Two People.

Consider the following two types of people, we would always want to be like one of these type ourselves but which on should it be???

The first is a person who does not do anything wrong, he does not hurt anybody, follows all the rules of his religion, follows all the laws and does as he is told to do by others(as long as its not against the law), even though some of the things he does may be not what he intends to do but is forced to do so due to pressure from say the govt./religoin/etc., i.e. this is a person who tries his best to make everyone happy even though he himself may not be getting a good deal out of this.

The second is a person who would rather try to change the world when he feels something is not right. This person would stand up for what he feels is right and fight for it. This person wouldn't care if anybody else is hurt or discomforted by his views. This person would keep fighting till he gets what he wants.

Which person would you want to be???
The first is a person who leads a perfect life from every ones point of view. He has hurt no one, broken no law, done nothing wrong.
The second is a person with an identity of his own. He wouldn't care about the rest of the world's viewpoint, as long as what he feels is correct. Mahatma Gandhi was a person of the second type. So were Hitler and any other murderous killers.

Something Cool

This is an interesting passage from the Chhandogya Upanishad. Here he refers to the sun.

"The sun never sets or rises. When people think to themselves the sun is setting, he only changes about after reaching the end of the day, and makes night below and day to what is on the other side. Then when people think he rises in the morning, he only shifts himself about after reaching the end of the night, and makes day below and night to what is on the other side. In fact he never sets at all."

The Satan In Me

-Nitish N5

Everything in my mind,
Is a mystery,
Happiness, joy, sadness are just simple things,
I know nothing of what is deep within.

I always thought that I had angels in my soul,
Making me happy and good was their goal.
But I started to feel when I committed the sin,
That there is something else that my mind has deep within.

It makes me feel that I am somebody else,
It tells me to think of myself and nobody else,
My life is not to be wasted on lesser mortals,
Says it, I should strive to make myself immortal.

It tries to remove any compassion from me,
It strives to make my anger go free.
It aims to make me lust for more,
It works so that I have a conscience no more.

But it also brings the fire in my eyes,
It gives me determination to take on the world,
It makes my dreams go to infinity,
It ensures that my greed has no finity.

It gives me the reason for my existence,
For this I can give it no resistance.
Even the perfect man also has a bit,
Even the Creator wouldn't say there's no one without it.

It is the same thing the people have in their lives,
Which makes them determined to change other's lives.
It made sure Hitler never said sorry,
It got Mike Tyson to achieve world glory.

I know for sure that I'm nobody without it in me
For it is, The Satan In Me.

-Nitish N5

This is in reply to Sriwardhans post on the "ae10-friends" blog

RE - U may or may not believe in God. If you do, you are free to look upon God in any form u like. You are allowed to define God......

Which God do we choose for making such a definition? For we would always like to chose one among the existing religions so we can just modify the philosophy rather than create our own God with our own definition.And most inportantly our definition of God may not match with the existing notions of God.This has caused so much of problems such as:-

1)M.F. Hussian and Laxmi/Saraswati
2)Baba RamRahim Singh and Guru Gobind Singh
3)Protestant and Catholic Christianity
4)Taslima Nasreen and Salmaan Rushdie and Islam
5)Yesudas and Guruvayoorappan
6)Judaism-Christianity-Islam

Our definitions of God must bewithin the existing constraints of the religion we follow or the one we wish to follow. New definitions of existing gods will never work. And starting our own personal religion is not as easy since we are not obliged to do anything good for anyone but ourselves.

Ponder on This

This is a story by Jalal-ud-din Rumi a Sufi. Many of us would have read this but it is what follows from this story that is important.

There was a country where there was a city entirely inhabited by blind people. One day the news came that an elephant was passing outside the walls of the city. The citizens held a meeting and decided to send a delegation of three men outside the gates so that they could report back to the city what an elephant was. The three men left the town, found the elephant and felt the animal with their hands. Then they all returned back to their town to report what they had felt.

The first man said:"The elephant is like a snake, but it can stand vertically upright in the air!"

The second man said:"The elephant is like a pillar. It is firm and round and solid. No matter how much you push you cannot knock it over."

The third man said:"The elephant is like a broad pankah (a fan). It is wide flat and leathery. "

All the three men stuck to their story and argued with each other till they vowed to never speak to each other. Each professed that they and they alone knew the whole truth.But we know that each person had felt only a part of the elephant. The first had felt the tail, the second the leg and the third the ear. All had a part of the truth, but none of them had begun to grasp the totality or the greatness of the beast. If they had listened to each other, they might have realized the true nature of the beast. But they were too proud and instead they preferred to keep to their half truths.
So it is with religion. Muslims see Allah in one way, Hindus have a different conception, and the Christians have a third. To us, all our different conceptions seem incompatible and irreconcilable. But what we forget is that to God we are like blind men stumbling around in total darkness.