SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORLD

 

          SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WORLD

            Dictionaries define the world as the earth, with all its countries, peoples and natural features.

            This definition mentions no thoughts about the world. The English poet-playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) does. According to him:

                             All the world’s a stage

            And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.  

 

Here man is an actor. He thinks about the world according to his profession. In fact, the thoughts of each man are the product of his professional activities.

 

            The Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) says: This world is a dream within a dream; and as we grow older, each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary; and the old man looks on manhood a feverish dream.  Death the last sleep?  No ! it is the last and final awakening.

 

                The English courtier , orator and wit Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694-1773) said: I have run the silly rounds of pleasure, and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, which is in truth very low; those who have only seen their outside always ornate them, but I have been behind the scenes, I have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which move the gaudy machines, and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration, to the astonishment and admiration of the ignorant audience. When I reflect on what I have seen, what I have heard , and what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle of pleasure in the world had any reality; but I look upon all that is passed as one of those romantic dreams which opium  openly occasions, and I do by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose.  

            To conclude, have a look at this quote: The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities. -----Thomas Moore, Irish poet (1779-1852).

 

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

5^th April 2025                     

LOVE IS A SMALL WORD

 

                   LOVE IS A SMALL WORD

Love is a small word but with big meanings. It manifests strong feelings of affection for not only men and women but also the whole creation of God.  

The Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) said: “In peace, love tunes the shepherd’s reed; in war, he mounts the warrior’s steed; in halls, in gay attire is seen; in hamlet, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and saints above; for love is heaven, and heaven is love.”

Self-love is no love. It is not more than a drop in an ocean. Love and prayer should be for the whole existence. The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) said in his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner :

“Farewell, farewell, but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.  

 

“He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

 

To love all that exists in this immeasurable universe is to become the noblest child of God. There is nothing which does not fall within the loveable circle of creation.

 

            Love is not for today or tomorrow. It is for all the days of one’s life. It keeps the heart beating. The moment this beating begins to fade , life starts to sink.

Love has to be there for every solid moment of existence. The English poet-playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) said in a sonnet:

           

“Love’s not a Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

            Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

            Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

            But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

 

                                                *******

  G.R.Kanwal

4^th April 2025

 

 

CHILDREN

 

CHILDREN

Children are the symbols of simplicity, purity, honesty, innocence and piousness.

They have yet to learn the evils of dishonesty, falsehood, criminality, viciousness, stealth, aggressiveness, revenge, unfaithfulness and deceptiveness.

Consequently, they are exceedingly attractive and lovely. Their smiles are delightful and their laughter is marvellous.

 

The English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) says in his poem Intimations of Immortality:

 

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy;

Shades of the prison house begin to close upon the growing boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows.

He sees it in his joy;

The youth, who daily farther from the east**

Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,***

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

“Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a mother’s mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely nurse doth all she can

To make her foster child, her inmate man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

                                    ----

*prison house worldly existence. **east: the beginning of the sun’s daily journey. ***Nature’s priest: feeler of spiritual unity with nature.  

                        ------

To conclude, here is an educative  quote by the English divine August W. Hare (1792-1834): Tasks set to children should be moderate. Over-exertion is hurtful both physically and intellectually, and even morally. But it is of the utmost importance that they should be made to fulfil all their tasks correctly and punctually. This will train them for an exact and conscientious discharge of their duties in after life.

                                    ********

G.R.Kanwal

3^rd April 2025                       

WHAT IS THE BEST DRINK?

 

                   WHAT    IS    THE   BEST   DRINK?

Water, said somebody, is the best drink for a gentleman. It is not only the necessity of the human body but is also full of health advantages. First of all it quenches your thirst harmlessly. Moreover, it purifies the body, improves digestion, regulates temperature, prevents dehydration, maintains proper blood circulation, is joints, eyes and brain friendly.

Check the quality of water before you drink it. It must have no impurities, otherwise it will damage your liver, kidneys and lungs. Boil it to make it cleaner.

Plain water is better than with some kind of content. However, black,   green and herbal teas have some additional advantages in certain diseases.

Alcohol is better shunned than adopted.  Its disadvantages outnumber than its advantages.  It causes numerous health problems concerning liver, kidney, heart, lungs and brain. It also enhances cancer risk .

Look at the following popular quotes on drinking alcohol:

i).The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, and the fourth for madness.

ii). The Japanese say: “A man takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.      

iii). The barroom as a bank: You deposit your money -–and lose it; your time--- and lose it; your character ----and lose it; your manly independence ----and lose it; your home comfort ---- and lose it; your self control ---and lose it; your children’s happiness ---and lose it; your own soul---and lose it.

iv). In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort; cowardice, for courage; bashfulness, for confidence; sadness for joy; and all find ruin!

            To conclude, if unavoidable, drink a little in a celebration, and call it enough.                                               

G.R.Kanwal

2^nd April 2025

 

ACTIONS

 

ACTIONS

            Some common synonyms of actions are deeds, activities, movements, operations, maneuvers, performances, accomplishments and achievements.

They are the results of one’s ideas, thoughts, aims, ambitions, desires, aspirations, dreams, intentions, goals, targets and plans.

            A simple antonym of action is inactivity which is undesirable. Our body and mind must perform their actions if we do not want to become sick and consequently die.

            Actions are also qualitative. Good actions are virtuous; the bad ones are vicious. The former maintain and promote life; the latter, spoil and destroy it.

            Religiously, too, actions are significant. They have both good and bad results. Heaven is awarded to morally sound people; and those who do evil deeds are confined to hell.

            A man, according to a proverb, is judged by his actions, not by his words.  Another proverb says—actions speak louder than words.     

The Greek philosopher Sophocles (c.496- 406/405 BCE) says: Heaven never helps the man who will not act.

Religiously, a man’s fate is the consequence of his healthy or unhealthy actions.

The British statesman Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881) believed: Action may not always bring happiness ; but there is no happiness without action.

Look at the following everlasting thoughts on action:

(i).The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. --- English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704).

(ii).To do an evil act is base. To do a good one without incurring  danger, is common enough. But it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds though he risks everything in doing them.---Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch (Born about 45 CE –Died around 120 CE).     

       (iii).We must be doing something to be happy. –Action is no less necessary to us than thought. ---English essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830).

            To conclude, a quote by the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) : Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

1^st April 2025

 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON EDUCATION

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON EDUCATION

Abraham Lincoln (12 Feb 1809-15 Apr 1865) was the 16^th president of the United States. He was in the chair from 4 March 1861 to 15 April 1865 when he was assassinated.

According to historians :“His actions, particularly the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 led to the end of slavery in the Confederate states and paved the way for the 13^th Amendment, which abolished slavery nationwide.”

Lincoln was an eminent legislator and lawyer, though he was mostly self-educated and had only intermittent schooling for about a year. He never attended any college. However, his interest in self-learning was life-long.

The letter which is given below was addressed by him to his son’s first school teacher. It is an eternal document on the man-making philosophy of education.  Let us read it thoroughly.

“My son starts school today. It is all going to be strange and new to him for a while and I wish you would treat him gently. It is an adventure that might take him across continents. All adventures that probably include wars, tragedy and sorrow. To live this life will require faith, love and courage.

 

“So dear Teacher, will you please take him by his hand and teach him things he will have to know, teaching him – but gently, if you can. Teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. He will have to know that all men are not just, that all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every crooked politician, there is a dedicated leader.

 

“Teach him if you can that 10 cents earned is of far more value than a dollar found. In school, teacher, it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat. Teach him to learn how to gracefully lose, and enjoy winning when he does win.

         

“Teach him to be gentle with people, tough with tough people. Steer him away from envy if you can and teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Teach him if you can – how to laugh when he is sad, teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him there can be glory in failure and despair in success. Teach him to scoff at cynics.

“Teach him if you can the wonders of books, but also give time to ponder the extreme mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hill. Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if every one tell him they are wrong.

 

“Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone else is doing it. Teach him to listen to every one, but teach him also to filters all that he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

 

“Teach him to sell his talents and brains to the highest bidder but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Let him have the courage to be impatient, let him have the patient to be brave. Teach him to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind, in God.

 

“This is the order, teacher but see what best you can do. He is such a nice little boy and he is my son.”

 

                                      **********

G.R.Kanwal

31^st March 2025

 

 

 

WHAT IS GREATNESS?

 

 WHAT IS GREATNESS?

Greatness is an extraordinary quality of head, heart, mind and soul. Literally, it may stand for bigness, largeness, extensiveness, vastness, immensity, hugeness, enormity, spaciousness , bulk, size, mass and  length.

 

Metaphorically, its implications are as  different as grandness, grandeur, magnificence, impressiveness, gloriousness, eminence, renown, nobility, proficiency, profundity and skillfulness.

 

A really great man, says Otto von Bismarck, a German statesman and diplomat (115-1896), is known by three signs --- generosity in the design, humanity in execution, moderation in success.

 

According to the American clergy William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) : The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within  and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns; and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God, is most unfaltering.

 

The English poet and essayist Joseph Addison (1672-1719) had this to say: A contemplation of God’s works, a generous concern for the good of mankind, and the unfeigned exercise of humility --- these only, denominate men great and glorious.

 

In recent times, men like Mahatma Gandhi may be included in the list of great men of the world. He is the truest illustration of the following lines from A Psalm of Life, a poem written by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) :

 

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

 

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take hear again.

                        ***********

 

G.R.Kanwal

30^th March 2025

 

 

 

 

 

ADVANTAGES OF HONESTY

 

          ADVANTAGES OF HONESTY

When Lord Gautam Buddha (563 BCE—483BCE) laid emphasis on eightfold path of ---- right view, right mindfulness, right intention, right speech, right concentration, right effort, right action and right livelihood, he showed the way to honest living in this world. This approach to existence, according to him, was  the key to achieving liberation from the painful cycle of rebirth, which is a form of nirvana.

Honesty stands for  truth, integrity, sincerity, loyalty, fairness, reliability, uprightness, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and credibility.

It has many advantages. Some of these are ---- peace of mind, fearlessness, good health, sound sleep, unperturbed conscience , spiritual strength, public respectability, legal protection, moral prestige, professional honour and closeness to God.

Honesty, like truth, fears no examination. It may not make one materially rich but does make him morally wealthy.    

An honest man, said the English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), is the noblest work of God.

The English poet-playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) said : To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

The Greek philosopher Socrates (died 15 Feb 399 BC) believed: The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.

The English politician and philosopher Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3^rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1672-1713) said: A grain of honesty and native worth is of more value than all the adventitious ornaments, estates, or preferments, for the sake of which some of the better sort so oft turn knaves.     

Finally, the following quote by the America clergy and writer Charles Simmons (1798-1856} :

True honesty takes into account the claims of God as well as those of man; it renders to God the things that are God’s, as well as to man the things that are man’s.

                                                            *******

G.R.Kanwal

29 March 2025

WHAT DO BOOKS DO?

 

          WHAT DO BOOKS DO?

Books make us learned, remove our ignorance, answer our questions on  life and death, God and Universe.

There are books on all sorts of subjects. You can read them to find solutions to you personal as also universal problems.

Some books  are books of the day, that is, they are ephemeral; their relevance is short-lived; but there are other books which become classics.  They do not become irrelevant for centuries to come.

The Gita, The Koran, The Bible, The Guru Granth Sahib and Dhamapada are the holy books of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism respectively. They answer all sorts of questions about life and death, body and soul, and show the way to the attainment of godliness. They make us noble children of God.  

Holy books are not to be read only once but repeatedly day after day, month after month and year after year. Every time they contribute new illuminations to our enlightenment.

The English clergy Caleb C. Colton (1789-1832) says: Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again ---for, like true friends, they will never fail us ---never cease to instruct---never cloy .

Without books, says A. Bartholini, the Danish physician and litterateur (1597-1643), God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at  a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in darkness.

According to the English poet, essayist and playwright Joseph Addison (1672-1719): Books are the legacies that genius leaves to mankind, to be delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to those that are yet unborn.

To conclude, here are a few precious words of the American clergy Talbot Wilson Chambers (1819-96): Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please.

                                    **********

G.R.Kanwal

28 March 2025   

       

BOASTING

 

          BOASTING

While self-praise may be good, boasting is not.   The former shows self-love, self-appreciation, self-confidence, self-inspiration, and self-satisfaction; the latter expresses excessive pride and self-satisfaction in one’s achievements, possessions, abilities, talents, skills, performances, achievements,  etc.

If self-praise may be fair and equitable; boasting may be unfair, exaggerated and unjustifiable.

Both self-praise and boasting should not forget the virtue of humility. Today’s success can be tomorrow’s failure; and present victory can be followed by future defeat,

In every success and in every achievement be thankful to God. You are not self-sufficient.  Your perfection for every accomplishment needs God’s help and blessings.

It is undesirable to claim yourself as the best, the strongest, and the most advanced in the world.

We live on a common earth, shared by different nations, with different beliefs, faiths, religions, political ideologies, philosophies, and natural resources.

The happiness of the world lies in the co-operative working of all the nations, not in the policy of subduing each other.

Remember the philosophy of togetherness and of co-existence and  also that of the Biblical saying: Love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Neighbour here means everybody in the world wherever he may be.

Also remember a poet’s saying: No lands are strange; no men are foreign.

There is an un-contradictable saying : The end of boasting is the beginning of dignity.

The English poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616) rightly believed that “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.”  

The Church of England clergyman and religious writer William Secker (d.1681) said: Usually the greatest boasters are the smallest workers. The deep rivers pay a larger tribute to the sea than shallow brooks, and yet empty themselves with less noise.

Finally, this popular quote on boasting: Whatever accomplishment you boast of in the world, there is someone better than you.

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

27 March 2025

 

 

     

WHAT IS EDUCATION?

 

          WHAT IS EDUCATION?

Education is not literacy. An illiterate man may not be uneducated if he has acquired knowledge; learnt skills and  crafts;, the ability to earn his bread and butter;  some good manners; the moral and spiritual values of life; has understood the purpose of life; can live peacefully and co-operatively both in his own place and in other parts of the world. Such a person believes that all mankind is one; and  loves life in all its manifestations; is close to nature; spends every moment of his life in self-discovery; regularly prays in the morning;  and offers his gratitude to God at bed time.

Such a man may be lacking institutional knowledge; may not be holding certificates and degrees; may not be knowing many languages, yet he is not illiterate. He is a scholar because he is schooled in the practical institutions of life.

Those who cannot read and write are also successful. Formal education is in no way superior to practically acquired knowledge.

Read the following quotes:

(i).The education of the human mind commences in the cradle. ---English physician Thomas Cogan (1736-1818).

(ii). Education commences at the mother’s knee, and every word spoken in the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of character. --- American clergy H. Ballou (1771-1852).

(iii). Education does not consist in mastering languages, but is found in that moral training which extends beyond the schoolroom to the playground and the street, and which teaches that a meaner thing  can be done than to fail in recitation. –American educationist Paul Chadbourne (1823-83 ).

 (iv). Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him…if he is a walking university, ---Edwin Hubbell Chapin , American clergy (1814-1880).

Finally an anonymous quote:

Education does not commence with the alphabet; it begins with a mother’s look, with a father’s nod of approbation, or a sign of reproof; with a sister’s gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother’s noble act of forbearance; with handfuls of flowers in green dells, on hills, and daisy meadows; with birds’ nests admired, but not touched; with creeping ants, and almost imperceptible emmets; with humming-bees and glass beehives; with pleasant walks in shady lanes, and with thoughts directed in sweet and kindly tones and words to nature, to beauty, to acts of benevolence, to deeds of virtue, and to the source of all good ---to God Himself.

Note: *emmets are social insects.

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

26 March 2025        

YOU ARE NOT FREE

 

          YOU ARE NOT FREE

You are not free, nor should you be. Freedom can be waywardness, with no pre-determined direction.

A determined goal has a pre-planned route. You know its safe and unsafe spots, so you move cautiously and vigilantly. You don’t want to fall into a pit and repent.

Nature has its own laws all of which are not yet known to man. They are being constantly found out by researchers , seers, scientists and philosophers.

No power on earth has the freedom to violate the known laws of nature and go unpunished.

It is not freedom which you need to live a safe and successful life. You require rules, laws and guidelines to move forward without endangering your total self.

Look at your body. It works according to biological rules. If you make it violate them, you fall sick or become disabled.

To live a healthy life, you must follow the rules of work and rest, wakefulness and sleep. Neglect these rules, and face all sorts of troubles – indigestion, pain, aches, fever, ailments, and some sort of disability.

True, there are medicines for recovering your normal health but they are not all successful. They do not  make you your original self again. A medically treated organ does not re-become the original one again. Hence, the proverb : Prevention is better than cure.

It will not be wrong to say that our life is the gift of God and it has to perform the duties prescribed by God to keep it fit. Duty does not allow freedom. It demands adherence to perpetual bindings.

In the end, here is an “ODE TO DUTY” by the English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

 

 

“Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

 

 

O Duty! if that name thou love

Who art a Light to guide, a Rod

To check the erring, and reprove;

Thou who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.

 

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who, in love and truth,

Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;

Who do thy work, and know it not:

May joy be theirs while life shall last!

And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!”

                                                *********

G.R.Kanwal

25 March 2025

 

 

 

SOME FAMOUS LINES OF GREAT POETS

 

                   SOME FAMOUS LINES OF GREAT POETS  

There is a lot of wisdom in the famous lines of great poets. It is worthwhile to remember them, to act on them and to quote them.

They are the essence of what such poets felt and versified .  To mention all of them in one installment is impossible. Here is a handful of them on this page.  More in days to come.

1. In small proportions we just beauties see; and in short measures life may perfect be. --- Ben Jonson (1572-1637).

2. They also serve who only stand and wait. –John Milton (1608-1674).

3. There is a comfort in the strength of love; it will make a thing endurable, which else would overset the brain, or break the heart.---William Wordsworth (1770-1830).

4. Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said; ‘This is my own, my native land!’----Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).

5. Not gold, but only men can make a people great and strong—men who, for truth and honour’s sake, stand fast and suffer long.---Ralph Waldo Emerson. (1803-1882).

6. What is this life, if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.---William  Henry Davies (1871-1940).

7. Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign, beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes like ours; the land our brothers walk upon is earth like this, in which we all shall lie. James Harold Kirkup (1918-2009).

8. Obey thy parents.---William Shakespeare (1564-1616) in King Lear, Act 3.

9. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state. ---Alexander Pope (1688-1744 ).

10. If all the pens that ever poets held, had fed the feeling of their masters thoughts, and every sweetness that inspired their hearts, their minds, and muses on admired themes: if all the heavenly quintessence they still from their immortal flowers of poesy, wherein as in a mirror we perceive the highest reaches of human wit—if these had made one poem’s period all combined in beauty’s worthiness, yet should there hover in their restless heads, one thought, one grace, one wonder at the least which into words no virtue can digest. ---Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)

                        *********

G.R.Kanwal

24 March 2025    

 

 

           

LOVE IS TOGETHERNESS

 

LOVE IS TOGETHERNESS

Love is a necessity of life. No one can survive in this world without a loved one. Loneliness is unhappiness. Companionship is joy. It is caring and sharing.  

A child needs the mother’s love and a grownup the love of another grownup. There is no one-sided love and there is no love without togetherness. Lovers must meet, must be close to each other, must look into each other’s eyes, must talk, must walk together, must celebrate the happy and not so happy events of life co-operatively.

Lovers are living beings, not statues. They are to be touched and embraced, grasped and released. They are not temporary guests but everlasting soul mates. To be separated from  loved ones is like a separation from existence.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) said in one of his sonnets: Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.

And Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) said in his poem Dover Beach: Ah, love let us be true to one another! For the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.

Finally, this romantic view of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) : There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love --- the first fluttering of its silken wings – the first rising sound and breath of that wind which is so soon to sweep through the soul, to purify or to destroy.

                                                *******

G.R.Kanwal

23 March 2025    

 

           

 

A KEY TO HAPPINESS

 

A KEY TO HAPPINESS

There is no universal definition of happiness. One of the best ones is described as “a state of contentment and well-being characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment.”

 

Contentment is rare. Most of the people feel that only a few of their desires find fulfillment. It is strange that there are many poor people who are happier than those who have a lot of wealth. What makes them so is their personal idea of happiness. It is, however, admitted by a large number of persons that desires go on multiplying and their non-gratification results in painful unhappiness.

 

Many poets, saints, sages, seers, and religious philosophers recommend simple living as a sure means of happy life. They cite the eternal phenomenon of empty-handedness of man both at the time of his birth and death. His  worldly possessions which sounded as providers of happiness to begin with turn out to be a source of heart-breaking despair. They have to be left back totally  in this very world where they were regularly amassed.  

 

The English satirical poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) who is known for many aphorisms and pithy maxims said:

 

“Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow.” By worth, he meant, his understanding of the eternal secret of happiness.   

 

In his “Ode On Solitude”, he mentions the happy life of a man who lives far from the madding crowd and holds a key to happiness.

 

This ode reads as follows:

 

“Happy the man, whose wish and care
  A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
  In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
  Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
  In winter fire.

Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
  Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
  Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
  Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
  With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
  Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
  Tell where I lie.

                                                            ********

G.R.Kanwal

22 March 2025