Saturday, May 16, 2009

play is the beginning of knowledge


childhood is a wonderful period to look back and cherish.Running,jumbing,climbing,falling.Broken knees were pleasure,and inspiration for playing more,lots of energy even without boost.For me childhood means play ,play,play and play!!!!!!i m very lucky to have a number of age mates as my neighbours that i didnt have time to spent for anything else,except the time during which my mom forced me to sit and study.Ijust looked looked back to see what i was at those early innocent years.wake up late in the morning thinking of coming and continue yesterdays games in the evening.sleeping thinking of what can be played next day.lots of game.i dont think todays children will have all those varieties as they are busy playing with readymade toys in their small flats
outdoor games:
universal game hopeskotch
hide and seek
police and thief
seven tees
marble
traditional kerala games like talapathu(literal translation"headball":))
kutiyum kolum...(its funny if i translate,leave it,but a wonderful game)
dome of sand for construction work will become railways,cave and houses within minutes
i was very fond of making doll by smashing newspaper soaked in water,as i read it in one of the children's publication that time.
pond and bank
mother and father
kitchen play using hibiscus leaves and redbricks(chillipowder).
games using broken bangles,seeds,....
snake and ladder.
lots and lots....just cant list out...

i think all these games have helped in building up my attitudes,abilities one or the other .
its said that play behaviour is an important aspects of child development and many of our abilities develop as a result of our play.
i wonder now how many children are getting the chances to play like this.Ready made toys and stuffs are made available so that the child need not go out and create problems to parents.
We have no simple problems or easy decisions after kindergarten.So let your children have their wonderful childhood which they can cherish ever

Sunday, May 10, 2009

"I wanna be ur sweetheart grandpa..."


"Appuppa..........................."I loved calling him ..because he was the only person who comes running to my voice.It may be to get somthing on a height or to ask him to get chocolate secretly or to blackmail showing him the place were his cigrattes are hidden or just to sit on his lap.My" grandpa"smoking was his only bad habbit.Fom my childhood i am against his smoking habit and used to put his cigars on fire..He laughs but never ever scolded me for that..he use to show his hand as if he is goin to beat me...but the slow pace in which his hands comes itself make me laugh..and that was his only purpose of pretending to scold ......
He comes from his shop in the evening with a paper packet full of chochlates or groundnut and give to his granddaughters ,he liked girls more so waslittle partial...
once i said granpa i want the hibiscus stem to plant in my garden ...he started cutting it and preparing it to plant..I saw his hand bleeding and he s still cutting..i called my mom to show grandpa's hand and he was busy cutting it because he knows if others come they will not allow him to cut as its bleeding heavily.......he has promised me that he will give.

no other grandfather would have given such a beautiful gift to their grandchildren ......he had his own shop and had lots of account books there .,,he made wonderful album on it with matchbox labels.......still now i cant believe that he used to collect matchbox labels from road to make my album.Its a big 200 page album with matchbox labels of different variety arranged in different shapes and also stamps he collected from his fellow shopkeepers...at that time it was a gift my grandpa gave me.but now when i see i can see his amazing talent,his patience,his love,effort..others might have thought at that time that he is mad collecting things from road.But it was not a shame for him as its for his grandchildren..he made 4 albums like that for his 4 grandchildren and was making one 4 my sister but....
another funny thing i remember he used to hide food items when children other children come to our house to give it to my youngest sister who was in play school at that time.And once smoked lying in his bed and it got burned.When i asked him angrily if something would have happened...he smiled as usual and said...molu u should study well ok.
He was very possessive about his children..
I alwys felt that he had gud health inspite of his smoking but i didnt knew that he was pretending to be having....
he didnt let others know that he was not well till his last moment and he was so gud that god didn't made him suffer..

i used to offer god for things to happen and when i heard he was not well my little mind offered more amount may be 5 rs more to save his life..i prayed all through the way that nothing should happen to him...
but everything has happened before i offered...i was paralysed...i sat beyond his body not able to cry...because i just felt he is sleeping as calm as ever ..................
i wonder all were crying i couldnt....i think the tears were not enough to express what i felt that moment.

Even now when i leave that house i just turn back just to see him standing wearing a dhothi and waving his hand till we are out of his sight...........i always want to be his favourite granddaughter and he told me i m his....but later i knew he told each of us secretly that she is his favorite.......

But i know dear grandpa....i am ur sweetheart................

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The Eternal Reality of the Soul's Immortality



Sridhara Swami's Commentary
It may be argued that although it is certainly true that the Supreme Lord Krishna is not ever subject to birth and death being transcendental to the material manifestation what about the individual living entities who everyday are dying and being born. This is what is being answered in this verse. Even as the embodied living entity in the very same lifetime, possesses different physical bodies during different stages of life such as infancy, youth and old age; but always keeping the consciousness that one is the same individual despite these modifications presented in the form of the body. So it can be understood that on the destruction of the physical body the eternal soul is embodied in another physical body only due to the impressions one has accumulated in their subtle body and that the subtle body is real is observed at the birth of an infant who begins to suck the mothers breast immediately owing to past life impressions. The eternal soul does not perish when the physical body perishes; therefore the spiritually intelligent are not deluded by the birth or destruction of the body knowing that the eternal soul is not subject to birth or death.


Madhvacarya's Commentary
This verse confirms that the soul is distinct from the body but by it being distinct does not make it independent. Only when the physical body is seen changing through infancy, childhood, youth etc. can this separate distinctness be perceived and thus confirmed until the soul giving up its present body acquires a new body and in some rare cases a living entity can recollect their past lives.
The physical body is obviously not what has the experience of childhood, youth, etc as is evidenced when the body is dead. The body is just the container and when the soul has departed. The body has no further identification with the soul leading itself to experience that it is a human being or tiger or worm or whatever physical form it possessed as the case may be. But due to the fact that the soul remains within the physical body during deep sleep similar to the ego centered mind; it is possible to perceive the existence of the soul as an independent consciousness whereas the body is merely like a wooden box.
Ramanuja's Commentary
As the indwelling monitor in every individual body of all living entities the soul does not grieve at any modifications taking place in the physical bodies transition from infancy to youth to maturity to old age and that by this process it is not in any way affected. So similarly a living entity possessing spiritual intelligence will not lament at having to transition from one body to another body at the time of the modification known as death in this world because of the knowledge that the soul is always eternal.
The individual soul within the physical body of every individual living entity is eternal. Bound by the reactions of their own individual desires from time immemorial each individual soul incarnates into different bodies according to their individual karma. Then based solely on their past actions they are given a physical body which is their vehicle to evolve from bondage to liberation in the material existence by engaging in Vedic authorised activities appropriate to ones birth and qualification while but performing all activities selflessly without any motive for personal gain.
To those so conditioned as to be unable to be unattached to the fruits of their actions, the experiences of duality in pleasure and pain are unavoidable in as much that they are but the product of the material existence which come into contact with the senses as external objects. Hence one needs to tolerate all such dualities with perseverance during the undertaking of any and all activities.






Saturday, May 2, 2009

Why bad things happen to gud people?




Happened to listen to a lecture on role of spirituality in the field of rehablitation.A very enlightening oration by a swamiji who was an alumni of our college.20yrs before in his so called "purvashrama"as apart of his Msc dissertation he happened to meet a person who was "deaf". He was in search of a professional who can give him speech so tat he can preach...
The result was that the professional himself got hablitated by his client in the spiritual world...The man opened all his senses which was spiritually closed so tat he can sense that divine power with all his micro structures.


Many concepts rather issues which knowly or unknowly comes to our mind were raised.If u think of those many times its like just unanswerd.Since its the world of internet and not of vedas and puranas we are least aware that the issues has been answered in a most auspicious ways 1000 of yrs ago n our literature.Todays oration really touched my heart and soul I felt very bad as i never tried to peep into any of our ancient works with an urge.
I tried to concieve the whole essence of the talk so tat i can convey them to my friends..but its just not an easy task.Just try to jot down whatever i remember probably in an organized way and wish i ll be able to convey them in a proper manner

Why bad things happen to good people and vice versa?
The first questn he adressed .Relating it to rehabilitative field we usually face such situation where parents of children with disability when we take them for counseling ask us.
why my child only???why not others???
Reason..........frankly i couldn't fully infer the facts explained as it was a bit above my cognizance..
Still the essence was that based on vedic literature there are 5 main elements that control every existence
Ishvara -god
Jiva-living entity
Prakriti-materialistic world
Kala-time
Karma-work/duty




Nothing can happen "by chance".If a small watch cannot exist without a creator how can complicate human body,the nature ,the galaxy...etc exist or came into existence without a creator.The supreme power ,the so called "god"exist and all the existence in this universe are the parts and parcels of that supreme power..

So he gave existence to jiva ,the living entity nothing but the "soul".
Does soul exist ,if yes where is it.why cant we see it?
The natural questn to arise
Then a counter questn would be where is the mind?
where is the intelligence?
why cant we see them..but still we believe in its existence.
They are all subtle..physically u feel the air the wind but u wont see becoz its subtle ..
The same way the most intricate entities in nature exist the subtle form and among them the smallest is the soul,which can be compared to a spark or one in 1000 small as the tip of hair.
we can't see it but we will feel its presence if we are concious.



what is the nature of soul?
"desire"
The soul has desires..this strong desire makes the soul alive.It needs a body to full fill its desire ..it uses the body until it feels that the body is capable of fullfilling the desires.If it cant it will leave tat and by tat time another body is ready for its acceptance.so does the soul die ???never..

prakriti,the nature ,the environment,the materialistic world which alwys fascinate us..ther are some laws of nature and we are owed to follow that ..if we follow we are promoted ..if we ignore /doesnt follow we are demoted .
kala is the time during which we are assigned certain karma which if we doesn't do we will face the consequences and doing this is related to motivation of ur soul,or desire of ur soul...but if we have to motivate ur soul there should be a desire to do that..
Its just like a frog in a snakes mouth with a desire to catch the insect flying in front of him.
So ultimately every soul has a desire which is the root of our existence and watering that root rather than the branches and leaves leads to our ultimate accompolishment of our goal of life.

so what is the ultimate goal?

Love to that supreme power thereby getting connected to all his loved ones which are his parts and particle...

love can be due to
fear of god
passion
goodness
pure love

Its difficult to develop pure love...but in alife one must aspire to have that pure love to god,the love which is unconditional and love which attach u to him even after u having thousand reasons to abandon him......the eternal love........

so inshort to conclude its not the physical senses that matters,its the person itself matters,the soul matters
Even having gud hearing sensitivity with no understanding of fellow beings cry u are handicapped
Gud vision and u cant see others pain u are handicapd
2 hands and cant lend a helping hand to u r people then u r handicaped

without knowing the essence of love &god u r handicapped
In essence if the soul has a desire it will uplift the body the person and the focus of the rehabilitative effort should be holistic rather than considering only the disability.

A deaf and dumb ,so called handicapped person has given such a vision to a professional who thought himself to be blessed and pitying on those unfortunate people to realize himself as having severe handicaps....


Its just a gist of that wonderful talk by that towering personality. Lots and lots he talked about but just tat i cant express them fully...a free flight of thoughts flying through my mind ....it was just wonderful and has inspired me a lot....
.Just tat it should remain and hope i ll improve myself atleast as i have a big duty assigned to me by that almighty and my soul is in constant urge to full fill his desires, may be my destiny....

Stopping with a small thought undoubtedly its also plagiarised




why do we say "I love u"/I have done it etc touching ur chest or may say hand on heart...u could say it keeping hand on ur head/or arm etc.....

Its becoz it says our soul exist in our heart....and it shows that the referred"I" doesnt refers to the body or the person ,but its the soul situated in that region.......

If my soul urges ll have more thoughts on this.......