it must be eliminated as a matter of policy. |
Changing colours of the media There has of late been considerable criticism of the way the Indian media has conducted itself on various matters of vital importance, especially during and after the flop show of the India-Pakistan summit at Agra. Is this criticism warranted? This in itself is a tedious question. For, no objective test has been evolved on what is right and what is wrong. The whole issue has got further complicated because the old order on news and views is undergoing a change. With this have come highly disturbing aberrations in the value system and the yardsticks of objectivity and subjectivity. Equally under strain is the very concept of liberalism since some "freewheeling custodians of Press freedom" take this as their right to say whatever fancies them or "sponsors" want them to do. In certain innocuous cases, this freedom is applied just for the heck of it since to be different has become a fashion even if this does not stand the test of logic. What makes the entire scene somewhat disquieting is the withering of the concept of social responsibility in the new game. Equally disturbing is the tendency to equate liberalism with India-bashing, which often goes against the mainstream of national sensitivity nurtured over long years of the freedom struggle. Mind you, anti-establishment posturing in public interest is one thing. This is part of the journalists' obligation to society on the merit of the issue involved. This also fits in with the media's right to information and to look at critically official and ministerial acts of omission and commission. This is very much part of the freedom of the Press and I must say that the Indian media has, by and large, discharged this duty admirably well. It has occasionally shown both guts and courage which could be the envy of any free society. Still, several distortions have crept in in the Indian media, both electronic and print. First, the advent of the electronic media has titled the social scale in favour of consumerism. The images thrown up are no doubt colourful but they often create illusions which may not reflect the ground realities. Second, information flow is selective and often subjective, though "half-baked quickie experts" do talk about everything under the sun without making anyone wiser in the process. To say this is not to deny that there are certain first-rate television programmes. But they are very few in number. The rest are all entertainment and poor attempts at aping the West. Three, there is the absence of innovative concepts and ideas. Here everything is treated as "market", with the result some marketplace ideas are thrown up in the process. Four, with the market-oriented approach, the institution of editor is seeing fast erosion with the resultant distortions. I do not have to elaborate this point. A look at most newspapers will show that it is mainly market-oriented journalism when brands become more important than the people and their problems. Five, the fast disappearing concept of social responsibility can be easily noticed. No wonder, yellow journalism has ceased to shock even the old-timers. Six, there is the vanishing spirit of missionary zeal. As in other areas of public life, money and money-making exercises have begun to dominate the thinking of a large number of persons in the field. Still, there are media people, including youngsters, who practise value-based journalism and are publicly committed persons. Here lies our hope. Going back to the summit between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, it must be said that the Indian media came into global focus in a big way. Both television and the print media were represented in full strength. The electronic media, of course, had a field day with 24-hour news show for three days. The Star News was in close competition with Zee TV. So was Doordarshan and other big and small channels. The Indian official television network had never been so good. There was a global opportunity available to it and those associated with various channels had reasons to feel satisfied that the occasion they got to telecast a historic event evoked worldwide attention. Whether there was any justification for the 24-hour news focus on the Agra happenings is a matter of opinion. Looking back, perhaps this was not justified because of the paucity of news flow, especially when serious negotiations were going on. Since hard news was hard to come by, most of the television channels indulged in prolonged discussions on mundane affairs like the body language of the visiting dignitary. We had "experts" on Pakistan who looked brilliant, but conveyed little. To say this is only to underline the lack of proper coordination and understanding of the event among those who were supposed to be monitoring and covering it. Looking closely at the goings-on then, it was pathetic to see the television channels trying to grab the Indian and Pakistani journalists around so that they fill the time and space available to them to keep the show going. I personally believe that most TV channels failed to rise to the occasion. Instead of overstretching themselves and indulging in trivial presentation, they could have shown documentaries and clippings on the earlier Indo-Pak historic summits. The telecasting of these clippings could have put things in proper perspective and saved the viewers from the boring repetitive stuff . The channels could have also shown the historic grandeur of Agra and the making of the Taj Mahal. There are documentaries available which are part of the archives of the Government of India. A little thinking and planning could have saved the channels from unnecessarily competing with each other in wordage. Surprisingly, Doordarshan was the only channel which provided a 30-minute overview of India-Pakistan relations over the past five decades. The programme traced the history of the blow hot, blow cold relations between the two countries and had footage from Pakistan as well as those of the 1972 Simla Agreement and the bus yatra to Lahore in 1999 culminating in the Lahore Declaration. The programme was shown on the eve of General Pervez Musharraf's arrival in New Delhi on July 13 in the forenoon and repeated at night. Free media does not mean the freedom to play with the sensitivities of the viewers. Nor does it provide its custodians the licence to do what they like. A number of questions have been raised with regard to the conduct of some Indian media persons, even accusing them of being anti-national. I would not go by such an assessment. However, it will be worthwhile for professional persons to have a close look at the Agra chapter of the media for an honest and objective assessment for future correctives. India is a curious mix of liberalism, statusquoism, conservatism and forward-looking spirit. It is fashionable when some media persons flaunt their liberalism and project themselves as progressive and forward-looking by decrying things Indian. They enjoy the freedom by often overlooking — perhaps not deliberately — the Indian position or by subconsciously playing the Pakistani card on Kashmir. The famous breakfast encounter of some selective editors with General Pervez Musharraf at Agra is a case in point. Barring a few no searching questions were asked which unnecessary showed their servile quiescence, if not the lack of independence. It is alleged that this school of thought may not even hesitate to suggest giving Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter. The Pakistani establishment is very favourably disposed towards this group. That is the reason why Islamabad has of late been wooing it. This may be a part of the systematic Pakistani attempt to divide the Indian intelligentsia and wean away a section of media persons to their side. There is a growing rank of journalists which seems to be unwittingly getting into this trap. The time has come for introspection and an objective review of the media scene — not to find fault with a few individuals but to draw the right lessons so that India's rich journalistic tradition is kept alive and the media — both print and electronic — grows on healthy lines and in a true spirit of democracy, freedom and liberalism with a sense of social responsibility. Of course, the battle of ideas and communication as well as the urge for sharing experience have to continue. Freedom flourishes best when the thinking class leads the people correctly and puts the truth before the nation. The intelligentsia, newsmen included, has to address itself to the attainment of excellence in national life in today's competitive environment. Democracy, after all, is the best available system that is founded on morality, and it cannot be left to the manipulations of operators, crooks and mafia gangs. Viewed in a larger perspective, the Indian media has still much ground to cover. There are several untied ends, both within and without. The lack of objectivity, muddled thinking, the absence of broader understanding, arrogance and a one-track approach make the media as flawed as other organs of democracy. To say this is not to suggest that the media should only produce entertainment-related programmes and sell merchandise. But, in addition, it is expected to create a rich marketplace of ideas and serious information and act as a watchdog of democracy. |
My ghost writer “I
invoke thee, my Holy Ghost Writer (G.W.) in the name of the most revered Bard of Avon who with his weird sense of the supernatural created Horatio, Duncan, the three witches. Thou are no less blest than Shakespeare himself who shaped up Caesar’s wife, always (not?) being above suspicion, like those who disbelieve my scribbling abilities and attribute whatever I write (and “writely” so) to thee. I am, O’most adorable G.W., thus redeemed of my sins (and audacity) of entering an arena reserved only for doubly blessed pen pushers.” This is my daily prayer made before daring to initiate a piece of writing, always, for without the aid, assistance and the crutches of my ghost writer I cannot even dream of the pretensions of seeking my calling as a printed byline. My G.W. carries with him his Wren & Martin, Zandwoort, Chomsky, Roget’s besides the Write Better-Speak Better of the Readers’ Digest and a host of Webster’s, Chamber’s and Oxford dictionaries. He has of late switched over to carrying a laptop since he too has become quite dependent on the computer language and the language correction tool that are there garbaged in the bin. Its not only these tools that he has to always fall back upon but a broom stick also to sweep away any attempts made by me while doing a piece rubbishing it as “schoolboyish”. Ghosts too, after all, have their limitations. Something great about my G.W. is that he is always at my beck and call and even before I begin invoking him for help, he is there with all his paraphernalia. He makes my fingers fly on the keyboard while making (a) side-notes on a sheet of paper lest I should forget any links and thus leave out on some very important information. He guides my thoughts to the extent that I become almost a subject of his mesmerising by making me reach a hypnotic state of mind where he can control all my actions, including having puffs from the cigarette, hanging on to my flabby lips while typing. He doesn’t disturb my concentration rather any digression, deviation and side-tracking, he takes good care of and comes to my help being as handy as the jinn of Aladdin. After all, ghosts and jinns have a common bloodline! Although my G.W. is a distant cousin of the printer’s devil yet he has an uncanny sense of knowing in advance if a particular piece would land back with me with a regret slip or will find place in some nicely nestled middles column of a newspaper. In case I receive the piece back, my G.W. without losing any time, coaxes me to try my luck elsewhere and many times the effort is rewarded. If my ghost writer weren’t there I would surely have continued to be branded a rustic Haryanvi and to make matters worse a cops shoes to literally boot, knowing least of the Queen’s English spoken with the help of “only thin lips”, as claimed by many and not worth even attempting, with the fluffy and unshapely ones like I have. My G.W. even consoles me for this also and makes me overcome my complex. But yes, he himself is sometimes disturbed, not from angels of imagination, fancy and fantasy nor even illusion, delusion or supernatural but the noisy prattle of human beings. Obviously, he is hiding in a well by the side of my kindergarten back in my village, since when he is chasing me. And for some good, I think. |
Lok Pal: America has something to teach
us The founding fathers of America were highly suspicious of states and governments. It followed: they had no great faith in men, either. Everything they did was to check the evil in men. The founding fathers of the Indian state were men in the make of the Mahatma. Or so they claimed. They thought they could do not wrong. This is what has made our Constitution irrelevant to our times. Americans were made up of peoples of Europe. They were a diverse lot. No wonder, America went for a federal state. India is a country of the greatest diversity. It gave our life and culture a richness that is the wonder of the world. And yet the founding fathers of the Indian state decided to go for a near unitary state! They were more concerned with the unity of India. Little did they know that the basic unity of our state is indestructible. Result? America has a constitution which remains dynamic to this day. But the Indian Constitution has almost broken down. It was based on false premises. The founding fathers of America had no difficulty in admitting that men could go wrong. Or that they could commit crimes. So they provided for punishment, even for the impeachment of the President. But the founding fathers of the Indian state thought that the saintly men who led the freedom struggle could do no wrong and so made no provision for punishment. Today murderers and dacoits seek the safety of our Parliament. The Lok Pal, like the avatars of old, is expected to retrieve the Indian state from the sea of sin in which it is sunk. But again this is a false trail, for unless we reconstruct our constitution, avoid its false premises and give up our soft options, the Lok Pal can be of no great use. He will become yet another decorative figure. What did the American founding fathers do to prevent the misuse of power by the federal government? They decentralised power among the constituent states and pitted the ambitious against the ambitious. By setting the US Congress against the President, the President against the Congress, and the Senate against the House and the House against the Senate and the President, they prevented them from committing excesses. And there was the judiciary which took to task both the President and the Congress. In short, the founding fathers recognised the natural trait in men to commit excesses, and they took measures to prevent them. It is claimed that India too has checks and balances. It is a canard. If there is, it never worked during the Emergency. What the politician dreads most is the election — the fear of being rejected by the people. One could use this fear to make him walk the straight path, say, by granting the people the right to recall him. The US founding fathers used the election in such a way that they provided a chance for second thoughts to the people. In India, our objective has been to reduce election expenses. So we held elections almost simultaneously for the Centre and states. It is a matter of satisfaction among Americans if the Presidency and the Congress are held by different parties. It provides a check on the President. In India it is an anathema if power has to be shared with the Opposition. With all these checks and balances, the Americans were not sure whether the citizens would be safe. So they gave the people the Bill of Rights, a unique instrument, guaranteeing their rights. In India, a country of greatest diversity, the founders of India concentrated all power with the central government and in the Prime Minister. The plea was: concern for the country’s unity. They reduced the President to a ceremonial figure. He could have watched our long-term interests and checked the Prime Minister and Parliament from committing excesses. Didn’t India’s founding fathers know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely? Indeed, they did. But how could they believe that power would corrupt the Nehru family! The point is: the men who framed our Constitution were there at the pleasure of Jawaharlal Nehru. So what they did could not have been otherwise. This also explains why they did not take a long-term view of the Indian state. The American system provides for a clear choice between the Republicans and the Democrats. The two-party system is pragmatic. A multiplicity of parties is a fraud on the people. It means more instability and less achievement. But in India, politicians promise to deliver the sky and the moon and many other things. The idea is to make themselves look different. The fact is: they have no intention to deliver anything. Nowhere in the world the best men go into politics. But in America politics is still honourable. It attracts men of some honesty and ability. In India, the adage is increasingly true that politics is the refuge of the scoundrels, which is why, unlike in America, it has become necessary to police the politicians. America began with a puritanical streak. It is, therefore, prone to preach moralism. And it is less tolerant of moral turpitude among its public men. So, the higher one goes in public life in America, the more he is responsible for the morality of his behaviour and for the observance of the country’s laws and social norms of society. Which is why Nixon was impeached and Clinton was subjected to the worst humiliation in human history. But in India, the higher you go in public life, the more you are above the laws and morality. Hence the plethora of scandals in India. However, the tradition of India was different. Here too the higher one went, the more he was bound to observe the “dharma”. Thus we have the instance of Rama banishing his wife Sita. But the modern values of India are a bastardy. These are neither western nor Indian, but crafted by interest groups, largely anti-social. The Indian society is tolerant. It is almost permissive. This encourages criminals. America is not exactly intolerant. But it has less patience with wrong-doing people, making it easier for the laws to take their course. The American press is very much in the front of the battle for decency. It is ready to take risks — to stretch its neck out. But not so in India. The Indian Press is neither ready to take risks nor is it ready to fight causes. To set up the Lok Pal is a good idea. But does he have a proper framework to function? I do not think so. Even our Constitution is faulty. |
Wrongs and rights in
perspective To what distance in history do you go to get a correct perspective of the circumstances of today? Only if this question could be resolved most disputes afflicting humanity may find consensus, if not resolution. A case nearer home is the blown-out-of-all-proportion Babri Masjid case. Today, according to Mr L. K. Advani’s deposition to the Liberhan Commission, the site is “a temple both
de facto and de jure.” At least before that, we all know, at some point in history, it was a mosque. And yet before that it was a Ram temple. Now, while Mr Advani looks at the latest status, others want to look at what was there before that, i.e., the mosque. At that, Mr Advani and like-minded people would want to not look at the latest status any more but the very original, i.e., the Ram temple that was, may be, destroyed by Babur. The fact is that rulers as well as the masses of all hues have perpetrated injustices and insensitivity all along history. It is only which act do you begin the story from. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe would like to see all land in white man’s control put in the hands of the black. That is where it belongs by all notions of natural justice, he says. The West challenges that; it is no justice to throw families out of homes, beat innocent people to pulp, ravage well-run farms and throw poor black farm workers out of job. And what did the white man do when he ravaged all of Africa, took slaves, exploited natural resources, and, in the present context, simply usurped millions of acres of land rightfully belonging to the natives, retorts the Zimbabwean President. That’s not how you look at things in today’s civilised world, argues the West, those white farmers are as much Zimbabwean as any black man, they have nowhere else to go. The same old circle of what came first! Another interesting dispute that has the whole world passionately involved is the ecological destruction and exploitation of natural resources. The Kyoto Protocol stands virtually jeopardised. The USA would have developing nations restricting their use of natural resources and limiting nasty emissions as much as the developed countries do. The super power says this after it reached the top powered by the industrial revolution that relied on the very same exploitation of all earth’s resources. Who cleared South America’s primary forests? Where does the timber from the rain forests of Indonesia go today? The developing nations are quick to point out this injustice. But today we know better than to carry on the wrong practices of the past, says the Developed World. Yeah, yeah…, say the poor! So, where do we begin? Who was wrong first? There seems to be no solution to any of these disputes of perspective. But then there might be. A common string of resolution runs through all these disputes. Ask any man with an earthy sense of wisdom and he will tell you nobody will ever pay for the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the land in Zimbabwe will go to the blacks, the Kyoto Protocol (even if in a new avatar) will be signed. All this, just as a few hundred years ago Babur destroyed a temple, whites took the land in Africa and the West plundered the earth. The deciding factor? The power of the day. Might is, after all, right. |
Humorous story turns residents sour A humorous Oriya story in a primary school textbook hasn’t quite tickled the funny bone of some western Orissa residents, who say it is a deliberate attempt to demean their culture. The controversial story is called “Nuakhai” and appears on page 36 of an Education Department prescribed compilation of humorous tales, titled “Hasalekha”. It is about how a group of animals celebrate the festival Nuakhai and how nothing is left for the jackal at the royal feast that follows. Celebrated in August, Nuakhai is a traditional harvest festival of western Orissa. People in the region offer rice from the first crop to the village deity and partake of the sanctified offerings. “By making Nuakhai a topic in the class book, the Education Department has tried to hurt the sentiments of the people. It also indirectly says that we are like animals,” Orissa Cultural Association’s Bhagabat Prasad Nanda told IANS. “This is a deliberate attempt by the Education Department to humiliate us,” added Sarat Narayan Behera, a former Station Director of All India Radio. “This (the fact that the jackal doesn’t get any food) sends a wrong message about the festival,” said Nanda. “Nuakhai is one among other occasions when people in western Orissa share everything with others,” he added. While the department has said the story is not intended to hurt any community, various cultural organisations in western Orissa have demanded that it be pulled out of the textbook.
IANS
Fighting heart disease for $ 1.40 a day A simple new treatment for heart disease victims costing just US dollars 1.40 a day was described by doctors as the biggest breakthrough in fighting Britain’s number one killer for 20 years. They estimated that the new therapy, involving the humble aspirin, could save many lives and prevent further heart attacks or strokes. Worldwide trials of the combination therapy, which studied 2,000 patients from 28 countries, including 750 patients at 25 centres in Britain, have suggested that the chances of high-risk patients surviving for a year after hospital treatment might be improved by as much as 20 per cent. Leaders of the British part of the study said thousands of patients could enjoy a far better quality of life from a treatment that could drastically reduce the US dollars 14bn a year cost of heart disease to the UK economy. Some results from the research suggest even more dramatic improvements in life chances - around 30 per cent for patients undergoing heart bypass operations or angioplasty, in which their arteries are widened. The treatment involves aspirin, long used to help thin the blood and reduce the chances of thrombosis in at-risk patients, alongside a drug called clopidogrel, already licensed as an alternative to cut the risk of blood clots. The drug, marketed as the brand name Plavix, has previously been found to have a similar effect to aspirin when used on its own, but the combination of a tablet of each a day appears to hold the secret, offering an extra 20 per cent success rate. Dr Marcus Flather, a cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London, said: ``These results are probably the biggest breakthrough in the treatment of coronary heart disease ... since the introduction of aspirin in the 1980s.’’
The Guardian
Dinners bring education to 800 kids A few dinners in London have brought education to 800 children of widows in India, thanks to a trust that raised £ 100,000 through the charity. The last charity dinner by the Pushpawati Loomba Memorial Trust on July 18 raised the £ 100,000 (Rs 6.8 million). The money goes towards an extensive programme launched by the London group to support widows and their children in India. Education for the 800 children will mean a grant of Rs 650 per child per month for five years. The current programme funds the education of 100 children in eight states — Delhi, Orissa, Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. This is the only Indian charity abroad working for the betterment of widows and their families. The effort is being supported by the charity Care
International. IANS |
DC at Nathana A
hearty reception was given to the Deputy Commissioner, Ferozepore, by the staff and the students of the D.B. High School, Nathana, on the morning of the 27th July. The school buildings and the compound were, all round, decorated with buntings, flags and mottos. Only July 28, the prize distribution ceremony took place. Prizes were given over by the D.C. to the winners. In the evening of the same day Inams and Sanads were granted to the men who had taken part in making the cattle fair at Bhuchcho Mandi successful. |
Fear is made of ignorance and of one’s own self. There is only one fear it manifests in many ways, a thousand and one can be the manifestations, but basically fear is one, and that is that “Deep down inside, I may not be”. And in a way it is true that you are not. God is, you are not. The host is not, God is. And because you are suspicious... you do not look in. You go on pretending that you are; you know that if you look you are not. — Osho, The Guest
* * * The lack of fear makes you strong. The mind, in its density, keeps us from the knowledge of the Self. And then we attain a little knowledge of the existence of the Self as a result of the mind freeing itself from desires and carvings, hates and fears and the various and varied things of the mind... If you see fear you would see it as a thing, and as understanding comes, that thing called fear walks away down the road, never to return.
* * * O mad one! repeat the name of Rama. In this fearful ocean of the world, Let the Name be thy raft. Acquire prosperity and success through the Name. Yoga, self discipline and samadhi Have been killed by the disease Kali (age). The good and the wicked, the straight and the crooked, will in the end turn to the Name. Like a garden bearing fruits and flowers in the sky, or like a palace of smoke is the world. Do not forget thyself in it. He who depends on anything else, Besides the name of God, Rejects a plate of food, for the leavings of a dog. — Goswami Tulsi Das, Vinaya Patrika. song 66.
* * * Of all the ragas, brother, that one is the best, Through which the mind gets attuned to God. True is the Melody of God, its value is beyond description, Those ignorant of (the qualities) of Divine Music, Are ill-equipped to comprehend the message of God...” — Guru Ram Das. Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 1423 |
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