Unity in diversity has become a catch phrase for civilized people who celebrate differences and want to end civil disruption, communal violence, religious conflicts and international tensions. The principle of unity in diversity has its origins in the concept of inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. Although the Vedas enjoin; everything is non- different from the God who is the Supreme Soul, this creates logical enigmas. For instance, if everything is one, why do not I eat my kith and kin? Further, how can Brahman be complete since it also presupposes negation of everything material? The idea of simultaneous oneness and difference may pose problems for rationalists, but it is easily resolved when one accepts an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent god. In other words, essential truth contain paradoxes, and we cannot know everything by reason and deduction. For instance, our body functions as a holistic unit, but we constantly make distinctions more...

A community ought to have spirituality as its 1 innermost soul. Many a times one is left guessing as to why religions cause fights? As we all know that religion can never cause any fight because it is intended to purify our consciousness. Religion means sacrifice and control and is a way of life. Quarrels, on the other hand, are the result of expensive indulgence in material benefits and polluting consciousness. In fact, fights start because of communalism, and sadly we blame them on religion. The community which does not teach its followers to adopt spirituality and practise self-awareness can never help them to be successful in life. The escalation of unethical values today is due to a disintegrated personality, which in turn is an outcome of communalism. Communities, these days, blindly pursue rituals. Unfortunately, communities merely stress on the performance of rituals while ethical and human value are totally more...

Perpetual flow of people from villages to cities creates many socio-economic problems. The density of population of cities rises and civic amenities fall short of needs. Law and order situation deteriorates. Prices of essential commodities rise. Housing situation become acute and rents soar. New entrants start living on pavements and thatched huts. That way slum come up, at times, adjacent to or right in the middle of posh colonies. Migrations of the poor to cities create slums. Cultivable land in villages is limited. And it is not enough to support the landless labourers in the village. Instead of starving in villages, they along with their women folk move on to cities in search of employment. While men work as unskilled works, their women get work in households. Work found, they build jhuggies that later become a cluster of huts. Landless labourers are also attracted to cities as these have many more...

We live in an age where long-haired smiley sorts run crash courses to turn living into an art form and "laughter clubs" thrive because of the lack of anything funny to really laugh about, or laugh at ourselves. So there is nothing at all awry about a nationalized bank's recent directive which tells its employees to smile at work. But can an artificial smile do the job? Air hostesses are also asked to wear a smile all the while. While this may sound dangerously similar to Nazi Germany's "strength through joy" campaign—or for that matter, the management etiquette of a particular Indian airline-cum-television company—bank employees, notorious for their castor oil-faced dealings with customers, could do with a conscious effort to genuinely smile. A smile on the face gets a response. The other person warms up too. The miner-dwarves in Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves seemed a happy more...

Recently, I visited a museum in the company of friends. It is housed in a tall impressive stone building surrounded by beautiful lawns along a tree-lined road. There are life-size statues of Lord Buddha near the gate. We entered. The entry is free. The museum presented a variety of scenes and sights. It is divided into different sections on different floors. In one there are masterpieces of art and craft. In another there are paintings, sculptures, and numerous specimens of pottery and emboiding. In the third we saw earthenware, vessels tools and toys of prehistoric period. Most of them were from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro sites. In another section there is an art gallery containing beautiful pictures and portraits, depicting scenes of Mughal life. In the next section, we were surprised to see the ornaments worn by the women during different periods of ancient Indian history, coins of various dynasties and more...

The lot of the Indian farmer is hard indeed. He has to toil in his fields the whole day, and yet he is able to manage only the bare necessities of life. He lives a life of poverty, by and large in unhygienic surroundings. The house he lives in is a hut or a house with a thatched roof—which may leak in the rainy season. The village may be without a drain—water stands still and there may be mosquitoes. There may or may not be water and electricity. The members of his family and cattle live under the same roof. Usually, the living standard is low. The day of the farmer, unlike city-dwellers, begins with the crowing of the cock. The first thing he does is to feed his cattle, to milch his cows and buffaloes and take a glass of tea which his wife prepares for him over firewood. more...

Perhaps no other feature in the human body plays as important a social role as hair. Long regarded as the highlight of a woman's beauty, many references are made in ancient literature to the long flowing tresses of a beautiful maiden. In Indian thought, the mustache too has played a critical role in defining the virility of a male. With such a social outlook on hair, it is but natural that the barber plays an important role in the social systems of the people. In early ties, villages were small and barbers who visited houses regularly to cut hair or shave soon become a privy to the family situation and secrets. The barber, being a regular visitor watched children grow and blossom into youth. As a natural response he began to match-make. The importance given to a barber is perhaps a response to his old role in fixing weddings. In more...

It is always better to look before you leap or else there is a great danger of falling into a ditch. To act without prior thinking will lead us into endless trouble. Elderly people often say that haste always makes waste. Rushing into things without prior thinking will lead to wastage of time, resource and energy. Rash decisions many a times lead to dangerous and unwanted consequences. It is similar to jumping into a river without knowing its depth and flow. It does not mean though that one should delay in making decisions or avoid taking a stand, Rather, one should think twice before taking a decision. One should think things out rationally and logically to reach to a conclusion. Quick decisions are always welcome but not rash decisions. Even if one has to act on impulse and has no time to think things out as in times of an more...

Introduction. A book has a great power to make us good or bad. A good book may prove very useful for us, while a bad book may do Great harm to us. Why has the Ramayana impressed me? Of all the books that 1 have read the Ramayana influenced me most- This is my favorite hook 1 love ii most. The book has many charms of its own it is more interesting than a novel- II is more   philosophic than any hook on philosophy. It is a complete moral code. Hence it has influenced me most. II contains the life story of Ram who is though! To be an incarnation of God, Hence it is a religious book which helps us t make us good and pious. Qualities of the Ramayan. The hook is lull of ideals-11 presents every situation of life. From I he examples given in this hook, more...

Every year when the fruit trees start to flower again, 1 know that another fruit season is just around the corner. With starting regularity and simultaneity, the trees become crowned with red, white or yellow flowers, depending on the type of the tree- It is such a wonderful event, this gift of fruits from the trees and I am very thankful to Nature that we can enjoy these sweet succulent fruits. However, something puzzles me—it is the trees themselves- How do they know when to flower? Do They communicate with one another? From what I have learned in school, trees don't possess calendars nor can they communicate with one another. If that is so then the trees should flower at random and we will not have 'fruit seasons'. Rather we would have fruits at unpredictable periods. However, we do have these 'seasons', the flowering of the trees are definitely not more...