MEN AND WOMEN

 

MEN AND WOMEN

 

 

Husband and Wife

 

The wise husband and wife know that even the deepest love must have its intervals of non-active expression.  The do not fall into a panic because they are not the object of each other’s ceaseless preoccupation.  On the contrary, they realize that a person who makes constant demands for “proofs” of love is like an insecure child who clamours endlessly for his mother’s attention.  Those who are confident of their basic love will see to it, instead, that provision is made for release of the tensions and hostilities inevitable in every intimate association. ---- Smiley Blanton, M.D.

 

This is Marriage

 

The mutual sense of ownership felt by the normal husband and the normal wife is something unique, something the like of which cannot be obtained without marriage.

 

I saw a man and a woman at a sale the other day; I was too far to hear them, but I could perceive they were having a most lively argument---perhaps it was only about pillow-cases; but they were absorbed in themselves; the world did not exist for them.

 

I thought: “What miraculous exquisite force is it that brings together that strange, somber, laconic organism in a loose, black overcoat, and that strange, vivacious, querulous, irrational organism in fur?”

 

And when they moved away the most interesting phenomenon in the universe moved away.----Arnold Bennett

 

 

 

 

 

QUOTES OF GENIUS

                                            QUOTES  OF GENIUS

How to play the game of life?  WE should not play the game of life in such a way that we

may lose our credit in the court of God.---GURU NANAK

 

We are lie silk-worms. We make the thread out of our own 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.  This network of Karma we have woven around ourselves; and in our ignorance we feel as if we are bound, and weep and wail for help.  But help does not come from without; it comes from within ourselves.  Cry to all the gods in the universe.  I cried for years, and in the end I found that I was helped.  But help came from within.  And I had to undo what I had done by mistake.  That is the only way.  I had to cut the net which I had thrown round myself, and the power to do this is within. ----SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

 

India’s historic destiny.  It was India’s historic destiny that many human races and cultures and religions should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here.  Even before the dawn of history, these caravans trekked into India and wave after wave of new-comers followed.  This vast and fertile land gave welcome to all and took them to her bosom.  One of the last of these caravans, following the footsteps of its predecessors, was that of the followers of Islam.  This came here and settled here for good.  This led to a meeting of the culture-currents of two different races.  Like the Ganga and Jumna, they flower for a while through separate courses, but nature’s immutable law brought them together and joined them in a sangam. This fusion was a notable event in history.  Since then, destiny, in her own hidden way, began to fashion a new India in place of the old.----MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD   

 

What type of religion do we require? We require a religion which is both scientific and humanistic.  Religion, science, and humanism were sisters in ancient India; they were allies in, Greece.  They must combine today if we are to attract all those who are equally indifferent to organized religion and atheism, to supernaturalism and nihilism.  We need a spiritual home, where we can live without surrendering the rights of reason or the needs of humanity.  Reverence for truth is a moral value.  It is dearer than Buddha or Jesus.  Truth is opposed, not to reason or the Greek spirit, but to dogma and fossilized tradition.  We cannot rest the case of religion any more on dogmatic supernaturalism.---DR. S. RADHAKRISHNAN.   

 

Real great men have democratic tendency.  The great men of the world who were, born to bring the real advancement of mankind had a marked democratic tendency.  They were more anxious to raise than to rise.  They used their abilities for the betterment of human lot.  Though they were themselves highly gifted, they never showed any contempt for the common run of people but, on the contrary, they freely mixed with them, worked for them and as one of them.  This is the one great distinguishing trait in the character of all real benefactors of humanity, be he a prophet or a man of action.  Their universal sympathy radiates all through their words and actions.----AUROBINDO GHOSH

 

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WITH CHILDREN WE MUST MIX GENTLENESS WITH FIRMNESS.—THEY MUST NOT ALWAYS HAVE THEIR OWN WAY, BUT THEY MUST NOT ALWAYS BE THWARTED.---IF WE NEVER HAVE HEADCHES THROUGH REBUKING THEM, WE SHALL HAVE PLENTY OF HEARTACHES WHEN THEY GROW UP.---BE OBEYED AT ALL COSTS; FOR IF YOU YUIELD YOUR AUTHORITY ONCE, YOU WILL HARDLY GET IT AGAIN.---SPURGEON.

 

SELF LOVE IS NOT SO VILE A SIN AS SELF-NEGLECTING.---SHAKESPEARE.

 

CHOOSE SUCH PLEASURES AS RECREATE MUCH AND COST LITTLE.---FULLER.

 

THE SUPERIOR MAN WILL WATCH OVER HIMSELF WHEN HE IS ALONE.  HE EXAMINES HIS HART THAT THERE MAY BE NOTHING WRONG THERE, AND THAT HE MAY HAVE NO CAUSE OF DISSATISFACTION WITH HIMSELF.---CONFUCIUS.

 

STRENGTH IS BORN IN THE DEEP SILENCE OF LONG-SUFFERING HEARTS; NOT AMIDST JOY.---MRS. HEMANS

 

TRUST NOT THE WORLD, FOR IT NEVER PAYETH WHAT IT PROMISETH.----AUGUSTINE

 

A LITTLE NONSENSE NOW AND THEN IS RELISHED BY THE WISEST MEN.---OLD NURSERY RHYME

 

THE GREAT WEAKNESS OF WOMEN  (WHO SEEK CAREERS) IS THAT THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN TRAINED TO WORK LIKE MEN.  I MEAN TRAINED SO FROM INFANCY.  MEN ARE BROUGHT UP IN THE TRADITION THAT MEN MUST WORK. ----JOHN B. WATSON

 A WOMAN TOO OFTEN REASONS FROM HER HEART; HENCE TWO-THIRDS OF HER MISTAKES AND HER TROUBLES.---BULWAR

 

IN SCANCAL AS IN ROBBERY, THE RECEIVER IS ALWAYS AS BASD AS THE THIEF.----CHESTERFIELD.

 

PEACE IS SUCH A PRECIOUS JEWEL THAT I WOULD ANYTHING FOR IT BUT TRUTH.—M. HENRY

 

FALSEHOODS NOT ONLY DISAGREE WITH TRUTHS, BUT THEY USUALLY QUARREL AMONG THEMSELVES.----DANIEL WEBSTER

 

SIN HAS MANY TOOLS, BUT A LIE IS THE HNDLE THAT FITS THEM ALL.---O.W.HOLMES

 

THERE IS NO PLACE SO HIGH THAT AN ASS LADEN WITH GOLD CANNOT REACH IT.---ROJAS

 

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Jawaharlal Nehru views on Democracy

 

Jawaharlal Nehru views on Democracy

 

LIFE is a curve --- it is not a straight line --- and the life of nation is even more of a curve.  Logical and straight lines are tangents which go off the curve and if the tangent is too far away from the curve of a nation’s life, then there is conflict and upheaval.---Speech in Parliament, 29 May 1951.

 

WITH all my determination and love democracy, I am not prepared to accept the statement that the largest number of people are always right.---Speech in Parliament, 18 Feb 1953.

 

THESE days the biggest temple and mosque and gurdwara is the place where man works for the good of mankind.  Which place can be greater than this…where thousands and lakhs of men have worked, have shed their blood and sweat and laid down their lives as well? --- Speech at the opening of the Nangal Canal, 8 July 1954. 

 

PEACE in our view is not merely abstention from war but an active and positive approach to international problems and relations, leading, first, to the lessening of the present tension through an attempt to solve our problems by methods of negotiation, and then, to a growing cooperation between nations in various ways – cultural and scientific contacts, increase in trade and commerce, and exchange of ideas, experience and information. --- Statement at the Dynamo Stadium, Moscow, 22 June 1955.

 

A nation cannot progress if it merely imitates its ancestors; what builds a nation is creative, inventive and vital activity. – Speech, Saugor, 30 October 1952.

 

ONE of the tragedies of history is the slowness with which people’s minds adapt themselves to a changing environment….Article, 27 May 1939

 

FRANKNESS hurts often enough, but it is almost always desirable, especially between those who have to work together.---Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, 24 March 1939.

 

FREEDOM is not a mere matter of political decision or new constitutions, not even a matter of what is more important, that is, economic policy.  It is of the mind and heart and if the mind narrows itself and is befogged and the heart is full of bitterness and hatred, then freedom is absent.---Message on First Anniversary of Independence, 15 August 1948.

 

THE alliance of religion and politics in the shape of communalism is a most dangerous alliance, and it yields the most abnormal kind of illegitimate brood.---Speech in Parliament, 3 April 1948.

 

A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for truth.  It stands for the onward even higher objectives.  But if the temple of learning itself becomes a home of narrow bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper or a people grow in stature?---Speech, Allahabad, 13 December 1947.

 

ANYTHING that is static becomes stagnant and gradually leads to death.  I am all for opening our minds to every kind of knowledge or information that can be obtained.  I am all for free intercourse with the rest of the world; I want not barriers.---Speech, New Delhi, 17 November 1952.

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MUSINGS OF THOUGHTFUL MINDS

 

MUSINGS OF THOUGHTFUL  MINDS

 

YOUNG PEOPELE, according to Ayn Rand, do seek a comprehensive view of life, i.e., a philosophy, they do seek meaning, purpose, ideals --- and most of them take what they get.  It is in their teens and early twenties that most people seek philosophical answers and set their premises, for good or evil, for the rest of their lives.  Some never reach that stage: some never give up the quest; but the majority are open to the voice of philosophy for a few brief years.  These last are the permanent, if not innocent, victims of modern philosophy.

 

Ayn Rand believes that such teenagers are not independent thinkers not intellectual original; they are unable to answer or withstand the flood of modern sophistries.  So some of them give up, after one or two unintelligible courses, convinced that thinking is a waste of time---and turn into lethargic cynics or stultified Babbitts by the time they reach twentyfive.  Others accept what they hear: they accept it blindly and literally; these are today’s activists.  And no matter what tangle of motives now moves them, every teacher of modern philosophy should cringe in their presence, if he is still open to the realization that it is by means of the best within them, by means of their twisted, precarious groping for ideas, that he has turned them into grotesque little monstrosities.

 

Ayn Rand concludes: Now what happens to the better minds in modern universities, to the students of above average intelligence who are actually eager to learn?  What they find and have to endure is a long, slow process of psycho-epistemological torture.

 

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Social relationship, says poet Mohammad Iqbal, is a blessing to the individual.  His latent capacities are hereby actualized.  Individual attains respect through society.  Society gets its organization through its members.  His power of self-expression and his capacity for self-measurement flow from society.  The individual becomes saner through social contact so that the one becomes many.  Individual alone, unaware of ideals and value judgments; his capacity for self-activity tends to deteriorate.

 

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The traditional view, according to Karl Marx, in which man is always conceived of as the purpose of production, seems to be much more sublime than the modern world, in which production is presented as the purpose of man and wealth as the purpose of production.  But hat is wealth – when stripped of its bourgeois form --- but the universe of the needs, powers, enjoyments, productive forces of individuals?  The full development of the human sway over natural forces, those of so-called nature as well as those of his own nature?  The complete emergence of his creative potentialities?

 

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An organized instrument of administration which is called the Government, says AurobindoGhosh, is nothing else than human development in the individual and in the group.  The individual, standing alone, cannot develop; he depends on the support and assistance of the group to which he belongs.  The group itself cannot develop unless it has an organization by means of which it not only secures internal peace and order and protection from external attack but also proper conditions which will give free play for the development of its activities and capacities – physical, moral, intellectual. The nation or group is not like the individual who can specialize his development and throw all his energies into one line.  The nation must develop military and political greatness and activity, intellectual and aesthetic greatness and activity, commercial greatness and activity, moral sanity and vigour; it cannot sacrifice any of these functions of the organism without making itself unfit for the struggle for life and finally succumbing and perishing under the pressure of moral highly organized nations.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE ETERNAL LINES

 

ETERNAL  LINES

                        RABINDRANATH TAGORE

 

ON the seashore of endless worlds children meet.  The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous.  On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

 

They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells.  With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep.  Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

 They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets.  Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again.  They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

                                                                                 

The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.  Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle.  The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.

 On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.  Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play.  On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meting of children.

 

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WHEN I bring to you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints --- when I give coloured toys to you, my child.

 

When I sing to make you dance I truly know why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth --- when I sing to make you dance.

 

When I bring sweet things to your greedy I know why there is honey in the cup of the flower and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice – when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

 

When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight that is which the summer breeze brings to my body --- when I kiss you to make you smile.

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THE sleep that flits on baby’s eyes----does anybody know from where it comes?  Yes, there is a rumour that it has its own dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment.  From there it comes to kiss baby’s eyes.

 

The smile that flickers on baby’s lips when he sleeps --- does anybody know where it was born?  Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning – the smile that flickers on baby’s  lips when he sleeps.

 

The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby’s limbs ---- does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love --- the sweet, soft fresh that has bloomed on baby’s limb.                            ----

FEDERALISM

 

FEDERALISM

Federalism is a system of government in which the individual states of a country have control over their own affairs, but are controlled by a central   government for national affairs. Some examples of  this system of Government are the United States, Canada and India. However, they are no exactly like each other.

            According to Part I o the Indian Constitution, the Union of India, that is Bharat, is a federal Union, with a distribution of power, of which the judiciary is the interpreter.

            Thus, India has a central government which makes laws for the whole country. There are 28 States and 8 Union Territories as on 5^th August 2019. Some states like the Uttar Pradesh are very big, while others are very small like Goa Similarly the Union Territories also differ in size and population. The smallest Union Territory is Lakshadweep.

            Each State/Union Territory has its own type of natives, history, geography, culture, occupations, dress, language, festivals, food habits and beliefs.

            The Head of the Federal Union of India is the President. The Heads of States are Governors and the Heads of Union Territories are Lieutenant Governors. Chandigarh has an Administrator as its Head. The appointments of Governors, Lieutenant are made by the President for a fixed term.

            There are three types of laws. Central laws, State laws, U.T. laws. The Central Government makes central laws through the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and these are mandatory for the whole country, like laws about Defence, Railways, Currency, Post offices, National Education Policy, National Language, National Criminal and Civil Codes, etc. The State Government makes its laws through State Assemblies and Legislative Councils. Some laws like Education Policy, State Language, State Transport, can be made by the State without the interference of the Central Government.

            All laws should be true to the provisions of the Constitution of India. Any law which violates any of these provisions can be challenged in courts, including High Courts of respective States and the Supreme Court of India which is the Top Court of the Land .

            No State UT law becomes valid without the approval of the Governor/Lieutenant Governor and the National Law without the approval of the President of India.

            Under Federalism, it is desirable rather imperative for the Central Government to consult the States/UTs while making any new law or amending any old law. Unnecessary interference in the autonomy of the State/UT is expected to be avoided.        

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COMMUNISM

 

COMMUNISM

Briefly speaking communism is a political movement that believes in an economic system in which the state controls the means of producing everything on behalf of the people. It wants to create a society in which everyone is treated equally. It is opposed to capitalism in which a country’s business and industry are controlled and run for profit by private owners rather than by the government.

             Communism was first developed by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and his friend Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) in the middle of the nineteenth century. Both were German l philosophers who took a lot of interest in economic systems and were dead against the   exploitation of the workers. They jointly published the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

             Russia became the first communist state at the end of 1917. In 1922, the other territories of its empire also joined and became the Soviet Union. Subsequently many other countries adopted communism. Today only China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam are communist states. India has no communist state but it has two Communist Parties CPI and CPI (M).

            India has accepted communism partially, for example it has abolished landlordism, framed some pro-workers laws, given more and more recognitions to the rights and interests of the working classes. However, it could not communist philosophy about religion. Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people. It teaches them to accept status quo and believe in the Karma theory.  India could not promote atheism.  It is a multi-religious country which is secular and socialist but allows religious freedom to every citizen. Furthermore, it allows private business, industry and ownership of land and property which communism does not. In communism, the distribution of wealth and material products is according to one’s needs, but there is no agreement as to who will define and decide the needs.

            Indian political thinkers like Nehru and Gandhi shared Marx’s love for the poor and the down-trodden but they were against violent and unfair means of communism to achieve any relief.  In Marxism all types of methods are valid if they achieve the desired goals. Nehru and Gandhi believed that only good methods should be used for good aims.

            However, every country agrees with Karl Marx that the labouring classes should not be exploited and they should be paid the wages which they deserve for all types of productions and outputs.

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