ONE-LINERS PACKED WITH WISDOM

 

          ONE-LINERS PACKED WITH WISDOM

1.     Knowledge is power.---Francis Bacon.

2.     A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.----Alexander Pope.

3.     They also serve who only stand and wait.----John Milton.

4.      The foolish run after outward pleasures and fall into the snares of vast-embracing death.---Katha Upanishad.

5.     Truth is the highest virtue, but higher still is truthful living.---Guru Nanak.

6.     Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.---John Keats.

7.     Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.---William Wordsworth.

8.     If winter comes, can spring be far behind?----P. B. Shelley.

9.     Advice is like snow ---the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and deeper it sinks into the mind.-----S. T. Coleridge.

10.                         Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.----Lord Byron.

11.                         Nature that taught us in our hearts to fear, cannot be banished from our guilty hearts,----Christopher Marlowe.

12.                         Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.----Samuel Johnson.

13.                          Try again. Fall again. Fail better.----Samuel Beckett (Novelist and playwright).

14.                         Those who are at war with others are not at peace with themselves.---William Hazlitt.

15.                         There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.----William Shakespeare.

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G.R.Kanwal

2^nd April 2026

NON-ATTACHMENT

 

                NON-ATTACHMENT

            Non-attachment is one of the main teachings of Lord Mahavira (c.599-527 BCE). He was the 24^th and last Tirthankara of Jainism.

            A Tirthankara is a supreme spiritual teacher.  He is  “one who has conquered the cycle of rebirth, attained perfect knowledge and established a path for others to achieve liberation.”

            Lord  Mahavira’s teachings consist of: (i) Non-violence  i.e. advocating non-injury to all living beings in thought, word and action. (ii) Truthfulness  (iii) Non-attachment  which also means non-possession and detachment from people, places, and material possessions. (iv). Anekantavada i.e. non-absolutism of truth and reality which are not final but conditional and have many challenges to it. In fact, opinions about every rule, law, faith, belief, and conviction, etc., differ from one another and each one has some different element of truth and reality in its composition. (v). Equality. It means that every soul has the potential to attain divine consciousness.

            Non-attachment is non-possession and is also known as  Aparigraha.

            It is unfortunate that human beings are greedy by nature. Their lust for more is unlimited. They lack contentment. Their desires go on multiplying. Initially, they humbly seek one house and when they get it they pray for the second house and thus the number of houses sought by them go on becoming larger and larger. What is true about houses is equally true about other possessions. They want to be recognized as the richest persons, not the poorest ones. They fail to realize that all the possessions in this world are un-exportable to the other world at the time of a person’s death.

            The German religious reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546)  said: Lord God, I thank thee that thou hast been pleased to make me a poor and indigent man upon earth. I have neither house nor land nor money to leave behind me.

            It is painful for a human being going to the other world to think that he has to leave behind all his possessions.

            Non-attachment , that is non-possession, is a blessing. It is sensible to replace possessiveness by contentment which means “a state of peaceful happiness, satisfaction, and ease of mind, often characterized by being pleased with one’s current situation or possession without desiring more.”

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G.R. Kanwal

1^st April 2026     

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