SOMETHING WORTH READING

 

SOMETHING WORTH READING

            `           In his famous essay Of Studies, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) explained that “reading builds knowledge, conversation makes us quick-witted, and writing makes us precise.“  He advised that we must read to weigh and consider rather than to just argue or blindly believe.  He also said : Taste some books (read parts), swallow others (read without deep focus), and chew and digest a few (read completely with heavy attention).  

                        There is no reason whatsoever to disagree with Francis Bacon. He was an English philosopher and statesman, and master of the English language. In a 1592 letter to his uncle Lord Burghley he wrote: “I have taken all knowledge to be my province.”

                          Given below are two most readable extracts by world-famous great writers.

1.     From the chapter on CRIME in The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, the Labanese-American writer and poet (1883-1931).   

      Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.  But I say that even as the holy and righteous cannot rise beyond the highest, which is in each of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

       And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you.  

2.     A  poem  by Indian mystic and poet Kabir (1398-1518) translated by the Indian poet and author Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

      All things are created by the Om; The Love-form is His body. He is without form, without quality, without decay: Seek thou union with Him.

      But that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His creatures.

        He is pure and indestructible, His form is infinite and fathomless, He dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance. The body and the mind cannot contain themselves, when they are touched by His great joy. He is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows; He has no beginning and no end; He holds all within His bliss.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

5 August 2026

   

POPULAR AND UNPOPULAR VIEWS

 

                POPULAR AND UNPOPULAR VIEWS

            Given below are the miscellaneous views of  two well-known Indian personalities.

            The first one is Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh popularly known as Osho (1931-1990).

            By profession, he was a college professor but by contemplation he was a mystic, a great thinker, and philosopher. His talks on various topics of life run into a number of published  books which are best sellers in the whole world.

            He concluded one of his discourses with these words:

            But to return to a bygone culture or civilization is an impossibility. No culture ----be it Hindu, Muslim or Christian ---can ever make man happy by taking him back to the past. The ideal lies n the future ---where there is no Hindu, no Christian, no Muslim;---just man, and man alone. To this man belongs the future. To give birth to him, we need more productivity, more thinking, more consciousness.

            We need healthy people ----healthy in body and in mind.

            This man will create for us the music of bliss, the bliss that will ultimately take us to God himself!

            Osho is not wrong. Some orthodox people may disagree with him but they cannot reject all his views without valid arguments.

                                                            ----

            The second world-famous personality is Lord Buddha with reference to his secret of happiness.

            By birth he was a prince. He was born in Lumbini (in present-day Nepal). His biographical years are Circa 563 BCE-483 BCE). He was married, had a son, yet became sad when he observed outside his palace --- a wretched old man.  a sick man, and a dead man.

            This made him believe that the world is a place of suffering, and he must abandon his palace life, wander and wander, meet all sorts of learned people , and find the secret of happiness.

            After several years of this mode of life, one day he suddenly attained supreme knowledge. He was then 35 years old and was eager to share his supreme knowledge with entire humanity.

            It was at Sarnath near Benares (now Varanasi) that he delivered his main sermon. He said:  

            There are four noble truths: 1. Life is full of suffering. 2. The cause of this suffering is that man is selfish and has desires. 3. Suffering ceases when the desire ceases. 4. Desire can be abolished by following the eightfold path which consists of:

            1.Right faith. 2. Right Resolve. 3. Right Speech. 4. Right conduct. 5.Right Living. 6. Right Effort. 7. Right Remembrance. 8. Right Meditation.

            Lord Buddha also preached the middle path. Neither too much enjoyment , nor too much torture. He preferred self-control to anger; compassion and kindness to hatred and malice. He also  preached compassion, love and kindness to all living beings.

            To conclude, Lord Buddha suggested  that one should not lie, steal, kill or drink.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

4^th August2026    

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF PAST READING-V

 

          LITERARY MEMORIES OF PAST READING-V

1.     Courage and modesty are the old English virtues.---WILLIAM HAZLITT.----Literary Remains. February 1822.

2.     Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream. ----WILLIAM HAZLITT. Literary Remains. February 1822.

3.     ON THE FEELING OF IMMORTALITY IN YOUTH.   No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my brother’s, and a fine one. There is a feeling of eternity in youth, which makes us amends for everything. To be young is to be as one of the immortal gods. One half of time indeed is flown ---the other half remains in store for us with all its countless treasures ; for there is no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and values and wishes. We make the coming age our own---

                        “The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us. “

Death,  old age, are words without a meaning, that pass by us like the idle air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still be liable to them ---we “bear a charmed life,” which laughs to scorn all such silly fancies. As in setting out on a delightful journey, we strain our eager gaze forward ---

                        “Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail,”—

And see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them. ----WILLIAM HAZLITT. Literary Remains. 1827 .

4.     As flies to wanton boys, are we to te gods’

They kill us for their sports.----WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) in the play King Lear , Act 4, Sc.1.

 

5.     What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! the  beauty of the world! the  paragon of animals.----WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE  in his play Hamlet, Act 2, Sc,2.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

3^rd August2026

 

 

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF PAS READINGS-----IV

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF PAS READINGS-----IV

1.     Of Cruelty To Animals. The more entirely the inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for our mismanagement of it. It is observable of those noxious animals, which have qualities most powerful to injure us,  that they naturally avoid mankind, and never hurt us unless provoked, or necessitated by hunger. Man on the hand, seeks   out and pursues even the most inoffensive animals on purpose to prosecute and destroy them.----ALEXANDER POPE, The Guardian. 1713.

2.     Of the Antiquity of Nothing. There is nothing falser than that old proverb which (like many other falsehoods) is in every one’s mouth: Ex nihilo nihil fit. Thus translated by William Shakespeare in his play KING Lear: Nothing can come of nothing. But nothing is as well the object of our passions as our senses. Thus there are many who love Nothing, some who hate Nothing, and some who fear nothing, etc. ….And one of the wisest men in the world declared he knew Nothing. ---HENRY FIELDING. MISCELLANIES.  1743.

3.      Characteristics  Of Greatness. The way to acquire lasting esteem, is not by the fewness of a writer’s faults, but by the greatness of his beauties; and  our noblest works are generally most replete with both.------OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Essay On Characteristics Of Greatness. 1759.

4.     The Distress Of A Common Soldier. The misfortunes of the great are held up to engage our attention, are enlarged upon in tones of declamation, and the world is called upon to gaze at the noble  sufferers : they have at once the comfort of admiration and pity. Yet where is the magnanimity of bearing misfortunes when the whole world is looking on. Men in such circumstances can act bravely even from motives of vanity. He only who is in the vale of obscurity  can brave adversity—who, without friends to encourage, acquaintances to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his distresses, can behave with tranquility and indifference, is truly great; whether peasant or courtier , he deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect. -----OLIVER GOLDSMITH in his essay The Distress Of A Common Soldier. Essays. 1798.

5.     One man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth and another with a wooden ladle. ----OLIVER GOLDSMITH, in essay on Citizen of the world. 1762.        

                                                ********

G.R. Kanwal

2^nd August 2026

LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST-----III

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST-----III

1.     A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world.

If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected. But otherwise, there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applause of the public.

A man is more sure of hid conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behavior is thus warranted, and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.------JOSEPH ADDISON, The Spectator. 1711.

2.      Misfortunes happen in all families. ----SIR RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator. 1711.

3.     The mind of man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable, than one who has turned his experience to the entertainment and advantage of mankind. ----SIR RICHARD STEELE, The Spectator. 1710.

4.     Misery consists chiefly in the imagination, nothing is more necessary o mankind in general than his pleasing delirium, which renders every one satisfied with himself, and persuades him that all others are equally so.----ALEXANDER POPE, in essay entitled The Grand Elixir. The Guardian. 1712.

5.     For what is this life but a circulation of little mean actions? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the circle returns.

We spend the day in trifles, and when the night comes we throw our selves into the bed of folly, amongst dreams and broken thoughts and our wild imaginations.

Our reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field.

Are not the capacities of man higher than these? And ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater?

Let us be adventurers for another world: It is at least a fair noble chance; and here is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions.  

If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of fellow-mortals; and f we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy. ----SIR RICHARD STEELE in essay on GOOD TEMPER, The Spectator. 1711.

                                                            ******

G. R. Kanwal

1^st August 2026

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST---II

 

          LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST---II

1.     A child is a man in a small letter, the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world can only write his character. He is nature’s fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper un-scribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length. It becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evil to come, by forcing them. …The elder he grows, he is a stair lower from God. -----JOHN EARLE in Microcosmography . 1628.

2.     Motives of Prayer. The prayers of men have saved cities and kingdoms from ruin ; Prayer hath raised dead men to life, hath  stopped the violence of fire, shut the mouths of wild beasts, hath altered the course of nature, …made the sun to go from west to east, and the moon to stand still, and rocks and mountains to walk; and it cures diseases without physic, and makes physic to do the work of nature, and nature to do the work of grace, and grace to do the work of  God; and it does miracles of accident and event; and yet prayer, that does all this, is, of itself, nothing but an ascent of the mind to God, a desiring things fit to be desired, and an expression of this desire to God as we can, and as becomes us. And our unwillingness to pray is nothing else but a not desiring what we ought passionately to long for ; or, if we do desire it, it is a choosing rather to miss our satisfaction and felicity to ask for it. -----JEREMY TAYLOR in Holy Dying. 1651.

3.     ABRAHAM COWLEY’S PRAYER TO GOD. This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, not from great deeds, but good alone; the unknown are better than ill known. Rumour can open the grave; acquaintance I would have ; but when it depends not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light, and sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. My house a cottage, more than palace, and should fitting be for all my use, no luxury, my garden painted over with Nature’s hand, not Art’s; and pleasures yield .-----ABRAHAM COWLEY, OF MYSELF,  in essay titled Several Discourses. 1668.   

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

31 July 2026

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST ----I

 

LITERARY MEMORIES OF THE PAST ----I

            Synonyms of memories  are : recollections, reminiscences, and remembrances. 

            Memories of ordinary events, readings, sayings are not worth preserving.

            What follows here are very valuable  literary memories of my reading in the past.   

1.     If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. -----Francis Bacon, Essays. 1597.

2.     For fountains they are a great beauty and refreshment; but pools mar all, and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs. -----Francis Bacon, Essay Of Gardens, 1597.

3.     Whilst fortune favoured, friends, you smiled on me, but when she fled, a friend I could not see.----Robert Burton, essay On Melancholy Caused By Poverty. 1621.

4.     Language most shows a man : Speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and innermost  parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so much as his speech.----Essay entitled Of The Dignity Of Speech by Ben Jonson, 1640.

5.     A Good Wife is man’s best movable, a scion incorporate with the stock, bringing sweet fruit; one that to her husband I more than a friend, less than a trouble: an equal with him in the yoke. Calamities and troubles she shares alike; nothing pleaseth her that doth not him. She is relative in all, and he without her, but half himself. She is his absent hands, eyes, ears, and mouth : his present and absent all. She frames her nature unto his howsoever : the hyacinth follows not the sun more willingly. Stubbornness and obstinacy are herbs that grow not in her garden. She leaves tattling to the gossips of the town, and is more than hard. Her household is her charge ; her care to that makes her seldom non-resident. Her pride is but to be cleanly, and her thrift not to be prodigal. By  her discretion she hath children, not wantons; a husband without her is a misery in man’s apparel ; none but she hath an aged husband, to whom she is both a staff and a chair. To conclude, she is both wise, religious, which makes her all this.---SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, Characters, 1614.

                                                            ******

  G.R.Kanwal

30 July 2026