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| Thursday,
May 24, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Manipur’s
sick underbelly Gender-friendly
initiative |
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Throwback
to Nazi era
Defence production in
private hands
Crime
and ministerial rewards "Fellow criminals, you must be as alarmed as me at the grossly
undemocratic and oppressive demand raised by some sworn enemies of our
fraternity about not allowing convicted persons to hold public office.
It not only goes against the cherished principles of equality, but
also is patently antinational. The stipulation is so very outrageous
and short sighted. Actually, the country should welcome their
induction with all the force at its command instead of opposing it. It
will be ideal if prison terms and ministerial terms run concurrently.
Lung
cancer risk ‘double for women’
Black
tea prevents cavities
Our
heritage and our goal Religion
on Net
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Manipur’s sick underbelly SAMATA
leader Fernandes says his party will remain in the NDA. Of course, it will. Any other course will push it to political irrelevance, if not wilderness. It enjoys a clout out of proportion with its strength of 12 MPs. Also a precipitate action will suit only one person, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav. Shorn of power and television publicity, Samata will be easy meat. The BJP says it will order its 26 legislators not to stake claim to form a government. It may but nobody will listen to the order. In last Assembly election in February last year it won six seats but today boasts of 26 MLAs, that is, six plus 20 defectors. Now defectors pray at only one temple, that of power by any means. If they cannot be Ministers by sporting the BJP tag, they will opt for another. This is the meaning of the formation of People’s Democratic Front (PDF) which should really stand for permanent defectors forum. Its leader is Mr R.K.Dorendra Singh, a former Congress Chief Minister and a much-travelled man across party lines. He has already met Governor Ved Marwah and presumably pressed his right to head the next government. His PDF included the original BJP MLAs whose staying away will not affect his claim. The Front has 41 MLAs and without the BJP support or with active opposition, he still has a majority in the house with an effective strength of 59. This then is the ground reality. Defection is endemic and toppling game is a compulsive hobby. After the February, 2000, poll Mr Nipamacha Singh formed the government and in November he was out and Mr Radhabinod Koijam was in. Now he is out after Mr Dorendra Singh did a Koijam on him. This rapid succession of Chief Ministers is worth recalling to explain why the Samata Party-led one had to fall and why the BJP betrayal, as the party is screaming, is only temporary, that is before Mr Dorendra Singh, another former Chief Minister, is voted out. Again, in a different era and clime, central leaders would have shunned professional turncoats instead of lending them credibility by franchising their party label. These defection-propped governments are extremely unstable and that stokes insurgency. The second advantage for the insurgents is the safe rear across the border with Myanmar. This is a more serious problem and not footloose warriors making and unmaking governments. Mr Vajpayee and Mr Fernandes should reset their priorities. |
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Gender-friendly initiative THE Union Cabinet deserves a round of applause for waking up to the need to make the divorce laws more gender-friendly. It is evident that Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley is the moving spirit behind the initiative for giving divorced women a better deal. The ceiling of Rs 500 as maintenance allowance was fixed a long time ago. However, the fact that the issue of ensuring a decent amount of money as maintenance allowance to women was a non-priority issue until now shows the indifference of the entire political class to gender-specific concerns. The indifference to the issues concerning women can be attributed to a combination of political and social factors. Unhappily, in spite of the winds of change blowing across the globe in favour of according both equality and respect to women the male-dominated Indian society is still not fully prepared to fall in line. Who could have ever imagined that Rajiv Gandhi, who was seen as a new age political leader, would play a negative role in the matter of protecting the rights of Muslim women after divorce? He took away from them what the judiciary had granted to them in the infamous Shah Bano case simply to please the orthodox Muslims. Even today the provisions of proposed legislative measures for giving divorced Indian women a fair deal will not cover Muslims because of the unresolved controversy over the sanctity of the community's personal laws. Since Mr Jaitley too is a new age politician he should take the initiative of offering to the country a model set of laws covering all manner of civil disputes, of which divorce is just one important part. The mantra of "one nation, one law" should prove effective in silencing discordant voices. The proposed common civil code should not be seen as an attempt to interfere with any community's personal laws. The existence of personal laws should, in fact, be seen as a useful mechanism for the out-of-court settlement of civil disputes. However, the moment a dispute comes up for hearing before the secular judiciary of the country, the law of the land should logically prevail over the set of personal laws. Mr Jaitley would earn the gratitude of the progressive elements of all communities if he were to extend the benefits of the proposed legislation, for removing the ceiling on maintenance allowance, to all divorced Indian women. By doing so he would be upholding the spirit of the Constitution. |
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Throwback to Nazi era THE worst memories of concentration camps and massacre of Jews at the hands of Nazis come cascading back with the Taliban fatwa in Afghanistan asking Hindus and other non-Muslims to wear special signs. The Nazis made the Jews wear yellow stars. The Taliban have ordained that Hindu women will have to wear a yellow cloth and Hindu households will have to hang a two-metre yellow cloth outside their houses. There is more. The decree prohibits Hindus and Muslims from living in same houses, bars Hindus from constructing new prayer houses or places of worship and asks Sikhs to stop donning turbans. This will further worsen the condition of the 10,000-strong Hindu community in the war-ravaged country of some 21 million people. And to think that they had played a leading role in the progress of the country and had stood by their Muslim brethren through thick and thin! Today, they live there in a pitiable condition. Some have left the country because of Taliban atrocities. Others hang on, refusing to leave the country which their ancestors adopted as their own centuries ago. Such considerations matter little to uncouth hordes that blew up two 15th century Buddhas in the province of Bamiyan two months ago and destroyed other priceless Buddha statues. Universal condemnation fell on deaf ears. They are unlikely to respond to the outrage over the latest religious edict either, although India has condemned it in the strongest terms. The ruling junta has been breaking all cannons of civilised behaviour with impunity. The result is that it stands isolated in the world community. Foreign aid workers doing social service were harassed so mercilessly that they had to quit the country. Even the plight of Afghanistanis is no better. Women have to live like slaves. Educational institutions are closing down fast. The latest provocation will make the United Nations even less inclined to lift sanctions. Taliban are a Pakistani creation and that is the only country backing them. The activities of the junta will further isolate the country. The sufferers will be the ordinary Afghans who are having to grapple with the worst drought in 30 years. World leaders should put their heads together and devise a strategy to curb religious fanatics who are hell-bent on satanical inhumanity. What happened under Hitler is too gruesome to be repeated in this century. |
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Defence
production in private hands THE government’s decision to throw defence production open to the private and foreign direct investment has great potential on the basis of one incontrovertible factor — the fourth largest standing army in the world. Non-lethal supplies alone make up a significant portion of the budget of the Indian armed forces. However, the touchstone of the efficacy of the new policy will remain the extent to which it will contribute to the concept of self-sufficiency in military material, freeing the nation from such phenomena as the collapse of sources of supply as happened after the Soviet Union disappeared; embargoes and sanctions; and, above all the restrictive control regimes that preclude the sale of “dual-use” (civil-military) technology to nations that are not part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military network. In the final analysis too, the private sector military-industrial complex must be able to contribute to the upgradation and modernisation process over a span of decades when requirements change and the revolution in military affairs manifests itself. The history of the Indian military-industrial complex underscores a fact of life that the profit motive is the prime mover in any private investment in Defence. World War II sustained the aircraft repair and maintenance facilities that became the foundations of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) public sector undertaking. Same is the case with Mazagon Docks which built ships and did repair and maintenance of Allied shipping at Mumbai. Both allowed themselves to be taken over by the government because the theatre-wide scale of military equipment had shrunk to subcontinental proportions and that too divided between India and Pakistan. In the current content, it is as yet unthinkable that the private sector will decide to set up factories of the scale of the defence public sector undertakings which at present hold the commanding heights of the Indian military-industrial complex. Nonetheless there is wide scope for the private sector to participate in the national defence effort. It is as yet unclear whether the government will allow it to take up production of lethal weaponry not only because of the complexity of modern armaments but also for the strategic nature of the production and supply arrangements that must cater to requirements far higher than the profit motive and where economies of scale and supply schedules do not always make for sustained demand. There are several levels at which the private sector can find slots for itself within the Indian military-industrial complex. For one, it could help in the productionisation of equipment designed and developed by the dozens of laboratories under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Ancillaries for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and the Main Battle Tank (MBT) projects by themselves provide ample scope for dozens of dedicated industries to be set up in the private sector. This will be of immense mutual benefit to both the private as well as the public sector undertakings and has been the subject of interaction between the Confederation of Indian Industries and Assochem for several years. Indeed the Government’s decision to privatise Defence industries is an offshoot of the work of the task forces that were set up to study the feasibility of such a move. At a different level, Indian industrial giants could explore tie-ups with foreign producers of military wherewithal. There are several nations that have well-developed military-industrial complexes of their own which have shown interest in joint ventures with India. Israel, South Africa, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the Commonwealth of Independent States (components of the former Soviet Union which have inherited its factories) to name some. However, the pitfalls lie in the sanctions imposed by the USA and several other producer nations in copycat actions that have severely affected India’s indigenous projects like the LCA and repair and maintenance of weapons platforms containing components and subsystems made in the USA as in the case of the Harrier jumpjets and Seaking
helicopters. Even the purchase of the long-awaited Hawk advanced jet trainers (AJT) for the Indian Air Force has been affected by this. So long as these sanctions remain in place the scope of joint development projects is bleak. Similarly, it remains to be seen how many of these nations even while having independent military development programmes but subscribe to concepts intended to curb the horizontal proliferation of technologies that can be used for both civil and military purposes will deviate from the restrictions imposed by such arrangements as the Wassaanar Arrangement. This a multi-nation understanding which is a post-Cold War phenomenon intended to continue the restrictions imposed under the former Committee on Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) that prohibited certain sales to the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies and even those like India who were seen to be “natural allies” of this grouping. It may well be that the government decision to open the Defence production sector to the private sector and foreign direct investment is a fallout of External Affairs and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh’s meeting with US President George Bush Jr where indications of a lifting of sanctions were forthcoming. It is quite obvious that after Kargil the BJP-led coalition which consists of several parties that insisted on the blacklisting of Sweden as a supplier of military equipment for the allegations of kickbacks in the Bofors deal, has come to realise that the ban has outlived its usefulness as a political tool and could be counter-productive in the national security context. In any event the Government of India will have to ensure that military technology obtained from abroad is no longer clothed in restrictions on future upgradation or sales to third countries. In fact buy-back clauses and either joint or unilateral sales should be an integral part of all future military contracts because these contribute to the padding of the economies of scale that make the military industry lucrative and self-sustaining. There is also an acutely felt need to revitalise the defence planning apparatus so that it is able to project threat appreciation and design the counter-measures, particularly the equipment to do the job, over at least a 15-year span. Upgradation of weapon systems is a more cost-effective method of modernisation of military equipment and the government must dip into the huge pool of highly technically qualified personnel who have retired from this active service. An apex body of military organisation would benefit from the advice and guidance of an officer of the capability of Lt Gen (retd) H Kaul who has the unique distinction of having been Director General Military Operation (DGMO), Director General Military Intelligence (DGMI), Deputy Chief of Army Staff (DCOAS) apart from serving Army Commander.
ADNI |
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Crime and ministerial rewards HERE is a copy of the secret bulletin circulated by a former Honorary Secretary of the Crime Syndicate who has just come out of gaol after a seven-year stint: "Fellow criminals, you must be as alarmed as me at the grossly undemocratic and oppressive demand raised by some sworn enemies of our fraternity about not allowing convicted persons to hold public office. It not only goes against the cherished principles of equality, but also is patently antinational. The stipulation is so very outrageous and short sighted. Actually, the country should welcome their induction with all the force at its command instead of opposing it. It will be ideal if prison terms and ministerial terms run concurrently. "Once a majority of the elected posts are in the hands of criminals, nobody else will dare indulge in crime. That will bring some order into the unorganised industry. Right now, every Tom, Dick and Harry becomes a criminal, bringing a bad name to the profession. It will not be a bad idea to offer the highest elected post to the person with the highest reward on his head. "Just think of the tremendous benefits that will accrue to the country once we encourage convicted persons to become MLAs, ministers and Chief Ministers. Today, so much money is spent on housing them in palatial bungalows. They can all be conveniently accommodated in well-appointed jails. The huge amount of money spent on providing security to them will also be saved. "The ministers-cum-convicts will welcome the protection provided by the high walls because the public will not be able to bother them with various grievances. The man in the street, who has to feel like a criminal whenever a VIP convoy passes by, will also heave a sigh of relief if the VIPs are such that they remain behind bars most of the time. No official cars will be needed to ferry them around. Prison vans will suffice. Even that expenditure can be avoided if court proceedings are held in jails themselves. "Considering the growing exodus from crime to politics, it will be advisable to convert jails into group housing schemes for politicians. All important meetings can be held there, instead of ferrying MLAs from one tourist spot to another. "Bureaucrats too are keeping in step with politicians in committing various crimes. As such, a virtual secretariat can be developed within the prisons. All necessary wings can function under one roof. A genuine single-window service, indeed! "Whenever a VIP meets a criminal, unnecessary hue and cry is raised. Once the artificial distinction vanishes, such scandals will become a thing of the past. A new sense of camaraderie and brotherhood will develop between criminals and politicians. "Several ministers, both central and state, have complained of lack of work. They can be gainfully employed for teaching finer nuances of politics to undertrials. It is dangerous to throw innocent criminals into the cesspool of politics without fully preparing them for the challenging job ahead. The prisons should become nurseries for budding leaders. We already have "charwaha vidyalayas". Time has come to spot talented people in jails and groom them in scientifically run "neta vidyalayas". "Right now, a lot of money is being spent on tracking fugitives. People like Veerappan are evading arrest, because prisons are not attractive enough. Once they are properly briefed about the brighter prospects that await them if they agree to grace jails and run the state/nation from there as leaders, many brigands will lay down arms. Instead of chasing such criminals aimlessly through inhospitable forests, policemen will be better off protecting them and saluting them, while twiddling their thumbs outside tastefully decorated VIP cells." |
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Lung cancer risk ‘double for women’ WOMEN smokers are twice as likely as men to develop lung cancer from cigarette smoking, an American cancer expert said yesterday. Men and women who smoked similar numbers of cigarettes showed a marked difference in the likelihood of developing the disease, Prof Diane
Stover told the American Thoracic Society conference in San Francisco. Women were more vulnerable because of differences between men’s and women’s lung tissue, the way they “process” cancer-causing agents, and the presence of the female hormone oestrogen and the X-chromosome, she said. Professor Stover, an oncologist at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said women were more prone to the disease even though they smoked less, inhaled less deeply and started smoking at a later age than men. Drawing together research comparing men and women smokers in several countries, Professor Stover said female cancer cases in the US and Europe were significantly higher than the number of women smokers would suggest. In Japan, a study of 1,000 male smokers and 700 female smokers found women developed lung cancer two years earlier than men. British cancer experts were sceptical of the data used by Professor Stover. However, the Cancer Research Campaign said: “There is some evidence that women may be more susceptible to lung cancer than men, but the underlying reasons need to be researched in more depth.”
The Observer |
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Black tea prevents cavities YOU won’t find it served at your dentist’s office just yet, but drinking black tea between meals may help reduce cavities and plaque, researchers said on Tuesday. New studies, funded by the Tea Trade Health Research Association, found several doses of black tea every day not only reduced plaque build-up but also helped control bacteria. “We found that the black tea infusion can inhibit or suppress the growth of bacteria that promotes cavities and affect their ability to attach to tooth surfaces,” Christine Wu, Professor of periodontics at the University of Illinois and lead researcher on one part of the study. Wu said that while earlier studies in Japan have shown the cavity-fighting benefits of green tea, known for its rich antioxidants, her team chose to focus on black tea, which is more popular in western culture. The research is part of a collaborative study done in conjunction with the College of Dentistry at the University of Iowa and the Institute of Odontology at Goeteborg University in Sweden. The findings were presented at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Orlando, Florida. 300 species of bacteria Dental plaque contains more than 300 species of bacteria that adhere to tooth surfaces and produce cavity-causing acid. Plaque is also a leading cause of gum disease. A specific element of black tea, called polyphenols, killed or suppressed cavity-causing bacteria from either growing or producing acid, according to Wu’s study. The tea also affected the bacterial enzymes and prevented the formation of the sticky-like material that binds plaque to teeth. Participants in the study rinsed with tea for 30 seconds, five times, waiting three minutes between each rinse. “We were trying to simulate what people did while sipping tea,” Wu said. A similar study by Goeteborg University, where participants rinsed with tea for one minute 10 times per day, showed comparable results. Both studies showed that the more people rinsed, the more their plaque and bacteria levels fell. In the University of Iowa study, researchers looked at the impact of black tea’s fluoride content on preventing cavities but found the benefits less clear. They exposed pre-cavity lesions to black tea but saw little change, suggesting that tea’s cavity-fighting ability stems from a complicated reaction between it and bacteria. Fluoride not a factor? “We had very little results, which implies that if tea is having a result in normal use it’s not from fluoride,” said James Wefel, professor and director of the Dows Institute of Dental Research at the University of Iowa. Of course, to help prevent cavities the tea must truly be “black,” without sugar, milk, honey or other additives. Researchers also stressed drinking black tea should not replace traditional oral hygiene. “Tea will affect the plaque formation but one has to brush their teeth to remove the plaque,” Wu said. “It’s a must.” And while black tea may fight cavities, it does not combat tooth stains. “It is going to stain (people’s) teeth, but at least we know it’s good for oral health,” Wu said.
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D.P.I. at Alawalpore SIR George Anderson, Director of Public Instruction, Punjab, accompanied by the Sardar Bahadur Sardar Bishen Singh, Inspector of Schools, Jalandhar Division, on his way to Tanda, was accorded a hearty and enthusiastic reception by the students, staff members of Alawalpore District Jalandhar Anglo-Sanskrit High School and the local and muffassil gentry at the junction of the roads near Kishan Garh well on Ist May, 1926. The main road on both sides was tastefully decorated with buntings and mottos. A temporary gate was also erected with the Union Jack flying upon it. The Director was pleased with all that was done in his honour. The school was closed on 3rd May in honour of his visit. |
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Our heritage and our goal SOME decades back, I read a small book by Dr. Abid Husain. It had a foreword by Dr. Radhakrishnan. The author, Dr. Abid Husain made the point that India's cultural heritage of several thousand years was not built on the basis of power and materialism but on "the vision of seers, vigil of saints, speculation of philosophers and the imagination of poets and artists." These gave us the typical Indian ways of thinking, feeling and living. Our ancestors bequeathed to us the typical Indian ways of thinking, feeling and living. They gave us a value system, a worldview and a vision on life. Coming down to us for thousands of years, Indian culture is the common heritage of all Indians irrespective of the religion, caste, community, linguistic group or region we may belong to. The Vedas and the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are some of the earliest gems of our heritage. The Ajanta, Elephanta and Elora caves, the Qutub and the Taj; Tulsi, Jayasi and Kabir belong to us all equally. They are part of our composite cultural heritage. In our unending quest for truth, we have found that ultimate reality is universal soul or consciousness and the aim of life is full development of human personality, self-realization, development of consciousness to higher and higher levels of divine possibilities. Individual personality can be said to be fully developed to all its possibilities and well integrated when there is perfect harmony and consistency in thought, word and deed; when one attains equilibrium between the individual and the collectivity and when one achieves balanced and progressive development of the physical, mental, moral, emotional and spiritual aspects of life. It may be said that the most essential feature of India's heritage is emphasis on the spiritual as 'not against' but 'above' the material - on consciousness above matter. In fact, modern seers like Sri Aurobindo worked on the transformation even of the physical into higher consciousness. We must not be satisfied with what we are. Man has to be surpassed. Mind has to be transcended. Life has to move towards the divine and sublime from the mundane and material. The supreme purpose of life was to go beyond, to surmount the limitations and seek to become one with the Supreme by developing our higher consciousness. Sometimes in the fullness of spiritual discovery and experience, a "waning and dying of old forms" may be necessary to arrive at "a greater and a more perfect creation." The "ultimate truths are truths of the spirit. These are the most fundamental and most effective truths of our existence, powerfully creative of the inner and salutorily reformative of the outer life." The eternal strength of India's cultural heritage will lead to a mighty flame of renovation and a new renaissance of the spirit. Therein lies the hope for mankind. For the Spirit in Man, in all mankind has only one aim and that is to move towards the Divine. It would, however be entirely wrong to presume that there was no place in Indian culture to this-worldly pursuits or that it was contemptuous of their value. It looked at Kama and Artha as a prelude to Dharma and Moksha. It reached great heights in ethics, law, politics, society, sciences, arts and crafts. The real question between the cultural heritage of India and the vehement so-called "secular" activism is whether India's effort to rise beyond the life of desire and pain and strive for man's highest perfection is worth pursuing. And, if yes, whether it is only for the few or for the collectivity of mankind. An important question in contemporary context is how to make our cultural heritage relevant to the common man and woman and how to make it bring him closer to enjoying better quality life. Also, we must make a clear distinction between the cultural heritage of India and the religious persuasions of the people. I can never forget the deep emotion and devotion with which the head of an old temple in Indonesia once explained to me the intricate and difficult task of restoring some of the stone images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. When asked about his name, he turned out to be one Mohammad Habib. "This is our cultural heritage," he said, "we changed our religion but cannot forsake the heritage of the nation. We shall always protect it to the best of our ability. Cultural heritage is given to us. We cannot alter the heritage. It is there even if we do not accept it. Religion is personal and is subject to change. It is a variable. Anyone can change his or her religion but not his or her heritage. Today, we, in India, are passing through very difficult, critical and turbulent times not only our environment but also our minds and hearts are polluted. Ideals are dead. There is a crisis of the spirit. There is a spiritual vacuum in our lives — both individual and national. While we may wax eloquent about the virtues of our culture, the hard facts are that in recent decades, there has been tremendous erosion of all norms of cultured conduct - a general devaluation of values. What is needed is a return to the ideals of sacrifice and sublime living. This calls for a moral rejuvenation and resurgence of values and a determination to rise both individually and collectively. The Kathopnishad exports us: utisthat jagrat prapyavara nibodhat (Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached). The writer is a member of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. |
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Religion
on Net SOME 8 per cent of adults and 12 percent of teenagers in the United States use the Internet for religious or spiritual experiences and the number is likely to grow rapidly in coming years, according to a new study released on Monday. The study by Barna Research, a California polling company that specializes in religious issues, was based on three surveys conducted late last year: one of 1,017 randomly selected adults, a second of 605 teen-agers and a third of 604 Protestant pastors. The polls found that less than 1 percent of adults and 2 per cent of teen-agers currently use the Internet as a substitute for a physical church. However, more than two-thirds of respondents said they were likely to engage in some kind of cyberspace religious activity in the next 10 years. Activities deemed most appealing included listening to archived religious teaching, reading online “devotionals” and buying religious products online. Such figures, if they held true, could attract a huge potential audience and create a market of up to 100 million adults, survey director George Barna said. “By the end of the decade, we will have in excess of 10 per cent of our population who will rely on the Internet for their entire spiritual experience,” Barna predicted. Internet can replace church? “Some of them will be individuals who have not had a connection with a faith community but millions of others will be people who drop out of the physical church in favour of the cyberchurch,” he said. “Born-again and evangelical Christians are every bit as likely as non-Christians to use the digital superhighway. Catholics and mainline Protestants are slightly more likely to use the Internet than are Baptists and Protestants who attend non-mainline churches,” the report found. The survey of pastors found that more than 90 per cent had computers at home or in their offices and 80 per cent had access to the Internet. Around half logged on to the Web every day. Some other findings: so-called born-again Christians spend twice as much on consumer electronics as they donate to their church; Christian Internet users already spend more time surfing the Internet than they do at prayer and self-described religious believers spend seven times more hours each week watching television than they devote to all their spiritual activities.
Reuters |
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SPIRITUAL NUGGETS Naked and empty-handed you came into this world, and naked and empty-handed you shall leave it. Then why all this harding of copper coins and filling of wardrobes? He who feeds and clothes the birds of the air on the hills and in the snow, will He not take care of you? ***** If you want victory over the mind, surrender yourself to the Will of the Lord. ***** Dread of a coming misery renders us more miserable then the actual misery, which perhaps may come or may not. In fact, we cause more pain to ourselves by brooding over our imaginary troubles, instead of girding up our loins and facing them bravely when they come. ***** To realise one's faults and bad habits is the first step towards their correction and removal. ***** Tender trees and pretty plants fade and wither in the garden even while receiving full, care and attention from a gardener. But those depending only on God's grace flourish and flower on the snowy hill tops. ***** Do good even to the evil-minded. Does not God shower rain and sunshine on the worst of sinners and give them food and raiment? ***** Sense life and Divine Life move on two opposite paths. Unless you turn your face totally away from the pleasures of the senses you cannot taste the sweet pleasures of Divine Life. ***** When we are walking, eating, bathing, travelling by train or bus or attending to any household tasks, our mind is not occupied with anything. Why not utilise this vacant time in remembering the Lord and repeating His name mentally. ***** Old age, health, poverty, richness, sickness, disease, wealth, learning, honour, dishonour, and time of death are all pre-ordained while a man is in the womb of his mother. So a wise man never worries or frets or regrets anything. — Maharaj Jagat Singh, The Science of the Soul: A Spiritual Bouquet, 66, 68, 72, 75, 86, 87, 96, 98, 99. |
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