LIVE A LIFE LIKE A SWAN NOT LIKE A MOSQUITO

In Hindu Mythology and sanskrit literature there is a legend of a swan having the capability of separating milk from a mixture of milk and water and leaving behind the water. This is termed as “Neera_Ksheera Vivek” in literature. Another speciality is Swans have only one partner for their entire life. If their partner dies, they could in fact die of heartbreak.
Coming to the mosquitoes. A mosquito flies near the full udder of a cow. Milk is flowing from its udder. Mosquito looks at it, flies around and as it is interested in the taste of the blood, it bites the cow and sucks the blood from the overflowing udder. Even near the udder filled with rich milk, mosquito likes only the blood. A mosquito will never get milk from the udder of a cow, but only blood.

In Malayaalam there is a verse

ksheeramullorakitin chuvattilum, chorathanne kothukinnu kauthukam.which means even near the udder filled with rich milk, mosquito likes only the blood.

One might be wondering what is the relation between these two? Really there is no relation or similarity between them, but there is something to learn from them. We are all living in the age of “Social Networking”, “Financial Freedom” and ‘Easy Availability”, where Some instances come as a shock. People all around are having extramarital affairs, regardless of their socioeconomic background or location.

Relationships have always been an integral part in the life of human beings. A person comes to be in a number of relationships in his life; like, a relationship with parents and relationship with loved ones. However, not just human beings are engaged in sharing their love and relationships; but even some other living things share such relationships as well, which the human beings cannot even dream of.

Swans are the creatures which have only one partner for their entire life. They mate with the same partner till the bond is broken either because of death or if any partner is preyed. They are purely the symbol of true love.The world has become modern; all the people moving around the face of the world find it difficult to make time for their loved ones, which is the major cause of separation. However, relationships like that of swans are found one in a hundred or thousand. The swans can teach us a lesson to live a life with love! I dont say that people have to die if he/she dies.I am saying to be loyal in your relationships.

Be like a swan which takes only the good and leaves the unwanted and do not be like the mosquitoes which rejects the good and goes after undesirable things which causes suffering to others.

BEAUTIFUL STORY OF FAITH

Dr. Mark, a well-known cancer specialist, was once on his way to an important conference in another city where he was going to be granted an award in the field of medical research.

He was very excited to attend the conference and was desperate to reach as soon as possible. He had worked long and hard on his research and felt his efforts deserved the award he was about to obtain.

However, two hours after the plane took off, the plane made an emergency landing at the nearest airport due to some technical snag. Afraid, that he wouldn’t make it in time for the conference, Dr. Mark immediately went to the reception and found that the next flight to the destination was after ten hours. The receptionist suggested him, to rent a car and drive himself down to the conference city which was only four hours away.

Having no other choice, he agreed to the idea despite his hatred for driving long distances.

Dr. Mark rented a car and started his journey. However, soon after he left, the weather suddenly changed and a heavy storm began. The pouring rain made it very difficult for him to see and he missed a turn he was supposed to take.

After two hours of driving, he was convinced he was lost. Driving in the heavy rain on a deserted road, feeling hungry and tired, he frantically began to look for any sign of civilization. After some time, he finally came across a small tattered house. Desperate, he got out of the car and knocked on the door. A beautiful lady opened the door. He explained the matter and asked her if he could use her telephone.

However, the lady told him that she doesn’t have a phone or any electronic gadget but told the doctor to come inside and wait till the weather improved.

Hungry, wet and exhausted, the doctor accepted her kind offer and walked in. The lady gave him hot tea and something to eat. The lady told him that he can join her for prayer. But, Dr. Mark smiled and said that he believed in hard work only and told her to continue with her prayers.
Sitting on the table and sipping the tea, the doctor watched the woman in the dim light of candles as she prayed next to what appeared to be a small baby crib.

Every time she finished a prayer, she would start another one. Feeling that the woman might be in need of help, the doctor seized the opportunity to speak as soon as she finished her prayers. The doctor asked her what exactly she wanted from the God and inquired if she thought God will ever listen to her prayers. He further asked about the small child in the crib for whom she was apparently praying. The lady gave a sad smile and said that the child in the crib is her son who is suffering from a rare type of cancer and there is only one doctor Mark who can cure him but she doesn’t have money to afford his fee and moreover Dr Mark lives in another far off town. She said that God has not answered her prayer so far but said that God will create some way out one day and added that she will not allow her fears to overcome her faith.

Stunned and speechless Dr Mark was in tears which were rolling down his cheeks. He whispered, God is great and recollected the sequence of events. There was malfunction in the plane, a thunderstorm hit, and he lost his way; and all of this happened because God did not just answer her prayer but also gave him a chance to come out of materialistic world and give some time to the poor helpless people who have nothing but rich prayers.

Always be prepared to do, What God has prepared you for

” There are No Accidents in Life”

courtesy:YUGASAKTHIGAYATHRI.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A TRUE AND REAL INDIAN APJ SIR

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's ‪Letter‬ to Every Indian

Why is the media here so negative?

Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements?

We are such a Great Nation.

We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge 

them. Why?

We are the first in milk production.

We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.

We are the second largest producer of wheat.

We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a 

self-sustaining, self-driving unit..

There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed

 in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. 
It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths 
had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of 
the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who 
in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid 
and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. 

The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside 

in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.

Why are we so NEGATIVE?

Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with 

foreign things?

We want foreign T.Vs,

We want foreign shirts.

We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with 

everything imported.

Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?

I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl 

asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. 

She replied: I want to live in a developed India.

For her, you and I will have to build this developed India.

You must proclaim.India is not an under-developed nation;it is a highly 

developed nation...

You say that our government is inefficient.

You say that our laws are too old.

You say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

You say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke. 

The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

You say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

You say, say and say..

What do You do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore.

Give him a name - 'Your's. Give him a face - 'Your's'. 

Your's walk out of the airport and you are at your International best.

In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores.

You are as proud of their Underground links as they are.. You pay $5 

(approx. Rs.. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim 

Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.

You come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you 

have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your 

status identity…

In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?

You wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai ..

You would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

You would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in 

London at 10 pounds (Rs..650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD 

calls are billed to someone else.

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington 

and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon 

(Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. 

Take your two bucks and get lost.'

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than 

the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand ..

Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?

Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ?

We are still talking of the same YOU.

YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other 

countries but cannot in your own.

YOU who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment 

you touch Indian ground.

If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country,

Why cannot you be the same here in India ?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. 

Same in Japan ..

Will the Indian citizen do that here?

We go to the polls to choose a government and after that 

forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government 

to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative.

We expect  the government to clean up but we are not going to stop 

chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick

 a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin.

We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not 

going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food 

and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the 

least opportunity.This applies even to the staff who is known 

not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to 

women, dowry, girl child! and others what do we do?

We make loud drawing room protestations and continue 

to do the reverse at home.

OUR EXCUSE?

'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it 

matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.'

So who's going to change the system?

What does a system consist of?

Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, 

other households, other cities, other communities and 

the government.

But definitely not ME & YOU.

When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system 
we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look
 into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.clean to come 
along and work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or 
we leave the country and run away like lazy cowards hounded by our 
fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. 
When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England 
experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. 

When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought 
home by the Indian government.

Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country.

Nobody thinks of feeding the system.

Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too…..

I am echoing J. F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians

ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE 

DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN 

COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Forward this letter to each Indian for a change .

Thank you …

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

GANDHIJI'S KINGSLEY HALL ADDRESS

During his stay in England in 1931, when the Columbia Gramophone Company requested him to make a record for them, Gandhi pleaded his inability to speak politics, and added that, at the age of sixty two, he could make his first and last record which should, if wanted, make his voice heard for all time.

Confessing his anxiety to speak on the spiritual matters, on October 20, 1931 he read out his old article “On God”: “There is an indefinable mysterious power that pervades everything, I feel it though I do not see it. It is this unseen power which makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses.

It transcends the senses. But it is possible to reason out the existence of God to a limited extent. Even in ordinary affairs we know that people do not know who rules or why and how He rules and yet they know that there is a power that certainly rules. In my tour last year in Mysore I met many poor villagers and I found upon inquiry that they did not know who ruled Mysore. They simply said some God ruled it. If the knowledge of these poor people was so limited about their ruler I who am infinitely lesser in respect to God than they to their ruler need not be surprised if I do not realize the presence of God – the King of Kings.

Nevertheless, I do feel, as the poor villagers felt about Mysore, that there is orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is not a blind law, for no blind law can govern the conduct of living being and thanks to the marvelous researches of Sir J. C. Bose it can now be proved that even matter is life. That law then which governs all life is God. Law and the law-giver are one. I may not deny the law or the law-giver because I know so little about it or Him. Just as my denial or ignorance of the existence of an earthly power will avail me nothing even so my denial of God and His law will not liberate me from its operation, whereas humble and mute acceptance of divine authority makes life’s journey easier even as the acceptance of earthly rule makes life under it easier.

I do dimly perceive that whilst everything around me is ever changing, ever dying there is underlying all that change a living power that is changeless, that holds all together, that creates, dissolves and recreates. That informing power of spirit is God, and since nothing else that I see merely through the senses can or will persist, He alone is. And is this power benevolent or malevolent ? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists.

Hence I gather that God is life, truth, light. He is love. He is the supreme Good. But He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He ever does. God to be God must rule the heart and transform it. He must express himself in every smallest act of His votary. This can only be done through a definite realization, more real than the five senses can ever produce. Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within. Such testimony is to be found in the experiences of an unbroken line of prophets and sages in all countries and climes. To reject this evidence is to deny oneself.

This realization is preceded by an immovable faith. He who would in his own person test the fact of God’s presence can do so by a living faith and since faith itself cannot be proved by extraneous evidence the safest course is to believe in the moral government of the world and therefore in the supremacy of the moral law, the law of truth and love. Exercise of faith will be the safest where there is a clear determination summarily to reject all that is contrary to truth and love. I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason. All that I can advise is not to attempt the impossible.”