Lord Krishna' Mantra to the Pandavas

Its said 'to Test is the Lord's Taste'. The cynics will question 'why should good people suffer?' Well then if one has to climb the ladder of perfection ( you may call it self realisation) obstacles are but natural. There is more joy in climbing then spending time at the top.( do you agree with me?) To the question of the cynics the answer is that one may have pain but need not necessarily suffer. The tribulations take one to oneself.
In this understanding the exile that the Pandavas had to undergo can be accepted in the way one likes. But the tool or the accessory given by Krishna to His beloved Pandavas as they started their trial was just a piece of leaf folded safely to be opened only when the times of trouble were really troubling and all options had been exercised.

One fine day when the Pandavas were in a great fix ( may be similar to the one when Sage Durvasa visited with his 16000 disciples) and all the ways seemed to be blocked they remembered their Saviour Krishna and taking His name with devotion and reverence opened the Mantra. It read 'This too shall pass away'.

So simple yet so helpful at the time of need when the neurons of the brain are all clogged up and refuse to process any signal. Just stop and put attention on Him for a while and let the moment pass in His thought and He Shall Take Care. The formula works if we take our attention to Him at the times of distress. Many a times the distress overwhelms us totally in which case suffering is the result.

Only persistence can help to maintain the minimum sanity at the time of need.

Here is something that has kept me up thinking many a times. Am sure this is a must read all 'down' times just like the mantra Lord Krishna had given to the Pandavas. (Shall post it later)

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got
due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983.
From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed:
"Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: "The world over 5 crore children start playing
tennis, 50 lakh learn to play tennis, 5 lakh learn professional tennis,
50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon,
4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD
"Why me?".
And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"


Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong, Sorrow keeps you Human,
Failure Keeps you humble and Success keeps you glowing, but only Faith &
Attitude Keeps you Going..

What is character? what is the
exact definitation of it? How can one judge on
this parameter so as to improve?

Character is the sum total of the responses expected of us in various situations. Its a reflection of the inner being that we are. All good men are men of Character. We call them good for they responded to their situations in a way that is universally accepted as right. By universal acceptance I mean across cultures and religions there are a few things that are considered to be right or good.
Talking of Character one cannot forget what Swami often stresses 'End of Education is character'. I feel this defines what an education is supposed to do and what can be called as true education. If the education helps one to be of good behaviour then its truly 'education' or else its just transfer of 'information'.
The society, company and family that we are brought up define our knowledge of good and bad and decide our character. 'Tell me your company and I shall you what you are' explains the importance of our friends and surroundings.
To improve our character few ways could be
-To see the way the people whom we take as role models behave in a particular situation, and emulate them. This needs us to look for an individual whom we admire. Reading of the stories of God or life stories of great personage like Mother Teresa, M.K.Gandhi, Aurobindo et al. helps us build our ideas of good actions. Here one is reminded of Swami saying that we should thing first of God, then world and last ourselves. For this was what differentiated the Pandavas from the Kauravas w.r.t. their priorities in life. Any action we do should be acceptable to God and do good for the society. If these two are taken care of, then we will be 'taken care'. A simple way suggested by Robin Sharma is when you do any action think if you would be happy relating it your mother. I feel this is very practical. For Mother has the purest form of love possible.
-always give yourself sometime to think before taking up any new action and not act in a hurry or in a mob mentality.
-At the end of the day we should try to recollect the times we have not followed what we felt was right but gave in to the pressures of the surroundings.

Arvind Kejriwal of Parivartan

CITATION for Arvind Kejriwal
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 2006, Manila, Philippines

The brazen corruption of the high and the mighty may grab headlines, but for ordinary people it is the ubiquity of everyday corruption that weighs heaviest. And that demoralizes. Arvind Kejriwal, founder of India's Parivartan, understands this, which is why his campaign for change begins with the small things.

As a tax officer with the Indian Revenue Service, Arvind Kejriwal became aware of the many powers that tax officials held over private citizens and how easily these powers could be abused. Indeed, at the tax department, one expected to pay bribes as a matter of course. With a few kindred spirits, Kejriwal began to strategize about how to bring an end to this. In 2000, he founded Parivartan, meaning "change." Parivartan appealed to the tax commissioner to make the tax department more transparent and less capricious. When this failed, it filed Public Interest Litigation directing the department to implement a five-point transparency plan. Eventually, Parivartan held a nonviolent protest, or satyagraha, outside the chief commissioner's office. Threat of another protest with the press on hand convinced the tax chief to implement the reforms.

Meanwhile, on leave from his job, Kejriwal stationed himself with other Parivartan members outside the electricity department. There they exhorted visitors not to pay bribes and offered to facilitate their dealings with the department for free. Since then, Parivartan has settled 2,500 grievances with the electricity department on behalf of individuals. Some seven hundred more have benefited from the group's "Don't pay bribes!" campaign at the tax department.

Under the Delhi Right to Information Act of 2001, every citizen possesses the right to inspect government documents. Kejriwal put the new law to use in Sundernagari, a New Delhi slum where Parivartan was working among the poor. First, the group obtained official reports on all recent public-works projects in the area. Next, it led residents in a "social audit" of sixty-eight projects, stirring the community to action with neighborhood meetings and street plays. Then, in a large public hearing, the residents presented their findings and exposed misappropriations in sixty-four of the projects—embezzlement to the tune of seven million rupees! Today, in Sundernagari, local committees monitor public-works projects block by block, and no project may begin until the details of the contract have been made public.

The Indian government provides subsidized rations of wheat and rice to poor people through neighborhood ration shops. Records acquired by Kejriwal for Sundernagari revealed high levels of theft in the system. In one area, over 90 percent of the grain ration was being skimmed off by shopkeepers in collusion with certain food department officials. When Parivartan investigated this, one of its team members was savagely attacked. In protest, more than five thousand residents of the community held a monthlong "rations fast." This and a mass rally riveted public attention, and foot-dragging officials finally moved to clean up the system.

Now in its seventh year, Parivartan has only ten full-time members. Although Kejriwal sometimes takes on larger issues—such as the successful 2005 campaign challenging a water-privatization plan for New Delhi—he has no plans to expand. He prefers to coordinate Parivartan's efforts with other like-minded NGOs across India.

Thirty-eight-year-old Kejriwal reminds Indians that the boons of collective action, such as the honest delivery of services, have already been paid for through taxes. Citizens are entitled to them. The spirit of his movement was aptly captured by the women of Sundernagari as they rallied to protest cheating in neighborhood ration shops: "We are not begging from anyone!" they chanted. "We are demanding our rights."

In electing Arvind Kejriwal to receive the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his activating India's right-to-information movement at the grassroots, empowering New Delhi's poorest citizens to fight corruption by holding government accountable to the people.

Prince: the lucky one

The last few days we saw(read) so much about this PRINCE becoming the Prince of India. It was heartening to see the amount of sympathy and love people poured on the boy for his release. But i feel the CM going and overseeing the operations and then giving 2 lakhs for no serious medical ailment detected, PM sending message, too much. Were they doing it from their heart or were they just flowing the way the media wanted them to. Army personnel did a wonderful job. I wonder if such an incident in Kothacheruvu would get such an response. May be one needs to think of ways to get the media everywhere when we have deaths in every district due to distress and disease. The way the things happened makes me wonder at the human psyche. Would love to know what others felt.
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Mumbai is back to work after the blasts, Can we call it resilience?

In the mad pursuit of existence are we forgetting to think for a while for others or just take stock of what’s happening? Hope our resilience is not construed as our weakness and meekness. They say prevention is better than cure. Are we doing something about it? Looks like we taken it for granted that time shall heal our wounds and make us ready for taking on some more of them. What use is our economic growth and prosperity if the man on the street is not safe. I am sure it will not be sustainable at this rate. There has to be plan of action involving immediate relief and steps to root out the cause. Pray the Almighty gives us that wisdom.