Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.
These words are from the Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Two Solitudes
"Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other"
-Ranier Maria Rilke
-Ranier Maria Rilke
Easter Special
March 5,2008
Today at my office 5.00 pm,I was seriously breaking my brains to get ideas to write the skeleton for a case study. There is only one christian apart from me in my office. Her name is Kondamal, the house keeping lady. A 40+ year old very devout christian women, always kind and very soft spoken. She used to do all the cleaning, sweeping, toilet cleaning at my office. She often rejoices when talking about Christ to all at office. Very openly she will share about prayer, her christian beliefs and church to all.
Today she brought a tamil bible to my collegue and asked my colleague to explain the scripture. My colleague asked me to explain as I am a christian.
I asked, "Is it a bible passage?". My colleague said, "you are a christian, you should be able to explain"
As often with me, I thought, how am I going to explain this?, what passage it is?.....etc..
She showed me the bible passage in the tamil bible said, "Arun Sir, this is the one page that I am getting everytime I opened the bible. Can you just explain?"
I said, "Ma, It is in tamil, you do know to read tamil, right? or you know how to read only in Telugu?".
She ( her mother tongue is telugu, not tamil) said, "Sir, I don't know how to read telugu. Tamil, I'm trying to read by adding the tamil aphabets. My parents and my grand parents never allowed us to go to school or taught to us."
I said," Ma, I will just read the passage, ok?" meaning, that I won't give any explanation. She gleefully nodded her head.
I read the scripture she showed me to read as best as I could in tamil. I was reading from my table. She was leaning towards my table.
The scripture I read to her is:
1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.
4Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." 5When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"
6As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!"
But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."
John 19:1-6.
Suddenly, I heard some sound, I just looked up at her. Both her eyes was filled with tears and tears were just streaming down.
Realising that I saw her, she just wiped her tears and with smiles displaying all over her face, tilting her head (meaning thanks to me) took the bible from my hand and left.Inside me, sensing the impact of this small incident, I started wondering....
God, are we missing something?
Today at my office 5.00 pm,I was seriously breaking my brains to get ideas to write the skeleton for a case study. There is only one christian apart from me in my office. Her name is Kondamal, the house keeping lady. A 40+ year old very devout christian women, always kind and very soft spoken. She used to do all the cleaning, sweeping, toilet cleaning at my office. She often rejoices when talking about Christ to all at office. Very openly she will share about prayer, her christian beliefs and church to all.
Today she brought a tamil bible to my collegue and asked my colleague to explain the scripture. My colleague asked me to explain as I am a christian.
I asked, "Is it a bible passage?". My colleague said, "you are a christian, you should be able to explain"
As often with me, I thought, how am I going to explain this?, what passage it is?.....etc..
She showed me the bible passage in the tamil bible said, "Arun Sir, this is the one page that I am getting everytime I opened the bible. Can you just explain?"
I said, "Ma, It is in tamil, you do know to read tamil, right? or you know how to read only in Telugu?".
She ( her mother tongue is telugu, not tamil) said, "Sir, I don't know how to read telugu. Tamil, I'm trying to read by adding the tamil aphabets. My parents and my grand parents never allowed us to go to school or taught to us."
I said," Ma, I will just read the passage, ok?" meaning, that I won't give any explanation. She gleefully nodded her head.
I read the scripture she showed me to read as best as I could in tamil. I was reading from my table. She was leaning towards my table.
The scripture I read to her is:
1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.
4Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." 5When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"
6As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!"
But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."
John 19:1-6.
Suddenly, I heard some sound, I just looked up at her. Both her eyes was filled with tears and tears were just streaming down.
Realising that I saw her, she just wiped her tears and with smiles displaying all over her face, tilting her head (meaning thanks to me) took the bible from my hand and left.Inside me, sensing the impact of this small incident, I started wondering....
God, are we missing something?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
What is your message?
Once, while Mahatma Gandhi's train was pulling slowly out of the station, a European reporter ran up to his compartment window. 'Do you have a message I can take back to my people?' he asked. It was Gandhi's day of silence, a vital respite from his demanding speaking schedule, so he didn't reply. Instead, he scrawled a few words on a scrap of paper and passed it to the reporter: "My Life is my message"
- Eknaath Easwaran
- Eknaath Easwaran
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
!!!
"In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possession and human success, but rather on how much we have loved."
St. John of the Cross, 1542-1591
Christian Philosopher from Spain
St. John of the Cross, 1542-1591
Christian Philosopher from Spain
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
One Article - Worth Reading!
"Being Loved Anyway"
From time to time, my Uncle Mike likes to pass along the wisdom of one generation to another.
On the subject of enduring love, for example, he and my aunt are models of believability. They like each other. They have a good time together. And they have managed it for roughly 41 years.
When someone asks him the secret, he is more than willing to share the fact that he modelled his own success on his father's. "My father would get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, 'You're no bargain.'"
Perhaps I'm just tired of people who pick at each other's imperfections like pimples. Perhaps I know too many people trying to work out if their partner is living up to expectations. But I think Uncle Mike is on to something.
If you start your day looking your own flaws in the face, you might work up a very good appetite of gratitude before breakfast. If you know you're the one with more faults in the morning, by evening you could be overflowing with appreciation for someone who actually loves you anyway. From my own, not particularly vast, experience and my uncle's advice it seems that this is the glue of any long-term attachments: Being Loved Anyway.
There are at least two ingredients to the sticky business:
(1)You have to know your own worst, and
(2)You have to find someone who also know it, but doesn't think it's all that awful.
Being Loved Anyway, you see, is not being regarded as perfect but being accepted as imperfect.
I don't suppose that sounds very romantic. Other people may want sonnetc, flowers, and adoration. But frankly, adoration would make me nervous. I'd keep waiting to be discovered.
I have a divorced friend who got involved with a man who was in awe of her. It was outrageously flattering- for about three months. The problem was she could'nt shout at her children in front of him. The problem was, she had to keep washing her hair. She simply could'nt live up to it.
If there is a constant in life, it must be the human fear of being unlovable. Insecurity was invented by the first child who was caught misbehaving and asked his mother, "Do you love me anyway?"
That child lives in all of us. That child is the one making the decision every day between the safety of hiding and the risk of being discovered but Being Loved Anyway.
We are told people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has to be forgiveness and gratefulness. The understanding that, though you're not perfect, you love and you are loved. Anyway.
-Ellen Goodman
(a syndicated columnist, was awarded America's Pulitzer Prize in 1980)
Excerpt from Reader's Digest "Treasury of Wit & Wisdom" Collection
From time to time, my Uncle Mike likes to pass along the wisdom of one generation to another.
On the subject of enduring love, for example, he and my aunt are models of believability. They like each other. They have a good time together. And they have managed it for roughly 41 years.
When someone asks him the secret, he is more than willing to share the fact that he modelled his own success on his father's. "My father would get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, 'You're no bargain.'"
Perhaps I'm just tired of people who pick at each other's imperfections like pimples. Perhaps I know too many people trying to work out if their partner is living up to expectations. But I think Uncle Mike is on to something.
If you start your day looking your own flaws in the face, you might work up a very good appetite of gratitude before breakfast. If you know you're the one with more faults in the morning, by evening you could be overflowing with appreciation for someone who actually loves you anyway. From my own, not particularly vast, experience and my uncle's advice it seems that this is the glue of any long-term attachments: Being Loved Anyway.
There are at least two ingredients to the sticky business:
(1)You have to know your own worst, and
(2)You have to find someone who also know it, but doesn't think it's all that awful.
Being Loved Anyway, you see, is not being regarded as perfect but being accepted as imperfect.
I don't suppose that sounds very romantic. Other people may want sonnetc, flowers, and adoration. But frankly, adoration would make me nervous. I'd keep waiting to be discovered.
I have a divorced friend who got involved with a man who was in awe of her. It was outrageously flattering- for about three months. The problem was she could'nt shout at her children in front of him. The problem was, she had to keep washing her hair. She simply could'nt live up to it.
If there is a constant in life, it must be the human fear of being unlovable. Insecurity was invented by the first child who was caught misbehaving and asked his mother, "Do you love me anyway?"
That child lives in all of us. That child is the one making the decision every day between the safety of hiding and the risk of being discovered but Being Loved Anyway.
We are told people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has to be forgiveness and gratefulness. The understanding that, though you're not perfect, you love and you are loved. Anyway.
-Ellen Goodman
(a syndicated columnist, was awarded America's Pulitzer Prize in 1980)
Excerpt from Reader's Digest "Treasury of Wit & Wisdom" Collection
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