The Rakshaa Bandhan stirs up one of the deepest and noblest emotions in the human heart - the abiding and chaste bond of love between the brother and the sister.
The delicate cord tied by the sister to the brother on this day pulsates with this sublime sentiment. History and legends of Bharat abound in touching episodes of ladies seeking protection from far-off, unacquainted heroes, though the Raakhi. A story is told of Alexander's wife approaching his mighty Hindu adversary Pururavas and tying Raakhi on his hand, seeking assurance from him for saving the life of her husband on the battlefield. And the great Hindu king, in the true traditional Kshatriya style, responded; and as the legend goes, just as he raised his hand to deliver a mortal blow to Alexander, he saw the Raakhi on his own hand and restrained from striking.
A more poignant instance is of the princess of a small Rajput principality. It speaks of the spell the Raakhi had cast even on those of alien faiths. The princess sent a Raakhi to the Moghal Emperor Humayun to save her honor from the onslaught of the Gujarat Sultan. The emperor who was engaged in an expedition against Bengal, turned back and hastened to the rescue of his Raakhi sister. But, alas, to his utmost sorrow, he found that the kingdom had already been overrun and the princess had committed Jauhaar, i.e., leaped into the flames to save her honor.
The sister-brother relationship highlighted by the Raakhi goes far beyond the mere personal protection of a female from a male. It also implies the basic element of an amicable and harmonious social life where all members of the society look upon themselves as brothers and sisters and as children of one common motherland.
The congregational Raakhi function carries this social content. Particularly, the tying of Raakhi to the sacred Bhagavaa Dhwaj at the start of the function signifies this social and cultural aspect. Not only do the participants in the function develop a sense of love and affection amongst themselves but they also affirm their loyalty and devotion to the society of which they are the children. Their commitment to protect each other and also the society as a whole is emphasized through this simple ceremony.
n the Hindu tradition the Rakshaa has indeed assumed all aspects of protection of the forces of righteousness from the forces of evil. Once, Yudhishthira asked Sri Krishna how best he could guard himself against impending evils and catastrophes in the coming year. Krishna advised him to observe the Rakshaa Ceremony. He also narrated an old incident to show how potent the Rakshaa is.
Once, Indra was confronted by the demon king - the Daitya-raaja - in a long-drawn battle. At one stage, the Daitya-raaja got better of Indra and drove him into wilderness. Indra, humbled and crest-fallen, sought the advice of Brihaspati, the Guru of Gods. The Guru told him to bide his time, prepare himself and then march against his adversary. He also indicated that the auspicious moment for sallying forth was the Shraavana Poornima. On that day, Shachee Devi, the wife of Indra, and Brihaspati tied Raakhis around Indra's right-wrist. Indra then advanced against the Daitya-raaja, vanquished him and reestablished his sovereignty.
The Rakshaa has several similar pauraanik associations. The following couplet is recited, especially in the northern parts, while tying the Raakhi. It denotes how the King Bali had become so powerful with the Raakhi on:
Yena baddho Balee raajaa daanavendro mahaabalah |
tena twaam anubadhnaami rakshe maa chala maa chala ||
(I am tying a Rakshaa to you, similar to the one tied to Bali the powerful king of demons. Oh Rakshaa, be firm, do not waver.)
It is not merely that the spirit of Rakshaa manifests itself on occasions of mortal peril to the life and honor of the beloved ones or to the society. It is not like the HOme Guards or the militia which are expected to come to the rescue of the people in times of war or natural calamities. No, it is far more deep and all-encompassing. It is like the flow of bloodstream through every limb and organ of the body, carrying strength and nourishment to every cell thereof. As a result, even a small wound anywhere in the body is promptly attended to by the entire body. Every other limb spontaneously sacrifies a part of its blood and energy to heal that wound and keep that organ healthy and strong.
This is how the society can live and prosper amidst all kinds of challenges either from within or without. Especially, various types of internal stresses and strains which are generated in the body-politic of a nation because of ever-changing economic, political and other factors can be overcome only on the strength of this inner flow of mutual affection and amity.
A society imbued with this spirit will see to it that every one of its members is made happy. The idea of the Hindu has always been:
Sarvepi sukhinassantu, sarve santu niraamayaah |
Sarve bhadraani pashyantu, maa kashchit duhkhabhaag bhavet ||
(Let everyone be happy, let everyone be free from all ills, let everyone behold only the auspicious, let no one be afflicted.)
This concept is far more comprehensive than the concept of the `maximum happiness of the maximum number.' In fact, spontaneous love and compassionate service for the poor and lowly in society is held up as the highest form of worship of God Himself. The spirit of selfless social service which makes for the uplift of the needy and deprived sections is thus transformed into a spiritual saadhanaa.
It was Raamakrishna Paramahamsa who coined the world, Daridra Naaraayana. He would not even tolerate expressions like `showing pity to the poor and sick.' Once when he was in a semi-samaadhi state, he exclaimed, "Compassion for creatures! Compassion for creatures! Thou fool! An insignificant worm crawling on earth, thou to show compassion to others! Who art thou to show compassion? No, it cannot be. It is not compassion for others, but rather service to man, recognizing him to be the veritable manifestation of God!" Swami Vivekananda picked up the thread and invoked God in the poor and ignorant and said,
'daridradevo bhava, moorkhadevo bhava.'
The boon asked of God by the King Rantideva who, when his kingdom was ravaged by famine, gave away his last morsel of food to a hungry man and the last sip of water to a thirsty dog, remains the eternal heart-beat of every devout Hindu:
Na twaham kaamaye raajyam na swargam naapunar bhavam |
Kaamaye duhkhataptaanaam praaninaam aarti naashanam ||
"Oh Lord, I desire not kingdom nor the heavens nor even moksha. All I desire is to remove the suffering from the afflicted beings."
It is only when this type of attitude towards one's less fortunate brothers and sisters permeates society that exploitations of the weak by the strong will end. Powers of intellect and body, and of material wealth and influence will then be utilized for the uplift and service of others. A Samskrit Subhaashita says,
Vidyaa vivaadaaya dhanam madaaya shaktih pareshaam paripeedanaaya |
Khalasya sadhorvipareetam etat jnaanaaya daanaaya cha rakshanaaya ||
For the wicked, learning is for dry arguments, wealth is for satisfying vanity, strength for harassing others, but in the case of holy men these are for imparting knowledge, offering charity and protecting others.
In short, Raksha Bandhan affords a most auspicious occasion to recharge ourselves every year with the true spirit of service and sacrifice for the welfare of the society, and find therein the highest spiritual fulfillment of human life.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Vijaya Dashami
http://www.panditjiusa.com/Dasara_Info.htm
Vijaya Dashami also known as Dasara, Dashahara, Navaratri, Durgotdsav… is one of the very important & fascinating festivals of India, which is celebrated in the lunar month of Ashwin (usually in September or October) from the Shukla Paksha Pratipada (the next of the New moon day of Bhadrapada) to the Dashami or the tenth day of Ashwin.
This festival is celebrated not only in India but in almost all eastern countries like Java, Sumatra, Japan etc... Dasara is Nepal's national festival.
Word DASARA is derived from Sanskrit words "Dasha" & "hara" meaning removing the ten (10). This is the most auspicious festival in the Dakshinaayana or in the Southern hemisphere motion of the Sun. In Sanskrit, 'Vijaya' means Victory and 'Dashami' means 10th day. 'Thus Vijaya Dashami' means victory on the 10th day.
Dasara is also known as Navaratri, as in the first nine days the Divine Mother Goddess Durga is worshipped and invoked in different manifestations of her Shakti. The 10th day is in honor of Durga Devi. The basic purpose behind this festival is to worship feminine principle of the Universe in the form of the divine mother to remind the teachings of the Taitareeya Upanishad, "Matru Devo Bhava." Essence of the navaratri celebration at social level is to remind & respect all the women, who are the guardians of the family, culture, and national integrity, to take lead in times of crisis to guide the humanity towards the path of social justice, righteousness, equality, love, and divinity.
Durga is worshipped as the main deity of Navaratri by all the segments of society including tribal communities. Dasara coincide with the period of rest & leisure of the farmers after their strenuous hard work in their farms & fields, hence they invoke blessings of Durga in order to have a rich harvest in the next coming season.
In India harvest season begins at this time and as mother earth is the source of all food the Mother Goddess is invoked to start afresh the new harvest season and to reactivate the vigor and fertility of the soil by doing religious performances and rituals which invoke cosmic forces for the rejuvenation of the soil.
On the day of Dasara, statues of the Goddess Durga are submerged in the river waters. These statues are made with the clay & the pooja is performed with turmeric and other pooja items, which are powerful disinfectants and are mixed in the river waters. This makes water useful for the farmers & yields better crops.
Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of the Hindawi (Hindu) Swarajya used to always worship Lord Shiva & Goddess Durga in the form of goddess Bhawani before any military expedition. Goddess Bhavani had blessed Shivaji Maharaj with her own sword called "Bhavani Talwar".
Buses, trucks and huge machines in factories are all decorated and worshipped as Dasara is also treated asVishwakarma Divas - the National Labor Day of India.
Veda Vyasa is considered as the foremost Guru and Vijayadasami is also celebrated as Vyasa puja.
Dasara is the festival of Victory of Good over Bad, God over Devil.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Garbage Truck
How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood? Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important. David J. Pollay explains his story in this way ...
Sixteen years ago I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!
The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean…he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"
The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean…he was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!"
And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, "The Law of the Garbage Truck."
"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did."
I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, "I'm not going to do it anymore."
Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. Never let the garbage truck run over you.
- Anonymous
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Makar Samkranti
Sankranti means to go from one place to another place (to change direction). It also means one meets another. The time when the sun changes direction from one constellation (of the zodiac) to another is known as Sankranti. This is the day, we presume that the sun begins its northward journey, and hence Uttarayana starts. Sankranti is also a Festival for harvest and is Bharateeya way of welcoming New Year. Sankranti is also called as Pongal in Tamilnadu, Khichidi in Uttar Bharat, Sakarat in Madhyapradesh and Bundelkhand, Lohri in Punjab and has host of many other names in various parts of Bharat.
To Hindus, the sun stands for knowledge, spiritual light and wisdom. Makara Shankranti signifies that we should turn away from the darkness of delusion in which we live, and begin to joyously let the light within us shine brighter and brighter. We should gradually begin to grow in purity, wisdom, and knowledge, even as the sun does from this day.
In fact, the sun itself stands for all the ideals of the Sankraanti festival. Its message is that of light, unity, equality and true selflessness. These are the ideals of Karma Yoga. Hence, the sun is the greatest Karma Yogi. If we learn this one lesson from the sun, our lives will shine with divine lustre like that of the sun. Sankraanti, signifying light, also gives the message of intellectual illumination. It is the capacity to discriminate between the right and the wrong, the just and the unjust, truth and falsehood, virtue and vice. It is this discriminative wisdom - Viveka - which leads the individual on the path of human evolution and human happiness. Mere dry reasoning power devoid of this insight will be like the charging of a wild horse without the stirrup and the rider. Light symbolizes the warmth, i.e., the love and affection, the quality of the heart.
In many areas of Bharat, this is symbolized by the distribution of til-gul - the til (sesome) seed and jaggery. The til brimming with fragrant and delicious oil, stands for friendship and comradeship and jaggery for the sweetness of speech and behavior. The "til-gud "shows how individual sesame seeds are held together by the sweet syrup. This is also symbolic of removing the harsh feelings, debts against each other, one might owe towards the neighbours, friends and family members, and thus reaffirming the faith or trust we have. These feelings are not specific to any religion or community. On the social plane, the Sankraanti carries a vital significance for national welfare. It is the warmth of love and fellow-feeling among the people of a country that ultimately makes them stand up in unison in adversity or in prosperity. It is the necessary lubricant to make the nation's machine work smoothly without friction. Even the great precepts of `liberty' and `equality'lose their meaning without the basic requisite of `fraternity' among the people. Fraternity alone will ensure a spirit of selfless service and sacrifice in the cause of fellow countrymen. Selfishness - the ultimate destructor of the social fabric - is cured and social consciousness generated where a spirit of fraternity is alive.
Let this Sankranti bring ALL that is revolutionary, in our lives. Let Nation awake to a new era of National integrity based on Hindutva by erasing every dividing factor. Let us reaffirm our vision and commitment, retain the eternal values for the changing society.
In brief, Makara Sankramana embodies the ardent prayer of every heart -
Asato maa sadgamaya
Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya
Mrityoormaa amritam gamaya
Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya
Mrityoormaa amritam gamaya
Lead me, O Lord, from untruth to Truth, from darkness to light and from death to Immortality.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Advice to young programmers
(This is the summary of speech Given by Alex Stepenov (Principal Scientist, Adobe Systems) at Adobe India on 30 Nov 2004. )
1. Study , Study and Study
- Never ever think that you have acquired all or most of the knowledge which exists in the world. Almost everybody in US at age of 14 and everybody in India at age of 24 starts thinking that he has acquired all the wisdom and knowledge that he needs. This should be strictly avoided.
- You should be habituated to studies...exactly in the same way as you are habituated to brushing teeth and taking bath every morning. The habit of study must become a 'part of your blood'. And the study should be from both the areas: CS, since it is your profession, and something from non-CS...Something which doesnot relate to your work. This would expand your knowledge in other field too. A regular study, everyday, is extremely essential. It doesnot matter whether you study of 20 minutes of 2 hours, but consistency is a must.
- You should always study basics and fundamentals. There is no point in going for advanced topics. When I was at the age of 24, I wanted to do PhD in program verification, though I was not able to understand anything from that. The basic reason was that my fundamental concepts were not clear. Studying 'Algebraic Geometry' is useless if you donot understand basics in Algebra and Geometry. Also, you should always go back and re-read and re-iterate over the fundamental concepts. What is the exact definition of 'fundamental'? The stuff which is around for a while and which forms basic part of the concepts can be regarded as more fundamental. Of course, everybody understands what a fundamental means.
- Here are few books which I would strongly recommend that every CS professional should read and understand.
i. "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Albenson and Sussman
I personally donot like the material present in this book and I do have some objections about it but this is the best book I have ever seen which explains all the concepts in programming in a clear and excellent way. This book is available online at http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
How many of you have shipped the programs by writing them in assembly? A very good understanding of basics of how a computer operates is what every CS professional must have. H&P Wrote two books on CA. I am talking about their first book, the introductory text for understanding basic aspects of how a computer works. Even if you feel that you know whatever is written in that book, donot stop reading. It's good to revise basics again and again.
iii. "Fundamentals of Programming" by Donald Knuth.
The core of CS is algorithms and Data structures. Every CS professional must have the 3 volumes of Knuth's Book on programming. It really doesnot matter if you take 30 years of your life to understand what Knuth has written, what is more important is that you read atleast some part of that book everyday without fail.
iv. Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, Leiserson and Rivest
This book should be read daily to keep your concepts fresh. This is the best book for fundamental concepts in algorithms.
2. Learn Professional Ethics
- As a CS Professional, you are morally obliged to do a good job. What this means is that you are supposed to do your job not for your manager but for yourself. This is already told in Bhagwat Geeeta: Doing duties of your life.
- The direct implication of this is: never ever write a bad code. You don't need to be fastest and run after shipping dates; rather you need to write quality code. Never write junk code. Rewrite it till it is good. Thoroughly test every piece of code that you write. Do not write codes which are "sort of all-right". You might not achieve perfection, but atleast your code should be of good quality.
- Let me quote my own example in this context. You might have heard about STL, The Standard Template Library that ships in with C++ compilers. I wrote it 10 years ago, in 1994. While implementing one of the routines in the STL, namely the "search routine", I was a bit lazy and instead of writing a good linear order implementation of KMP which was difficult to code, I wrote a best quadratic implementation. I knew that I could make the search faster by writing a linear-order implementation, but I was lazy and I did not do that. And, after 10 years of my writing STL, exactly the same implementation is still used inside STL and STL ships with an inefficient quadratic implementation of search routine even today!! You might ask me: why can't you rewrite that? Well...I cannot, because that code is no more my property!! Further, nobody today will be interested in a standalone efficient STL ...people would prefer one which automatically ships out with the compiler itself.
- Moral is, you should have aesthetic beauty built inside you. You should "feel" uneasy on writing bad code and should be eager to rewrite the code till it becomes upto the quality. And to the judge the quality, you need to develop sense regarding which algorithms to use under what circumstances.
3. Figure out your Goals
- Always aspire doing bigger things in life
- "Viewing promotion path as your career" is a completely wrong goal. If you are really interested in studying and learning new things, never ever aspire for being a manager. Managers cannot learn and study...they have no time. "Company ladder aspiration" is not what should be important for you.
- You might feel that you want to do certain things which you cannot do till you become a manager. When you become a manager, you will soon realize that now you just cannot do anything!
- You will have a great experience as programmers. But if you care for people and love people, you will never enjoy being a manager...most good managers are reluctant managers. If you see people as people, you cannot survive at management level.
- Always aspire for professional greatness. Our profession is very beautiful because we create abstract models and implement them in reality. There is a big fun in doing that. We have a profession which allows us to do creative things and even gives nice salary for that.
- The three biggest mistakes that people usually make are aiming for money, aiming for promotion and aiming for fame. The moment you get some of these, you aspire for some more and then there is no end. I donot mean that you shouldnot earn money, but you should understand how much money would satisfy your needs. Bill Gates might be the richest person in the world; he is certainly not the happiest. Our lives are far better than his.
- Find your goal, and do best in the job that you have. Understand that what is in your pocket does not matter, what is in your brain finally matters. Money and fame do not matter. Knowledge matters.
4. Follow your culture
I have seen the tradition that whatever junk is created in US, it rapidly spreads up in the rest of the world, and India is not an exception for this. This cultural change creates a very strong impact on everybody's life. Habits of watching spicy Bollywood or Hollywood movies and listening to pop songs and all such stupid stuff gets very easily cultivated in people of your age; but believe me, there is nothing great in that. This all just makes you run away from your culture. And there is no wisdom in running away from your culture. Indian culture, which has great Vedas and stories like Mahabharata and Bhagwatgeeta is really great and even Donald Knuth enjoys reading that. You should understand that fundamental things in Indian culture teach you a lot and you should never forget them.
Finally, I would like to conclude by saying that it's
your life. Do not waste it on stupid things. Develop your tests, and start the fight.90/10 Principle
Discover the 90/10 Principle. It will change your life (at least the way you react to situations).
What is this principle?
10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.
What does this mean?
We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
We cannot stop the car from breaking down.
The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off.
A driver may cut us off in traffic.
We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
How?
By your reaction. You cannot control a red light, but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.
Let's use an example.
You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just what happened. What happens when the next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because
you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home, When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.
Why?
Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?
A) Did the coffee cause it?
B) Did your daughter cause it?
C) Did the policeman cause it?
D) Did you cause it?
The answer is "D".
You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened.
Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "It's ok honey, you just need, to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.
Notice the difference?
Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.
Why?
Because of how you REACTED.
You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.
Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.
If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.
How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic?
Do you lose your temper?
Pound on the steering wheel? (A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off)
Do you curse?
Does your blood pressure skyrocket?
Do you try and bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.
10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.10% of life is made up of what happens to you. 90% of life is decided by how you react.
What does this mean?
We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
We cannot stop the car from breaking down.
The plane will be late arriving, which throws our whole schedule off.
A driver may cut us off in traffic.
We have no control over this 10%. The other 90% is different. You determine the other 90%.We really have no control over 10% of what happens to us.
How?
By your reaction. You cannot control a red light, but you can control your reaction. Don't let people fool you; YOU can control how you react.
Let's use an example.
You are eating breakfast with your family. Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee onto your business shirt. You have no control over what just what happened. What happens when the next will be determined by how you react. You curse. You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over. She breaks down in tears. After scolding her, you turn to your spouse and criticize her for placing the cup too close to the edge of the table. A short verbal battle follows. You storm upstairs and change your shirt. Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying to finish breakfast and get ready for school. She misses the bus. Your spouse must leave immediately for work. You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school. Because
you are late, you drive 40 miles an hour in a 30 mph speed limit. After a 15-minute delay and throwing $60 traffic fine away, you arrive at school. Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye. After arriving at the office 20 minutes late, you find you forgot your briefcase. Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse. You look forward to coming home, When you arrive home, you find small wedge in your relationship with your spouse and daughter.
Why?
Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?
A) Did the coffee cause it?
B) Did your daughter cause it?
C) Did the policeman cause it?
D) Did you cause it?
The answer is "D".
You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day. Here is what could have and should have happened.
Coffee splashes over you. Your daughter is about to cry. You gently say, "It's ok honey, you just need, to be more careful next time". Grabbing a towel you rush upstairs. After grabbing a new shirt and your briefcase, you come back down in time to look through the window and see your child getting on the bus. She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early and cheerfully greet the staff. Your boss comments on how good the day you are having.
Notice the difference?
Two different scenarios. Both started the same. Both ended different.
Why?
Because of how you REACTED.
You really do not have any control over 10% of what happens. The other 90% was determined by your reaction.
Here are some ways to apply the 90/10 principle.
If someone says something negative about you, don't be a sponge. Let the attack roll off like water on glass. You don't have to let the negative comment affect you! React properly and it will not ruin your day. A wrong reaction could result in losing a friend, being fired, getting stressed out etc.
How do you react if someone cuts you off in traffic?
Do you lose your temper?
Pound on the steering wheel? (A friend of mine had the steering wheel fall off)
Do you curse?
Does your blood pressure skyrocket?
Do you try and bump them?
WHO CARES if you arrive ten seconds later at work? Why let the cars ruin your drive?
Remember the 90/10 principle, and do not worry about it.
You are told you lost your job. Why lose sleep and get irritated? It will work out. Use your worrying energy and time into finding another job.
The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger.
Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.
Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results.
You will lose nothing if you try it.
The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.
The result?
Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. There never seem to be a success in life.
Bad days follow bad days.
Terrible things seem to be constantly happening. There is constant stress, lack of joy, and broken relationships.
The plane is late; it is going to mangle your schedule for the day. Why take out your frustration on the flight attendant? She has no control over what is going on. Use your time to study, get to know the other passenger.
Why get stressed out? It will just make things worse.
Now you know the 90-10 principle. Apply it and you will be amazed at the results.
You will lose nothing if you try it.
The 90-10 principle is incredible. Very few know and apply this principle.
The result?
Millions of people are suffering from undeserved stress, trials, problems and heartache. There never seem to be a success in life.
Bad days follow bad days.
Terrible things seem to be constantly happening. There is constant stress, lack of joy, and broken relationships.
Worry consumes time. Anger breaks friendships and life seems dreary and is not enjoyed to the fullest.
Friends are lost. Life is a bore and often seems cruel.
Does this describe you? If so, do not be discouraged. You can be different!
Understand and apply the 90/10 principle.
It CAN change your life.........!!!!!!!
Does this describe you? If so, do not be discouraged. You can be different!
Understand and apply the 90/10 principle.
It CAN change your life.........!!!!!!!
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Messages of Vivekananda
- Swami Vivekananda
My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is; to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.
Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, and think them month after month. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. But if you cannot see Him in everything, see Him in one thing, in that thing which you like best, and then see him in another. So on you can go.
The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and end of all religion, is but one-reunion with God, or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity, which is every man's true nature.
Life is the unfoldment and development of a being under circumstances tending press it down.
Ye divinities on earth-sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, the delusion that you are sheep, you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.
It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body – to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.
I only preach what is good for universal humanity.
If you have faith in the three hundred and thirty millions of mythological gods, and in all the gods which foreigners have introduced into your midst, and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves and stand up on that faith.
There must be no fear. No begging, but demanding - demanding the Highest. The true devotees of the Mother are as hard as adamant and as fearless as lions. They are not the least upset if the whole universe suddenly crumbles into dust at their feet; Make Her listen to you. None of that cringing to Mother! Remember, She is all-powerful. She can make heroes even out of stones!
The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith in himself or itself, death comes. Believe first in yourself, and then in God.
He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist, who does not believe in himself.
Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is any sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
The older I grow, the more everything seems to me lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.
If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. An of the Upanishads, it is only that one idea, strength. The quintessence of the Veda and Vedanta and all lies in that word.
India is immortal, if she persists in her search for God.
I do not mean to say that political or social improvements are not necessary, but what I mean is this, that they are secondary here, and that religion is primary.
I claim that no destruction of religion is necessary to improve the Hindu society, and that this state of society exists not on account of religion, but because religion has not been applied to society as it should have been.
None can resist her (India) any more; never is she going to sleep any more; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.
So long as the millions die in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense pays not the least heed to them!
So long as even a single dog in my country is without food, my whole religion would be to feed it.
Where should you go to seek for God? Are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, gods? Why not worship them first? Why go to dig a well on the shores of the Ganga? Let these people be your God – think of them incessantly – the Lord will show you the way.
Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.
Be pure, staunch, and sincere to the backbone, and everything else will be right. If you have marked anything in the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, it is this-they are sincere to the backbone. My task will be done and I shall be quite content to die, if I can bring and launch one hundred such men all over India. He, Lord, knows best. The petty attempts of small men should be beneath our notice. Onward! Upon ages of struggle a character is built. One word of truth can never be hidden under rubbish, but it will show itself sooner or later. Truth is indestructible, virtue is indestructible, and purity is indestructible.
Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions in India who are held fast by poverty, priest craft, and tyranny-pray day and night for them, I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay no saint. But I am poor, I love the poor.
The less you read the better. Read the Gita and other good works on the Vedanta. That is all you need. The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can't concentrate their minds at will.
Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. Real education is that which enables one to stand on one's own legs. The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics. You are working like machines merely, and living a jellyfish existence.
We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.
Bring all light into the world. Let light come to everyone; the task will not be finished till everyone has reached the Lord. Bring light to the poor; and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more the poor! Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous! Thus bring light to all and leave the rest unto the Lord.
Why is it that our country is the weakest and the most backward of all countries? Because Shakti is held in dishonor there. Mother (Shri Sarada Debi, the spiritual consort of Shri Ramakrishna) has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and making her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyais be born into the world.
There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of woman is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing. Woman must be in a position to solve their own problems in their own way. No one can or ought to do this for them. And our Indian are as capable of doing it as any in the world.
I know that the race that produced Sita-even if it only dreamt of her-has a reverence for woman that is unmatched on earth.
O India! Forget not that the ideal of they womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Uma; forget not that they marriage, they wealth, they life are not for self-pleasure-are not for they individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that they social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are they flesh and blood, they brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim-'I am an Indian, every Indian, the poor and destitute Indian is my brother.' Thou, too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice-'The Indian is my brother; the Indian is my life; India's gods and goddesses are my God; India's society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven-the Varanasi (Banaras)-of my old age. Say brother-'The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good', and repeat and pray day and night-'O Though Lord of Gauri! O Thou Mother of the Universe! Vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of Strength! Take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness and make me a Man!'
What we need today is to know that there is a God, and that we can see and feel Him here and now.
We want everything but God, because our ordinary desires are fulfilled by the external world. So long as our needs are confined within the limits of the physical universe, it is only when we have had hard blows in our lives and are disappointed with everything here that we feel the need for something higher; then we seek God.
Religion can be relished. Are you ready? Do you want it? You will get realization if you do, and then you will be truly religious. Until you have attained realization, there is no difference between you and atheists. The atheists are sincere, but the man who says that he believes in religion and never attempts to realize it is not sincere.
Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world, just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truths of the physical world. Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that eternal sky, the Lord. There is the root, the reality, the real individuality of each and all. Religion began with the search after some of these stars that had passed beyond you horizon, and ended in finding them in God, and ourselves in the same place.
Take religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a forest of brutes. Sense-happiness is not the goal of humanity; wisdom is the goal of all life.
Can religion really accomplish anything? It can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is and will make of this human animal, a God. That is what religion can do. The ideal of all religions, all sects, is the same-the attaining of liberty, the cessation of misery.
Not a drop will be in the ocean, not a twig in the deepest forest, not a crumb in the house of the god of wealth, if the Lord is not merciful. Streams will be in the desert and the beggar will have plenty if He wills it. He seeth the sparrow's fall. Are these but words or literal, actual life?
These prophets were not unique; they were men as you or I. They were great Yogis. They had gained this super-consciousness, and you and I can get the same. They very fact that one man ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion.
Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character. The world is in need fro those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like thunderbolt.
If there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space fro development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest groveling savage not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.
What I want to propagate is a religion that will be equally acceptable to all minds; it must be equally philosophic, equally emotional, equally mystic, and equally conducive to action. And this combination will be the ideal of the nearest approach to a universal religion. Would to God that all men were so constituted that in their minds all these elements of philosophy, mysticism, emotion, and of work were equally present in full! That is the ideal, my ideal of a perfect man. Everyone who has only one or two of these elements of character, I consider "one-sided"; and this world is almost full of such "one-sided" men, with knowledge of that one road only in which they move; and anything else is dangerous and horrible to them. To become harmoniously balanced in all these four directions is my ideal of religion.
Hindus accept every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedans, worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrians, and kneeling before the cross of the Christians, knowing that all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and associations, and each of them marking a stage of progress. We gather all these flowers and bind them with the twine of love, making a wonderful bouquet of worship.
Religion is realization; not talk, nor doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.
This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
Be you holy and, above all, sincere and do not for a moment give up your trust in the Lord and you will see the light. Whatever is truth will remain for ever; whatever is not, none can preserve. Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality, and love of God. No one who loves God need fear any jugglery. Holiness is the highest and divinest power in earth and in heaven. "Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone is opened the way to God." Do not care for a moment who joins hands with you or not, be sure that you touch the hand of the Lord.
Let there be but a dozen lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth, nor power, nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.
Those who give themselves up to the Lord do more for the world than all the so-called workers.
If you seek you own salvation, you will go to hell. It is the salvation of others that you must seek and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation.
No one ever succeeded in keeping society in good humor and at the same time did great works. One must work as the dictate comes from within, and then if it is right and good, society is bound to veer round, perhaps centuries after one is dead and gone. We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we be ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the light.
Those that want to help mankind must take their own pleasure and pain, name and fame, and all sorts of interests, and make a bundle of them and throw them into the sea, and then come to the Lord. This is what all the Masters said and died.
Let everybody work out his own vision of this universe, according to his own ideas. Injure none, deny the position of none; take man where he stands and, if you can, lend him a helping hand and put him on a higher platform, but do not injure and do not destroy. All will come to truth in the long run. When all the desires of the heart will be vanquished, then this very mortal will become immortal'-then the very man will become God.
The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God. All duties are His.
The seeing of many is the great sin of all the world. See all as Self and lobe all; let all idea of separateness go.
No work is secular. All work is adoration and worship.
As I grow older I find that I look more and more for greatness in little things. I want to know what a great man eats and wears, and how he speaks to his servants. Anyone will be great in a great position. Even the coward will grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on! More and more the true greatness seems to me that of the worm doing its duty silently, steadily, from moment to moment and hour to hour.
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it be after his heart. But the intelligent man is he who can convert every work into one that suits his taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan-seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard-seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent within it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great.
This world is in chains of superstition. I pity the oppressed, whether man or woman, and I pity more the oppressors. In this world always take the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, and give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make on conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us. The Lord is the only Giver, all the world are only shopkeepers. Get His cheque and it must be honored everywhere.
Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not al all—living in the body, but not of it. This rascal ego must be obliterated. Bless men when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing you; they can only hurt themselves. Go where people hate you, let them thrash the ego out of you, and you will get nearer to the Lord.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your good deeds, be azad. The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it; but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
To him who has one thing in the universe the Lord comes.
'Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad, Day and night never come together, so desire and the Lord can never come together.
One idea that I see clear as day-light is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the law; it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.
Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! This world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves. I only say, awake, awake!
I have lost all wish for my salvation. I never wanted earthly enjoyments. I must see my machine in strong working order, and then knowing sure that I have put in a lever for the good of humanity, in India at least, which no power can drive back, I will sleep, without caring what will be next; and may I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exist, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and above all my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.
It is our privilege to be allowed to be charitable, for only so ca we grow. The poor man suffers that we may be helped; let the giver kneel down and give thanks, let the receiver stand up and permit. See the Lord back of every being and give Him. Hold your money merely as custodian for what is God's. Let name and fame and money go; they are a terrible bondage. Feel the wonderful atmosphere of freedom. You are free, free, free! Oh, blessed am I! I am the Infinite! In my soul I can find no beginning and no end. All is my self. Say this unceasingly.
Never think you can make the world better and happier. The bullock in the oil-mil never reaches the wisp if hay tied in front of him, he only grinds out the oil. So we chase the will-o'-wisp of happiness that always eludes us and we only grinds nature's mill, then die merely to begin again. If we could get rid of evil, we should never catch a glimpse of anything higher; we would be satisfied and never struggle to get free. When man finds that all search for happiness in matter is nonsense, then religion begins. All human knowledge is but a part of religion.
Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help anyone of His children, bessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of the lunatic, the leper, and the sinner! Bold are my words, and let me repeat that it is the greatest privilege in our life that we are allowed to serve the Lord in all thes shapes. Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to them.
The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body. Of course all animals are temples too, but man is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship in that, no other temple will be of any advantage. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy-by one or more or all of these-and be free. This is the whole of religion. Coctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details.
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody's property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls. Who can lay any special claim to it? But ist has to be maid practical, to be made simple (for the highest truths are always simple), so that it may penertrate every pore of human society, and become the property of the highest intellects and the commonest minds, of the man, woman and child at the same time. All these ratiocinations of logic, all these bundles of metaphysics, all these theologies and ceremonies may have been good in their own time, but let us try to make things simpler and bring about the golden days when every man will be a worshipper, and the Reality in everyman will be the object of worship.
Let us perfect the means; the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.
When we cease to see evil, the world must end for us since to rid us of that mistake is its only object. To think there is any imperfection, creates it. Thoughts of strength and perfection alone can cure it. Do what good you can, some evil will inhere in it; but do all without regards to personal result, give up all results to the Lord, then neither good nor evil will affect you. The less the thought of the body, the better. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable. That is the secret: To think that I am the spirit and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but as a series of paintings-scenes on a canvas-of which I am the witness. He who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage., and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind-that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for one is the way to be free.
Do not blame any supernatural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping hand. That cannot be, says the Vedanta; we are like silk-worms. We make the thread out of our won substance and spin the cocoon, and in course of time, are imprisoned inside. But this is not for ever. In that cocoon we shall develop spiritual realization, and like the butterfly come out free.
The time was ripe for one to be born, who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of Shankara and the wonderfully expansive, infinite heart of Chaitanya; one who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the same God; one who would see God in every being, one whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the outcase, for the downtrodden, for everyone in this world, inside India or outside India; and at the same time whose grand brilliant intellect would harmonise all conflicting sects, not only in India but outside of India, and bring a marvelous harmony, the universal religion of head and heart into existence.
Through thousands of years of chiseling and modeling, the lives of the great prophets of yore come down to us; and yet, in my opinion, not one stands so high in brilliance as that life which I saw with my own eyes, under whose shadow I have lived, at whose feet I have learnt everything-the life of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa.
He was a triumphant example, a living realization of the complete conquest of lust and of desire for money. He was beyond all ideas of either, and such men are necessary for this century. Such renunciation is necessary in these days when men have begun to think that they cannot live a month without what they call their "necessities" and which they are increasing out of all proportion. It is necessary in a time like this that a man should arise to demonstrate to the skeptics of the world that there yet breathes a man who does not care a straw for all the godl or all the fame that is in the universe.
Once more He has come to help his children. Once more the oppporunity is giben to rise to fallen India. India can only rise by sitting at the feet of Shri Ramakrishna. His life and his teachings are to be spread far and wide, are t be made to penetrate every pore of hindu society. Who will do it? Who are to take up the flag of Ramakrishna and march for thesalvation of the world? Who are to stem the tide of degeneration at the sacrifice of name and fame, wealth and enjoyment-nay of every hope of this or other worlds? A few men have jumped into the breach, have sacrificed themselves. They area few, we want a few thousands of such as they, and they will come … Glory unto him on whom falls the Lord's Choice.
Now in this life let us infinitely spread his lofty character, his sublime life, his infinite soul. This is the only work-there is nothing else to do. Wherever his name will reach, the veriest worm will attain divinity, nay he is actually attaining it … Whoever will be ready to serve him-no, not him but his children-the poor and the downtrodden, the sinful and the afflicted, down to the very worm-who will be ready to serve these, in them he will manifest himself. Through their tongue the Goddess of Learning Herself will speak, and the Divine Mother-the Embodiment of all power-will enthrone Herself in their hearts.
The Lord is always with me. Follow me, if you will, by being intensely sincere, perfectly unselfish, and, above all, by being perfectly pure. My blessings go with you. In this short life, there is no time for the exchange of compliments. We can compare notes and compliment each other to our heart's content after the battle is finished. Now do not talk; work, work, work!
My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is; to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.
Fill the mind with the highest thoughts, hear them day after day, and think them month after month. The ideal of man is to see God in everything. But if you cannot see Him in everything, see Him in one thing, in that thing which you like best, and then see him in another. So on you can go.
The ultimate goal of all mankind, the aim and end of all religion, is but one-reunion with God, or, what amounts to the same, with the divinity, which is every man's true nature.
Life is the unfoldment and development of a being under circumstances tending press it down.
Ye divinities on earth-sinners! It is a sin to call a man so; it is a standing libel on human nature. Come up, O lions, the delusion that you are sheep, you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.
It may be that I shall find it good to get outside of my body – to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere, until the world shall know that it is one with God.
I only preach what is good for universal humanity.
If you have faith in the three hundred and thirty millions of mythological gods, and in all the gods which foreigners have introduced into your midst, and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you. Have faith in yourselves and stand up on that faith.
There must be no fear. No begging, but demanding - demanding the Highest. The true devotees of the Mother are as hard as adamant and as fearless as lions. They are not the least upset if the whole universe suddenly crumbles into dust at their feet; Make Her listen to you. None of that cringing to Mother! Remember, She is all-powerful. She can make heroes even out of stones!
The history of the world is the history of a few men who had faith in themselves. That faith calls out the divinity within. You can do anything. You fail only when you do not strive sufficiently to manifest infinite power. As soon as a man or a nation loses faith in himself or itself, death comes. Believe first in yourself, and then in God.
He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religions said that he was an atheist who did not believe in God. The new religion says that he is the atheist, who does not believe in himself.
Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is any sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
The older I grow, the more everything seems to me lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.
If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. An of the Upanishads, it is only that one idea, strength. The quintessence of the Veda and Vedanta and all lies in that word.
India is immortal, if she persists in her search for God.
I do not mean to say that political or social improvements are not necessary, but what I mean is this, that they are secondary here, and that religion is primary.
I claim that no destruction of religion is necessary to improve the Hindu society, and that this state of society exists not on account of religion, but because religion has not been applied to society as it should have been.
None can resist her (India) any more; never is she going to sleep any more; no outward powers can hold her back any more; for the infinite giant is rising to her feet.
So long as the millions die in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense pays not the least heed to them!
So long as even a single dog in my country is without food, my whole religion would be to feed it.
Where should you go to seek for God? Are not all the poor, the miserable, the weak, gods? Why not worship them first? Why go to dig a well on the shores of the Ganga? Let these people be your God – think of them incessantly – the Lord will show you the way.
Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.
Be pure, staunch, and sincere to the backbone, and everything else will be right. If you have marked anything in the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, it is this-they are sincere to the backbone. My task will be done and I shall be quite content to die, if I can bring and launch one hundred such men all over India. He, Lord, knows best. The petty attempts of small men should be beneath our notice. Onward! Upon ages of struggle a character is built. One word of truth can never be hidden under rubbish, but it will show itself sooner or later. Truth is indestructible, virtue is indestructible, and purity is indestructible.
Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions in India who are held fast by poverty, priest craft, and tyranny-pray day and night for them, I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich. I am no metaphysician, no philosopher, nay no saint. But I am poor, I love the poor.
The less you read the better. Read the Gita and other good works on the Vedanta. That is all you need. The present system of education is all wrong. The mind is crammed with facts before it knows to think. Control of the mind should be taught first. If I had my education to get over again and had any voice in the matter, I would learn to master my mind first, and then gather facts if I wanted them. It takes people a long time to learn things because they can't concentrate their minds at will.
Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. Real education is that which enables one to stand on one's own legs. The education that you are receiving now in schools and colleges is only making you a race of dyspeptics. You are working like machines merely, and living a jellyfish existence.
We must have life-building, man-making, character-making, assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library.
Bring all light into the world. Let light come to everyone; the task will not be finished till everyone has reached the Lord. Bring light to the poor; and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more the poor! Bring light to the ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous! Thus bring light to all and leave the rest unto the Lord.
Why is it that our country is the weakest and the most backward of all countries? Because Shakti is held in dishonor there. Mother (Shri Sarada Debi, the spiritual consort of Shri Ramakrishna) has been born to revive that wonderful Shakti in India; and making her the nucleus, once more will Gargis and Maitreyais be born into the world.
There is no chance for the welfare of the world unless the condition of woman is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly on only one wing. Woman must be in a position to solve their own problems in their own way. No one can or ought to do this for them. And our Indian are as capable of doing it as any in the world.
I know that the race that produced Sita-even if it only dreamt of her-has a reverence for woman that is unmatched on earth.
O India! Forget not that the ideal of they womanhood is Sita, Savitri, Damayanti; forget not that the God thou worshippest is the great Ascetic of ascetics, the all-renouncing Shankara, the Lord of Uma; forget not that they marriage, they wealth, they life are not for self-pleasure-are not for they individual personal happiness; forget not that thou art born as a sacrifice to the Mother's altar; forget not that they social order is but the reflex of the Infinite Universal Motherhood; forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper, are they flesh and blood, they brothers. Thou brave one, be bold, take courage, be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim-'I am an Indian, every Indian, the poor and destitute Indian is my brother.' Thou, too, clad with but a rag round thy loins proudly proclaim at the top of thy voice-'The Indian is my brother; the Indian is my life; India's gods and goddesses are my God; India's society is the cradle of my infancy, the pleasure-garden of my youth, the sacred heaven-the Varanasi (Banaras)-of my old age. Say brother-'The soil of India is my highest heaven, the good of India is my good', and repeat and pray day and night-'O Though Lord of Gauri! O Thou Mother of the Universe! Vouchsafe manliness unto me! O Thou Mother of Strength! Take away my weakness, take away my unmanliness and make me a Man!'
What we need today is to know that there is a God, and that we can see and feel Him here and now.
We want everything but God, because our ordinary desires are fulfilled by the external world. So long as our needs are confined within the limits of the physical universe, it is only when we have had hard blows in our lives and are disappointed with everything here that we feel the need for something higher; then we seek God.
Religion can be relished. Are you ready? Do you want it? You will get realization if you do, and then you will be truly religious. Until you have attained realization, there is no difference between you and atheists. The atheists are sincere, but the man who says that he believes in religion and never attempts to realize it is not sincere.
Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world, just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truths of the physical world. Each soul is a star, and all stars are set in that infinite azure, that eternal sky, the Lord. There is the root, the reality, the real individuality of each and all. Religion began with the search after some of these stars that had passed beyond you horizon, and ended in finding them in God, and ourselves in the same place.
Take religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a forest of brutes. Sense-happiness is not the goal of humanity; wisdom is the goal of all life.
Can religion really accomplish anything? It can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is and will make of this human animal, a God. That is what religion can do. The ideal of all religions, all sects, is the same-the attaining of liberty, the cessation of misery.
Not a drop will be in the ocean, not a twig in the deepest forest, not a crumb in the house of the god of wealth, if the Lord is not merciful. Streams will be in the desert and the beggar will have plenty if He wills it. He seeth the sparrow's fall. Are these but words or literal, actual life?
These prophets were not unique; they were men as you or I. They were great Yogis. They had gained this super-consciousness, and you and I can get the same. They very fact that one man ever reached that state, proves that it is possible for every man to do so. Not only is it possible, but every man must, eventually, get to that state, and that is religion.
Religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries. What the world wants is character. The world is in need fro those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like thunderbolt.
If there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and of Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminic or Buddhistic, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space fro development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest groveling savage not far removed from the brute, to the highest man towering by virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centered in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.
What I want to propagate is a religion that will be equally acceptable to all minds; it must be equally philosophic, equally emotional, equally mystic, and equally conducive to action. And this combination will be the ideal of the nearest approach to a universal religion. Would to God that all men were so constituted that in their minds all these elements of philosophy, mysticism, emotion, and of work were equally present in full! That is the ideal, my ideal of a perfect man. Everyone who has only one or two of these elements of character, I consider "one-sided"; and this world is almost full of such "one-sided" men, with knowledge of that one road only in which they move; and anything else is dangerous and horrible to them. To become harmoniously balanced in all these four directions is my ideal of religion.
Hindus accept every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedans, worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrians, and kneeling before the cross of the Christians, knowing that all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realize the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and associations, and each of them marking a stage of progress. We gather all these flowers and bind them with the twine of love, making a wonderful bouquet of worship.
Religion is realization; not talk, nor doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes.
This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive.
Be you holy and, above all, sincere and do not for a moment give up your trust in the Lord and you will see the light. Whatever is truth will remain for ever; whatever is not, none can preserve. Whatever others think or do, lower not your standard of purity, morality, and love of God. No one who loves God need fear any jugglery. Holiness is the highest and divinest power in earth and in heaven. "Truth alone triumphs, not untruth. Through truth alone is opened the way to God." Do not care for a moment who joins hands with you or not, be sure that you touch the hand of the Lord.
Let there be but a dozen lion-souls in each country, lions who have broken their own bonds, who have touched the Infinite, whose whole soul is gone to Brahman, who care neither for wealth, nor power, nor fame, and these will be enough to shake the world.
Those who give themselves up to the Lord do more for the world than all the so-called workers.
If you seek you own salvation, you will go to hell. It is the salvation of others that you must seek and even if you have to go to hell in working for others, that is worth more than to gain heaven by seeking your own salvation.
No one ever succeeded in keeping society in good humor and at the same time did great works. One must work as the dictate comes from within, and then if it is right and good, society is bound to veer round, perhaps centuries after one is dead and gone. We must plunge heart and soul and body into the work. And until we be ready to sacrifice everything else to one Idea and to one alone, we never, never will see the light.
Those that want to help mankind must take their own pleasure and pain, name and fame, and all sorts of interests, and make a bundle of them and throw them into the sea, and then come to the Lord. This is what all the Masters said and died.
Let everybody work out his own vision of this universe, according to his own ideas. Injure none, deny the position of none; take man where he stands and, if you can, lend him a helping hand and put him on a higher platform, but do not injure and do not destroy. All will come to truth in the long run. When all the desires of the heart will be vanquished, then this very mortal will become immortal'-then the very man will become God.
The only true duty is to be unattached and to work as free beings, to give up all work unto God. All duties are His.
The seeing of many is the great sin of all the world. See all as Self and lobe all; let all idea of separateness go.
No work is secular. All work is adoration and worship.
As I grow older I find that I look more and more for greatness in little things. I want to know what a great man eats and wears, and how he speaks to his servants. Anyone will be great in a great position. Even the coward will grow brave in the glare of the footlights. The world looks on! More and more the true greatness seems to me that of the worm doing its duty silently, steadily, from moment to moment and hour to hour.
Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it be after his heart. But the intelligent man is he who can convert every work into one that suits his taste. No work is petty. Everything in this world is like a banyan-seed, which, though appearing tiny as a mustard-seed, has yet the gigantic banyan tree latent within it. He indeed is intelligent who notices this and succeeds in making all work truly great.
This world is in chains of superstition. I pity the oppressed, whether man or woman, and I pity more the oppressors. In this world always take the position of the giver. Give everything and look for no return. Give love, give help, give service, and give any little thing you can, but keep out barter. Make on conditions and none will be imposed. Let us give out of our own bounty, just as God gives to us. The Lord is the only Giver, all the world are only shopkeepers. Get His cheque and it must be honored everywhere.
Until we give up the world manufactured by the ego, never can we enter the kingdom of heaven. None ever did, none ever will. To give up the world is to forget the ego, to know it not al all—living in the body, but not of it. This rascal ego must be obliterated. Bless men when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing you; they can only hurt themselves. Go where people hate you, let them thrash the ego out of you, and you will get nearer to the Lord.
Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Do not repent, do not brood over past deeds, and do not remember your good deeds, be azad. The weak, the fearful, the ignorant will never reach the Atman. You cannot undo, the effect must come, face it; but be careful never to do the same thing again. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give all, both good and bad. Do not keep the good and give only the bad. God helps those who do not help themselves.
To him who has one thing in the universe the Lord comes.
'Drinking the cup of desire, the world becomes mad, Day and night never come together, so desire and the Lord can never come together.
One idea that I see clear as day-light is that misery is caused by ignorance and nothing else. Who will give the world light? Sacrifice in the past has been the law; it will be, alas, for ages to come. The earth's bravest and best will have to sacrifice themselves for the good of many, for the welfare of all. Buddhas by the hundred are necessary with eternal love and pity.
Bold words and bolder deeds are what we want. Awake, awake, great ones! This world is burning with misery. Can you sleep? Let us call and call till the sleeping gods awake, till the god within answers to the call. What more is in life? What greater work? The details come to me as I go. I never make plans. Plans grow and work themselves. I only say, awake, awake!
I have lost all wish for my salvation. I never wanted earthly enjoyments. I must see my machine in strong working order, and then knowing sure that I have put in a lever for the good of humanity, in India at least, which no power can drive back, I will sleep, without caring what will be next; and may I be born again and again, and suffer thousands of miseries so that I may worship the only God that exist, the only God I believe in, the sum total of all souls-and above all my God the wicked, my God the miserable, my God the poor of all races, of all species, is the special object of my worship.
It is our privilege to be allowed to be charitable, for only so ca we grow. The poor man suffers that we may be helped; let the giver kneel down and give thanks, let the receiver stand up and permit. See the Lord back of every being and give Him. Hold your money merely as custodian for what is God's. Let name and fame and money go; they are a terrible bondage. Feel the wonderful atmosphere of freedom. You are free, free, free! Oh, blessed am I! I am the Infinite! In my soul I can find no beginning and no end. All is my self. Say this unceasingly.
Never think you can make the world better and happier. The bullock in the oil-mil never reaches the wisp if hay tied in front of him, he only grinds out the oil. So we chase the will-o'-wisp of happiness that always eludes us and we only grinds nature's mill, then die merely to begin again. If we could get rid of evil, we should never catch a glimpse of anything higher; we would be satisfied and never struggle to get free. When man finds that all search for happiness in matter is nonsense, then religion begins. All human knowledge is but a part of religion.
Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord himself, if you have the privilege. If the Lord grants that you can help anyone of His children, bessed you are; do not think too much of yourselves. Blessed you are that that privilege was given was given to you when others had it not. Do it only as a worship. I should see God in the poor, and it is for my salvation that I go and worship them. The poor and the miserable are for our salvation, so that we may serve the Lord, coming in the shape of the diseased, coming in the shape of the lunatic, the leper, and the sinner! Bold are my words, and let me repeat that it is the greatest privilege in our life that we are allowed to serve the Lord in all thes shapes. Give up the idea that by ruling over others you can do any good to them.
The only God to worship is the human soul in the human body. Of course all animals are temples too, but man is the highest, the Taj Mahal of temples. If I cannot worship in that, no other temple will be of any advantage. Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy-by one or more or all of these-and be free. This is the whole of religion. Coctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details.
All truth is eternal. Truth is nobody's property; no race, no individual can lay any exclusive claim to it. Truth is the nature of all souls. Who can lay any special claim to it? But ist has to be maid practical, to be made simple (for the highest truths are always simple), so that it may penertrate every pore of human society, and become the property of the highest intellects and the commonest minds, of the man, woman and child at the same time. All these ratiocinations of logic, all these bundles of metaphysics, all these theologies and ceremonies may have been good in their own time, but let us try to make things simpler and bring about the golden days when every man will be a worshipper, and the Reality in everyman will be the object of worship.
From highest Brahman to the yonder worm,
And to the very minutest atom,
Everywhere is the same God, the All-Love;
Friends, offer mind, soul, body at their feet.
These are His manifold forms before thee,
Rejecting them, where seekest thou for God?
Who loves all beings, without distinction,
He indeed is worshipping best his God.
And to the very minutest atom,
Everywhere is the same God, the All-Love;
Friends, offer mind, soul, body at their feet.
These are His manifold forms before thee,
Rejecting them, where seekest thou for God?
Who loves all beings, without distinction,
He indeed is worshipping best his God.
Let us perfect the means; the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. Therefore, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.
When we cease to see evil, the world must end for us since to rid us of that mistake is its only object. To think there is any imperfection, creates it. Thoughts of strength and perfection alone can cure it. Do what good you can, some evil will inhere in it; but do all without regards to personal result, give up all results to the Lord, then neither good nor evil will affect you. The less the thought of the body, the better. For it is the body that drags us down. It is attachment, identification, which makes us miserable. That is the secret: To think that I am the spirit and not the body, and that the whole of this universe with all its relations, with all its good and all its evil, is but as a series of paintings-scenes on a canvas-of which I am the witness. He who is alone is happy. Do good to all, like everyone, but do not love anyone. It is a bondage., and bondage brings only misery. Live alone in your mind-that is happiness. To have nobody to care for and never minding who cares for one is the way to be free.
Do not blame any supernatural being, neither be hopeless and despondent, nor think we are in a place from which we can never escape unless someone comes and lends us a helping hand. That cannot be, says the Vedanta; we are like silk-worms. We make the thread out of our won substance and spin the cocoon, and in course of time, are imprisoned inside. But this is not for ever. In that cocoon we shall develop spiritual realization, and like the butterfly come out free.
Truth never comes where lust and fame and free
Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman
As his wife can ever perfect be;
Nor he who owns the lest of things, nor he
Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates
So give these up, Sanyasin bold; Say-"Om Tat Sat Om!"
Of gain reside. No man who thinks of woman
As his wife can ever perfect be;
Nor he who owns the lest of things, nor he
Whom anger chains, can ever pass thro' Maya's gates
So give these up, Sanyasin bold; Say-"Om Tat Sat Om!"
The time was ripe for one to be born, who in one body would have the brilliant intellect of Shankara and the wonderfully expansive, infinite heart of Chaitanya; one who would see in every sect the same spirit working, the same God; one who would see God in every being, one whose heart would weep for the poor, for the weak, for the outcase, for the downtrodden, for everyone in this world, inside India or outside India; and at the same time whose grand brilliant intellect would harmonise all conflicting sects, not only in India but outside of India, and bring a marvelous harmony, the universal religion of head and heart into existence.
Through thousands of years of chiseling and modeling, the lives of the great prophets of yore come down to us; and yet, in my opinion, not one stands so high in brilliance as that life which I saw with my own eyes, under whose shadow I have lived, at whose feet I have learnt everything-the life of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa.
He was a triumphant example, a living realization of the complete conquest of lust and of desire for money. He was beyond all ideas of either, and such men are necessary for this century. Such renunciation is necessary in these days when men have begun to think that they cannot live a month without what they call their "necessities" and which they are increasing out of all proportion. It is necessary in a time like this that a man should arise to demonstrate to the skeptics of the world that there yet breathes a man who does not care a straw for all the godl or all the fame that is in the universe.
Once more He has come to help his children. Once more the oppporunity is giben to rise to fallen India. India can only rise by sitting at the feet of Shri Ramakrishna. His life and his teachings are to be spread far and wide, are t be made to penetrate every pore of hindu society. Who will do it? Who are to take up the flag of Ramakrishna and march for thesalvation of the world? Who are to stem the tide of degeneration at the sacrifice of name and fame, wealth and enjoyment-nay of every hope of this or other worlds? A few men have jumped into the breach, have sacrificed themselves. They area few, we want a few thousands of such as they, and they will come … Glory unto him on whom falls the Lord's Choice.
Now in this life let us infinitely spread his lofty character, his sublime life, his infinite soul. This is the only work-there is nothing else to do. Wherever his name will reach, the veriest worm will attain divinity, nay he is actually attaining it … Whoever will be ready to serve him-no, not him but his children-the poor and the downtrodden, the sinful and the afflicted, down to the very worm-who will be ready to serve these, in them he will manifest himself. Through their tongue the Goddess of Learning Herself will speak, and the Divine Mother-the Embodiment of all power-will enthrone Herself in their hearts.
The Lord is always with me. Follow me, if you will, by being intensely sincere, perfectly unselfish, and, above all, by being perfectly pure. My blessings go with you. In this short life, there is no time for the exchange of compliments. We can compare notes and compliment each other to our heart's content after the battle is finished. Now do not talk; work, work, work!
Chicago Speech
- Swami Vivekananda
( At the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 11th September, 1893)
Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.
But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
"Where are you from?"
"I am from the sea."
"The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?" and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
"My friend," said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well?"
Then the frog took another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?"
"What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!"
"Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out." That has been the difficulty all the while.
I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.
( At the World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 11th September, 1893)
Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."
The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me." Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.
I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, "Let us cease from abusing each other," and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.
But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story's sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
"Where are you from?"
"I am from the sea."
"The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?" and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
"My friend," said the frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well?"
Then the frog took another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?"
"What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!"
"Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out." That has been the difficulty all the while.
I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world is his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well and thinks that is the whole world. I have to thank you of America for the great attempt you are making to break down the barriers of this little world of ours, and hope that, in the future, the Lord will help you to accomplish your purpose.
Visions for India
-Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, President of India
I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered.our minds.
From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economipower. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.
I see four milestones in my career:
ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.
THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.
FOUR: One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic callipers weighing over three Kg.each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram callipers and took them to the orthopaedic centre. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
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 land 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 TVs, 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. Allow me to come back with vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? 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 - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU 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 comeback 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 (88kmph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai saala 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.
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay Mr. Tinaikar had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? 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?" He's right. 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, 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 neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and 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 & 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.
I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered.our minds.
From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when we started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economipower. Both must go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life.
I see four milestones in my career:
ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be the project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist.
TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the part of India's missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.
THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for which we have developed this new material. A Very light material called carbon-carbon.
FOUR: One day an orthopaedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic callipers weighing over three Kg.each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram callipers and took them to the orthopaedic centre. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
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 land 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 TVs, 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. Allow me to come back with vengeance.
Got 10 minutes for your country? 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 - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU 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 comeback 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 (88kmph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai saala 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.
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay Mr. Tinaikar had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? 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?" He's right. 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, 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 neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and 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 & 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.
Adrift
-Adam Khan,Self-Help Stuff That Works
In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft, alone. His supplies were few. His chances were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later (the longest anyone has survived a shipwreck on a life raft alone), he was alive -- much skinnier than he was when he started, but alive.
His account of how he survived is fascinating. His ingenuity -- how he managed to catch fish, how he fixed his solar still (evaporates sea water to make fresh) -- is very interesting.
But the thing that caught my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his life raft was punctured and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to fix it, it was still leaking air and wearing him out to keep pumping it up. He was starved. He was desperately dehydrated. He was thoroughly exhausted. Giving up would have seemed the only sane option.
When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their minds that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in similarly desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the guts to carry on in spite of overwhelming odds.
"I tell myself I can handle it," wrote Callahan in his narrative. "Compared to what others have been through, I'm fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over, building up fortitude...."
I wrote that down after I read it. It struck me as something important. And I've told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed far off or when my problems seemed too overwhelming. And every time I've said it, I have always come back to my senses.
The truth is, our circumstances are only bad compared to something better. But others have been through much worse. I've read enough history to know you and I are lucky to be where we are, when we are, no matter how bad it seems to us compared to our fantasies. It's a sane thought and worth thinking.
So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of survival, are words that can give us strength. Whatever you're going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, you're fortunate. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the rough spots with a little more fortitude.
In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft, alone. His supplies were few. His chances were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later (the longest anyone has survived a shipwreck on a life raft alone), he was alive -- much skinnier than he was when he started, but alive.
His account of how he survived is fascinating. His ingenuity -- how he managed to catch fish, how he fixed his solar still (evaporates sea water to make fresh) -- is very interesting.
But the thing that caught my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his life raft was punctured and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to fix it, it was still leaking air and wearing him out to keep pumping it up. He was starved. He was desperately dehydrated. He was thoroughly exhausted. Giving up would have seemed the only sane option.
When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their minds that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in similarly desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the guts to carry on in spite of overwhelming odds.
"I tell myself I can handle it," wrote Callahan in his narrative. "Compared to what others have been through, I'm fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over, building up fortitude...."
I wrote that down after I read it. It struck me as something important. And I've told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed far off or when my problems seemed too overwhelming. And every time I've said it, I have always come back to my senses.
The truth is, our circumstances are only bad compared to something better. But others have been through much worse. I've read enough history to know you and I are lucky to be where we are, when we are, no matter how bad it seems to us compared to our fantasies. It's a sane thought and worth thinking.
So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of survival, are words that can give us strength. Whatever you're going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, you're fortunate. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the rough spots with a little more fortitude.
Learn from Mistakes
Thomas Edison tried two thousand different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, "All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing." Edison replied very confidently, "Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We now that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb."
Making of Infosys
It was in Pune that I met Narayan Murty through my friend Prasanna who is now the Wipro chief, who was also training in Telco. Most of the books that Prasanna lent me had Murty's name on them which meant that I had a preconceived image of the man. Contrary to expectation, Murty was shy, bespectacled and an introvert. When he invited us for dinner. I was a bit taken aback as I thought the young man was making a very fast move. I refused since I was the only girl in the group. But Murty was relentless and we all decided to meet for dinner the next day at 7.30 p.m. at Green Fields hotel on the Main Road, Pune.
The next day I went there at 7' o clock since I had to go to the tailor near the hotel. And what do I see? Mr. Murty waiting in front of the hotel and it was only seven. Till today, Murty maintains that I had mentioned (consciously!) that I would be going to the tailor at 7 so that I could meet him...And I maintain that I did not say any such thing consciously or unconsciously because I did not think of Murty as anything other than a friend at that stage. We have agreed to disagree on this matter.
Soon, we became friends. Our conversations were filled with Murty's experiences abroad and the books that he has read. My friends insisted that Murty was trying to impress me because he was interested in me.I kept denying it till one fine day, after dinner Murty said, I want to tell you something. I knew this was it. It was coming. He said, I am 5'4" tall. I come from a lower middle class family. I can never become rich in my life and I can never give you any riches. You are beautiful, bright, and intelligent and you can get anyone you want. But will you marry me? I asked Murty to give me some time for an answer. My father didn't want me to marry a wannabe politician,(a communist at that) who didn't have a steady job and wanted to build an orphanage...
When I went to Hubli I told my parents about Murty and his proposal. My mother was positive since Murty was also from Karnataka, seemed intelligent and comes from a good family. But my father asked: What's his job, his salary, his qualifications etc? Murty was working as a research assistant and was earning less than me. He was willing to go dutch with me on our outings. My parents agreed to meet Murty in Pune on a particular day at10 a. m sharp. Murty did not turn up. How can I trust a man to take care of my daughter if he cannot keep an appointment, asked my father. At 12noon Murty turned up in a bright red shirt! He had gone on work to Bombay, was stuck in a traffic jam on the ghats, so he hired a taxi (though it was very expensive for him) to meet his would-be father-in-law. Father was unimpressed. My father asked him what he wanted to become in life. Murty said he wanted to become a politician in the communist party and wanted to open an orphanage. My father gave his verdict. NO. I don't want my daughter to marry somebody who wants to become a communist and then open an orphanage when he himself didn't have money to support his family. Ironically, today, I have opened many orphanages something, which Murty wanted to do 25 years ago.
By this time I realized I had developed a liking towards Murty which could only be termed as love. I wanted to marry Murty because he is an honest man. He proposed to me highlighting the negatives in his life. I promised my father that I will not marry Murty without his blessings though at the same time, I cannot marry anybody else. My father said he would agree if Murty promised to take up a steady job. But Murty refused saying he will not do things in life because somebody wanted him to. So, I was caught between the two most important people in my life.
The stalemate continued for three years during which our courtship took us to every restaurant and cinema hall in Pune. In those days, Murty was always broke. Moreover, he didn't earn much to manage. Ironically today, he manages Infosys Technologies Ltd., one of the world's most reputed companies. He always owed me money. We used to go for dinner and he would say, I don't have money with me, you pay my share, I will return it to you later. For three years I maintained a book on Murty's debt to me. No, he never returned the money and I finally tore it up after my wedding. The amount was a little over Rs 4000.
During this interim period Murty quit his job as research assistant and started his own software business. Now, I had to pay his salary too! Towards the late 70s computers were entering India in a big way. During the fag end of 1977 Murty decided to take up a job as General Manager at Patni Computers in Bombay. But before he joined the company he wanted to marry me since he was to go on training to the US after joining. My father gave in as he was happy Murty had a decent job, now. WE WERE MARRIED IN MURTY'S HOUSE IN BANGALORE ON FEBRUARY 10, 1978 WITH ONLY OUR TWO FAMILIES PRESENT.I GOT MY FIRST SILK SARI. THE WEDDING EXPENSES CAME TO ONLY RS 800 (US $17) WITH MURTY AND I POOLING IN RS 400 EACH.
I went to the US with Murty after marriage. Murty encouraged me to see America on my own because I loved traveling. I toured America for three months on backpack and had interesting experiences which will remain fresh in my mind forever.
Like the time when the New York police took me into custody because they thought I was an Italian trafficking drugs in Harlem. Or the time when I spent the night at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with an old couple. Murty panicked because he couldn't get a response from my hotel room even at midnight. He thought I was either killed or kidnapped.
IN 1981 MURTY WANTED TO START INFOSYS. HE HAD A VISION AND ZERO CAPITAL...initially I was very apprehensive about Murty getting into business. We did not have any business background. Moreover we were living a comfortable life in Bombay with a regular pay check and I didn't want to rock the boat. But Murty was passionate about creating good quality software. I decided to support him. Typical of Murty, he just had a dream and no money. So I gave him Rs. 10,000 which I had saved for a rainy day, without his knowledge and told him, This is all I have. Take it. I give you three years sabbatical leave. I will take care of the financial needs of our house. You go and chase your dreams without any worry. But you have only three years! Murty and his six colleagues started Infosys in 1981,with enormous interest and hard work. In 1982 I left Telco and moved to Pune with Murty.We bought a small house on loan which also became the Infosys office. I was a clerk-cum-cook-cum-programmer. I also took up a job as Senior Systems Analyst with Walchand group of Industries to support the house. In 1983 Infosys got their first client, MICO, in Bangalore. Murty moved to Bangalore and stayed with his mother while I went to Hubli to deliver my second child, Rohan. Ten days after my son was born, Murty left for the US on project work. I saw him only after a year, as I was unable to join Murty in the US because my son had infantile eczema, an allergy to vaccinations.
So for more than a year I did not step outside our home for fear of my son contracting an infection. It was only after Rohan got all his vaccinations that I came to Bangalore where we rented a small house in Jayanagar and rented another house as Infosys headquarters. My father presented Murty a scooter to commute. I once again became a cook, programmer, clerk, secretary, office assistant et al. Nandan Nilekani (MD of Infosys) and his wife Rohini stayed with us. While Rohini babysat my son, I wrote programs for Infosys. There was no car, no phone, and just two kids and a bunch of us working hard, juggling our lives and having fun while Infosys was taking shape. It was not only me but also the wives of other partners too who gave their unstinted support. We all knew that our men were trying to build something good. It was like a big joint family, taking care and looking out for one another.
I still remember Sudha Gopalakrishna looking after my daughter Akshata with all care and love while Kumari Shibulal cooked for all of us. Murty made it very clear that it would either be me or him working at Infosys. Never the two of us together... I was involved with Infosys initially. Nandan Nilekani suggested I should be on the Board but Murty said he did not want a husband and wife team at Infosys. I was shocked since I had the relevant experience and technical qualifications. He said, Sudha if you want to work with Infosys, I will withdraw, happily. I was pained to know that I will not be involved in the company my husband was building and that I would have to give up a job that I am qualified to do and love doing. It took me a couple of days to grasp the reason behind Murty's request. I realized that to make Infosys a success one had to give one's 100 percent. One had to be focused on it alone with no other distractions. If the two of us had to give 100 percent to Infosys then what would happen to our home and our children? One of us had to take care of our home while the other took care of Infosys. I opted to be a homemaker, after all Infosys was Murty's dream. It was a big sacrifice but it was one that had to be made. Even today, Murty says, Sudha, I stepped on your career to make mine. You are responsible for my success. I might have given up my career for my husband's sake. But that does not make me a doormat...
Many think that I have been made the sacrificial lamb at Narayan Murty's altar of success. A few women journalists have even accused me of setting a wrong example by giving up my dreams to make my husbands a reality. Isn't freedom about living your life the way you want it? What is right for one person might be wrong for another. It is up to the individual to make a choice that is effective in her life. I feel that when a woman gives up her right to choose for herself is when she crosses over from being an individual to a doormat. Murty's dreams encompassed not only himself but a generation of people. It was about founding something worthy, exemplary and honorable. It was about creation and distribution of wealth. His dreams were grander than my career plans, in all aspects. So, when I had to choose between Murty's career and mine, I opted for what I thought was a right choice. We had a home and two little children. Measles, mumps, fractures, PTA meetings, wants and needs of growing children do not care much for grandiose dreams. They just needed to be attended to. Somebody had to take care of it all. Somebody had to stay back to create a home base that would be fertile for healthy growth, happiness, and more dreams to dream. I became that somebody willingly. I can confidently say that if I had had a dream like Infosys, Murty would have given me his unstinted support. The roles would have been reversed.
We are not bound by the archaic rules of marriage. I cook for him but I don't wait up to serve dinner like a traditional wife. So, he has no hassles about heating up the food and having his dinner. He does not intrude into my time especially when I am writing my novels. He does not interfere in my work at the Infosys Foundation and I don't interfere with the running of Infosys. I teach Computer Science to MBA and MCA students at Christ college for a few hours every week and I earn around Rs 50,000 a year. I value this financial independence greatly though there is no need for me to pursue a teaching career. Murty respects that. I travel all over the world without Murty because he hates traveling. We trust each other implicitly.
We have another understanding too. While he earns the money, I spend it, mostly through the charity. Philanthropy is a profession and an art... The Infosys Foundation was born in 1997 with the sole objective of uplifting the less- privileged sections of society. IN THE PAST THREE YEARS WE HAVE BUILT HOSPITALS, ORPHANAGES, REHABILITATION CENTRES, SCHOOL BUILDINGS, SCIENCE CENTRES AND MORETHAN 3500 LIBRARIES. Our work is mainly in the rural areas amongst women and children. I am one of the trustees and our activities span six states including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Orissa, Chandigarh and Maharashtra. I travel to around 800 villages constantly. Infosys Foundation has a minimal staff of three trustees and three office members. We all work very hard to achieve our goals and that is the reason why Infosys Foundation has a distinct identity. Every year we donate around Rs 5-6 crore (Rs 50 - 60 million). We run Infosys Foundation the way Murty runs Infosys in a professional and scientific way. Philanthropy is a profession and an art. It can be used or misused. We slowly want to increase the donations and we dream of a time when Infosys Foundation could donate large amounts of money. Every year we receive more than 10,000 applications for donations. Everyday I receive more than 120 calls. Amongst these, there are those who genuinely need help and there are hood winkers too. I receive letters asking me to donate Rs five lakh to someone because five lakh is, like peanuts to Infosys. Some people write to us asking for free Infosys shares. Over the years I have learnt to differentiate the wheat from the chaff, though I still give a patient hearing to all the cases. Sometimes I feel I have lost the ability to trust people. I have become shrewder to avoid being conned. It saddens me to realize that even as a person is talking to me I try to analyze them: Has he come here for any donation? Why is he praising my work or enquiring about my health, does he want some money from me? Eight out of ten times I am right. They do want my money. But I feel bad for the other two whom I suspected. I think that is the price that I have to pay for the position that I am in now.
The greatest difficulty in having money is teaching your children the value of it and trying to keep them on a straight line.... Bringing up children in a moneyed atmosphere is a difficult task. EVEN TODAY I THINK TWICE IF I HAVE TO SPEND RS 10 ON AN AUTO WHEN I CAN WALK UP TO MY HOUSE. I cannot expect my children to do the same. They have seen money from the time they were born. But we can lead by example. When they see Murty wash his own plate after eating and clean the two toilets in the house everyday they realize that no work is demeaning irrespective of how rich you are. I DON'T HAVE A MAID AT HOME BECAUSE I DON'T SEE THE NEED FOR ONE. When children see both parents working hard, living a simple life, most of the time they tend to follow. This doesn't mean we expect our children to live an austere life. My children buy what they want and go where they want but they have to follow certain rules. They will have to show me a bill for whatever they buy. My daughter can buy five new outfits but she has to give away five old ones. My son can go out with his friends for lunch or dinner but if he wants to go to a five star hotel, we discourage it. Or we accompany him. So far my children haven't given me any heartbreak. They are good children. My eldest daughter is studying abroad, whereas my son is studying in Bangalore. They don't use their father's name in vain. If asked, they only say that his name is Murty and that he works for Infosys. They don't want to be recognized and appreciated because of their father or me but for themselves.
I DON'T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HAVING MONEY FOR WE HAVE WORKED HARD FOR IT. BUT I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE FLAUNTING IT...IT IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION ON OUR PART TO LIVE A SIMPLE, SO- CALLED MIDDLE CLASS LIFE. WE LIVE IN THE SAME TWO- BEDROOM, SPARSELY FURNISHED HOUSE BEFORE INFOSYS BECAME A SUCCESS. Our only extravagance is buying books and CDs. MY HOUSE HAS NO LOCKERS FOR I HAVE NO JEWELS. I WEAR A STONE EARRING WHICH I BOUGHT IN BOMBAY FOR RS 100. I don't even wear my mangalsutra until I attend some family functions or I am with my mother-in-law. I am not fond of jewellery or saris. Five years ago, I went to Kashi where tradition demands that you give up something and I gave up shopping. Since then I haven't bought myself a sari or gone shopping. It is my friends who gift me with saris. Murty bought me a sari a long time ago. It was not to my taste and I told him to refrain from buying saris for me in the future. I am no good at selecting men's clothes either. It is my daughter who does the shopping for us. I still have the same sofa at home which my daughter wants to change. However, we have indulged ourselves with each one having their own music system and computer. I don't carry a purse and neither does Murty most of the time. I do tell him to keep some small change with him but he doesn't. I borrow money from my secretary or my driver if I need cash. They know my habit so they always carry extra cash with them. But I settle the accounts every evening.
MURTY AND I ARE VERY COMFORTABLE WITH OUR LIFESTYLE AND WE DON'T SEE THE NEED TO CHANGE IT. NOW THAT WE HAVE MONEY.
Murty and I are two opposites that complement each other... Murty is sensitive and romantic in his own way. He always gifts me books addressed to From Me to You. Or to the person I most admire etc. We both love books. We are both complete opposites. I am an extrovert and he is an introvert. I love watching movies and listening to classical music. Murty loves listening to English classical music. I go out for movies with my students and secretary every other week. I am still young at heart. I really enjoyed watching "Kaho Na Pyaar Hai" and I am a Hrithik Roshan fan. It has been more than 20 years since Murty and I went for a movie. My daughter once gave us a surprise by booking tickets for "Titanic". Since I had a prior engagement that day, Murty went for the movie with his secretary Pandu. I love traveling whereas Murty loves spending time at home. Friends come and go with the share prices... Even in my dreams, I did not expect Infosys to grow like the way it has. I don't think even Murty envisioned this phenomenal success, at least not in 1981. After Infosys went public in 1993, we became what people would call as rich, moneyed people. I was shocked to see what was happening to Infosys and to us. Suddenly you see and hear about so much money. Your name and photo is splashed in the papers. People talk about you. It was all new to me.
Suddenly I have people walking up to me, saying, "Oh! We were such good friends, we had a meal 25 years ago." They claim to have been present at our wedding (which is an utter lie because only my family was present at my wedding.). I don't even know all these people who claim to know Murthy and me so well. But that doesn't mean I don't have true friends. I do have genuine friends, a handful, who have been with me for a very long time. My equation with these people has not changed and vices versa. I am also very close to Murthy's family, especially my sister-in-law Kamala Murthy, a school teacher, who is more of a dear friend to me. I have discovered that these are the few relationships and friendships that don't fluctuate depending on the price of Infosys shares. Have I lost my identity as a woman, in Murty's shadow?... No. I might be Mrs. Narayan Murty. I might be Akshata and Rohan's mother. I might be the trustee of Infosys Foundation. But I am still Sudha.. I play different roles like all women. That doesn't mean we don't have our own identity. Women have that extra quality of adaptability and learn to fit into different shoes. But we are our own selves still. And we have to exact our freedom by making the right choices in our lives, dictated by us and not by the world.
-Sudha Murty
The next day I went there at 7' o clock since I had to go to the tailor near the hotel. And what do I see? Mr. Murty waiting in front of the hotel and it was only seven. Till today, Murty maintains that I had mentioned (consciously!) that I would be going to the tailor at 7 so that I could meet him...And I maintain that I did not say any such thing consciously or unconsciously because I did not think of Murty as anything other than a friend at that stage. We have agreed to disagree on this matter.
Soon, we became friends. Our conversations were filled with Murty's experiences abroad and the books that he has read. My friends insisted that Murty was trying to impress me because he was interested in me.I kept denying it till one fine day, after dinner Murty said, I want to tell you something. I knew this was it. It was coming. He said, I am 5'4" tall. I come from a lower middle class family. I can never become rich in my life and I can never give you any riches. You are beautiful, bright, and intelligent and you can get anyone you want. But will you marry me? I asked Murty to give me some time for an answer. My father didn't want me to marry a wannabe politician,(a communist at that) who didn't have a steady job and wanted to build an orphanage...
When I went to Hubli I told my parents about Murty and his proposal. My mother was positive since Murty was also from Karnataka, seemed intelligent and comes from a good family. But my father asked: What's his job, his salary, his qualifications etc? Murty was working as a research assistant and was earning less than me. He was willing to go dutch with me on our outings. My parents agreed to meet Murty in Pune on a particular day at10 a. m sharp. Murty did not turn up. How can I trust a man to take care of my daughter if he cannot keep an appointment, asked my father. At 12noon Murty turned up in a bright red shirt! He had gone on work to Bombay, was stuck in a traffic jam on the ghats, so he hired a taxi (though it was very expensive for him) to meet his would-be father-in-law. Father was unimpressed. My father asked him what he wanted to become in life. Murty said he wanted to become a politician in the communist party and wanted to open an orphanage. My father gave his verdict. NO. I don't want my daughter to marry somebody who wants to become a communist and then open an orphanage when he himself didn't have money to support his family. Ironically, today, I have opened many orphanages something, which Murty wanted to do 25 years ago.
By this time I realized I had developed a liking towards Murty which could only be termed as love. I wanted to marry Murty because he is an honest man. He proposed to me highlighting the negatives in his life. I promised my father that I will not marry Murty without his blessings though at the same time, I cannot marry anybody else. My father said he would agree if Murty promised to take up a steady job. But Murty refused saying he will not do things in life because somebody wanted him to. So, I was caught between the two most important people in my life.
The stalemate continued for three years during which our courtship took us to every restaurant and cinema hall in Pune. In those days, Murty was always broke. Moreover, he didn't earn much to manage. Ironically today, he manages Infosys Technologies Ltd., one of the world's most reputed companies. He always owed me money. We used to go for dinner and he would say, I don't have money with me, you pay my share, I will return it to you later. For three years I maintained a book on Murty's debt to me. No, he never returned the money and I finally tore it up after my wedding. The amount was a little over Rs 4000.
During this interim period Murty quit his job as research assistant and started his own software business. Now, I had to pay his salary too! Towards the late 70s computers were entering India in a big way. During the fag end of 1977 Murty decided to take up a job as General Manager at Patni Computers in Bombay. But before he joined the company he wanted to marry me since he was to go on training to the US after joining. My father gave in as he was happy Murty had a decent job, now. WE WERE MARRIED IN MURTY'S HOUSE IN BANGALORE ON FEBRUARY 10, 1978 WITH ONLY OUR TWO FAMILIES PRESENT.I GOT MY FIRST SILK SARI. THE WEDDING EXPENSES CAME TO ONLY RS 800 (US $17) WITH MURTY AND I POOLING IN RS 400 EACH.
I went to the US with Murty after marriage. Murty encouraged me to see America on my own because I loved traveling. I toured America for three months on backpack and had interesting experiences which will remain fresh in my mind forever.
Like the time when the New York police took me into custody because they thought I was an Italian trafficking drugs in Harlem. Or the time when I spent the night at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with an old couple. Murty panicked because he couldn't get a response from my hotel room even at midnight. He thought I was either killed or kidnapped.
IN 1981 MURTY WANTED TO START INFOSYS. HE HAD A VISION AND ZERO CAPITAL...initially I was very apprehensive about Murty getting into business. We did not have any business background. Moreover we were living a comfortable life in Bombay with a regular pay check and I didn't want to rock the boat. But Murty was passionate about creating good quality software. I decided to support him. Typical of Murty, he just had a dream and no money. So I gave him Rs. 10,000 which I had saved for a rainy day, without his knowledge and told him, This is all I have. Take it. I give you three years sabbatical leave. I will take care of the financial needs of our house. You go and chase your dreams without any worry. But you have only three years! Murty and his six colleagues started Infosys in 1981,with enormous interest and hard work. In 1982 I left Telco and moved to Pune with Murty.We bought a small house on loan which also became the Infosys office. I was a clerk-cum-cook-cum-programmer. I also took up a job as Senior Systems Analyst with Walchand group of Industries to support the house. In 1983 Infosys got their first client, MICO, in Bangalore. Murty moved to Bangalore and stayed with his mother while I went to Hubli to deliver my second child, Rohan. Ten days after my son was born, Murty left for the US on project work. I saw him only after a year, as I was unable to join Murty in the US because my son had infantile eczema, an allergy to vaccinations.
So for more than a year I did not step outside our home for fear of my son contracting an infection. It was only after Rohan got all his vaccinations that I came to Bangalore where we rented a small house in Jayanagar and rented another house as Infosys headquarters. My father presented Murty a scooter to commute. I once again became a cook, programmer, clerk, secretary, office assistant et al. Nandan Nilekani (MD of Infosys) and his wife Rohini stayed with us. While Rohini babysat my son, I wrote programs for Infosys. There was no car, no phone, and just two kids and a bunch of us working hard, juggling our lives and having fun while Infosys was taking shape. It was not only me but also the wives of other partners too who gave their unstinted support. We all knew that our men were trying to build something good. It was like a big joint family, taking care and looking out for one another.
I still remember Sudha Gopalakrishna looking after my daughter Akshata with all care and love while Kumari Shibulal cooked for all of us. Murty made it very clear that it would either be me or him working at Infosys. Never the two of us together... I was involved with Infosys initially. Nandan Nilekani suggested I should be on the Board but Murty said he did not want a husband and wife team at Infosys. I was shocked since I had the relevant experience and technical qualifications. He said, Sudha if you want to work with Infosys, I will withdraw, happily. I was pained to know that I will not be involved in the company my husband was building and that I would have to give up a job that I am qualified to do and love doing. It took me a couple of days to grasp the reason behind Murty's request. I realized that to make Infosys a success one had to give one's 100 percent. One had to be focused on it alone with no other distractions. If the two of us had to give 100 percent to Infosys then what would happen to our home and our children? One of us had to take care of our home while the other took care of Infosys. I opted to be a homemaker, after all Infosys was Murty's dream. It was a big sacrifice but it was one that had to be made. Even today, Murty says, Sudha, I stepped on your career to make mine. You are responsible for my success. I might have given up my career for my husband's sake. But that does not make me a doormat...
Many think that I have been made the sacrificial lamb at Narayan Murty's altar of success. A few women journalists have even accused me of setting a wrong example by giving up my dreams to make my husbands a reality. Isn't freedom about living your life the way you want it? What is right for one person might be wrong for another. It is up to the individual to make a choice that is effective in her life. I feel that when a woman gives up her right to choose for herself is when she crosses over from being an individual to a doormat. Murty's dreams encompassed not only himself but a generation of people. It was about founding something worthy, exemplary and honorable. It was about creation and distribution of wealth. His dreams were grander than my career plans, in all aspects. So, when I had to choose between Murty's career and mine, I opted for what I thought was a right choice. We had a home and two little children. Measles, mumps, fractures, PTA meetings, wants and needs of growing children do not care much for grandiose dreams. They just needed to be attended to. Somebody had to take care of it all. Somebody had to stay back to create a home base that would be fertile for healthy growth, happiness, and more dreams to dream. I became that somebody willingly. I can confidently say that if I had had a dream like Infosys, Murty would have given me his unstinted support. The roles would have been reversed.
We are not bound by the archaic rules of marriage. I cook for him but I don't wait up to serve dinner like a traditional wife. So, he has no hassles about heating up the food and having his dinner. He does not intrude into my time especially when I am writing my novels. He does not interfere in my work at the Infosys Foundation and I don't interfere with the running of Infosys. I teach Computer Science to MBA and MCA students at Christ college for a few hours every week and I earn around Rs 50,000 a year. I value this financial independence greatly though there is no need for me to pursue a teaching career. Murty respects that. I travel all over the world without Murty because he hates traveling. We trust each other implicitly.
We have another understanding too. While he earns the money, I spend it, mostly through the charity. Philanthropy is a profession and an art... The Infosys Foundation was born in 1997 with the sole objective of uplifting the less- privileged sections of society. IN THE PAST THREE YEARS WE HAVE BUILT HOSPITALS, ORPHANAGES, REHABILITATION CENTRES, SCHOOL BUILDINGS, SCIENCE CENTRES AND MORETHAN 3500 LIBRARIES. Our work is mainly in the rural areas amongst women and children. I am one of the trustees and our activities span six states including Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Orissa, Chandigarh and Maharashtra. I travel to around 800 villages constantly. Infosys Foundation has a minimal staff of three trustees and three office members. We all work very hard to achieve our goals and that is the reason why Infosys Foundation has a distinct identity. Every year we donate around Rs 5-6 crore (Rs 50 - 60 million). We run Infosys Foundation the way Murty runs Infosys in a professional and scientific way. Philanthropy is a profession and an art. It can be used or misused. We slowly want to increase the donations and we dream of a time when Infosys Foundation could donate large amounts of money. Every year we receive more than 10,000 applications for donations. Everyday I receive more than 120 calls. Amongst these, there are those who genuinely need help and there are hood winkers too. I receive letters asking me to donate Rs five lakh to someone because five lakh is, like peanuts to Infosys. Some people write to us asking for free Infosys shares. Over the years I have learnt to differentiate the wheat from the chaff, though I still give a patient hearing to all the cases. Sometimes I feel I have lost the ability to trust people. I have become shrewder to avoid being conned. It saddens me to realize that even as a person is talking to me I try to analyze them: Has he come here for any donation? Why is he praising my work or enquiring about my health, does he want some money from me? Eight out of ten times I am right. They do want my money. But I feel bad for the other two whom I suspected. I think that is the price that I have to pay for the position that I am in now.
The greatest difficulty in having money is teaching your children the value of it and trying to keep them on a straight line.... Bringing up children in a moneyed atmosphere is a difficult task. EVEN TODAY I THINK TWICE IF I HAVE TO SPEND RS 10 ON AN AUTO WHEN I CAN WALK UP TO MY HOUSE. I cannot expect my children to do the same. They have seen money from the time they were born. But we can lead by example. When they see Murty wash his own plate after eating and clean the two toilets in the house everyday they realize that no work is demeaning irrespective of how rich you are. I DON'T HAVE A MAID AT HOME BECAUSE I DON'T SEE THE NEED FOR ONE. When children see both parents working hard, living a simple life, most of the time they tend to follow. This doesn't mean we expect our children to live an austere life. My children buy what they want and go where they want but they have to follow certain rules. They will have to show me a bill for whatever they buy. My daughter can buy five new outfits but she has to give away five old ones. My son can go out with his friends for lunch or dinner but if he wants to go to a five star hotel, we discourage it. Or we accompany him. So far my children haven't given me any heartbreak. They are good children. My eldest daughter is studying abroad, whereas my son is studying in Bangalore. They don't use their father's name in vain. If asked, they only say that his name is Murty and that he works for Infosys. They don't want to be recognized and appreciated because of their father or me but for themselves.
I DON'T FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HAVING MONEY FOR WE HAVE WORKED HARD FOR IT. BUT I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE FLAUNTING IT...IT IS A CONSCIOUS DECISION ON OUR PART TO LIVE A SIMPLE, SO- CALLED MIDDLE CLASS LIFE. WE LIVE IN THE SAME TWO- BEDROOM, SPARSELY FURNISHED HOUSE BEFORE INFOSYS BECAME A SUCCESS. Our only extravagance is buying books and CDs. MY HOUSE HAS NO LOCKERS FOR I HAVE NO JEWELS. I WEAR A STONE EARRING WHICH I BOUGHT IN BOMBAY FOR RS 100. I don't even wear my mangalsutra until I attend some family functions or I am with my mother-in-law. I am not fond of jewellery or saris. Five years ago, I went to Kashi where tradition demands that you give up something and I gave up shopping. Since then I haven't bought myself a sari or gone shopping. It is my friends who gift me with saris. Murty bought me a sari a long time ago. It was not to my taste and I told him to refrain from buying saris for me in the future. I am no good at selecting men's clothes either. It is my daughter who does the shopping for us. I still have the same sofa at home which my daughter wants to change. However, we have indulged ourselves with each one having their own music system and computer. I don't carry a purse and neither does Murty most of the time. I do tell him to keep some small change with him but he doesn't. I borrow money from my secretary or my driver if I need cash. They know my habit so they always carry extra cash with them. But I settle the accounts every evening.
MURTY AND I ARE VERY COMFORTABLE WITH OUR LIFESTYLE AND WE DON'T SEE THE NEED TO CHANGE IT. NOW THAT WE HAVE MONEY.
Murty and I are two opposites that complement each other... Murty is sensitive and romantic in his own way. He always gifts me books addressed to From Me to You. Or to the person I most admire etc. We both love books. We are both complete opposites. I am an extrovert and he is an introvert. I love watching movies and listening to classical music. Murty loves listening to English classical music. I go out for movies with my students and secretary every other week. I am still young at heart. I really enjoyed watching "Kaho Na Pyaar Hai" and I am a Hrithik Roshan fan. It has been more than 20 years since Murty and I went for a movie. My daughter once gave us a surprise by booking tickets for "Titanic". Since I had a prior engagement that day, Murty went for the movie with his secretary Pandu. I love traveling whereas Murty loves spending time at home. Friends come and go with the share prices... Even in my dreams, I did not expect Infosys to grow like the way it has. I don't think even Murty envisioned this phenomenal success, at least not in 1981. After Infosys went public in 1993, we became what people would call as rich, moneyed people. I was shocked to see what was happening to Infosys and to us. Suddenly you see and hear about so much money. Your name and photo is splashed in the papers. People talk about you. It was all new to me.
Suddenly I have people walking up to me, saying, "Oh! We were such good friends, we had a meal 25 years ago." They claim to have been present at our wedding (which is an utter lie because only my family was present at my wedding.). I don't even know all these people who claim to know Murthy and me so well. But that doesn't mean I don't have true friends. I do have genuine friends, a handful, who have been with me for a very long time. My equation with these people has not changed and vices versa. I am also very close to Murthy's family, especially my sister-in-law Kamala Murthy, a school teacher, who is more of a dear friend to me. I have discovered that these are the few relationships and friendships that don't fluctuate depending on the price of Infosys shares. Have I lost my identity as a woman, in Murty's shadow?... No. I might be Mrs. Narayan Murty. I might be Akshata and Rohan's mother. I might be the trustee of Infosys Foundation. But I am still Sudha.. I play different roles like all women. That doesn't mean we don't have our own identity. Women have that extra quality of adaptability and learn to fit into different shoes. But we are our own selves still. And we have to exact our freedom by making the right choices in our lives, dictated by us and not by the world.
-Sudha Murty
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