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Friday,
July 13, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Unacceptable Pak conduct A President’s coup |
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An impractical solution
Islam in the information age Wanted: a civilised civil service
Surviving ambitious parents
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Unacceptable Pak conduct IN a manner of speaking, the party is over even before it had begun. It would be unfair to put all the blame at the door of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for the unhappy turn of events related to Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's three-day visit to India beginning tomorrow. Eyebrows were indeed raised when he invited General Musharraf to Delhi for talks. However, instead of taking it as a gesture of friendship, the Pakistani establishment projects it as a sign of weakness on the part of India. For each gesture of goodwill the stock response from Pakistan was negative. The invitation to the Hurriyat leaders to the tea party being hosted by Pakistan High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi in honour of President Musharraf was the proverbial last straw on the camel's back. It would be a miracle if something concrete emerges from the Atal-Pervez meeting in Agra after the insulting attitude of the Pakistani establishment to token offers of friendship by India. To be fair, sincere behind- the-scene diplomatic efforts were made by India to make Pakistan give up the insistence on inviting the Hurriyat leaders to the tea party. Of course, there are those in India who believe that since India had taken the initiative, it should have ignored the obvious pinpricks from Pakistan in the larger interest of keeping the hope of establishing peace in the subcontinent alive. At the same time, the fact that Pakistan tested India's patience to the limit cannot be denied. The unilateral announcement of rolling back of duty on 50 items from Pakistan and 20 scholarships for Pakistani students in Indian technical institutes was greeted with undisguised contempt. When India offered to set up visa facilities at the
border checkposts Pakistan's response was again contemptuous. It was a peripheral issue in its scheme of things. Pakistan should be told firmly and politely that it takes two to create the right atmosphere for normalising relations. However, if it wants to continue to persist with its hawkish attitude towards India it is welcome to do so. Its economy is a shambles. India could have helped it tide over the crisis by offering trade pacts on generous terms. It is clear that General Musharraf as a Mohajir has obvious limitations for setting right the distortions in the relationship between India and Pakistan. However, if he cannot rise above the limitations for grasping the hand of friendship extended by Prime Minister Vajpayee, history will remember him as another weak leader who could not abandon the anti-India rhetoric for staying in power. |
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A President’s coup SRI
LANKAN politics is in turmoil. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has prorogued Parliament and called a referendum. The opposition which is in a clear majority is totally outmanoeuvred. It wanted to throw out her People’s Alliance government headed by Mr Ratnasiri Wickremenayake and had mustered 115 MPs in a house of 225. The sudden two-month adjournment of Parliament has frustrated that plan. This is a soft blow compared to the lethal referendum call. On August 21 Sri Lankan voters will be asked to endorse or reject a move to drastically rewrite the 1978 Constitution. There is a catch in this. The referendum will not be on specific changes. It will merely ask the people to agree or reject the proposal that “the country needs a new Constitution which is nationally important and an essential requirement”. Even opposition party leaders cannot vote against it since there is a near unanimous consensus that the present statute is highly flawed, vests authoritarian powers with the President and permits small political parties to hold the system to ransom. This is because of the proportional representation system. Under this. each party is allotted a number of seats in Parliament in proportion to the votes it secures. A party can lose in all the constituencies it contests but still win seats on the basis of the total votes it gets. And a party can win two-thirds of the seats but fail to notch up a simple majority if the percentage of its total votes falls below 50. This is precisely what happened to the ruling alliance in the 1994 and 2000 elections. The good Sri Lankan people will, therefore, approve the referendum. It is particularly because of the immediate background. The government had a rickety majority until last month. But a Minister belonging to the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC) derided the government as abjectly depending on his party for its survival. The party comprises Tamil-speaking people and hence his remark hurt Sinhalese pride. President Kumaratunga sacked him
precipitating a split in the SLMC with seven MPs going with the dismissed Mr Rauff Hakeem and the other four remaining with the ruling alliance. The people will go to vote on the referendum with this issue in mind and the outcome is easy to expect. This is what frightens the opposition. Armed with a massive victory, President Kumaratunga will convert Parliament into a Constituent Assembly and push through the aborted measure of last year. Last time she concentrated more on devolution of power to provinces (states in India) and conflict resolution (with the LTTE). This time it will be more on electoral reforms and by the time the new Constitution emerges, she will have the authority to dissolve Parliament and order fresh election and live happily thereafter. No wonder the opposition is gnashing its teeth. |
INDO-PAK SUMMIT AS President Pervez Musharraf lands on Indian soil tomorrow, there are mixed feelings about the Agra summit. Notwithstanding the pre-summit Indian gestures, an overtly cautious approach prevails in the corridors of power because of the bitter past and the play of unknown factors, including the question of reliability. Islamabad is known to play games while talking peace for limited purposes and for a limited duration. Pakistan's critics are also not sure of President Pervez Musharraf's political base. His civilian attire does not guarantee his continuity. Nor is it a sure pointer to a change in his attitude. Looking at built-in complexities, the Agra summit does pose a major challenge to Indian diplomacy. India has, of course, been generous with several pre-summit announcements with a view to creating the right atmosphere at Agra. But unfortunately it looks a one-sided show. General Musharraf's latest postures show that it is the business as usual for Pakistan: hai Kashmir! hail Hurriyat!! How can New Delhi make a new start when the General acts and reacts under the dictates of his collaborators among the militant and fundamentalist groups? A meaningful dialogue can only be conducted away from the glare of publicity. The extraordinary media hype has aroused high expectations, some legitimate and some false. Herein lies the danger at Agra. Amidst the emotionally charged atmosphere, certain priorities for talks are bound to get mixed up. This is but natural. Still, what is important is the continuity of dialogue with the requisite seriousness and sincerity and with a degree of open mind. After all, five-decade old problems cannot be solved overnight. Take the thorny issue of Kashmir. The real challenge here lies in sharp variations in looking at the problem. So, where to begin from? i) From August, 1947, as a legacy of Partition time? ii) From January, 1948, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, forcing Indian intervention at the request of the then ruler, Maharaja Hari Singh? The leaders of Pakistan then knew that the Maharaja would not join Pakistan. They also knew that Sheikh Abdullah held the same position because of Mohammad Ali Jinnah's reservation about him. Anyway, the crucial point is that the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession and Jammu and Kashmir became a part of India. iii) Go back to the UN Security Council which got into the act on the basis of India's complaint against the Pakistani aggression in Kashmir and its voluntary ceasefire which halted the march of the Indian security forces to throw out the raiders and complete the unfinished task of ending their occupation? The factsheet on Kashmir is not as simple as Pakistanis think it to be. They often talk about the right to self-determination and plebiscite. It may be asked: what gives them the right to speak for Kashmiris? Is this thinking prompted by the fact that the majority people in the valley happen to be their co-religionists? If so, will they also claim to speak for the rest of Muslims in India? What does this imply? Another partition? Another communal holocaust and bloodshed? This is surely not India's idea of a solution for peace and harmony in the subcontinent. India's is a secular polity. It will, therefore, never be a party to further dividing and sub-dividing the nation on communal and religious considerations. As it is, the subcontinent is yet to come out of the Partition trauma. We must not add to the agonising ordeal of the peoples on both sides of the political divide. Enough is enough. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself because of smalltime sectarian interests of smalltime leaders and fundamentalists. The basic fact which needs to be kept in mind by Pakistani negotiators is that under no circumstances will the Indian authorities ever accept a formula which weakens the very foundations of Indian secularism and dilutes liberal civilisational values. There may be certain aberrations in Indian thinking and action. But our beliefs are genuine. If the Pakistanis keep their mind open and shun past prejudices a breakthrough can be achieved on Kashmir. Two important ingredients for a solution are flexibility and pragmatism. This will be easy if the Pakistani authorities put an end to the proxy war in Kashmir and rein in the fundamentalist and militant groups who have played havoc with the peace and harmony in the valley and beyond. A crucial point to remember is that the people in Jammu and Kashmir are not all Muslims. It has various sects and communities, including the Ladakhis and Hindus in Jammu and whatever small numbers that are still left in the valley. It also needs to be remembered that the Kashmiri Pandits have been thrown out of their homes because of transborder terrorism sponsored by Islamabad. Aren't the Kashmiri Pandits entitled to human rights? We cannot be selective while talking about human rights and social justice. Ironically, there are several odd elements in the Jammu and Kashmir situation. How come the valley seems to dominate all discussions? How is it that we hear so little of the voice of Jammu and Ladakh? Fundamentalism-cum-militancy has taken a heavy toll of Kashmir's traditional moorings over a period. It will be educative to see today's situation against the backdrop of the observations by South Asian expert Walter Lawrence during the last decades of the nineteenth century. He writes: "The Sunni Mussalmans do not strike (one) as zealots or earnest in the profession of their faith, and except in their quarrel with the Shias, they are free from all forms of fanaticism....." He also came to the conclusion that Kashmiri Sunnis were Hindus at heart and "Mussalmans" only in name. Fundamentalism has, however, now infected most of the Muslims; whereas not long ago, a Muslim passing through a Hindu temple used to bow in reverence. But no more. Fundamentalism seeks to wipe out all memory of the Muslims' Hindu past. This is what Talibanisation is all about. This goes against the very tenets of Kashmiriyat and the people's search for peace and harmony. Take the case of the Charar-e-Sharief in 1995 and the Hazratbal episode in 1993. We thought that the militants would not go to the extent of touching the Sufi shrines. But there has been a systematic attempt by the fundamentalists to eliminate the Sufi influence in the valley. In matters crucial to Indian nationhood, history and identity, we cannot allow passions and prejudices of the times to overwhelm us. Whether the militants are mercenaries of Pakistan's intelligence agency or "soldiers of Islam" financed by fundamentalist forces, they cannot be allowed to dictate solutions to basic issues by force. For, we know by now that there are no easy solutions to most of the basic problems, including Kashmir. We have seen what such attempts to create Utopias have resulted in. That's why in Kashmir the Kalashnikov cult cannot be allowed to win. That will be a precedent too costly for us as a nation. All of us, including Pakistanis, need to see and understand the damage fanatics can inflict on the people. A poignant example is Talibanised Afghanistan which will, sooner or later, engulf the very persons who are playing their tunes as part of their politics of expediency. Viewed in this light, the latest initiative of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for having a dialogue with President Musharraf is part of his sincere efforts to defuse the tension in the subcontinent and once again try to explore the possibility of peace with Pakistan. It is surely a gamble. No one knows the end results. But it is worth remembering that there cannot be shortcuts to peace. If Islamabad means business, every possible solution can be discussed and explored. A dialogue has to continue. Efforts have to go on. Such moves can produce the desired results if Pakistani leaders shed their past prejudices and view the bilateral problems in a larger framework of cooperation and not through narrow religious angularities. As for the Indian leaders, they will also be willing to meet them half way. Notwithstanding a few examples of aberrations, India, by and large, remains a tolerant and non-communal society. Here I would like to quote Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, superior general of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Applauding India's example of tolerance, he declared: "How in India people with many languages, religions and cultures live together is a lesson to learn!" Speaking of the fear of "Hinduisation" among the minorities, he stated: "It is Indian culture we are adopting, not Hindu culture. We are following the same practice in many other countries. In Africa we are adopting the African culture." The problem with the Pakistani mindset, however, is that prejudices are mistaken for truth, passion for reason, fundamentalism for religion and myths for history! Let the Pakistanis learn to see the subcontinent as part of common heritage and civilisational values and feel the difference. In my scheme of things, the Pandits will have to go back to Kashmir — to their homeland in the valley. And their presence in the valley will be a constant reminder of the valley's multi-religious past. So, let not the Islamic fundamentalists think that they can wipe out the memory of Jammu and Kashmir's past, even if that memory makes them feel uncomfortable. The time has come to see India-Pakistan problems in a new liberal framework without past prejudices and angularities. |
An impractical solution KARGIL, and the events following it across our northern border, not to speak of the recent communal rioting in Kanpur, impelled me to delve into my box of newspaper clippings from which I drew out two articles, written on the same subject and on the same day in July, 1990, in two different national dailies. One was written by a Hindu, M. Roy, the other by a Muslim, Tahir Mahmood. Both writers advocated the same step to remove the political hiatus that existed then, and still exists in the sub-continent — a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Roy, writing in The Statesman, prefaced his article with Winston Churchill’s warning to Britain’s Labour Government on the eve of Indian Independence. At the risk of hurting the sentiments of some readers, I reproduce it here: “Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters (does that have a familiar ring?). Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread will escape taxation. Only the (polluted) air will be free and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Attlee. These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years. They will fight among themselves and India will be lost in political squabbles.” (italics mine). Churchill was an imperialist who, in his own words, wanted no hand in the dissolution of the British empire. But only the blindest and most bigoted of Indians or Pakistanis will say today that his words did not contain an element of truth in them. Roy blamed Partition as being the main cause of the malaise affecting India and Pakistan. The division of the subcontinent, he pointed out, though initially opposed by the Mahatma, was agreed to by the Indian Congress leaders in their zeal to assume power. And so, he added, Partition can be and should be reversed by the formation of a “United State of India” in which the three constituents, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, would have internal autonomy, leaving such matters as defence, foreign policy and communications to a “confederated union”. To support his thesis, Roy cited the example of East and West Germany, forgetting that in their case there exist two very strong bonds, religion and language. Tahir Mahmood, writing in the Hindustan Times, rested his recommendation on the common cultural, historical and geographical heritage of the three countries. Mohenjo Daro and Harappa are situated in Pakistan, while the rivers that flow into Pakistan and Bangladesh originate in India. Partition, he contended, was thrust upon us by the British out of spite and with the connivance of some of our shortsighted politicians. Apart from the formation of a united Germany he quoted the example of North and South Yemens. I have always believed that the greatest tragedy that befell the subcontinent was Partition for which I blame, not so much the British, who were no longer in a position to hold on to India, as our own political leaders and those on the other side. Of the latter, M.A. Jinnah was the most intransigent. Here is what he said to Sir Percival Graffiths, a former member of the ICS, who had a hand in the negotiations concerning the transfer of power. “You British people are good administrators but very poor psychologists. You talk about Indian nationality, but there is no such thing. I don’t regard Hindus as my fellow-nationals, and they don’t regard me as one. You talk about democracy, but you know there was never any such thing as democracy in India before you came. You have introduced a kind of democracy as a passing phase. It will pass with you.” At least in regard to Pakistan, he was right. I subscribe to the view that left to themselves in 1947 the common people of India and what became Pakistan would have been content to live, side by side, in their ancestral homes, urban or rural. I was born and brought up in Delhi where Muslim culture was dominant until the influx from East Punjab in the wake of Partition. To this day, there are Hindus in the city in whose homes you are more likely to be greeted with an “adaab arz” than with a “namaskar,” and where you will hear the older generation — now almost extinct — speak the Urdu of Zauq and Ghalib. Today, I doubt if even the common people of India and Pakistan would accept the concept of a “United State of India.” For more than 50 years politicians and fundamentalists on both sides have fanned the flames of bitterness and hatred. The point of no-return was reached a long time ago. It is all right to talk of a common cultural and historical background, but these considerations weigh only with people of my generation, now in their 80s, not with the ‘midnight’s children’ who are now in control of our destinies. And there is the pity and the tragedy. Together we might have emerged as a great nation. |
Islam in the information age ARE Islamic societies ready to take advantage of the information age? Perhaps not. More so, Pakistan. Its education is dominated by the fundamentalists. There was a time when land was the most important thing for a man. Then came labour. Still later, capital. We are living at a time when capital is giving way to information to societies based on knowledge. How much this is going to change our way of life, we cannot even imagine today. Obviously, the age of information is going to benefit only some societies, and not all. Everything depends on the tradition of knowledge and enquiry among a people. India, which has a large Muslim population, has already made an impressive beginning in the field of information. Why? Because knowledge (“gyan”) had been one of the traditional ways for the salvation of man in Hindu life. Such a thing is foreign to all Semitic faiths. This explains why India is the home of so many religions, philosophies, literatures, etc. That tradition is not lost in India in spite of the exigencies of its history. This is why India was able to latch on so fast to the new information revolution. But not all are ready for the information age. For
instance, certain Muslim socities. And yet it is also true that the Greek world of knowledge came to be known to Europe through translations done by Muslim scholars. The point is: Islamic socities have been in two minds about knowledge. They still are. One builds a library; another destroys it. This is the tradition. Even today, most of the madrassas teach only the Quran and nothing else. This is so in the madrassas which train the Taliban and other fundamentalists. But then there are also modern universities in Muslim countries. This dichotomy is at the bottom of the intellectual poverty of Muslim societies. It explains why the Muslims have not made a great contribution to the world of knowledge — particularly in science and philosophy. There was a total ban on printing in Turkic and Arabic during the four centuries of Ottoman rule. The Turks had little interest in literature or philosophy. They were mostly illiterate. Mughal Emperor Akbar did not know how to read or write. Learning was not a distinguishing feature of the Sultanates and Mughals. Thus, it was, writes Peter Mansfield, a historian on the Middle East, that “the great movements of ideas in Western Europe from the Renaissance through the Reformation and counter-reformation left the Ottoman world almost untouched”. Nor did the French and Russian revolutions effect Muslim thinking. Even today, there is an effort at the highest levels of academia to explain the Quran in terms of modern developments only to prove that everything has been thought of in the Quran. Liberal Muslims always turn to the Quran to find in it all the values of the Western democratic system. After Al-Ghazali (12th c.AD) tolerance of science declined because science led to a loss of belief in the origin of the world and in the creator. Thus, Islam denied itself scope for self-renewal, while the Reformation and the Age of Reason freed Christianity from its fetters. But these convulsions in Europe had little impact on the Arab world. Islam remained impervious to all reforms. It is true early Islam threw up an intelligentsia, the Mutasilites. They gave no importance to revelation. But the times were against them. The Muslims are a community of
believers. The Umma (the community) is the guardian of the collective ideology. The individual does not enjoy the same status in Islam as in other civilisations. Islam sees the concept of democracy as a threat to the Umma, for it encourages individualism. It can also pose a challenge to the concept of Ijma (consensus), which is the basis of the Umma. Yousef M. Cheueiri states in his book “Islamic Fundamentalism”: “Thus, there was no reference to other systems of thought, either for comparative purposes or for the introduction of new elements, and no recognition of the superiority of other cultures”. Not that others did not oppose these trends. Ibn al-Arabi exhorted Muslims to consider “all evidence in other faiths about God”. And Farid din Al-Attar says that each one must find a way of his own according to his capacity clearly an Upanishadic thought. But these views never prevailed in Islam. In the next fifty years, schools, colleges and universities will undergo complete change, as these institutions will no more be built around books. Computers, videos and satellite telecasts will change these institutions. This is a far cry from the concepts of the madrassa education in Islam. And yet a country like Pakistan has reduced its education budget over the years to almost nil and handed over the education of its young minds to the Jamaats. This inability to move with the times has created enormous frictions between Islam and other civilisations. Bernard Lewis, the eminent historian of Princeton, for example, writes: “The struggle between Islam and the West has now lasted 14 centuries. Today, much of the Muslim world is again seized by an intense and violent resentment of the West”. In short, political Islam (and Islam is a political ideology according to Maududi) has become a nasty word to many. The worst example is the Taliban of Afghanistan. This has made a former NATO Secretary General to declare that “Islamic fundamentalism is at least as dangerous as communism was”. Perhaps this is what led Samuel Huntington too to write about the clash of civilisations — of Islam against the West. The remedy lies in modern education. Muslims should free education from the madrassas and from religion and establish a tradition of free enquiry. This will not be easy. It will take a long time. And it will be fiercely resisted. But it has to be done. If, however, Muslims continue to succumb to the
pressures of the mullahs, they will fail to meet the challenges of the information age. |
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Wanted: a civilised civil service WHEN Singapore, tiny city state with just three million population, without any natural resources, but with a sizable Tamil population, produced four billionaires (Singapore has one of the maximum bank deposit rate per person also), India with a 1000 million population and with a Tamil state to boot, produced the same number of four billionaires. The difference between both the countries is only in one aspect. While Singapore is a disciplined society, India is burdened with criminalised politicians, a corrupt bureaucracy and a British time police force which draws its power from a 1861 Act. What we saw on TV during the arrest of Karunanidhi, Murasoli Maran and Balu, will not happen if we had a civilised civil service. We cannot rule out a day when Phulan Devi is Prime Minister, Veerappan is our President, and Dawood Ibrahim is our Finance Minister-cum-Defence Minister, Naxalites become ministers as our democracy permits this. Supreme Court judges like Fathima Beevi can appoint them in position, and our public is so fed up, that they will consider this alternative better than the present politicians. So what is required? As a first step, we should replace the IAS cadre that is a continuation of the ICS and whose members lack an understanding of and dedication to our poor public with service-oriented persons. Replace the present police regulations with human rights respecting laws, and persons with a service mentality, ordinary physique and not interested in bribes. Recruit only the very poor, tribal, backward groups of all religions to police force. Even though at present only second-level of intellectuals are going for Class I government service, we really require socially conscious, honest and service-oriented ordinary persons in these posts. Even if criminals are in power, the second layers of government will follow the laws of the land and make sure that the horror that we saw on TV perpetuated by the politicised IAS and IPS cadres of Tamil Nadu will not happen in future. One sad aspect is the lack of leadership or managerial capability at the Centre. With an army of central intelligence agencies the Prime Minister’s Office and the Home Minister’s Office were unable to know in advance the moves of the Tamil Nadu government. Even when Fathima Beevi invited Jayalalitha to form a government, the Centre was only a spectator unable to guide the Governor what to do. There must be networking among the IAS, IPS cadres to keep our politicians ill-informed like in “Yes Minister” to achieve what is happening in India everyday, and needs a thorough probe. It was one IAS officer J.T. Acharayalu, earlier suspended for corruption who filed the FIR after entering into a conspiracy with Jayalalitha. All other identifiable actors of this drama should be identified and they should be removed from service in the larger interest of the nation. I hope that the central government will show that it has some backbone left to act after its ministers were humiliated by its own cadre officers in Tamil Nadu. If this is what happens to some union ministers and to a former Chief Minister, what can a common citizen expect? Patriotism will be a dead word in India. |
Corruption in Municipalities
Occasionally complaints are made of corruption prevailing in certain municipalities but no reliable proof is furnished to enable action being taken against the man complained of. The Bombay Corporation has set a good example in dealing with a similar complaint against three officials by hearing the various charges openly and giving wide publicity to them. |
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Surviving ambitious parents IT’S NOT OFTEN that a cynical scribe like myself gets a chance to write a line like this, so let me savour the moment: I feel really sorry for Julio Iglesias, the 57-year-old Spanish singer who had been forced by his father to finish his law degree. Julio had abandoned his studies 35 years earlier, to pursue the “laydeez” of the world with his slinky hips and mangled English. I, too, was that boy who disappointed his father’s aspirations for him to be a family solicitor, and hit the sticky floors of pop music instead. “All I wanted was three lawyers,” he’d groan, “and all I got was three goldfish in that bloody bowl over there.” Myself and my musical co-writing brother rolled our eyes wearily. We’d heard this line forever. What it represented was the ambition of a hard-working father, who wanted to see his three young sons get ahead by becoming actual, unassailable professionals. People with status. I didn’t want to use my school qualifications for anything other than an excuse to watch film noir for survival money (in other words, doing a degree in English and media studies). Dad is happier about me now, I think. All the more so because he sees me roasting on the spit of my own anxieties for my elder daughter: 11 years old, unquantifiably fabulous, and shuddering on her launchpad into the 21st century. But, like most men these days who were once boys, we’re trying to do that old patriarchal rag a little differently these days. The times have changed anyway: I don’t expect my girl to have one job in her life, but about 10 at least. As a consequence, I’m much more concerned about how she develops her ability to learn, be innovative, and think creatively, than I am about what kind of “professional” she might become. She’s not going to be a conformer, she’s going to be a performer, raising her game whatever the context. No matter what crazy jobs the crazy new century throws up, she’ll be the girl to do them. There’s only one problem: her mother. Who, being a substantial executive, has a somewhat different attitude to the worth of the professions than her wastrel, ludic husband. This is also a power-feminist issue. As someone who has made a habit of being ``the first woman to ...” in a variety of professional positions, she is rightly keen that her daughter gets the chance to hurtle straight upwards, like a bullet through a glass ceiling. With impeccable pluralism, we have agreed to disagree, and dramatise our differences to our daughter as a menu of exciting life-options. The girl herself seems amazingly unconfused, and will surely just get on with it anyway. But I can’t help a wry smile. It’s not just that I’m not wearing the trousers here. I’m actually joyously cavorting in my underpants - proposing the play ethic to my partner’s work ethic, keeping possibilities open for our most precious production of all.
The Guardian |
Find the eternal object of your quest within your soul. Enough have you wandered during the long period of your quest! Dark and weary must have been the ages of your searching in ignorance and groping in helplessness; At last when you turn your gaze inward, suddenly you realise that the bright light Of faith and lasting truth Was shining around you... — Yajur Veda, 32.11 * * * To realise who you are is to realise that you are not! If you want to be, never try to realise, because in the very process of realisation, the ego disappears. And the self is only another name for the ego. There is nothing like self realisation. Yes, there is realisation but it always makes you clear that the self has never existed in the first place and it is not there; it has never been there. — Osho, Guida Spirituale * * * I am in the heart of all beings as their self yet some people ignore and insult Me and worship Me only in the images. Mother, I am not pleased with the pujas and offerings of people who spend vast sums on rituals and ceremonies. I do not accept their worship at all. — Shrimad Bhagavatam, III.29:21, 24 (words of the sage Kapila) * * * You may have bathed in the limpid waters of Ganga and other holy rives and piously made many ceremonial gifts. You may have repeated the Lord’s Name a million times. Yet, if you have not realised your own Self, what will it all avail you? Oh, what indeed will it all avail? You may have drunk poison as if it were milk. You may have eaten fire like eating fried corns. Like a bird, you may have acquired the power of flight through the sky. Yet, if you have not realised your own Self what will it all avail you? Oh, what indeed will it all avail? — Shri Adi Shankaracharya, Anatmashri Vigrhanama |
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