There's Love In Every Heart

“To fill the human heart with compassion, mercy and universal love, which should radiate to all countries, nations and peoples of the world. To make a true religion of the heart as the ruling factor in one’s life. To enable each one to love God, love all, serve all, and have respect for all, as God is immanent in all forms. My goal is that of oneness. I spread the message of oneness in life and living. This is the way to peace on earth. This is the mission of my life, and I pray that it may be fulfilled.” –Kirpal Singh “Is a violence-free world for our children possible?” “There are many forms of oppression and violence in society that, for reasons of culture or tradition, remain largely unexamined. Walking the path of holistic nonviolence is about questioning all forms of oppression and violence.” “Because we must get at the common roots. This calls for an alternative approach. An approach that will never ever allow us to intentionally take away the dignity, bodily integrity, freedom, or the life of another person, no matter how they may differ from ourselves, be they a fellow human or a fellow animal.” “The tyrant keeps shouting. He says, “This man didn’t obey my orders! Let us kill him!” “A nation builds hundred fighter planes. Another one gets a thousand. Yet another gets ten thousand fighter planes. The fighter planes cannot be made without money. One has to pay millions in currency for them.” “I can recall these words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and I’d wish to quote,” QUOTE “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” UNQUOTE “This calls for a non-violent and compassionate approach.” “A revolution in love...” “Love is a feeling that we have let fall by the wayside, and more so in contemporary society...” Tushna mused to herself. “What is happiness without love?”  “Does this question have a straightforward answer?” “Is it just a state of mind or something beyond?” Tushna knew she had the IQ to find out answers to a few of the most fundamental questions. “My name is Tushna, which is probably of Persian or Iranian origin and means ‘Derivated from Tushnamaiti’ – To be content or literally contentness’.” “The question is: am I truly content?”  “The answer is an emphatic no. A more detailed analysis will reveal how my name makes me often at odds with myself, knowing what I should do yet finding it difficult to find the initiative and the will power to do it.” “Besides, I am sure everyone would opt for contentment if only life got them there quicker and more easily ….but unfortunately, the journey to contentment is often long and must go through routes of hardship, pain and suffering…” “Whereas, sometimes, all one would look for is a quick fix.”  “Health wise, I am no better having intestinal tract and associated disorders like those of the nervous system and skin.” The girl could trace her vulnerabilities to her name as also to the astrological patterns she was under. To her stars. To the influence of Saturn on her moods and disposition. “Need your intervention, Lord Krishna!”  +++++++++++++++++++++++ And sometimes I would also talk to God. “Why me?” And Tushna’s thoughts went back in time to the untimely loss of her mother, her ultimate inspiration. Tushna could recall that on the 30th of April (her birthday) (year 2014) Jyoti had suddenly collapsed at the club where she and Avinash were having dinner. She had to be hospitalized the following day and was eventually diagnosed with “a serious illness”, perhaps Cancer. Since the doctors were themselves unable to trace the precise disease and its epidemiology, the family (meaning, Avinash, Manu and Tushna) decided to shift her to a major Cancer Centre & Research Institute in Kolkata (India) for an accurate diagnosis and a more specialized treatment. “I feel so guilty sometimes...” “To the point of ashamed...” “About a decision we the immediate family took.” “Why did we choose to get my mother who was at that moment completely helpless and not in a position to decide admitted to a Cancer Research Centre?” “When all they did was use their patients as guinea pigs?” “When in the process of all that research these centres which happened to be flourishing nowadays was to employ extremely painful and invasive therapies on their patients?” “Who survived and who didn’t, did it at all matter to these commerce-driven business research centres?” “I sometimes wish we had the finances...” “Then, we could have flown her abroad for treatment; rather unfortunately, we did not have the money.” The girl, now a woman could also recall how much of inner suffering she had undergone during the period her mother was admitted. All that testing; all those numerous endoscopies and Jyoti had to be put on a drip. Doctors at the centre were to finally and unanimously agree that Jyoti was in the last stages of Ovarian Cancer. “When I stop to think, I shudder at the very thought that it must have been much too painful for my mother.” “We tried our best to save her, including the employment of therapies such as music therapy.” The Nandrajog girl got overly emotional as she tried to relate to the pain and travails her mother had undergone. “Each day, on my way to the hospital cafeteria, I would stop by to offer prayers for my mother at the centre’s temple.” “But all my prayers went in vain.” “Sometime, around the end of May, my mother had to be transferred to the ITU and put on life-support. The family members were not allowed inside, and we could anticipate what was to arrive next. Her blood pressure levels had drastically fallen and her blood count levels showed drastic abnormality. The doctors were preparing us for the worst.” “I was the one who had signed the declaration to the ITU. I was also the one who was beside her during her stay in the hospital. Every single day used to be a nightmare for me, because for one my mother was bedridden (read ‘terminally ill’) and for another, they would ask me to leave the cabin every time they came to see how she was doing. Only God knows what they did to her with all those needles and drip after drip, and so on and so forth.” “On the 28th of May 2014 less than a month from her last birthday my mother passed away following a brave battle against Ovarian Cancer. I chose to remain away during her last few days, I was at my aunt’s, because I wanted to live with fond memories of my mother, indeed all the good times we had shared together as mother and daughter and as best of friends.” “Despite choosing to remain away, that is, choosing not to see my mother during the ultimate days of her life, I was filled with a strange void and emptiness that was to emerge later and cause me immense pain and trauma.” “My palms had indeed trembled while signing my mother into the ITU can you imagine what I might have gone through at that point of time?” “Science and, in particular Medical Science have made remarkable progress especially in the current century.” The girl had just then turned on the computer. She was apparently trying to find out answers to once again those fundamental questions... “The levels of technological advancement have been unprecedented. There are now virtually treatments and cures for every possible ailment. Man has reached and come back from the moon. He will possibly now reach out for the stars. And to discover if there are indeed men on Mars and women on Venus. Discovery and innovation has now become a part of our lifestyles, and the very air we breathe.” “It nevertheless defies every reason that Science and, in particular Medicine has not been able to answer certain very important and consequential questions. Questions on the cycle of birth and death. With all his genuine efforts towards reversing the circle of life to the original and either evading or doing away with death altogether, man still or, until now remains an ordinary mortal.” “And it defies my limited understanding of God’s plans for us as also of certain extraordinary paradigms such as life and death, reincarnation, “Karma”, past lives and the paranormal that the ‘homo sapiens’ we, the higher species compared to the lesser animals should constantly nurture a ‘fear of death’ which is in fact impossible to evade. For the time being, let us leave it at that. Death is an inevitable eventuality.” “There have been instances of ‘near-death experiences’ of those who were declared dead and were able to come back to life again. I know of one such person whom the medical fraternity had declared dead but who came back to life. He reported having witnessed the paranormal: being driven by a chariot of horses towards a strange blinding light.” “Some people are taken away by God much earlier in life as compared to their more Septuagenarian/Octogenarian contemporaries, perhaps because God loves them and wants them back to His Kingdom. Perhaps because He feels lonely without them. And loneliness is a disease that far outweighs any other medical condition. Or, perhaps because they have either sinned or not carried out His mission for them.” “What sin had mother committed?” “Was it the fact that she’d loved my father and in the process, conceived me, someone who would grow up into a sick child?” The girl was once again engulfed by an overwhelming sense of guilt. “Why does the Lord take away so many of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters or for that matter fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and grandchildren?” “Why does He allow premature widowhood for instance, in India, many of our young widows are forced to either tonsure their heads (“Mundan” in Hindi) or else commit “Sati”, immolate themselves on the funeral pyre of their deceased husbands, gradually declining in the wake of greater social progress and reform?” “There is no good and bad in this world, again a question of subjectivity, morality and judgment, yet God has often chosen to take away good people for ever and leave the bad ones to cause further degeneration of this beautiful planet.” “I, for one, have also been live witness to the true life story of a young man who was killed in a road accident, they were our neighbours, while it took more than five years to deliver justice to the perpetrators of the brutal Bahadur Rani gang r**e and murder of 21st December, 2014 that too after endless protests by the people and five years of pain that the parents had to go through...” “What perplexes me even more is the fact that now it’s almost a forgotten story...” “Certain further questions arise...” “Like, for instance, how could we forget about the intense pain and suffering that brave girl underwent that cold, wintry night; why in our protests demanding capital punishment for the rapists, we forgot about what might have the parents of the girl gone through; as also why it took so much of time to agree on meting out punishment to the juvenile accused.” “I also fail to understand why one of the perpetrators hanged himself in his prison cell following that infamous episode.” “Was it guilt or something more profound such as internal suffering; was it some sort of a personal redemption? Or, was he only yielding to public pressure?” Tushna remained glued to the information she was browsing through. “And this is with reference to one of the perpetrators, the juvenile accused.” “The young are easier brought to an offence, because they are easier to influence and brainwash.” “I believe that for the same reason, they are easier to reform. The idea is to make them understand what they did, to give them a fresh start, a second chance, because they have a long life ahead of them.” “We’re talking about reform and not retribution, vision and not vengeance.” “There are, first of all, adolescents in consensual s****l activity. The age of consent in India, 18, is much higher than the age of puberty. This is one aspect. Another category consists of young people who commit crimes in the heat of the moment.” “There are children employed often in hazardous occupations and forced to work long hours and very oft not given enough food, and this is serious food for thought...do they have an option beyond turning to crime and violence?” “How would you feel if you had to go without food for days?” “And then there are repeat offenders, like those children who grow up on the streets, facing s****l abuse and being forced into s*x and narcotic drugs.” “We don’t care for these children when they languish on the streets, but will scream and shout for justice when the same children come in conflict with the law.” “Once you study and learn a bit more about the demographic as well as personal background of young people in conflict with the law, it would seem to me, once again from my limited comprehension of the subject, that they all come from highly impoverished backgrounds which would indeed deny them their basic rights and welfare.” “By the way, why aren’t we raising our voices when our police commit atrocities on tribal women, sparing not even the pregnant or the aged ones?” “And sometimes, not minors either?” “Why are we quietly letting our big fish, our big financial fraudsters getting away while we punish those who steal petty amounts for feeding themselves or their children?” “Everyone is and should be equal in the eyes of the law.” These were some very powerful statements emanating from the very core of the heart. “Coming back to our discussion...” “With all of the literati talking about capital punishment and or rigorous imprisonment for serious felonies such as r**e and murder, we, tracing back to the likes of Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin, fail to relate to the circumstances especially as one’s early life years of those who render the so-called “Evil” things in life.” “Again, morality is a relative and a subjective question and we, ordinary mortals unfortunately still do have only a limited capacity for understanding, love, forgiveness, compassion and a unique tolerance of others’ not-too-meant misdemeanours.” “Going by my own definition of morality and the subjectivism of right and wrong, I guess a little bit of compassion here and there would be a most welcome arrangement.” “Going by either the same or a similar definition, giving perpetrators of wrong-doing a chance to either recover or improve in life through a possibility of Parole, for instance should be a good way of doing something beautiful for God.” “I am always compelled by the conflict within me, the internal conflict, to reiterate that life is precious, every one of it and we the species ought to collaborate to preserve and protect this wonderful heritage.” “On the concept of Suffering, people might wish to argue with the first of the ‘Four Noble Truths’ often translated as life is suffering.” “That sounds so negative.” “The Buddha used the term ‘Dukkha’ instead. Life Is Dukkha He said.” “Understanding Dukkha, however, is critical to our understanding.” “Buddhism leaves us with a path…” “The First Noble Truth is the diagnosis -- identifying the disease -- the Second explains the cause of the disease.” “The Third assures us that there is a cure, and the Fourth prescribes the remedy.” “Buddha died at the age of 80 at a place named Kusinagar in the present day Gorakhpur district of modern Uttar Pradesh. Till the last moment of his life he was a wandering preacher. At the very moment of death, he gave the following instruction to his faithful disciple Ananda: “Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the Truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves.” “In his teachings, Buddha showed a new path. In his religious mission, he did not give value to the so-called sacred rites and rituals. Instead, he showed the way for a life of ethics and spirituality. He preached in simple language and to the common people. His doctrines were simple as well as practical for adoption.” “His was the noble ‘Middle Path’ which was possible for every man to follow. Between the two extremes of pleasures and penance, he showed the path of a really virtuous life.” “Buddha was the prophet of non-violence. “Let not one kill any living being”, he said. Ultimately, the philosophy of non-violence became a cardinal principle of Buddhism. The Buddhists rejected animal sacrifice and killing of animals in every form. Non-violence also called for kindness towards all creatures. It denied man to hate man. “Let a man overcome anger by kindness, evil by good….Never in the world hatred ceases by hatred. Hatred ceases by love”, said Buddha. “It was Emperor Asoka’s conversion to Buddhism that gave Buddhism a new dimension.” “After having witnessed the horrors he had created, Asoka had converted, further corroborating the concept of the ‘Self’ as an illusion; and raising certain important questions related to the realm of Metaphysics and Reality.” “As for the rest, that would pretty much be history.”  _________________________________________________________________________________________________________