A Promise Has Two Ends

I was reading someone's post today, expressing gratitude towards her husband for being beside her not just in her best but at her worst too, and being with her all through...

Considering what we usually read in the papers about marriages, this was a refreshing read; but again not all couples are happy, and many end up getting separated. Are they wrong in the eyes of God? I have held different opinions over time on this topic, and currently it so happened that in our daily family prayer time we have been reading the old testament and it has been revealing to me new and surprising lessons every day. One particular lesson I shared in an earlier post (titled- In Love and in War) and now I intend to share another lesson that I learnt. 

The lesson is- A Promise has Two Ends. If one end of the promise is not kept, by rights, the other end of the promise is made null. It can be withdrawn! This is what I gathered from the story of Solomon. God promised David,  Solomon's father, that if he and his descendants obeyed God, their family line would rule forever. Solomon showed a promising spark when he prayed to God for wisdom, and as a result, God blessed him, not only with wisdom but also wealth.  However, with time, he turned  disobedient. He began to get obsessed with gaining more and more riches at the expense of his subjects. He made the subjects unhappy in his rule by making them work for him without pay, and charging excessive tax. Solomon didn't keep his promise to obey God.  By rights, the whole kingdom could have been taken away but  still God’s love being greater, his promise to David was held good. Nonetheless, it was only in name. Ten of the twelve tribes of the kingdom were taken away from under the rule of Solomon's descendants! 

There are two ends to every relation. A plant wilts without water; animals move in search of food. No living thing stays in a place which provides nothing for its survival, health and happiness.

Trees that don’t bear fruit are cut down by the farmer, however many years he might have tended it. A bird abandons the nest on a branch if the branch is shaken incessantly. That is a rule of nature; it is not promises, therefore, it is usefulness and responsiveness that survives. When God can't help those who won't help themselves, how can a mere mortal stick to non responsive relationships? 

God's mercies and grace indeed fall on the person who shows promise, a spark; but stays only on the one who obeys him. The blessings stay on the one who uses those blessings, converting the spark in him/her to a fire in the service of God. There is the story where the servant who invests all the talents given by the Master doubles it, and receives as reward from the Master 'all of the talents from the servant who did nothing with his share'. A grateful heart is essential to recognise all the blessings in one's life in the form of family, friends, health or wealth, rather than having to lose them to be able to recognise them. By not being grateful or aware about God's blessings, a person unwittingly pushes those blessings away. 

What I mean to say is that, although we should strive to keep our promises, it need be only as long as promises to us are kept. While I have always believed that a 'man' is only as good as his word,  I also believe today that a promise does not a stand without the other end held good.

The Incomparable Factor called FRIENDSHIP

As I entered the college auditorium, there was an extempore going on. The topic that a third year student was presenting was - friendship. Such a simple yet difficult to explain concept that I started wondering what I would have spoken?

       

A friend – brings to mind someone who cares, respects, and understands us, who wants our company and whose company we enjoy as well. Someone on whom we have no rights, who has separate responsibilities, but we come together to share some moments of togetherness.

 It's been years since college. What happens when we meet those friends from those college times?  I feel it like time travel. We travel back to those times, those little moments shared together. The dancing on the hostel bed and getting caught in the act by the warden. The trip to the lake with a friend a day before an exam, the teasing, the laughs, the smiles. We suddenly realize how little moments have in fact not been forgotten but were etched into the memory to be brought out unexpectedly when we connect with the people from those times. Connecting again to the fun, the excitement, the unique joys of college years that we traversed together.

That’s what friends hold. They represent the memories and the experiences, the lessons from the shared time period.  The advantage of friendship is that it is neither a too close relationship nor a too distant one and so the mutual expression and expectations are on a mean, neither too little nor too much. While close relationships of family as well as love relationships have their own value, these may hold a lot of expectations and demands attached, that can, in fact, make for each individual's burden! It is friendships again, that aid in carrying these burdens...of earning, of succeeding, of managing a home perfectly and efficiently, and so on. Such little comforts of sharing are what friendships provide.

Can you share ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING with your family? Since family is so close, they are often affected by what we have to reveal. But there can be friends we can share anything with, without causing them discomfort or arousing any possessiveness or anger.  In fact, a good friend can be a better listener than even a counsellor who hardly knows us.

Also, family may take us for granted. The closer we get, as in a love  relationship, the baggage of old relationship, personal issues, hidden facets; all are more and more expressed, and the result is that often close relations become more a challenge than a joy. Not that close relationships cannot become a joy, but it is only possible when they have the right amount of 'friendship factor' added to it, in other words, enough closeness and enough distance that prevents the disease called “taking for granted”. In other words, it’s important to be a friend first in every relationship, remembering that no matter what the relationship, we can't own anybody; it helps to truly care, no matter what is shared or expressed.

I read recently, that in a study, it was found that it is not success, relationships or even religion that contributes most to the happiness quotient of any individual, rather it is true friendships.  I could really agree to that! Friendship, a relationship with the right amount of closeness and the right amount of distance is an equilibrium relationship, and so, no doubt, is incomparable.

There... I have finally spoken, on what I began considering years ago, listening to an extempore, on the  incomparable relationship - friendship, and I am happy that today, I can finally say, I don't just hope to make friends with people I like, I do take the initiative to hold my hand out to those I appreciate. Not all may take the extended hand, but there are those who do, and never let go. I am blessed to have some such GREAT friends!

The Marriage Habit...Why Not?

I read a line in paper that got me thinking. It said about a certain celebrity couple-‘They were together for a year, that’s quite long by LA standards’. We are all addicted to the highs of love and when that fades in a year we move to the next. And so end up in a string of relationships. Man is a pleasure seeker and society knows that decisions taken under the whims of pleasure are self destructive. What when old age happens? You are left with nobody.

'Do not ignore the wisdom of long experience….'
Our ancestors found it necessary to bind man in marriage and religious laws, to stop him from destroying his future by marriage hopping. They knew that marriage was also important to protect the naïve trusting woman from being merely used; to pressure the self seeking man to discover his loyalties or become a creature of habit; to allow the child to have a secure future.

Society is changing again. Now sex before marriage is seen as practical unlike a few decades ago where it was unthinkable. So I was surprised when, after the legal age for sex was raised to 18 (after the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Bill was cleared on 26th April, 2012), a news paper article revealed that there were still some guys who considered sex as sacred and preferred sex after marriage! What was shocking to me though was that, the interviewers ‘gave the guys a reality check’ saying that guys can’t wait that long! To put ideas in the last of a breed! Isn’t that quite like saying life is all about sex?

Brahmacharya(Chastity) up till 25 years was not really an 'unscientific' useless idea. It helps in bringing interest in all aspects of life that may take a backseat when one becomes sexually active. It helps to focus on the learning, personality development and career building aspect of life, where sex can be more of a distraction if given into. It helps to get interested in all the other wonders of the world, art, nature, adventure; before being swept into anything which can be all consuming. In the teenage if one manages to have self control, it is an asset for life. But once a person gets into a string of relationships, it is easier to break up than to settle down with one, when the Grihastha(House holder) phase comes.

But yeah I would say there can never be a hard and fast. There can only be ideals and then there can be exceptions; but society is supposed to focus on ideals, whereas life may often lead some to be the exceptions. When in the past the doors were closed to multiple options, one had to focus and work at the relationship at hand and eventually succeed in making it work or learn the arts of adjustment and compromise. The toughest things to handle in a marriage were handled by religion. Religion, rules, laws were all for our own good. It brings order; as once chaos is chosen it is difficult to bring the pleasure seeking man back to the “order” that is better for his soul, his peace, his health and his future.

Institutions that have evolved need to be respected. Cohabitation is a trap which gives an easy escape once boredom sets in. Love dies, friendships fade but companionship held together by a legal act is the only thing that can last though many upheavals. I read of a couple breaking up because according to them being together was just habit and love had died. Of course the heady love dies and actually habit is not a bad thing. We can't always live in awe of the Sun! Everything we do like waking up, the food we eat, even the rain, everything revolves around the sun. Being habituated to seeing it does not mean we don’t need it; because we see it daily, doesnt mean there is no wonder to it. The truth is we cant even exist without the sun.

In the same way we get used to the people around us but that doesn’t mean they are not important to us, they have not meant anything to us. Eventually with togetherness (in a marriage), familial love is born, which may not have the heady gush of a new love but it signifies acceptance, adaptation and assurance. Moreover ‘family is not just about love, but its about being there, about watching out for another... -Where are you?, how are you faring? In the long run we realize someone asking these questions is more important than momentary uncommitted pleasure relationships. These are questions a lover would not ask, but a family would.’ What matters eventually is protection security affection and a looking out for the other.

I heard from some friends settled in US about how the US became a free society- War deaths, led to single parents, who had no means of marrying off their kids, leading them to allow their kids to find their own mates. It led to the culture that was not really intended, and hence not really to be emulated. A culture evolved out of crisis is a compromise, not a culture.

Lets not be afraid of the Marriage Habit then, and trust that all that our ancestors have arranged for us is for our good and so work at it, holding on to this trust.

Jealousy Unveiled

It is said in some scriptures in effect that if a man can deal justly, let him have two wives, otherwise if he fears he cannot be fair to both, then let him have only one. Jealousy is a trait often associated with women fighting over one man, and women are often insinuated as possessing too much of the trait. But I have felt that in fact women suffer from jealousy because of a basic ineptness in men! The common man is by nature not only attracted to many women but is also basically unfair, uncaring or tactless. Women being perceptive and more emotionally developed beings (as most people would agree), are more sensitive to unfairness and end up in the vicious hold of jealousy. In fact, I have known that women can be the best of friends to each other, and generally, if they have an issue that breaks the friendship it more often than not is the result of an insensitive or unjust man who came in between them, making one jealous of the other. By the way, why men don’t suffer as much from jealousy is because they are either busy looking at other women, or have wise or caring wives who know how to avoid making her mate jealous. And then if a man suffers jealousy, it's , mostly, either because the woman intended to make him jealous or the man is getting unreasonably possessive perhaps because of his own insecurities.

Jealousy unveiled and confronted is jealousy conquered. Avoiding it can worsen the situation irretrievably. So here, I address women folk, and let's see how to cope with the greens... Well the first point is - Is it fair to expect something from Men that they are basically not capable of ? It is like asking a monkey to walk erect! How foolish can we women be! I read somewhere, "If you ever feel like making your man understand something then hit your head against a wall until that feeling goes away!" The long and short of it is: “It is we women who have to change (as always) to manage our green emotion." 

So here are some truths we need to swallow. Of course, all men are naturally drawn to beautiful women, but the one who cares for his woman (however ordinary) will never make her feel less, or hurt her self-esteem, because, any sensible man knows that to be appreciated by her man for what she is happens to be the very ground for the woman. All men surely can have affection for more than one woman in life, but the one who cares for his relationships will deal fairly in resolving conflicts, and while expressing his affections. The fact remains that 'caring men are a rare breed'!

Women are just as much (or maybe more) jealous of emotional attachments in a man as of physical attractions and that is difficult for men to understand. For women, the biggest need is affection and not sex, and often the reason they give sex is to get affection whereas a man is affectionate until he gets sex, from which point he can think only of sex. So when affection is dealt unfairly among the women in a man’s life, the wife, the sexual partner can get jealous, which the man, whose primary need is sex, fails to understand. That is why a long courting period before hitching is a must. Indeed, that does not guarantee anything. So I would like to give a probably 'wild' suggestion.  If you need only affection then don’t give sex to your love interest because the assumption that sex buys love is as naive as expecting the sun to continue shining during late evening.

One way of putting an end to the green emotion is of course to end the emotional tie up that is causing jealousy, but the fall back is, it does not help with the next emotional tie up. So women, there has to be a solution that helps avoid jealousy in relationship that man is programmed to arouse. Yes, I am sure you guessed right; the answer is ‘expect nothing’. Now can you expect rivers to flow in the desert? But if you go forward expecting a desert and find a river, how happy you would be. So girls, don’t blame your love interests, blame your thick heads for expecting flowers on pine trees. Look it up, pines bear only cones. Indeed you have caused your own miseries. However it is wise to expect all trees to be pine trees as you would be allowing yourself the chance to be pleasantly surprised...

But then what do you do for your inborn hunger for affection…hmm..well….pray to god to give you luck? Or become the source of such love. 'Embodied Love' does not need any external contribution. Women have a good chance of finding that well-spring within because their need is great and they are sensible to understand it is not to be found out there. Yes, we need to turn inwards. The sooner we do, the better life becomes.

Love and other Lies

I heard, that the movie "The Dirty Picture" had good ratings and I was curious enough to read the review of the movie. The story line, to my surprise, was really good and agreed with my thinking, so much so that I wanted to see the movie! It is that old paradox, men want women to give them sex, but the woman who fulfils this basic want gets in return... disrespect. She might be pursued and showered with attention and care but only till she gives him what he wanted following which the man ignores her needs, puts her down in front of his family or friends and so on.

The natural make of a man is such that for him being a son or a friend may be about caring, about loving, but having sex is about dominion, about insulting, about sadism. Man’s instincts make him negative to the object of his lust, that is why the paradox that the woman who fulfils a mans lust gets nothing of his love but rather gets everything in the contrary.

I read somewhere a question- Why do people like love and hate death? Answer- People like love and hate death because love is a lie and death is a truth...
The truth is that, truths are more painful to live with so the world lives by lies. But sometimes it is good to know the truth, especially if the knowledge of truth doesn’t stop you from being yourself, rather helps you understand the real world. One big lie is Sexual "Love" as sex has basically nothing to do with love. The purpose of nature is sustenance through procreation and nature can do anything for it, even hypnotise... All life is hypnotised by a lie called sexual love to serve natures agenda. For procreation, in human terms, man has to have a need which should be prime, like an obsession. For that men have to be basically obsessive and often that is why they are prone to various obsessions, cars, money, power etc. Therefore there is no one and only true sexual love for a man as it would go against nature’s drive of procreation. Men are attracted to all women, and the act of sex being basically an act of dominion, is sadistic and can evoke even scorn and disgust in him. That is why women in marriages often become the punching bag of the man, an object to take out all his problems and issues on. "The paradox of relationships is that men cannot imagine having sex with a women they respect too much as a friend; whereas women want as a sexual partner one who respects her and is a friend!"

'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' Matthew 19:5. In marriage, the lust and associated issues is sanctified with the demand that the man should consider his wife more important than even the oldest relation in his life of a mother and a father. Since sexual act is basically an act of dominion of man over woman, this dominion can be nullified only when it is in exchange of submission of the man to the needs of the partner in terms of giving more priority to the partner than any other relation, however much older. Women become vulnerable if they have bowed down to a man, given him sex. They are at the mercy of their lover and need reassurance that the dominion is in exchange for all of the attention and love of their man. But of course this does not often happen as instincts win over marital vows.

“Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other” This is what St. Paul says in Galatians 5: 16-17. Love of flesh and love of god cannot coexist. Despite the fact that there is something called spiritual sex and though it can unlock our bliss centres, but still it requires two participants on an equal plane of existence loving each other in spirit and not in body. This, if not possible, is not so favourable as two sexual partners are more intensely affected by each other's actions. Two people can rarely grow together in spirituality at the same pace all through their life. One may be spiritual but if the other oscillates between the material and spiritual planes, it affects the other partner more intensely as both "are one". Spirtual awakening through sex is more possible for women who unify love and sex, but as mentioned it has its risks and vulnerabilities. For the majority of the world "where sex is, there is no love"; it is blind to the other and is selfish and so "where love is there can rarely be place for sex".

That is why spiritual men (and even women) often prefer to approach spirituality by abstaining from sex. Men have to get over lust for lust is blinding, it does not see the person it only sees the body and is hypnotically blind to the needs of the person and aware of only the selfish needs of the flesh. This is the reason behind why evils abound in the world all revolving around the harm done from the obsession for the flesh.

What then is love? Have you heard of the musk deer who searches all over for the source of a wonderful smell when all the while it was emanating from its own navel? The search of love is not for something outward, we have to unlock love in ourselves realising that love is not the nature of the world we see. Love is the nature of the unseen which we have to unlock, not in others but within ourselves. It is the nature of loving even when you do not get love in return, it is giving even when you get nothing in return. One of the lies the society promotes is “Do good and you will get good in return.” In the real world the giver is scorned, the cruel respected” The giver is taken advantage of and the fear induced respect is the trophy of the cruel. If you give your portion of food to your house help, there is much likelihood that you are the one whom she will be comfortable dumping when you are ill and need more help. If you help someone with money, there is more likelihood the other will start assuming all your money is theirs for the asking. If you have a habit of giving then better know the truth and get used to suffering for the good you do, or get smarter and draw limits so you do not get abused for this habit of giving(for you have to love yourself too!). The dirty picture of love and sex is the same. "The one who gives sex is scorned, whereas one who ignores this need in him is respected and loved ....by the Man."

Also read on sacred sex in Towards building a relationship with God
instincts in sex in men-women

For the institution of marriage to survive...

I read a story in the newspaper about a woman, an only child of a couple, who was married off, only to get killed by her husband in a matter of 10 months from the marriage! The parents had brought a car for the groom...in which she was driven by the husband..dead, to be dumped.

Such are the possible consequences of marriage but our society does so love the institution called marriage and pushes off their darlings to experiment with dangers...without any training..

Dont all parents, all married couples know that the opposite sex is very different and very difficult to understand. Dont they remember how they struggled to understand their spouses? Probably they think, theirs was a unique case but infact the issue is not in your spouses, the real issue is lack of awareness about basic differences in the opposite sex, and lack of skills to bridge the differences. Isn't it the reason why a person who divorces once and marries again ends up divorcing again..and again. If the woman likes to communicate, the man mostly prefers quiet. If the woman likes to correct, the man hates to listen. If the woman is romantic, the man is practical..It wouldn't be wrong to say men and women are basically incompatible. Left to themselves, to their own devices, each person tries to change these differences to similarities, getting frustrated and resentful in the process.

And also, due to these differences that are not understood as natural differences, judgements are often made of the character that makes each sex become disgustful of the other in the long run, killing the very soul of marriage. If only they had known what to expect and what not to expect from the other sex....It could prevent disgust and anger from destroying the marriage by building the base of understanding that comes from being informed. Understanding and training could have given the skill to deal with differences correctly to make the marriage functional.

If society does want the institution of marriage to survive, what is it doing about it? It takes only trained people to do its engineering, doctoring, and for all sorts of institutions, but why does it not bother to train people for its much loved and fundamental institution of marriage? Is the indifference because the people in the marital institution are not paid to be in it? But isnt the exceeding number of divorce cases, the disturbed kids, the abuse, the murders in marriage, big enough reasons for worry that make the society sit up and finally do something about it.

I believe that society would benefit itself by starting a compulsory subject at graduation level that is equivalent to "Premarital councelling". All courses should have this as a compulsory subject and even the non graduates should require a certificate course in it to get married.. The subject should help in learning skills that help interact aptly with the opposite sex in marriage. It should most importantly also include sessions that involve releasing each individual from the baggage and damages of their family and upbringing, their past relationships, to prevent carrying and projecting its ill effects into their marital relation. This is important because unknowingly we live the roles of our parents and react to our spouse with the prejudices towards the opposite sex learnt unconsciously as a result of our earlier interactions with them in earlier relationships or even the view projected through the media.

There are many skills about handling relationships that cant be learnt easily without some sort of guidance. Look at marriages and you will see that 90 % of the times, the skill couples invariably learn by themselves, to deal with the spouse, is to keep distance, and with each passing year the distance builds. If society does really want the marital institution to be healthy and survive in the long run, creating balanced individuals in its offsprings, it does require a compulsory course in developing skills for marriage. I really dont think optional pre marital councelling or councelling when issues crop up is sufficient. What society currently does is like giving the car to an untrained person and asking that it be driven in heavy traffic. Is it enough to give the driving suggestions when the person and car are damaged in an accident? How would it look condemning the issue of increasing accidents when no effort to change the scenario is thought out? Yes, I am in fact saying society has been stupid and highly callous in its attitude to its fundamental institution, and what worries me is how long it will choose to stay so..



(A related post by me "Informed Love" (http://jerlyt.blogspot.com/2009/12/informed-love.html)can be viewed by clicking the title of this post)

Hopelessly flawed

I switched on the TV and heard a character in a Movie saying 'We are all hopelessly flawed'. It hit a chord because I had been in a hopeless mood regarding my own flaws… the flaws of having an overactive brain, of being a critic, of being opinionated, philosophical, of having an ego, of being laid back (or call it lazy), maybe even talkative, maybe possessing intensity that draws intense situations(!), slightly obssessive compulsive… and many more flaws, that seem to be an obstruction to peace, within and without.

The character in the Movie then broke into a poem which in essence asked nature to keep its pristine perfection to itself and give him (the poet) the crowded city!! The poem seemed to reassure me that I need not strive to be perfect or have a perfect life. The world has a place for imperfection too...When it comes to relationships; it is really unrealistic to ask for perfection. At best we can be sincere in our approach to others....in our own unique imperfect way...

Come to think of it, the world in fact has never been perfect especially when we look at all things with our perspective. Then we notice that, the woods usually don’t come without biting insects and blood sucking mosquitoes, the city with its comforts does not come without its crowd and pollution; or consider this, youth has so little in terms of essential maturity, whereas wisdom and maturity more often doesn’t have the glory of youth. Even virtues are attached with vice, for example, it has been noted that intelligent people also tend to be aggressive. So just see what that spells for close relationships! It would mean an intelligent partner will often be uncomfortably aggressive, a simple person could prove boring, a wise partner may seem too proud and preachy, a beautiful partner too arrogant, a talkative one could cause discord while a silent one could exasperate you. Show me a virtue and I will show you the attached vice! (...has somebody already said that?).Even in terms of what we seek, if it is an excess of money, we give up the joys of leisure, if it is an excess of knowledge we give up blissful ignorance. (Yes!.. even knowledge is not for the weak hearted as knowing and perceiving can hurt, and so it can be a vice rather than virtue to possess {if you value peace more} unless you are emotionally strong enough).

Recently I saw the movie ‘A beautiful life’ which shows how a father helps his son through a war. He does not reveal to him that it is a real war going on around him, rather he says that it is a game and for all the precautions that he makes his son take, he tells him that there are points, and the more points he makes, the more the chances of winning the game. The result is that the son survives the war … totally emotionally unscathed! The imperfect situation of war was converted into a beautiful game. Isn’t that how we should deal with all the imperfections within and around us….closing our mind to its interpretation as an imperfection and seeing it rather as that factor which makes life the beautiful game it really is.

So cheers to my imperfections, as that is what makes me what I am. Peace or no peace, valued or not valued, understood or not understood, tolerated or not tolerated, I am still perfect in my imperfections.
I too appreciate people according to their sincerity, not perfection as I genuinely feel perfection is totally overrated. Imperfection is quite obviously the real nature, beauty and individuality of everything that constitutes the perceived world and perfection could actually make the world too predictable and so boring. So everything is really hopelessly and ……actually thankfully …. flawed.

Art of not Giving!

I am writing this as a reflection a day after Good Friday. Jesus GAVE up his LIFE to save us. Being a christian always means being 'giving'
But believe me, the Bible also advocates that 'Not Giving' is as important as giving! In fact compulsively giving may not turn out to be always good. One has to know when to -NOT GIVE.
For example- giving good advice. Do all people like to follow advice? No
A listening sort of person would take a good advice after consideration mostly at the first instance.
The Bible says in essense that if you find someone doing something wrong advice him three times and if he still does not listen 'have nothing to do with him'.
To what extent should we have 'nothing to do with him'?
The Bible says somewhere (as an advice to apostles) that if you are not recieved in a particular home, then as you leave shake even the dust of the house off your feet.
That's symbolic of how complete the cut off should be!

What does such total leaving or not giving do?!
Not Giving helps the 'not giver' and could eventually also help the 'not given' too!
It is very difficult to totally have nothing to do with a person you love. But you will only hurt yourself everyday by holding on to a non listener. When all forms of attachment are abandoned, you will not feel the need to advice and when you dont advice you wont be agonized with helplessness when your words are not heeded to.That is how it helps the 'non-giver'.

Whereas when a person who hates to be 'told' finds he has been abandoned, he misses the care, tries to incite you to advice but when all fails, he will finally look 'at the advice'! It might take years for the person to come to your answer, but it is better than never, as would otherwise have been, and you would have saved years of agony on yourself. We owe something to ourselves first and why bear a futile unrest in life FOREVER for a non listener however much loved!


Art of Not Giving in a nut shell
1. Learn to recognize non listeners
2. Stop 'telling' a non-listener'; you will only earn for yourself the title of a nag!
3. Have nothing to do with the person, cut off 'emotionally'.

New age 'etiquettes'

I have been learning and trying to incorporate the new age 'etiquettes' for some time now, and nothing helps me incorporate lessons better than writing it down.
1. If you dont like something dont say it, just forget to do something that you usually do.
2.If questioned dont tell the truth that it was because you were hurt, just say you forgot. You avoid an issue but make your statement without actually making any.
3. It is cool to ignore some statements of the other person
4. It is cool to answer only one question, when you are asked two.
5. It is cool to look busy when the other person is trying to talk to you.


The old world was well mannered and truthful and genuine, but if you are that way today you would not be respected! No, I am not being sarcastic. If you find old world people like yourself, be as you are, but when you see the slightest hint of a new age personality and you want to be respected, then be of the new world or else...it really can get frustrating and you might end up gettin hurt!
Soon the new age person will come round and try being sweet to you, BUTdont soften and revert to the original you. The new age is deceptive and selfish. Dont let down your guard, be selfish, keep carrying through your new age plan, keep looking out. ......if you hate being hit when you are not looking!

PS: It's a different world all around today, and it is wise to adapt. I only mean that; 'When in Rome do as the Romans do'. I dont mean at all that being Roman is good. Adapting will help protect your interests (which hopefully are good and important enough!)

God, and the parent

Why is it that the power we call God is often considered as a parent? Is it merely because this power is responsible for creation, or is it because in many intriguing and astounding ways, this unseen power is directing us by a complicated enmeshed set of guidelines.
While I was studying a course in creative teaching, I was taught about different ways of helping a child develop the right attitudes. I had thought then that when I have my own kids I would use the same techniques. But I realized the hard way that being a parent 24/7 does not give time to think and use techniques! The real parent often just reacts rather than proacts, and it just gets worse when you have more than one to handle!
But when I look at how God works in each of our individual lives, he does seem to be using all those creative techniques and even has patience for each and every living being!

Let me give examples. When a child does something wrong, rather than slapping or caning, the teacher/parent is supposed to use ‘consequences’. ‘If you don’t keep back your toys today, you wont get to play with them tomorrow’. That’s a simple example of consequence. But I find even that very difficult to apply! I may quite easily use that statement today but tomorrow when my child pesters me with constant chatter just when I am trying to relax with a book, what do I do!? ‘Go and play with the toys’ That’s what I would end up saying!

But the power behind the universe called ‘God’, uses consequences without fail for every act that every individual does. ‘The Law of Karma’ is nothing but the ‘technique of consequence’. God never punishes us; rather our actions catch up on us.

One interesting creative technique of teaching was ‘being a scaffold’. For example if a child asks a question, don’t give the answer right away. Wonder with the child, ask leading questions which he/she can answer and lead by small rungs to the final answer. This is to help the child think on his own.
“Give a man a fish, he will have something to eat, but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”
But as a parent of a ‘gemini’ child who even thinks aloud in words and questions, I often find myself just irritatedly snapping at questions!
But God has the patience to use the technique effectively for each and every individual! Now really how much patience would that require!!
Whenever seeking for answers of any sort, all of us would have noted the coincidences in life that seemingly are unrelated to our question or goal, but after a long winding way, or little rungs of success, we suddenly find ourselves somewhere that is in some queer way linked to our state of mind or questions about a couple of years(or more) ago. That is how God works; never dropping things into our lap as answer to every silly prayer, but gently guiding us to a state of mind where our prayers are more meaningful and answers are just over the next rung.

God is an unseen parent but is so much more efficient than any well meaning visible human parent! And for all the damage that parents can do to kids by bad parenting, God can reverse it and bring something good out of it. Don’t children of insensitive parents sometimes think through it all and learn the importance of being sensitive and become better people than they would have otherwise been? Their lonely life often forces them to turn to the one real perfect parent of all…, the God Parent, and learn His ways.

God does intend us to realise eventually that what we are looking for, is often perfection and that is not in the world, its only in His Love...

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.

THAT WHICH GOD has united....

When I read of really bad marriages, like where the man beats his wife regularly and the wife finally kills him...or where the man abuses the self esteem of the wife constantly by saying she is not worth even looking at and then ends up one day being burnt alive by the wife..., I wonder, wouldn't it have been better if at a right moment they had said 'no' to the torturous relationship and opted for divorce!

I shouldn't be the one saying this...Wasn't it only last sunday that I heard the sermon where Jesus tells the people that Moses allowed for divorce because the people's hearts were hard. But the truth is that if a man or woman divorces and joins another, the person is guilty of committing adultry. He says that, 'What God has united, let not man separate.'

But still I am the one saying this because, after that sermon I have been repeatedly rallied with related informations, that make me conclude for one that.....

...The statements I heard in the sermon also mean that, opting for divorce is, opting for the lesser evil, when one or the other of the person involved in the nuptial bond has a 'hard heart'! (Hard heart has to be a heart not open to God)
When a marriage shows posibilities of worse consequences than divorce, isnt it better to opt for the lesser evil!

The sermon on sunday (the 4th of october), had put me in a contemplative mood for some time. I wondered about the implications of the words. Two days later I opened the CD on chakra meditation by shri shri Ravi Shankar that I had brought in the art of Living class. While doing the meditation, I remembered of the book on REIKI that I had in which there was a study on the seven chakra's in the human body and so took it out and read it again.

The very next day on 7th of oct, I read of 'The Divine aspect of an Ideal Relationship'(Yogi Ashwini) in The Speaking Tree, The Times of India, in which the ideal relationship was supposed to be a bonding at the levels of the seven chakras(energy centres)of the body! Bonding of only the lower chakras implies that the purpose of the relationship is lower like sharing belongings or sexual and selfish purposes.Bonding of higher chakras implies that the purpose is higher like selfless love and spiritual purposes. It said that 'How long a marital relationship lasted would depend upon the evolution of that relationship. The higher the purpose, the longer the union would be.'

That would also mean that two people at different levels of spiritual development, if joined in marriage may never join completely! It can be because of the lack of willingness to be influenced by the other partner to bring the relationship to higher levels of bonding.

So my other conclusion is that..What is actually ununited at the level of God, goodness and selfless love is not really being separated in Divorce (at social or emotional level), it just always has been that..'ununited'!

The social function of marriage is not the only thing required to call a union as facilitated by God. What GOD UNITES cannot be just a social or surface union, it has to be a complete union.

Therefore, that bond which is also(or at the heart, one is aware of it's potential to be) at the level of the energies(chakras) of God, goodness and selfless love, is a union by (and in )God, and under negative influences or circumstances the selfish man inside should not opt, to separate.Also it is important to remember the quote "Everyone in your life will hurt you sooner or later. What you have to decide is what is more important, The Pain or The Person" It is very rare that a sincere heart would want to give up on a person one has spent years with, the person that God might have assigned to help grow spiritually. If nothing else works to unite at all levels,sincere family prayers included into the routine might work towards bringing in the complete union.


WHAT GOD HAS UNITED, let not man separate....
THAT WHICH GOD HAS UNITED can not be or atleast never stays an incomplete union
THAT WHICH GOD HAS UNITED has to be a complete union....

Changing Love and Law

Pune Mirror, tuesday June 23 ran an article "Vow for Now!" which talked about newly weds ditching 'till death do us part' wedding vows with pledges 'as long as our love lasts'.
Having for most part been a conservative person I still cant help thinking that it is best if marriage does last even if love does change in many ways,.. but at the same time happiness too is important. If one is not happy with a relationship, it can pull down the whole family into unhappiness, for unhappiness only begets unhappiness. It would be better then to seek happiness, and if it becomes just impossible to be happy and maintain happiness in the family while staying in the marriage then it is probably only best to release the whole family from misery by ending the relationship.

Being a christian, it is tough to erase the black and white of issues and adopt the newage greys but I guess it is the colour of the times. I do think it would be better to take easier vows while hoping that the love lasts for ever than make big vows and become guilty of breaking them. Even a study of the Old testament of the Bible shows up a difference in terms of nuptial do's and dont's with the size and nature of the population or with the need of the times.

I personally feel that in the past few years there has been a very drastic change in terms of the social structure of much of urban India. If a seer had come in this new world then would have provided us with a new law of love and marriage. Since nothing like that has happened what do we refer to? We have to refer to the law being rewritten in the hearts of the whole of our community.

Born of an age of the hardcore dreamer, and religious idealists, I found it unexplainably traumatic to accept the rewriting in my heart. But now that I have accepted it,I am at peace. The heart is to be trusted above all else while looking for the TRUE and CURRENT answers floating in the Cosmic Space.