My Thoughts, Observations and Readings

  “He is waking up very late in the morning, hurriedly gets ready for the office, and goes very fast on his bike ….” -  My friend Keerthi complained about her son while speaking with me yesterday. I could sense she was worrying about her son’s health and safety when she shared that. This is not only with him, this is the sleep pattern of many people now, particularly after COVID. The impact of COVID has not yet settled. I would like to give you a gentle caution on the after-effects of the disruptions we are making in our sleep-wake patterns.  Before COVID toppled down our life to 180 degrees, we woke up at a fixed time, we ate at regular intervals, and had enough physical activities(Exceptions were there!). But, during the COVID lockdown period, everything was turned upside down. With no specific objective for the day, we were lacking the motivation to stick to a disciplined lifestyle. During that time, for many of us, the normal sleep time has been shifted beyond midnigh...

  Being honest - is it not a fundamental quality of every individual, what do you say? That’s why we are educating our children, to be honest in any situation. We have several stories, sharing which, we have been trying to inculcate honesty in our children. But, in the current generation, we could see some changes. The students doing malpractices in the examinations has become very common now. The worst thing is students attending the online interview are also involved in malpractice. Is it not dishonesty? Recently, I came to know that one reputed and top-ranking IT company has implemented a rule that if any student is involved in any kind of malpractice, he will not be recruited by the company not only that time, during his entire lifetime he can not enter any of their branches in the entire world.  Honesty should be ensured,it should be an inbuilt feature with every one of us, right? Husband telling lies to the wife, wife hiding certain things from the husband, chastity itse...

  Let me share an interesting anecdote I read in a monthly magazine, which helps us to understand that linear growth is possible only for the human being and for all the others (the physical or material things, the plants and the animals) the growth is only cyclic.   If you look at the physical or material things, they are constitution-based and you can see only formation and deformation..  There is growth in the plants and trees, but the growth is cyclic in them. A seed grows into a sapling,  a tree, then dies, and goes back into the soil.  The same happens with the animals also, right? They are born to a particular breed, grow as the breed, and die as that breed. A lion is born as a lion, grows as a lion, and dies as a lion! But, for us, the human being, the growth is linear! We may be born into a middle-class family, but we can scale such heights in this lifetime by bringing about an industrial revolution. We may be born to illiterate parents, but we can die ...

  Recently I read a story on the power of forgiveness. I’m sure it would bridge the rift caused in any of your relationships. Two brothers lived on their farms side by side for nearly 50 years. They always worked in their fields together, shared their knowledge, and lent a helping hand to one another in times of need. One day all of a sudden,  a foolish argument caused a rift between them. When they dragged on this small misunderstanding, they started exchanging angry words and they stopped talking to each other. One day, there came a carpenter asking the elder brother - ‘Do you have anything to repair on your farm?’ The elder brother told him that he had to build a 10-foot fence as he didn’t want to see his brother’s face who had changed the path of the creek which seemed like a border between their farms. The carpenter had agreed and started his work. When the elder brother came out in the evening, he was shocked to see a bridge that was built upon the creek making a path fo...

  We all eat food, right? Can you tell for what purpose we eat food? Is it for nurturing the body or is it just for the taste or for showcasing that we are eating in a star hotel or because someone told us the food is tasty in a particular hotel? What is the purpose of the physical facilities, the food we eat, the house we live in, the dress we wear, the vehicles we have etc. If you think deeply, you can see the purpose of such physical facilities are:  Nurturing the body Protecting the body and  Right utilisation of the body. What do you say? Is there any other purpose for the physical facilities that we are using? Just look around your house and see the things there. If you ask whether that is nurturing or protecting your body or used for the right utilisation of your body, you will be wondering at those many things that we do not need at all!  I feel sorry to say, I have many many such things at home which we have not used for any purpose for a long time! Actually...