Mystery / Myth of CHRISTMAS?

On the Fourth Advent Sunday, Fr Tony (the Confessor) celebrated the mass in the Parish. During the Homily he told us about the celebrations of Christmas from a different perspective. I personally liked the way the homily was put across to us, and so I feel like sharing it. Christmas celebration has been changing from time to time and from generation to generation.

Christmas is the feast for the entire humanity. It is the feast where God himself chose to be born as human to redeem the humanity. So it has been our great joy to celebrate the feast in great pomp and sound. Unfortunately this celebration has become today as merely a commercial event and a date to get together and to make merry. As a result the baby Jesus is given less priority and much less about our personal reflection on life.  

Gradually we have lost the mystery of Christmas where God becoming man and we only preoccupied with the myth of the Christmas. Well, what is this myth of Christmas? A good question to be asked. It is all about our concern about the events and things of Christmas. Especially of St Nicholas (Santa clause), crib, cards, cakes, clothes, carols and etc. Thus, we have made the Christmas celebration as if it is only of external preparation. Thus we are not preparing our hearts for the baby Jesus to enter into our hearts. In stead we are carried away by the myth of Christmas saying no to baby Jesus to enter into our hearts. This reflects the words of those inn keepers who told Joseph ‘There is no place in the inn.’

So les us think about the mystery of Christmas (incarnation) and celebrate Christmas accompanied by the myth of Christmas. Thus we make our Christmas more meaningful saying Come Lord Jesus and Dwell in my Heart.

Conditions of Prayer

We all know that prayer is an essential aspect in Life. Prayer is in a way very much part of our life. This is the same case in the life of Mother Mary, who in spite of the danger yet she completely trusted God and kept all her faith in God. She will teach us that Humility is the condition of Prayer. In all her humility she accepted the will of God not just blindly but trusting the grace and mercy of God.




Can we think of the condition of Prayer? I would say 'Yes' like MARY to God.

Prayer without feeling is mere impression and pleasing

Prayer without humility is pretense

Prayer without forgiveness is a show

Humbly acceptance of correction is a prayer.
When you are sensitive to the needs of the other is a prayer
To be humane (thank you, please and sorry) is an attitude of prayer.
Prayer need not always be of ceremonies and loud utterance of prayer
But, Prayer is about meaning and feeling for the other.

Mary the Crux of Covenant

The world today is in deep turmoil due to the communal violence and many other social and ethical ills. Today the human being in the world is preoccupied with the rat race of power, prestige and possession. As a result societies and states are losing the sense of values, morality and God. Thus, God has become a rare phenomenon in life, reduced to a concept in the modern and technological world. God is a concept, thought of only in times of need, danger, ill health, favors, jobs and rituals. Otherwise God is kept in the back seat as if he is a stranger to life. 

And to add fuel to the fire and to make things worse, the technology, scientism, new age thinkers, materialism, consumerism, individualism have crept into societies crumpling down the edifices of human values, social relations and the dignity of the families. This is seen very much when the youth and the students isolate themselves while using the latest technologies and social networks. It is no wonder that relationships have become very suspicious and inauthentic. Some so to the extent of making their identity with fake identities and some are threatened to reveal their real identity presuming danger. We can see this drastic change in societies as people are going away from Mandirs to Malls, Families to Restaurants, Class Rooms to Cafes, Priests to Celebrities, Masjid to Markets and Temples to trade  centers, etc. Therefore, the words of Kant are very true “the shallowness of the present age and of the decay of profound science; the doubt, security, indifference and criticism are the thoughts of this age. To this age of criticism everything is subjected, the sacredness of religion and authority of legislation become the subjects of suspicion.”

Today life in the cities, the sky scrapers, posh hotels like, esteemed restaurants, Glittering theatres, spacious Malls and luxurious mansions etc. are the common residence of the rich. The poor people are compartmentalized to the railway tracks, railway stations, fly-overs, road dividers, temples, slums and to the streets. All this reflects how God, Religion and values are eclipsed by the Google world as they have become irrelevant, insipid and dull to modern people. Therefore, at this crucial time the apostolic letter of the Holy Father Porta Fidei insists that the world is drastically in need of people of faith and witnesses who are enlightened in mind and heart by the word of God.  

Down the history we see philosophy at three levels: Egoistic Philosophy, Covenantal Philosophy (Catholics) and Anonymous Philosophy. All these philosophical quarries tried their best to explain what exactly the truth is. Western philosophy was more of egological, where ‘I think: I am and I think it is.’ The world is what I make of it. Hence, it is very ego-centric. The life in the cities is lived enclosed from the other and indulging in comfort zones and cocoons of individualism and consumerism. Thus life in this new age is changed as if we are indifferent to God. To put it simply we have reached even to the extent of living as if there is no God or as if God doesn’t exist.

The covenantal philosophy says that, God is not our choice as we think. It is not we electing and affirming God. In Judaism and Christianity God is seen as He is in search of man and our duty is to respond to his invitation. So it is God who takes the initiative in creation, sustaining and in salvation. With this initiative, He continues to seek humankind, asking us to turn to Him. He seeks us although we are busy like Eve and Adam satisfying ourselves and indulging with the apple of egoism, power, prestige and possession. Yet, God takes initiative to ask us, as he asked Eve and Adam Where are you? Gen 3: 9. He asks us, as he asked Cain Where is your brother? Gen 4:9.

We remember that, His initiative is greater than the human response. He is ever faithful to us, in spite of our unfaithfulness. Therefore his salvific plan is covenant that differs from the Contract. In this covenantal project we see 1 John 4: 10, “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has first loved us.”

The covenantal notion of God’s salvific plan entails a new horizon of the truth and reality. Jesus showed a new horizon by offering another cheek. This is the notion of responding to open the new horizons of which the other is ignorant. This way of opening a new horizon is not so easy to live and practice because it is not normal but it is very noble. It is noble because it is not a slave response but an extraordinary way of seeing the truth from the other dimension, like, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and John Paul II who lived such life. So, our task is not to see whether God is with us or not but whether we are with GOD.

Why am I saying all this? Because, it is the same case with the young girl Mary, which God had chosen as His mother. We must be clear that it was not Mary who chose God and Jesus to be conceived in her womb. Instead it was the will of God the Father. Now we are clear that it is God who takes initiative and we only respond. Therefore we see Mary responding to God completely, in the words “I am the hand maid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your will.”

How did Mary become the crux of the covenant? Mary is the crux of the covenant because, it is through her response and through her Yes, she opened the doors of salvation, which were closed by our first parents. Mary is not at all an extraordinary woman. She is a normal woman. But what distinguishes her from other women is her qualities and the values of heart, her humility, simplicity, charity and prayer life. Her life will teach us that humility is the condition of a prayerful life. With this attitude of humility Mary went to assist her cousin Elizabeth in need. With her sensitivity she realized the need at the wedding at Cana.

Her qualities of heart like humility, charity, sensitivity, gratitude are admirable. She is therefore honored by her devotees with numerous titles like, star of the sea, seat of wisdom and the queen of heaven etc. Mary though very young, had an extraordinary faith. She knew well that if Joseph came to know of her pregnancy and if he handed her over for adultery she would be stoned to death according to the law. If Joseph, on the contrary, did not offer her, but only divorced her, she would be thrown out of the house as no parent would keep their daughter who has committed such a crime in the house. Humanly speaking she had only one alternative. But she trusted in Yahweh and accepted the offer. Thus, she used her prudence in the extraordinary call of God.  In Mary’s case, her faith in God enabled her to accept God’s will in spite of great danger.  Thus, she teaches us that to have faith doesn’t mean to avoid problems and troubles but to encounter them and cope with the reality.

What is my life of faith as a Christian? Am I ready to accept God’s will in my regard, no matter what the future life in this world will bring for me?

Today Mary asks us to begin counting the blessings of God. Because, Mary, as the crux of the covenant realized that it is His Mercy and Love which brought her Immaculate Conception and glorious coronation.

I would like to bring to your notice of the Questions of our covenantal God to our First Parents and Cain. Where are you? & Where is your brother?                        Thank You - Naresh Neelam.

Death is not an End but..

Today (07/10/2012) I am thinking about life and death in the world. Both of these words are very abstract in description but very real in the world. Well, why am I telling all these  things. Yesterday in my neighboring community there is an old missionary nun Sr Maria Marketi passed away. Basically she hails from Italy and lived most of her life in India and served many youngsters and inspired many sisters in her congregation (F.M.A)

So, beings a Christian I believe that life is very real as much as the death in the world. Now  the question is what is life and what is death? Many of us usually say life is full of energy and action where as death is absence of life. Meaning to say death is nothing but non-experience, non-function of all the senses. I think this is indeed true.

But for me life is a grace and blessing. Life is service and life is attending our brothers and sisters and not attending to others. To simplify it Life is to live and let live. On the other hand Death is nothing but the moment where our body reaches to the highest point of degeneration of our body and regeneration of our soul. All the strength, energy and power and potentialities of our body reaches to the point where no more our power and energy, function no more. This certainly reminds us that all that we are is absolutely not ours but is of somebody else's. That somebody is none other than God Himself. Because only God is full of energy and power and mercy for all eternity. The power of God we can see through the magnanimity of the Angles who are amazing to our senses. The mercy of God is shown in His creation and in the humanity. Now the important thing is that God is not so much concerned about his power but he is passionately concerned about his MERCY. Why God is so much concerned about his Mercy?  Because we are all created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore, God is sure and certain that he is concerned about his creation and the men and women who are the crown of his creation.

So, in death we are not separated from God but rather through our death we move closer to God to have a face to face encounter with our Father and Creator. He is waiting for all of us return to him than go away from him in SIN. Thus death becomes a door to our Salvation than an obstacle. Thus death is not an end of life but change of life to a higher level into perfection.

MEANING AS CONSTITUTIVE OF COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNION: LONERGAN

Today seeking meaning in life is a common phenomenon that we all come across. Now it is sought in things, gadgets, celebrities, movies, sports, drinks, music, business and what not. Thus we have reached a state where meaning is to be found very instantly and immediately. The picture aptly depicts the attitude of today’s new generation where meaning is to be found totally out side the self and end up terribly disappointed, discouraged and disgusted. Some prominent examples can be that of Michael Jackson, Whiney Houston, Marilyn Monroe and Tiger Woods etc. What was missing in their life? What could be the reason why they failed to strike the balance between life/career and meaning? In this multimedia era finding meaning is very crucial and challenging. In this context Victor Frankel is one person who inspires me with his life; in spite of struggles he lived his life with a purpose. In this regard there are so many others like, Hellen Keller, Mother Teresa, John Paul II, Steve Jobbs, Buffet, Bekham, Lionnel Messi, Abdul Kalam etc. In this context I have personally consulted two special people to know what is meaning and how can we find meaning in life from their perspective.

Fr Tony: Life is to be lived and looked from two dimensions: to live for the other and the society. To realize the spiritual dimension that is deep with in all. The task is to make the youth realize this.

Cl Mylin: Stop seeking instant success, have a sense of humor/ optimism, genuine friendship rather than lax relationships, above all seeking proper guidance is prerequisite to making life worth living.

After having seen what is the meaning of life from two persons’ perspective, let us delve now what Bernard Lonergan says of Meaning. In 1965 lectures at Marquette University, Lonergan lays out some of the ideas as a major shift from Insight to Method in Theology. He stresses a lot on meaning, culture poetry and other symbolic aspects. He distinguishes four realms of meaning: Common sense is where meaning is expressed in everyday or ordinary language.  Theory is where meaning is expressed in technical language. Interiority is where meaning rests upon self-appropriation, attending not only to objects but also attending subjects. Transcendence is where meaning emerges through the language of prayer and relation to divinity.  

Lonergan discovers meaning through common sense makes a difference in the real lives of individuals and cultures by discovering the realms of interiority and theory. Therefore, meaning sums up in insight, understanding and judgment which is communicated and mediated through the carriers of meaning inter-subjectivity, art, symbols, linguistic and incarnate. To derive an authentic meaning in life one must be attentive to what goes on within oneself, the feelgs and images that form within. Because feelings are like links to express and discover mind, body and heart. The symbols are channels between mind, body and heart which help to communicate and perceive meaning. Thus one goes beyond mere symbols/images and takes the linguistic meaning.  

INTER-SUBJECTIVITY: ‘We’ that result from the mutual love of an “I” and a “thou”, there is the “we” that precedes the distinction of subjects. This prior “we” is vital and functional as inter-subjectivity. This becomes much clearer, when a person spontaneously raises one’s hand to save from a blow, one reaches out to a child found with a knife, when a person sees a child on the road s/he naturally saves the child from the stream of vehicles. Thus inter-subjectivity is not only spontaneously mutual but also in some of the ways through which feelings are communicated in community and fellow-feeling like sorrow felt by both parents for their dead child and the fellow feeling felt by a third party moved by the sorrow.  Examples of this are Prayerful attitude of the others, grief/laugh/sickness of one.   

INTERSUBJECTIVE MEANING: Lonergan explains this by an image of a smile. Smile is not a combination of movements of lips, facial muscles and the eyes but a combination with a meaning. This meaning is different from the meaning of a frown, stare, glare and a laugh. We don’t smile at all whom we see on the streets. Smile is highly perceptible and has orientation and selects a meaning. Eg. One can converse with a friend on a noisy street.  Both the meaning of a smile and the act of smiling are natural and spontaneous. The meaning of a smile is made on our own and this does not change from the culture to culture like the meaning of the gestures. For example removing the hat is contextual in British culture but in India it has no referential meaning at all.  

ART: is defined as the objectification of a purely experiential pattern. Now the pattern of the perceived is also the pattern of the perceiving and the pattern of the perceiving is an experiential pattern. For example at the red signal light the brake goes on and at the green light the accelerator is pressed down. Thus our senses can function in the service of scientific intelligence. The meaning lies within the consciousness of the artist but, at first, it is only implicit, folded up, veiled, unrevealed. The process of objectifying involves detachment, distinction, separation from experience. While a smile or frown expresses inter-subjectively and artistic composition recollects emotion in tranquility.

SYMBOLS: For Lonergan the image of real or imaginary objects evoke a feeling. Feelings are related to objects as one desires food, fears pain, enjoys a meal, and regrets a friend’s illness or death. Feelings are related to one another through personal relationships: love, gentleness, tenderness and intimacy. In communication symbols display a proper meaning that is not yet objectified as the meaning of the smile prior to a phenomenology of the smile or the meaning in the purely experiential pattern prior to its expression in art. So, to explain the symbols is to go beyond the symbols. It is to effect the transition from an elemental meaning in an image to a linguistic meaning projected in historical monuments and memories  such as the Tajmahal, Cross, Photos, Statues, Relics, Gifts, Awards and Historical Structures.

LINGUISTIC MEANING: Here meaning finds its greatest liberation in language. For example, Helen Kellers’s discovery of the successive touches made on her hands by her teacher conveyed names of the objects. The moment when she first caught on was marked by the expression of profound emotion and bore fruit in an interest signifying the desire to learn. Here we see the new aspect of naming which is important. That conscious intentionality develops and is molded by the mother tongue. It is not merely learn the names of what we see but also we can attend to and talk about things by naming them. Thus language molds and develops our consciousness. 

INCARNATE MEANING: Cor ad cor lonquitur. Here the meaning of a person is found in the way of life, words and deeds. It holds the meaning for one person or for a whole nation, social, cultural and religious tradition like group achievement, Christian martyrs, Religious Life. It can be originated from the whole personality and lifestyle. A person finds meaning in what is accomplished than bothering about what could be done; like that of a farmer who is happy with his work. We have wonderful examples in the Holy Scriptures, Soldiers, Doctors and Mother, who have found meaning in what they loved to do. So, meaning is within and not to be found something out there but within. Thus meaning has an intrinsic element.   

Conclusion: The meaning of life is pretty straightforward to state. Because life is meaningful according to the meaning you give to it when you make room for purpose, values and efficacy in life. In the line of Purpose: is very essential and prerequisite for a meaningful life. This helps to live happily in whatever work that we do and find joy. Thus the meaning in life comes by climbing one’s set goals and beating the challenges by turning them into opportunities. Values: values are formed from the moral structure that distinguishes the right and wrong for the public and common good. Values can be cultivated through education, awareness, religion, family and authentic friends and relationships. Efficacy: when we speak of efficacy what matters is, not how long one lived but rather how well one lived and thus left a legacy for the rest to follow. This is what I would like to call living differently and thinking differently. It’s like Shiv Khera telling in You Can Win “successful people don’t do different things but they do things differently.”  

We find our life meaningful in our family, work, hobbies and other things. Thus meaning plays the fundamental role in human communication mutually mediated by meaning in the community. Thus Lonergan finds meaning in perceiving, appropriating, sharing and receiving by one another in the community and not all alone. Thus meaning is constitutive of human community and communication. It is created and shared in inter-subjectivity. Likewise meaning is constituted in human community and communication. William Stewart writes “meaning is what you understand by a given word.” Although external word refers to an interior meaning; for him meaning is not out there now. 

Meaning must be discovered before it can be shared. Lonergan stresses this discovery of meaning by the subject. The self makes a gesture, the other makes an interpretive response and the self discovers in the response the effective meaning of his gesture. So meaning is something that is interior to a person.  Interiority of meaning is revealed as one passing from an infant’s world of immediacy to the world mediated by meaning. Meaning is socially constructed and socially transmitted from generation to generation. Therefore meaning is very much a prerequisite for a purposeful life. Lack of meaning in life will end fatally and miserably. Therefore to avoid this we must cultivate the above mentioned virtues, qualities and the dispositions proposed by the people who are wise and prudent having experienced life effectively and affectively in the dimensions of spiritual, social and emotional.  If we live with a purpose in mind that entails values and dispositions with effective maturity and behavioral attitude I am sure the dream of Lonergan for meaning as constitutive of communication and communion will be realized in harmonious and purpose full living.  

MUSIC THAT IS SOUNDLESS

Music Within...is the Voice of God.....

Music that is soundless is a translation of a line from a poem of the mystic John of the Cross by the author Philip McShane. The title is taken purely from the poem “The music without sound/The solitude that clamours.” Very interestingly at one pint the book unfolds the truth that all of us, the entire creation (each member, each group, all are a wave in the eternal truth. He considers life as a crystal tear-drop on which snow falling in the tear-drop and little figures trudging around in slow motion. If we only look into those tear drops for the next million years, we will never figure out who the people are, and what they are doing. Sometimes we sit lonesome for a storm. A full blown storm where everything changes. The sky goes through four days in an hour, the trees wail, little animals skitter in the mud and everything gets dark and completely wild. This he says, God playing music in his favourite cathedral in heaven-thundering on the keys – perfect harmony and perfect symphony and perfect joy. If we are attuned to our self, the other and the nature I am sure will begin to find meaning of the word God growing in our hearts.

He tells us a method by which we begin to understand God. For this he gives an example of the scientific understanding of the self. Just as a blind man cannot understand a disquisition on colours, so a person with no experience of direct understanding cannot be expected to reach by introspection an understanding of what direct understanding is: and similarly a person without experience of introspective understanding cannot be expected to reach by an introspecting of the second order and understanding of what introspective understanding is. One must begin from the performance, if one is to have the experience necessary for understanding what the performance is.”

This is how Bernard Lonergan has explained about the scientific self-meaning of God. Further he adds all ‘Music calls to an ear not the musician’s own, all sculpture to an eye not the sculptor’s, architecture in addition calls to the step as it walks in the building. To summarise, God is Understanding, has a meaning towards which one is oriented by self-appreciation, that it has a meaning which is the meaning of each man’s history and all men’s history, of history and eternity. So we can speak of God as Understanding where one means also LOVE, JOY, DELIGHT, LIFE, ATTENTION etc. Therefore God is the unrestricted act of understanding, the eternal rapture glimpsed in every Archimedian cry of Eureka. So God is glimpsed too in human love and human joy. But if God is glimpsed in the contemporary world it is perhaps partly because there is something inadequate, something sick, about human love and human joy, human aspiration and human meeting. 

Our Creed (Faith) Entails our Deeds

Our Creed (Faith) Entails our Deed

Our Christian faith is a gift of God that strengthens us in Christ individually and collectively. The same faith leads one to cherish personally and share this gratuitous gift with the others in the community. For this common cause the Catholic Church disposes the Liturgy in which the faith is celebrated and shared individually and collectively. As a result, faith becomes a profound belief in the Risen Christ whom we encounter in the event of the Eucharist, as person of Christ himself who humbled down to the simple form of Bread and Wine that we share in communion. Thus, faith is both a personal act that needs to be lived and communicated to the world at large. This is very tangible in the words of St Paul (2 Tim 1: 12) “I know Him in whom I have believed.”

There was a story of a peasant which heard in my early childhood, which I feel wroth sharing with you now. He was a poor peasant lived in a small village. But it was interesting that he was noted for his daily labour and at the same time his trust in God in his own humble manner. So, everyday on his way to the farm land he would stop at the entrance of the gates of the Church and make the sign of the cross and then would go to his work. And again on his return to home he would stop at the gate of the Church and thank God for the day’s labour and would make the sign of the cross and go to his house. This had been his regular practice of day irrespective of sun, shower or wind. Thus he was faithful to his work and worship.

Well, now what I would like to drive home from this small anecdote is very simple. It is just like the letter of St James which tells the Jewish Christians that if it is the real Faith, it will lead to the faithful living. Therefore, for me FAITH is that ties up both my creed and my deed, like the farmer who believed the hand of God in his work and in his work the hand of God. This implies to all of us that we have to give our best in all that we take up and leave the rest to God, just like the farmer, the sowing of the seed was his responsibility, the watering of the seed too was his responsibility but the little green sapling arising from the seed is God’s responsibility. Therefore, Faith teaches us that, once we have done our best, then God will surely do the rest. In this manner faith is simply letting our work in God and letting God in our work just like that of a poor peasant whose work and faith was tied up together.  

St James in his letter (Jas 2: 14-18) says that, Faith is the precious gift of God that nourishes us to savor the love of God at all circumstances irrespective of trails tribulations and triumphs. Because faith without charity bears no fruit, therefore faith and charity each require the other to bear witness Christ like the apostles who fearlessly radiated the word of God across the world. In this regard for us Christians, Jesus is the perfect model of faith because, He was faithful to the Father from the very time he was conceived till the time He was crucified and as a result he was resurrected from the dead as a perfect model for us to look up to him in faith.

Don Bosco for example was indeed an icon for us to imitate him in his faithful living of his/our Master Jesus in a unique way. We see Don Bosco as a powerful communicator of faith in Jesus to the young people. It was very tangible when he used to insist upon the holy sacraments, especially of the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation that which bind them all in the perfect faith in Christ. Therefore, this year of faith is an opportunity for me and for all of us to turn towards Jesus Christ, and encounter him in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and thus we shall rediscover the Faith that we live in Christ.  

We see the world today in deep turmoil and unstable due to the communal violence and many other social and ethical issues which hamper the peace and cause blood shed at the cost of many innocent lives. At this crucial time the apostolic letter of the Holy Father Porta Fidei insists that world is drastically in need of the people of faith and credible witnesses who are enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord to pray and foster the peace and security of all in grace and mercy of God. Thus may our faith in Christ lead us and guide us to foster harmony and equality of all through our faith entailed by faith.

Dear friends in Christ you can catch up with the Holy See’s dedicated web site for the Year of Faith, which provides ample information over the topic:

www.annusfidei.va/content/novaevangelizatio/en.html

May the peace of the Risen Lord reign over our lives…Amen…

Naresh Neelam

Thank You

Existence is Victory over Non-Existence

Well, the title is taken from the the words of St Thomas Aquinas the doctor of the catholic Church. He is a great theologian and a philosopher who gave the philosophical reasons to prove how the life/existence is precious on the face of the earth. Indeed it is very true and in agree to his valuable words. The very fact that we are existing is the fact that we have defeated the nonexistence by which there is the victory of life over non-life. Besides this Thomas Aquinas tells us that human mind or the intellect is ever great on this face of the earth if compared to any existing being. 

interdependency

"no man can live as an island" goes an old adage. it indeed true to hundred percentage. for, we all try to live on our own yet we depend upon the others for we cannot but do. 

At the Lap of the Mother Nature

On 23rd March as I was working in our lotus pond (lawn) something captured my mind. I was assigned there to keep the place clean. Since the summer is setting in the trees began to shed the leaves and as we know the place under the trees filled with dry leaves, dry branches and flowers. As I was sweeping the lawn there were many thoughts that were going on in the mind. Something that creped in my mind was a saying that I heard in my school days, “god gives and so the nature gives, God forgives but nature will never forgive.” I hope the message is clear especially as we are the witnesses of the global warming. Besides this, as I was cleaning or sweeping and collecting the Asoka leaves, I suddenly remembered the saying “every dog has it’s day” of course it is in the wrong context but all the same if it cab be applied here each leaf has been the part of the tree but now such leaves are down dried having no sap. I noticed as the wind is strong the leaves rhythmically following down. Such leaves teach a lot. Today this has become a meditative thought for me. After cleaning the lawn I moved to the lotus pond which has got around a dozen lotus flowers. Here the pond became rather dirty due to the dry leaves in the pond. So, I was trying to clean the pond and remove the dry leaves. As I was removing the dry leaves from the water again to my great surprise the water was almost stinking. Yet it is amazing to the lotus fully bloomed on the surface of the pond. I saw keenly into the water, aging to my surprise there were many buds that were getting ready to come out and bloom. I knew that the lotus blooms on the water or rather dirty water. But I never knew that even the preparation to bloom comes out from in side, irrespective of dirt, smell, shade, clean or muddy. It is a great learning for me to realize the lessons of the nature in all its humility and gentleness. The nature is one of the best teachers of the world provided we are keen enough to learn from her invariable teaching.

Learn from me for I am Gentle and Humble in Heart

Today the youth think that they know everything. But they realize later that they knew so little and to be known is vast. Why am I saying this? It is because, very often the youth seemingly speak rash and harsh. They speak like that just because the other is taking their precious time and energy by asking for a favor or begging for little help. They have no time to render their help to the the other but they spend hours and hours spending time at their P.C, Video games or watching television. As Heraclitus rightly said that the world is in a state of flux. Yes the world is in a state of flux not exactly as he meant physically but today it is very true if we notice our behavior, attitude, culture, habits, food and what not. 
Dear friends I myself am not clear about the change and the state of life that we are living today. When God created the the earth and heaven he said that it was all good to his sight. But are we sure that the same God, to say the same thing today while looking at the world. I at times wonder and doubt if Jesus would have lived on this earth today, I don't know how will be facing the world today.