I have been pondering on an aspect of demonstrative faith in God or religion, since the first week of BIGG BOSS season 3.
Sitting with a HUGE photo of Jesus on elimination day, the contestant in Bigg Boss hopes probably not to be eliminated owing to the power of God beside? Or is it a hope that the photo would remind that everything is as per the will of God? Is the photo beside a reflection of faith or rather infact of a lack of faith..of a nervousness, of fear...
God and faith is a matter of the heart, not of an object or taking the NAME during trials. When taking an exam if a student keeps thinking about GOD, he will waste so much time and misdirect the focus from the questions in front of him on the paper. When we take our focus to an outside object (when infact the real energy called God is part of us), we move the inside energy to the outside and become weaker rather than stronger! It is fear that plays this trick with us of weakening us by dissipating our energy to the outside and keeping on asking(in all futility of course) that it help us!!! That is why probably the Bible gives the commandment.."Do not take the name of the LORD your GOD in VAIN" When we focus on our trials, the whole of our faculties and power inside is directed on the problem..and then what we do is empowered and perfected in a divine and yet real way.
Another thing to consider in this regard is extremism in (any) religion. Somewhere in my book (in the initial posts of the blog) I have declared that I believe in all scriptures because doubting one is doubting all the others. All scriptures have a basic agreement on core matters. Some do not speak on certain issues whereas others do. Therefore I chose to refer to scriptures only for basic understanding. It is said that everything should be done in moderation,(including moderation). So I feel there should be moderation in terms of looking into the scriptures for answers too. I have spent 12 posts and even more years pondering about scriptural truths. But despite having faith in scriptures, I do not feel compelled to read the Bible EVERY day. When beset with problems I am aware and I know that the God connected to me through my heart is giving me answers and I know I do not really need to randomly open the Bible and find answers there, though I may sometimes chose to. Religion is a guide that leads to our spirit. Once connected to the spirit,we have to leave the hand of religion..otherwise when we should have started looking in our hearts for further answers, if we still compulsively look into religion we may be led to Extremist viewpoints and due to fear we may wrongly disregard our heart. This is what happens to extremists in ALL religions. They think that there is no way they can trust their heart over the sometimes conflicting words in their scripture. But they should also think...Do they love GOD? yes. They follow the core of the religion? yes. Their spirit is aroused? yes. Then God is now unvieled in their hearts. And if this spiritually opened heart is pointing to a different direction in certain things compared to what is 'written'.., the trust I believe should be placed on what the heart says. Written things may get distorted or influenced with time but the heart connected to spirit is true. It is not faith to follow written words that conflict our conscience..it is rather again the trick that fear plays with us that keeps us compulsively hooked to words on paper rather than giving heed to the direct words heard by our heart. Take an example. Which is proper of a servant to do?..To follow a paper which has passed through hundreds of people and is claimed to be from his master or follow the direct words that his master comes later and tells him? Should he say that, no master I wont follow your instruction because the message you sent me through so and so says something different?
It is always important to be clear what drives our actions...Is it faith or is it really fear? The answer to this will guide us to the right decisions, to follow the faith directed paths......
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Informed Love
My daughter in UKG told me that she saw a Cinderella cartoon Movie in school and liked it very much. Great..I just hope she does not take fairy tales too seriously or grow up on a staple diet of that. There are certain things I would like to inform her as she grows up..I am hoping for the right questions from her so that I can know the right aspects to deal with as per her age and stage in life.
Girl children brought up in conservative households have one advantage maybe of being too shy of the opposite sex to mingle with them (and so are 'protected') and therefore maybe can be shoved safely into an arranged marriage. But then their delayed realization, that is after marriage, that fairy tale men and real men are as different as Venus and Mars, can be quite shocking and difficult to accept and can create severe emotional problems. This is because what should infact be learned gradually is thrust into a capsule and given when views and expectations have really firmly set in the mind. The disadvantage then of conservative upbringing is emotional vulnerability.
Life and men do not turn out to be as perfectly put as fairytales are. Maybe there should be little stories taught in school or elsewhere, where the differences in thinking and attitude of men and women come clear so that as time progresses both sexes can correctly interpret the opposite sex's hidden messages.
Here are a few differences that they should learn as they approach, or are in, the teen age.
1. Women evaluate men as a person first and the way to their hearts is via the brain. Men evaluate women first according to their body and appearance and desirability.
2. Women Like to be appreciated, and dressing provocatively is (more often than not) merely because of self Love and desire for attention. They often don't realize the extent of the effect it can create.
Men can wrongly interpret this as 'seeking sex'because unlike women, men are biologically prone to be too often thinking of sex and so wrongly think that it must be the same with women.
3.Women are dreamers and desire a person who can LOVE them more than anything else (rather than about sex).
But most men do not have the concept in their system of a 'one and only' or a 'true love'. They love all desirable women and often a beautiful woman in their life can mean another of their possessions (like cars or latest mobiles) that they can boast of possessing
4. When men do realize the'being in love', it may or usually be true (because they were not looking for it and it was a discovery!), though never all exclusive. It is rare that a man could think of a woman, before he thinks of money and cars. And man 'cant help' being attracted to sexy women despite being in love with one. It is biological and women should learn to accept that.
But women can rarely be too content with a man's 'true love' as they generally want all the attention of their Man exclusively for themselves. Because women unlike men CAN love a man exclusively. But 'TRUE' LOVE can be in fact be a bit more difficult for women because women can generally never see love as non possessive and unconditional. Men value their freedom and therefore can rather more easily be unconditional and non possessive in love.(although these factors may reverse {flip around} for both sexes as the relationship progresses, that is men may get possessive as women turn non possessive often due to disillusionment and hence non expectation in love)
5. Women are REALLY from VENUS and ALL men are REALLY from MARS and no NOT EVEN ONE of the men is from VENUS!!
All these above given information, though can always be learnt from books but both young boys and young girls DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE IT unless they experience this truth firsthand!! Therefore it is really essential to learn these truths first hand, slowly but surely in small 'non-harmful' doses. Men have to learn that women's biology is such that unless they get proper information when they are in their teens(which is rare) they cannot really understand sex!! The desire that they seem to possess is REALLY only for LOVE. Women should learn that though they would like a fairy tale prince, the characteristics that they want is rare in a real Man, and are only found in women!!
So maybe unfortunately, but it becomes important to accept men as different beings and see if they can be loved despite these terrible differences that Mars endows them with. But hey, we women can be sure it is TRUE LOVE we feel and not mere a feed to our ego and vanity, only when despite of all the turn off differences, we still cant help but be drawn to one of these 'difficult to love' mars creatures...
PS: In this article, the term sex is used only to imply to the basic act (not foreplay). Teenage girls may not find it that easy or natural to understand the actual act because unlike for boys, their puberty changes do not provide clues to the actual act. Of course today's generation is more explicit with sharing information and therefore sexual awakening due to either clear understanding or even experience can be earlier. And after sexual awakening a woman may become quite similar in terms of sexual appetite as a man. Though this is true, still uptill the age of atleast 20, a woman does need to be considered as per the above article, because in a conservative society like India, it stands quite true even now and it is important for young men to interpret the non verbal messages of teen girls keeping the above information in mind.
Girl children brought up in conservative households have one advantage maybe of being too shy of the opposite sex to mingle with them (and so are 'protected') and therefore maybe can be shoved safely into an arranged marriage. But then their delayed realization, that is after marriage, that fairy tale men and real men are as different as Venus and Mars, can be quite shocking and difficult to accept and can create severe emotional problems. This is because what should infact be learned gradually is thrust into a capsule and given when views and expectations have really firmly set in the mind. The disadvantage then of conservative upbringing is emotional vulnerability.
Life and men do not turn out to be as perfectly put as fairytales are. Maybe there should be little stories taught in school or elsewhere, where the differences in thinking and attitude of men and women come clear so that as time progresses both sexes can correctly interpret the opposite sex's hidden messages.
Here are a few differences that they should learn as they approach, or are in, the teen age.
1. Women evaluate men as a person first and the way to their hearts is via the brain. Men evaluate women first according to their body and appearance and desirability.
2. Women Like to be appreciated, and dressing provocatively is (more often than not) merely because of self Love and desire for attention. They often don't realize the extent of the effect it can create.
Men can wrongly interpret this as 'seeking sex'because unlike women, men are biologically prone to be too often thinking of sex and so wrongly think that it must be the same with women.
3.Women are dreamers and desire a person who can LOVE them more than anything else (rather than about sex).
But most men do not have the concept in their system of a 'one and only' or a 'true love'. They love all desirable women and often a beautiful woman in their life can mean another of their possessions (like cars or latest mobiles) that they can boast of possessing
4. When men do realize the'being in love', it may or usually be true (because they were not looking for it and it was a discovery!), though never all exclusive. It is rare that a man could think of a woman, before he thinks of money and cars. And man 'cant help' being attracted to sexy women despite being in love with one. It is biological and women should learn to accept that.
But women can rarely be too content with a man's 'true love' as they generally want all the attention of their Man exclusively for themselves. Because women unlike men CAN love a man exclusively. But 'TRUE' LOVE can be in fact be a bit more difficult for women because women can generally never see love as non possessive and unconditional. Men value their freedom and therefore can rather more easily be unconditional and non possessive in love.(although these factors may reverse {flip around} for both sexes as the relationship progresses, that is men may get possessive as women turn non possessive often due to disillusionment and hence non expectation in love)
5. Women are REALLY from VENUS and ALL men are REALLY from MARS and no NOT EVEN ONE of the men is from VENUS!!
All these above given information, though can always be learnt from books but both young boys and young girls DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE IT unless they experience this truth firsthand!! Therefore it is really essential to learn these truths first hand, slowly but surely in small 'non-harmful' doses. Men have to learn that women's biology is such that unless they get proper information when they are in their teens(which is rare) they cannot really understand sex!! The desire that they seem to possess is REALLY only for LOVE. Women should learn that though they would like a fairy tale prince, the characteristics that they want is rare in a real Man, and are only found in women!!
So maybe unfortunately, but it becomes important to accept men as different beings and see if they can be loved despite these terrible differences that Mars endows them with. But hey, we women can be sure it is TRUE LOVE we feel and not mere a feed to our ego and vanity, only when despite of all the turn off differences, we still cant help but be drawn to one of these 'difficult to love' mars creatures...
PS: In this article, the term sex is used only to imply to the basic act (not foreplay). Teenage girls may not find it that easy or natural to understand the actual act because unlike for boys, their puberty changes do not provide clues to the actual act. Of course today's generation is more explicit with sharing information and therefore sexual awakening due to either clear understanding or even experience can be earlier. And after sexual awakening a woman may become quite similar in terms of sexual appetite as a man. Though this is true, still uptill the age of atleast 20, a woman does need to be considered as per the above article, because in a conservative society like India, it stands quite true even now and it is important for young men to interpret the non verbal messages of teen girls keeping the above information in mind.