A voice against the celebration of power and the use of force

Ramachandra Guha has written a good article, which is at India Together: Dr K Balagopal, the honest leftist - 15 November 2009:

"...In sum, Balagopal refused to accept, from either State or Maoist, the justification of 'a culture and mentality which celebrates power and use of force in society'.

"...Balagopal was that altogether rare animal, a genuinely independent Indian intellectual, whose moral clarity and commitment to the truth meant that he could not resort to special pleading for any party or interest. The flawed institutions of our imperfect democracy were all subject to his rigorous scanner - the police, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and not least, corrupt and authoritarian politicians."

I like the phrasing of this sentence, "Balagopal refused to accept, from either State or Maoist, the justification of 'a culture and mentality which celebrates power and use of force in society'."

Ultimately it is on the strength of such resistance to the celebration of power and the use of force that democracy is made secure and our freedoms protected.

The World Clock

Sorry to get back to my old habits (bad), but I'd like to share a link I found at make use of.com. If you have some time to kill, or if you find yourself bored, you might want to explore this site:

WorldClock ? Online clock that along with the time, shows real time statistical info of the world. The info includes things like world population, birth, death, divorce, abortion, HIV, cancer incidence etc. You can view real time stats for one year, month, week and day."

Motionbox

I got this information and would like to pass it on:

Motionbox is like YouTube and if you sign in to it (free), it is possible that if you are lucky you might get a digital video player.

Green Hinduism

This deserves to be a post:

"Kartikey has made a comment on a post in this blog- "A prayer for Environment":

"In India we need to be environment friendly. It's a part of us, the vedas and the upanishads.

"Thy snowy mountain heights, and thy forests, O earth, shall be kind to us! The brown, the black, the red, the multi-coloured, the firm earth, that is protected by Indra, I have settled upon, not suppressed, not slain, not wounded." "

Need anything more be said?

We've literally lost our roots :(

Given the times we live in, may be it'd be a better idea to exchange saffron for green- or is it? :(

A prayer for Environment

Part of a moving prayer at Amitabha Path goes like this:

"Due to rapacious greed that covets the world?s resources
Trees and forests are cut down and so forth,
Causing an imbalance of the rain water element.
May you swiftly and compassionately protect
Living beings who fall into such disastrous circumstances!

In order that countless diverse machines might be brought into service
There is unlimited excavation of mines, and through these actions
The abodes of celestial, aquatic and terrestrial spirits are imbalanced.
Grant your blessings therefore that afflictions associated with the elements might be assuaged!"

This prayer was written by "Ngawang Kunga of the Dolma Palace, throneholder of Sakya", and I suppose it is in Tibetan.

It feels good to see that spiritual masters are taking a lead in saving the environment. As it is, most of the modern day gurus are no better than motivators- they are here to help us get ahead in life without accumulating too much stress.

There is nothing wrong with that, but it would be good to see that we are made aware that if we live, we live with nature. The destruction of environment is no less than suicide: there is no bubble bed for us.

An advantages of learning the language of the natives

An advantage of learning the language of the natives:

"'“It wasn’t necessary to learn Hindi to get by in Delhi. But the more we learned, the richer the experience became, because the more we could decipher the country around us. Once we learned that dil translated to ‘heart’, we understood about half of the Bollywood titles that came out; and once we learned a few curse words, I understood what my drivers were saying about me on their mobiles as they took me to work. (I would imagine they used ‘choothia‘ to mean ‘heck of a guy’ like Michael Jackson used ‘bad’ to mean ‘good’.)”'

http://ourdelhistruggle.com/2009/11/14/the-book-kicking-into-high-gear/"

The Charter for Compassion

I've been reading lately the book, "Towards the Light" by A.C.Grayling. It is mostly about how our freedoms were won, and how they are under threat- not from terrorists, but from governments.

Let that be as it may- we can argue back and forth on that. What I want to post here is an interesting passage at page 245.

It relates to a war in 415 BC when a strong army of Athenians refused to negotiate with the weaker forces of Melos. Athens wanted Melians to join them in their war against Sparta, and when they didn't do so, Athens ransacked the city and massacred its citizens. Before doing that, they told the negotiators from Melos thus:

"You know as well as we do that right is only in question between equals in power, for the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".

Sounds pretty heartless, but this is the way the world is.

Can't we make some difference to this? I really don't know- possibly we can make symbolic gestures, or we can shout about somewhat. Other than that, we are pretty powerless against the forces of darkness.

However, if you are moved to reflect on fairness, justice, freedom etc., please sign this Charter of Compassion.- more than one lakh people have done so.

And if you are interested you can share inspiring acts of compassion too.

Every little bit helps, right?

Especially when you are fighting the might of people who are always in the right.