THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICS

 

THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICS

Politics is a career in government. A politician is a councillor, legislator, lawmaker, public servant, mayor, member of parliament, statesman, etc. She/he belongs to a political party, has to contest an election to become part of the government, take an oath of secrecy and loyalty.

The regret is that party honesty is party expediency. Self-interest takes the place of party interest. A politician forgets his party interest in the twinkling of an eye , defects and causes a lot of damage to the party as a member of which he had contested the election and won it.

American politician James Beauchamp Clark (1850-1921) said : By discharging our duty thoroughly and well, subordinating personal desires to principle, and personal ambition to an exalted love of country, we will not only receive the endorsement of the people, but, what is far better, we will deserve their endorsement.

German writer  Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) says : “I hate all bungling as I hate sin , but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.”

Finally, according to James F. Clarke, American minister, theologian and author (1810-1888)  “a politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation. –A politician for the success of his party; a statesman for that of his country. The statesman wishes to steer, while the politician is satisfied to drift.”

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G.R.Kanwal

29 January 2024   

 

 

UNITY

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   UNITY

Unity means oneness, singleness, wholeness, entity, integrity. Strength of a group of people like members of a family, team, society, political party, members of a company lies in their unity, coalition, alliance, cooperation, harmony, accord, unanimity, consensus, togetherness , undividedness, etc.

it is mostly  difficult to achieve unity because each member of a group has an individuality, selfishness, personal  ambition, due to which there can be secrecy, deception, treachery and what not.

A common proverb is united we stand, divided we fall.

It is also true that union does everything when it is perfect.---It satisfies desires, simplifies needs, foresees the wishes, and becomes a constant fortune. The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion.

It is unfortunate that some parties like those of politicians are more un-united than others, so their members are notoriously known as defectors and turncoats and their commitments are regarded as highly undependable. They can act against their own parties secretly and destroy them in the twinkling of an eye for their personal gain or ambition.

Finally, according to an American scholar and chancellor of New York university Howard Crosby (1826-1891) the great unity which true science seeks is found only by beginning  with our knowledge of God, and coming down from him along the stream of causation to every fact and event that affects us.

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G. R. Kanwal

28 January 2024

 

SOME USEFUL THOUGHTS

 

  

  

SOME USEFUL THOUGHTS

 Thoughts are judgements, conclusions, appraisals, ideas, notions, assessments, opinions,    aims, intentions, plans, designs, points of view, positions, stands, beliefs, convictions, etc.

                                                                                               

Here are some useful thoughts as examples:

 

·         Praise the sea, but keep on the land.

·         Science surpasses the old miracles of mythology,

·         He is a fool who cannot be angry, but he is a wise man who will not.

·         No man is free who cannot command himself.

·         He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires and fears is more than a king.

·         You will find poetry nowhere, unless you bring some with you.

·         Misery acquaints man with strange bedfellows.

·         The true university of these days is a collection of books.

·         Every man’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s fingers.

     Happiness consists in activity. –Such is the constitution of our nature.---it is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool.

 

G. R. Kanwal

26 January 2024

 

                                 

THEN LAUGH

 

 

                          THEN LAUGH

“Then Laugh” is an inspirational poem written by the American poet Bertha Adams Backus. She was born in 1870 and died in 1956.  In this poem she advises us not to be depressed or worried or get discouraged over our failures but keep them in our mind after transforming  it into a maximum possible wooden box.  According to her there is no gain in sharing our sorrows with others. On the contrary this approach causes more pain and suffering.

The human mind, she says, is abundantly safe and strong. It can be used as a tough wooden box by the maximum strength of our hands. Our failures, sorrows and worries should be stored in it.  They should not be shared with others because this device does not bring down our pain.  So they should be put into the box of the mind which should be shut tightly and the owner of the mind should sit on its lid and then laugh.  

Bertha’s  advice is that we should face our sorrows and heartaches bravely without disclosing them. To disclose them is no remedy. To keep them concealed and laugh over them is the best medicine.

The full poem reads as follow

“Build for yourself a strong box,

Fashion each part with care;

When it’s strong as your hand can make it,

Put all your troubles there;

Hide there all thought of your failures,

And each bitter cup that you quaff;

Lock all your heartaches within it,

Then sit on the lid and laugh.

 

Tell no one else its contents,

Never its secrets share;

When you’ve dropped in your care and worry

Keep them forever there;

Hide them from sight so completely

That the world will dream half;

Fasten the strong box secretly___

Then sit on the lid and laugh.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

24 January 2024

HYACINTHS TO FEED THY SOUL

 

 

 

HYACINTHS TO FEED THY SOUL

“Hyacinths ” is a beautiful plant. In the Christian faith it is regarded as a symbol of wisdom and tranquility. It also stands for  jealousy, desire for forgiveness, joy and sincerity.

The four line poem given below is written by the Persian poet and prose writer Sheikh Saadi Shirazi (born 1210 in Shiraz, Iran}. His full name was Abu-Muhammad Muslih al-Din ibn Abdallah Shirazi.

He is most famous for his two books Gulistan and Bustan. His culture is Islamic in nature.

The poem titled “Hyacinths to Feed Thy Soul” means “If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a hyacinth to feed thy soul.”

 Here is the full text:

“If of thy mortal goods though are bereft,

And from thy slender store two leaves alone to thee are left,

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”

                                                           

The moral of the poem is that the soul is as important as the body for a spiritual l human being.

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G.R.Kanwal

23 January 2024

MY PRAYER

 

          MY PRAYER

A prayer is an address to God. It expresses gratitude to Him but may  also seek some thing of importance.  

Rabindranath Tagore ( 1861-1941) who became Nobel Laureate in 1913 published in 1910 a poem which is included in Gitanjali and is effectually a prayer to God for his country.

It is an excellent prayer which can be every Indian’s prayer at any time of his life. I reproduce it as my prayer with indebtedness to the author.

 “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action ---Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

            It is clear from the concluding line of the poem that India was yet to become free from the British rule when it was written and published.  

            India is now free but what the poet desired from God, namely, “where the mind is led forward be thee into ever-widening thought and action, into that heaven of freedom, my Father (i.e.God) , let my country awake” has not fully  happened. The mind is not without fear; the head is not held high; knowledge is not free; the words do not come out from the depth of truth; and the world is broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls. Hence, the need to repeat Tagore’s prayer.

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G. R. Kanwal

20 January 2024

 

  

SOME VIEWS ON EATING

 

          SOME VIEWS ON EATING

Eating is essential. No living being can survive without eating some sort of food. Mothers start feeding their babies as soon as they are born. Eating is a source of energy and vitality. But one has to digest what one eats. There are people who pray to God to give them good digestion.

Fasting is part of eating. One does not eat all the time. There are intervals between meals: breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon,  and dinner at night. These have enough intervals in-between.

            What to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, when not to eat depends upon individuals. Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-143 B.C.) says that in the matter of eating reason should direct and appetite obey. The 2^nd century German philosopher Tyrius Maximus says choose rather to punish your appetites than to be punished by them. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) temperance and labour are the two best physicians of man; labour sharpens the appetite, and temperance prevents from indulging to excess.

            Finally, two famous quotes :  

(1)  One should eat to live, not live to eat.---- American statesman  Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)  

(2) By eating what is sufficient man is enabled to work; he is hindered from working and becomes heavy, idle, and stupid if he takes too much.---As to bodily distempers occasioned by excess, there is no end to them. ----William Jones of Nayland (1726-1800).

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G.R.Kanwal

19^th January 2024     

 

WISHES

 

                WISHES

Wishes are unfulfilled desires or desires that cannot be fulfilled. If you wish for something you want it or yearn for it. A wish can also be a hope or expectation or dream.

Human beings are advised not to have too many wishes because their unfulfilment causes unhappiness and can even make them adopt unfair means for their fructification.   

To be contented with what God has given you is to enjoy happiness. Contentment is equal to fulfillment, satisfaction, complacency, tranquility and gratification.

Saints and seers tell their devotees not to wish for more. It is rightly said by someone that wishes are the parents of large families, but the children are generally inefficient and useless. ---They are the source of idle and vain dreams, and of air castles which have no solid foundation. ---The idle wish sends one on a vain journey from which he gains nothing but mental emptiness and discontent with his lot, and it may be some rebukes of conscience, if it is sharp enough to see his folly.        

To conclude, let your wishes be few and far between and capable of keeping you adequately satisfied. There is no fun in having more and more wishes with proportionate increase in resultant unhappiness.

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G.R.Kanwal

16 January 2024

SUPERSTITIONS

 

          SUPERSTITIONS

            Superstitions are ideas or beliefs or practices which have their roots in irrationality or magic or any kind of mysterious fear. Dictionaries define superstition as a belief that cannot be explained by reason or science. For example, Saturday is an unlucky day for the purchase of ironwares and 13 is an unlucky number. Britannica dictionary defines superstition as a belief or way of behaving that is based on fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck or a belief that certain events or things bring good or bad luck. Here are some examples:

Breaking a mirror is bad luck. Itchy palm is good luck, it may bring money. Opening an umbrella inside is bad luck. Night is always bad, especially for counting money, paying debts, giving or exchanging money.

Superstitions are not uncommon. They exist even in highly educated people like great scientists. Some people consult astrologers for lucky days or times which do not really happen to be lucky.  Many political leaders who file their papers according to their astrologers’ guidance lose elections. Time has no connection with bad or good luck.

English Bishop Thomas Sherlock (1678-1761) said: By superstitions I mean all hypocritical arts of appeasing God and procuring his favour without obeying his laws, or reforming our sins; infinite such superstitions have been invented by heathens, by Jews, by Christians themselves, etc.

English novelist Henry Fielding (1707—1754) said superstition renders a man a fool, and skepticism makes him mad.

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G.R.Kanwal

15 January 2024  

 

TWO QUOTES ON WORSHIP

 

TWO QUOTES ON WORSHIP

Worship is defined as reverence and respect paid to God. Other words which can be used as synonyms are veneration, adoration, devotion, prayer, etc.           

God is worshipped because he is the creator of the world and all of us depend upon Him for our existence. It is also meant to thank Him for all his mercies without which we cannot keep our body and soul together.

We should worship as though God were present.  If our mind is not engaged in our worship, it is as though we worshipped not.

Here are two important quotes on worship:

1. It is for the sake of man, not of God, that worship and prayers are required; that man may be made better---that he may be confirmed in a proper sense of his dependent, and acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists. ---Hugh Blair, Scottish Divine (1718-1800).

2. Man is a religious being; the heart instinctively seeks for God. Whether he worships on the banks of the Ganges, prays with his face upturned to the sun, kneels towards Mecca or, regarding all space as a temple, communes with the Heavenly Father according to the Christian creed, man is essentially devout.-----William Jennings Bryan, American statesman and orator (1860-1925).

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G.R.Kanwal

14^th January 2024

 

Swami Vivekananda said

 

Swami Vivekananda said

Hindu monk , philosopher,social reformer and  spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda,           was born as Narendranath Datta on January 12 1863 in Calcutta, currently Kolkata              and passed away on July 4 1902 at Belur Math, Howrah.

His birthday is now celebrated as National Youth Day.

He was a highly energetic orator whose quotes are deeply inspiring. A few of them               are given below:

1.Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached. 2. You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself. 3. All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. 4. Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. 5. The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. 6. 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.

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G.R.Kanwal

12 January   2024                                                                                                                                         

  

LIGHT, A SHORT LOVE POEM

 

LIGHT, A SHORT LOVE POEM

                        The night has a thousand eyes,

                        The day but one;

                      Yet the light of the bright world dies

                        With the dying sun.

 

                        The mind has a thousand eyes,

                        And the heart but one;

                        Yet the light of a whole life dies

                        When its love is done.

This is one of the best love poems written by the English poet Francis W, Bourdillon (1852-1921). The poet compares the quality of one sun with that of   a thousand stars. When the sun sets, the light of the whole world vanishes. Likewise, the mind has a thousand eyes but its impact is not so vast as that of one eye of the heart without which the whole life of the lovers comes to end. To put it briefly, love and life are interdependent. If there is no love, there is no life worth the name.

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

09 January 2024                                       

                  

 

HELEN OF TROY

 

HELEN OF TROY

There are many stories about Helen of Troy. In answer to the question what is her real story , an encyclopedia says she was the daughter of Zeus (in Greek religion and mythology  the sky and thunder god)and a mortal woman Leda (an Aetolian princess who became a Spartan queen}. Thus she is described as one who has divine beauty.

Helen had many suitors as a young  legendary beauty. Besides others, she married Paris, also known as Alexander, a mythological figure in the story of Trojan war which was  won by the Greeks. Paris lost his life in this war.

               In Greek mythology Helen of Troy is described as the most beautiful woman in the world.

                Here are a few lines written by the English poet and dramatist Christopher Marlowe (1564—1593) . They briefly describe  Helen’s extraordiary  beauty.

 

 “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

 

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss----

 

Her lips suck forth my soul; see, where it flies!

Come, Helen come, give me my soul again.

 

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

                        *******

(Extract From Marlowe’s  play Dr. Faustus, published in 1593}.

                                                *****

G.R. Kanwal

7^th January 2024

SWEET PERIL

 

          SWEET PERIL

“Sweet Peril” is a love poem by George Macdonald(1824-1905). He was a Scottish poet and author and is known as a pioneer figure in the field of modern fantasy literature. One of his best quotes is: It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

In Sweet Peril he regards too much of love activities however sweet they may be as dangerous.

This is how the poem goes:

Alas, how easily things go wrong!

A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,

And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,

And life is never the same again.

 

Alas, how hardly things go right!

‘Tis hard to watch in a summer night,

For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay,

And the summer night is a wintry day.

 

And yet how easily things go right,

If the sigh and a kiss of a summer’s night

Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray

That is born in the light of the winter’s day,

 

And things can never go badly wrong

If the heart be true and the love strong,

For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain

Will be changed by the love into sunshine again.

 

            For the message as also the moral of the poem, read the last stanza a number of times. Here “peril” goes, the mist and weeping rain become sunshine,  and things stop going badly wrong.     

                                                ******

G.R.Kanwal

6^th December 2024

GOETHE SAID

 

                GOETHE SAID

Five things there are which cannot breed five more

Hear thou this lesson, con it o’er and o’er.

From a proud heart friendship can never grow,

Nor courtesy from pleasures of the low,

Greatness is never won by villainy,

No envious heart can pity poverty,

The liar looks for faith and trust in vain.

Let no one rob thee of this truth again.

 

            Johan Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet and philosopher. He was born August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt and died March 22, 1832. He was also a playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, critic and amateur artist. In India he is compared to Urdu poet Mirza Asad Ullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869).

The lines quoted above occur in Goethe’s The Divan of East and West. They are realistic and rightly say :’From a proud heart friendship can never grow’ and ‘Nor courtesy from pleasures of the low.’

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G.R.Kanwal

2^nd January 2024