My Dharma and Karma

Reservation - Help or Hurdle

2009-02-11T00:19:00.000-08:00

Reservation is not the answer for upliftment for anyone. Even after giving reservation to anyone, how can we ensure that they won't be looked down upon. We all agree that even after CHANGE OF RELIGION, dalits are still looked down upon. Reservation FIX or Change in religion is like giving anti-fever pill to a patient who has symptom of fever but in reality he is a long time patient of CANCER. They at best can work at surface level.

Problems with Reservation:

1. By giving reservation, we will only make the person more handicap and worst give him a label of RESERVED category for his/her whole life.

2. We are definitely giving a job to someone who is not competent enough for whetever reason. This will have a direct impact on our growth. How will we compete with developed countries?

3. Question to proponent of Reservation: God forbid, your very dear relative meets an accident. At that time, would you feel comfortable, if you get to know that person who is going to operate became surgeon because of his caste and not his competency.

4. Reservation has only helped politicians and not the actual people it was targetted for.

SOLUTION:

We need to start from the root level, instead of trying to FIX the problems at the surface level. The answer is ATTITUDE and AWARENESS. We have to FEEL ONE. We need to change the whole nation.

HOW?

1. We need to change our thought process. We need to root out this whole DIVIDE of backward and upper class, majority and minority. Reservation will only encourage polarization. What we need is a SENSE OF CONFIDENCE in everyone's heart that they have EQUAL opportunity to compete.

2. We need to support the poor people making PRIMARY education MUST for each Indian kid and providing them free education. The growing industries should be made responsible for opening and funding these schools and should be given appropriate tax breaks.

3. We need to take some TIME out from our life to help someone else.

Here KEYWORD IS WE not the Government.

This way we can build our country like a family where everyone feels self-confident and productive member of this family.

Secularism - Brand India

2009-02-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder, living in pluralistic religious society like ours (India), can Secularism (disassociated with all religions) do REAL justice in it's original form. Let's see the definition first:

Secularism is the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs. (wikipedia).

Secularism in India

Unfortunately, the way Secularism is implemented in India is - by giving special privileges to "minority" religions. This concept of minority and majority in itself defeats the purpose of creating equality among people. Also, since privileges are given based on religion of a person - it clearly contradicts the definition of Secularism. Therefore, we have to STOP this kind of secularism so we can maintain JUSTICE among our citizens.

Infact, the very definition of Secularism is antithesis of what India always stood for - the SPIRITUALISM. In this light, we need to redefine secularism in Indian context that can keep spirituality of our country which we have maintained for more than 5,000 years inspite of all the circumstances. India was always a multi-cultural society and I believe until 700 AD we never had any war or crusades on the name of religion. While in the West, the major monotheism based religions were fighting among each other for the supremacy, in India there were many sects and religions coexisting peacefully - Shaiviks, Vaishnavs, Budhhists, Jains, other tribes Even Budhhism (largest religion at the time of Ashoka), was spread out of India without any battles or crusades. Interestingly, there was no religion by name of HINDUISM.

THE SECRET

It is very well known that there were multiple views of Gods in vedic times and it can be guessed that they all must be fighting for their supremacy just like what we are seeing nowadays, so how did they manage to coexist peacefully. The secret lies in the shloka of a Rig Veda

Indram mitráṃ váruṇam agním āhur / átho divyáḥ sá suparṇó garútmān

ékaṃ sád víprā bahudhâ vadanty / agníṃ yamám mātaríśvānam āhuḥ

"They call him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni / and he is heavenly nobly-winged Garutman."

"To what is One, sages give many a title / they call it Agni, Yama, Matarisvan."

I believe this shloka was written to create unity among all the different sects in ancient India.

So, all the sects were assimilated under Sanatana Dharma (or atleast they followed the principle), that provided its followers with an entire way of life and with a coherent and rational view of reality.

Sanatana Dharma is an ancient philosophical concept of India. As propounded in various scriptures, Its attributes, include characteristics such as: rationality, sense of duty, justice, peace, truthfulness, compassion, non-violence, rectitude, humanity, spirituality, tolerance, ethics, service to others, and philanthropy. It is not about following rituals or having blind faiths.

Dharma is in harmony with nature. Nature's rules are such that flowers do not run after bees, but bees come flying to flowers. The point of Dharma is that you become a bee, not an insect. Only then can you take advantage of the scent and beauty of the flora.

CONCLUSION:

Dharma is a hybrid corpus within the body of which many different opinions, even the contradictory ones, can coexist peacefully with one another. Dharma thus truly symbolizes universal values of humanism and can form the basis of global ethics. So, why not we start an experiment in India and make India a DHARMA nation. I welcome your comments.

Revival Of Sanskrit Language

2009-02-07T04:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder, how to recreate the magic of the language that is righty called mother of all languages - SANSKRIT. Meaning of Sanskrit is Refined and hence it is "Perfect language".

I am looking forward to inputs from people how we can

1. Create the awareness about Sanskrit

2. Make the teaching accessible to interested learner

3. Make it fun

Goal: by 2010 1% of US and India population understand Sanskrit and spreading the message.

Invitation

2009-02-07T04:20:00.000-08:00

In the midst of bloggers of all kind targetting different topics, I thought of I should start a blog to get inputs from people of all the background - what's bothering them or stopping them in their progress in life and how we can help each other.

Please feel free to leave me a message and I'll publish it so people can come and help you. Your topic can be anything - country, politics, personal, economic, job, family etc. I'll do my best to place your topic under a right group.

What is Dharma?

Dharma is not a TV character :-) Dharma is not equivalent of English words religion or law, it can be closely described by another set of words Righteousness and Just.

What is Karma?

Karma is your Intent, Action and dominant Desire.

Dharma and Karma:

When your intent, action and dominant desire reflect righteousness and just = that Karma is called Dharmik Karma. When your intent, action OR dominant desire DO NOT reflect righteousness and just = that Karma is called ADharmik Karma.