Keep Climbing

Why are we born? Just to die someday? No. we have some tasks. We have to fulfill our dreams and achieve our ideals. Generally our lives are too short to complete all our tasks.
Dreams and ideals are rungs of the life-ladder. After we have climbed one rung, we look up to the next and try to achieve it. But what will you do after reaching the topmost rung. Maybe celebrate your achievements, but for how long? Life becomes dull and monotonous.
On the other hand life is much more exciting when there are many rungs above. Those rungs encourage you and provoke you to climbing higher. Your dreams supply you with vital energy and enthusiasm. You set your ideal and put in all your effort to succeed. A few failures, a few broken dreams create variation and goad you to put in greater effort. After all, the pleasure of success is best felt when it is preceded by failure.
Coming back to the point- suppose you are on the topmost rung, you have no more rungs to climb; you have no more ideals or dreams to pursue. All excitement and thrill are lost. Life will stagnate. There will be no progress.
Moreover you will not be able to fulfill all your dreams and achieve all your ideals in the few decades of your life. By the time you reach the topmost rung, you will be fairly old. You will be bored with the same sights that you had been experiencing since you were born – the same sunrise, the same cycle of seasons, the same festivals – everything will be dreadfully alike and dreary. Your soul will no longer be tenacious of your body, and would want to escape.
I would like you to perform an experiment. Try to sit idle for two days at a stretch. No work to do for forty-eight hours. Sounds great, but actually it is not. Then you will have a faint idea about what you are going to feel if all your ideals are achieved.
So my advice is keep dreaming, keep setting high ideals; there are no restrictions in dreaming. Create more rungs of the ladder. Do not let them come to an end (remember Alexander, the great, and contemporary Steve Jobs). Keep climbing, keep achieving! The heavens are too high and life too short

A Narrow Street to a Better World

Love is a divine feeling that all of us desire. We all know the strength of love. It can heal wounds, it can calm you down, it can bring about big changes in oneself, and it can open our eyes to realisation. However, in today's world, people tend to forget it (how much can they store in their small 'hard-disks'!). If not, then why is so much hatred in this world? Why is the crime rate shooting skywards, and criminals shooting innocent people every second? Why have so many people got so selfish? How can they refuse every request for help made to them? Is it solely their fault? Let us think a bit deeply.

At this many people (including myself, at first) might think, "It is the fault of the society." This is correct to some extent. We are too busy with ourselves. It is too hard for us to find time for others. We imagine we have have so much work that we can't spare a bit of love even for our relatives and dear friends. Many people are totally unaware who their neighbours are. It is often in the heart of such societies that the devils of selfishness, cruelty and hatred are born. While some behave the way they have been treated, some others turn out to be hard-core criminals.

A question disturbs me quite often, "Is it so difficult to show a spark of love, to show that someone thinks about you, someone cares for you? Is it very difficult to assure that I'll be there to hold your hand whenever you need? India is a democratic country; you are free to think differently, but I feel the answer is "No." It does not cost you anything to show some true love (fake love is a bit expensive, but ineffective). You can argue, "It needs time, and time is precious." I will reply, "Yes, but the prayers and blessings that you receive are even more expensive."
Now why have I said it is correct to some extent? What is society? It's just the conglomeration of several individuals like you. You alone can make a difference. It is often observed that people give the excuse "I did that because everyone else was doing that." Take the following examples. In a fray each one will say, "I hit out because everyone else was hitting." If instead some had controlled themselves, knowing fully well that what they are doing was right , the fight would not have taken such a nasty turn. You have a matchstick and the whole world to illuminate. It is true that you cannot illuminate the whole world but you can illuminate your room. Nothing stops you from doing that much. Probably a few more people will do that following your example and then a few more in geometric progression, until a large reformation is brought about. At the beginning people may sneer at you but you should not care. The majority of Hindus protested but Raja Ram Mohan Ray did get sati banned. If you really want to do something, society is too weak to obstruct. The following anecdote was narrated in Amul Star Voice of India a few days back: There was a fire in a village. People were pouring buckets of water to extinguish it. A small dove did not sit idle. It carried drops of water in its beak and poured them over the fire. A crow
mocked it, saying, "What difference will the few drops make?" The dove replied, "I may not make any significant difference, but I'll have the satisfaction that I tried to help. Moreover people would not point fingers at me saying it did not help us."

Moreover the world does not go to bed with you. That is when your conscience keeps on haunting you. So this is my earnest request: "Do whatever little you can do. Feed at least one beggar even though you cannot feed all. It will make a difference to that beggar. Open your heart. Give as much love you can. And then enjoy the bliss of your mind. Forget society if they do not follow you. You should never stop."

If this short lecture can bring about a change (for the better) in even a few people, I'll be very pleased indeed.

Wow 'Masters of tomorrow'!

We were once proud to declare in public "We are Xaverians". But many ex-students of our school are bent on shaming us. Now that they have left the school they feel free to abuse the staff. Students are now competing to see who can abuse our teachers in the worst possible language. This has been going on in a community called "Masters of tomorrow" in orkut. Some of the words and phrases used by these 'gentlemen' are not even used by people whom we call gentlemanly.
Though it is true that some, or a very few classes are a bit boring, the teachers and laughing at their character traits won't solve the problem. The proper way of dealing with them is meaningful criticism from which they can take lessons and change if possible. And god knows what those 'masters' think of themselves. I wish all their colleagues, relatives and friends (who think they are very good and well mannered) come to know about this. That will be the best possible punishment they could have.
And they deserve strong punishment. Because of these stupid people our reputation is suffering. Everybody is beginning to think that all Xaverians are ill-mannered. We can not accept that. There are many who love the institution and respect the staff like family. I want all of them to protest against this. The least we can do is to visit orkut and report abuse. After several such reports, orkut will certainly shut down that offensive community.