Isn’t it strange how we love to dwell on complex problems rather than simple solutions?
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Eid Mubarak
To those who’ve just come to the end of the Ramadan fast
Eid Mubarak
Which roughly translates into English as “Happy Eid,” or “Blessed Eid,” eid meaning celebration or holiday.
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Prem Rawat: Making a Difference
Making a Difference
I have traveled the world many times speaking about peace. And people ask me, “How is peace going to be possible?” I tell them, “Maybe you have ten reasons why peace is not possible: There is too much greed. There are too many people who are hungry. I have 6.7 billion reasons why there should be peace on this earth—6.7 billion being the population of this earth, approximately.”
I have the same interest you do, the same quest as you, the same dream as you. And we, the people, can make the difference for peace on this earth.
We have relied on institutions long enough. Institutions can bring us prosperity—ways to flourish on the outside. But when it comes to feeling the peace on the inside, this remains our responsibility. I have gone from village to village. I have seen the poor, and I have seen the rich. These are society’s differences, the glasses they give us that say, “Look at me. I am rich; I am poor. I am tall; I am short. I am a woman; I am a man. I am educated; I am not educated.”
These divisions have pushed people further away from each other, not brought them together. Look at the condition of this world. There are more educated people today than there have ever been. And look what that has brought. If the solution lies anywhere, it is, and has always been, inside of us. It is incumbent upon human beings to bring peace, to bring kindness to each other.
Peace and the quest for peace will persevere. You are the little seeds that, when they germinate, carry on the cause of peace in this world.
What is peace? People think, “If everybody had food, then we would have peace.” Excuse me. Who creates food? Do people create food? No. We can sow the seeds. Nature does the work. Nature grows the trees and the fruit. Is nature partial to what language you speak? Is nature partial to any of the divisions that we have created? No. Can the people of this world be fed? Yes. What does it take? Kindness.
There is a saying: “If you are strong, you should be kind. If you are smart, you should be simple. If you are wealthy, you should be humble.” I agree. The kindness that needs to exist is in the heart of people, but skepticism hides that kindness.
Some people say, “If all the children were taken care of, there would be peace.” God takes care of that child for nine months in the womb. That’s not where the problem begins. It’s when the child comes into our world. Nine months—food, water, sleep—everything is perfectly taken care of.
I am not here to give you peace. I am here to put the idea in your head that peace exists inside of you. Start thinking, that’s all. The thirsty will find the water, because they have the thirst. But if there is no thirst, they could be standing next to a lake, and it won’t make any difference whatsoever.
I am saying, “Let us know the dream of our heart to have that crystal clear water.” Everybody can not only drink from it but bathe in it. This is the dream; this is the possibility. One step at a time.
People come to me and say, “Give me some peace!” How can I give you what you already have? You have that peace inside of you. The attitude that needs to change is: Is peace a possibility or not? This is what you have to decide. I have decided for myself. Yes, peace is a possibility. The drums of peace have been ringing on this earth for a very, very long time.
Your strength lies in understanding your thirst, your need to be in that joy, to be in that happiness. There is a dimension inside of you that is greater than all that you see on the outside. You are more than the sum of all the bad that happens in your life. Peace is inside of you even in turmoil, and you can experience that peace. It begins with understanding your thirst for it.
Prem Rawat
Copied from www.voiceofmaharaji.org Link
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Do you think the internet keeps teens from learning important social skills? Why or why not?
Who says that pre-internet teens – now adults – learned “important social skills” all that proficiently? Shouldn’t we question this, in a world where politics is commonly considered to be a nest of crooks, religion is alienated from reason, money is the real god and warfare still rages.
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Shallow
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School Shooting
Following a link on today’s school shooting in Finland lead me eventually to the news report, but first detoured me to the ads, namely >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Find and Compare prices on school shootings at Smarter.com.”
I won’t comment on this: what’s your take?
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Wake of the Raven: chapter 34, “Willis,” an extract
The action is set in London, England, in 1951. Nigel Haig is an elderly colonel in the British army,estranged from his son, Raymond, who is twenty-three. Earlier in the chapter he has learned of the suicide of an acquaintance, who he despised, and the shock has softened him.
“Have you heard from Raymond recently?”
Mildred peered at her husband over her glasses. Nowadays, it was not often that he mentioned their son. “He ‘phoned me yesterday,” she said.
There was silence for a while. “Don’t you want to know how he’s doing?” she asked.
“Of course I want to know; if he’s doing anything worthwhile that is.”
“He’s got another job. With a publisher. That friend Richard that he mentioned, he arranged it for him. He’s been there over a month now, and he’s very happy with it, and doing very well, or so he says.”
“A month. You never told me.”
“Well, you carried on so when he left the last place…”
“Publisher. What do they publish?”
“Books, of course. Novels, and other things, but Raymond’s looking after the none-fiction books, and he helps decide if they’re good enough to publish. He’s in what they call the none-fiction section; history, and travel. That kind of thing. He always did like travel books.” She looked over her glasses at Haig again. “He says they’re very pleased with him there. He seems very settled with it.”
“Yes. He might be. He used to ask me things about Burma, and Malaya, and Singapore. Back when he was just a boy, after the war ended.”
“Mmmm. He used to ask things before that, when you were away fighting. He thought his father was quite an adventurer. When he was at school, he used to say, ‘my dad’s in Burma, fighting all the Japs and killing them’. And he used to open the big atlas, and sit there with it on his knee, as big as he was nearly, and run his finger over the page. Perhaps he’ll do well. He always did like maps.”
A hot, pulsing mixture of love and pain surged through the Colonel’s heart, as rich as cream and as searing as acid: he had forgotten these past joys. “I could tell him some things about those places,” he said, his voice throaty, unlike its usual self, “things they don’t usually tell you in travel books… things you have to have been there to know.”
“I’m sure you could Nigel. You’d be just the man.”
“It’s not just the country you know, not just the weather and how much your moneys worth, and what sights there are to see. That’s what people want to know when they go abroad on holiday, when they go to Paris or somewhere, and it’s just a cock-stride away. When you’re at the other side of the world, and you’re there for a war, its different. It’s the people, and how things are different, and how it changes you. You go out British, but you don’t come back the same.”
Mildred nodded agreeably, though she could have contradicted her husband. She was not a clever woman; she knew that of herself, but it did not trouble her. Nigel was half right: the war had changed people; it had taken them away, and shown them strange things, and hideous things, and then it had returned them, changed. But time could changed them too, and ambition, and disappointment, whether they left their hometown or not; and it had changed him, and she had lost him.
“You know so much about these places Nigel, you could write a book. All these generals are writing books about what they did in the war.”
Haig laughed. “It’ll be a long wait for me to be a penpusher,” he said. “Silly woman,” he added. He had called her this before, but this time he said it kindly.
“Nothing silly about it Nigel, nothing silly at all. Stranger things have happened,” she said with comfortable simplicity.
Haig chuckled again at the thought, but he did not answer beyond that. Instead he gazed into the fire, the flickering mirror in which many a dream has thrived; he did not see the flames, but a boy, slender and blond, quiet, unlike his father, running eagerly to show him his stamp collection; a boy who he sat with, and patiently explained the difficult sums to. How old was that boy? Nine? no, ten.
And he had left the boy and his wife, for his duty said he must help to fight a war, and he had gone, and had seen men laid dead by the roadside, with gory holes in their bodies, and women, and sometimes boys too, boys no older than the boy he had left behind, dead. And when they were laid in shallow holes, then the dirt was thrown on them, and they were gone, forgotten. And he had gritted his teeth, and said no discouraging word of his revulsion, but did his job, there in the hot jungle; tirelessly directing his men, his finger tracing the map, his officers intent on his word, his men always their weapons to hand, all to kill those monsters who had killed the men, and the women, and the children, and would kill him, and his woman, and his boy.
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Do you think most people have children because it’s socially expected or because they truly want to?
I doubt that they truly know which themselves, most of the time.
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Why do you think teenagers are becoming sexually active at such a young age today?
Presumably because the force that created us made us that way, and gave more power to the sex drive than to the senses of reason, caution or morality.
This is also the probable reason for moralising politicians and Bible-quoters regularly getting caught with their pants down in private.
The kids are in fact innocently practicing lewd behavious in preparation for a knowingly lewd world.
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Horror
Once I read a short story, probably written by one of those early Sci-fi writers, perhaps now dead. It was only a few pages long, but it’s stuck firmly in my mind ever since.
The world’s scientists had worked as one, with a great purpose in mind, and built a massive computer. To it were linked all other computers, and all satellites, televisions, hospitals and factories in the world, and it was the scientists’ dream that the great computer would solve all of the world’s ills and woes.
The building that housed it was the size of a city, and before its gates lay a wide green lawn, where the leaders of the world had gathered to witness its first operation. The sky was blue and cloudless, the birds sang as in hope, the politicians spoke of a new era of peace.
The chief scientist had the honour of switching it on. He mounted the stage where the final switch had been placed, and in triumph closed the switch. From the huge building there came a humming, as of vast swarms of bees, or endless thought circling. “Can you hear me?” asked the scientist.
“Yes,” boomed back the answer from a thousand speakers.
“Then tell me,” asked the scientist, “answer mankind’s oldest question. Is there a God?”
Without an instant’s hesitation the mighty computer answered. “Yes, NOW there is a God, one who will be obeyed without complaint, to the last detail.”
Too late, the scientist realised what they had done, and leapt forward to open the switch. From the clear sky lightning flashed down, killing him and fusing the switch shut.
What novels or films are based on horror?
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