The Ugly, The Bad and The Good

I am not narrating here the 1966 Italian/Spanish epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood.

September 11th, 2001 very familiar as 9/11 ramped up the fight against terrorism when US government declared the WAR ON TERROR. Post attacks the then president of US George W. Bush addressing the nation said

"Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. ... Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong. ... America has stood down enemies before and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. Thank you. Good night. And God bless America" [Full transcript can be read here]

Following the events that happened on 9/11, US and its allies launched a massive WAR ON TERROR to dismantle Al-Qaeda [responsible for the terror 9/11 attacks in US]  and ending its use of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations. Since then US armed forces have searched for the mastermind of 9/11 attacks Osama Bin Laden.

In 1996, six years before the 9/11 attacks happened, Osama Bin Laden had written what he calls a fatwa [is a religious opinion concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar] titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". In the fatwa he starts saying

"Praise be to Allah, we seek His help and ask for his pardon. we take refuge in Allah from our wrongs and bad deeds. Who ever been guided by Allah will not be misled, and who ever has been misled, he will never be guided. I bear witness that there is no God except Allah-no associates with Him- and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger. ... It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. Massacres in Tajakestan, Burma, Cashmere, Assam, Philippine, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Erithria, Chechnia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina took place, massacres that send shivers in the body and shake the conscience. All of this and the world watch and hear, and not only didn't respond to these atrocities, but also with a clear conspiracy between the USA and its' allies and under the cover of the iniquitous United Nations, the dispossessed people were even prevented from obtaining arms to defend themselves. ... " [Full transcript can be read here]

The US and its allied forces have searched round the clock for the man who issued the above fatwa and today after 10 years of WAR ON TERROR they killed him in the very middle of Pakistan where he was happily taking shelter. 

Obama the president of US, addressing the Nation confirmed the death of Osama. 

"Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. ... On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family. We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. ... And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al QaedaUnited States is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. I've made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity. ... The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens ...

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place. Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America."

Truly a President's speech. [Full extract can be read here]

As I attentively heard the speech of Obama, I recalled another country which was suffering terror at a magnitude which stands highlighted and incomparable to 9/11. It is our very own country India. Each of those words which Obama spoke, resonated the killings of million of Indians in my mind. It took 10 years for US to give justice to the 3000 innocent human beings who were killed in 9/11 attacks. It has taken more than 60 years and it is still counting for our country to give justice to countless Indians who have lost lives because of Terror.

I was just thinking why is their such lethargy?, why is there so much negligence?, why are our minds not concerned about the deaths of fellow citizens?, why is there no such rigorous action to curb terrorism? As always we do not have any specific answers to these questions!

Indians have always believed in the Eternal justice given by GOD. The justice given by human beings is temporal. It is that eternal justice which should give us the inspiration to answer some of the above questions. The WAR ON EVIL is not over but it repeats until eternal justice prevails ...

Bhagavadgeeta, Chaper 4, Verse 7 and Verse 8

yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata
abhyutthaanam adharmasya
tadaatmanam srjamy aham

Whenever there is decline of Dharma (righteousness).. and rise of Adharma (unrighteousness);To protect the virtuous..to destroy the wicked and to re-establish Dharma,I manifest myself, oh decedent of Bharata

paritraanaaya sadhunaam vinaashaaya cha dushkrritaam dharmasamsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge..

For the protection of the devotees and the annihilation of the miscreants and to fully establish the righteousness, I appear million after million...

What is good?

First my apologies for scripting my thought after a long time

In the last post, i had discussed about objectives. I had concluded saying that the objective must lead us to good. Before setting such an objective do we know what good is. Is good absolute or relative?

A person may think working sincerely is good, another may think drinking, smoking is good. A thief may think robbing successfully is good and so on. So if you question yourself you may think which is good for you may not be good for others. The term good becomes more of a personal asset. For the matter when we say something is good, doesn't mean it is good throughout our lives. Our tagging of good is just temporal and is time variant. For e.g. we have bought a car today. If anybody asks us how is the car? We say "It is good". Say after 5 years if somebody asks the same question, we would rather say "I am planning to exchange it with the new one". The tagging of something as good has changed with time. Another e.g. When we go to a sweet shop and eat a sweet, we feel it is good and may order for another. Some people may stop eating the second sweet but some may still go on until their love for the sweet has just saturated. So a sweet which was once a good entity may not retain its goodness after some duration. If that is the case then what is good? is it just a time varying temporal parameter? If so then how on this earth can we ever set a objective which leads us to good!

We being part of a society, a country, a species must and should have a unified definition for good which in fact is good for everyone. Good as translated in Kannada is "ಒಳ್ಳೆಯದು (spell it as 'olleyadu')" and as translated in Sanskrit is "सत् (spell it as 'Sat')" when traced back to their origin (the source word ಉಳ್(ul) in kannada and सत्(Sat) in sanskrit) means Eternal (ageless, endless) something which has no decay, no death. So can we tag something as good on this earth which must be ageless, endless, which has no decay, no death? We should also note that our Earth is not endless, it is not ageless, it has death! So can we find what is good and if at all we can find that then we can attempt to fix our objective which will lead us to good...

Goals are as different as we are

As per recent reports the total population on earth is 6.793 billion. Do you think all these people have a single goal!

In this vast world, it is difficult to find a person very much similar to another. Even if you find two very similar looking humans, they may vary drastically in many other features like their voice, tastes, listening capabilities, interests, thought process, behavior ... So with such wide and varied set of homo sapiens can we ever think of a common goal to all.

Fixing an objective/goal in one's life has to be done by each one us and no one else can decide it for us. But how will you ever know what your objective is? whether your objective is good? whether your objective is right? whether your objective is truthful?. When we cried for the first time on this earth, did we once for all decide we want to become engineers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, laborers... NO, through out our lives many people have influenced us directly/indirectly to choose the right path. Parents, Guardians, Teachers, Friends, Elders, Legends, Books ...

When we go to a store to buy clothes, food items what do we do?. We list out the commodities we want. We quantify them by counting the number of members in the family. We select them based on our tastes and interests. When we go to the store, the store keeper suggests us the commodities which match our interests. Here shopkeeper is like anyone of the above mentioned set of people. The commodities in the shop are like the different objectives and we are the people buying them in the shop. The people who inspire us to set a goal/objective are like sign boards who tell us where to go.

The objectives/goals are progressive and they get revised at each turn of our lives. It is just like climbing a hill. First we reach the foot of the hill, then we climb to certain distance and take rest, then we come close to the summit and so on. But the most important of all these is the first step we take towards the long journey. So how should the first step be? Let us take this question progressively. Let us assume the first step should be such that it should lead us to good. But what is good? How do you define good? Can you define?

Is there a single objective to all our lives?

A Tiger always worries about catching it's prey. A deer worries about how to escape from the claws of the Tiger. So is the case with the dog, cat and a rat. Almost all animals are either worried about their food, shelter, life and partner. Is our life same as them, or are we capable of doing something better than them? Is there something superior than food, shelter, life and partner which a human being can think of?

How many of us have ever thought about it! It looks like a very little percentage of the human population have ever thought about this. Don't we work day-night to fulfill the pleasures of our life? We run through our life silently without even realizing the purpose behind it. Finally we feel we have wasted our entire lifetime in unwanted things. Do you think is this the right life we are living? Do you think is there any higher objective for our lives? Kanaka Dasaru finally concludes his poem with an objective we should think about each and every second in our life

ಉನ್ನತದ ನೆಲೆಯದಿ ಕೇಶವನ ಧ್ಯಾನವನ್ನು |
ಮನಮುಟ್ಟಿ ಮಾಡುವುದು - ಮುಕ್ತಿಗಾಗಿ
ಭಕ್ತಿಗಾಗಿ - ಜೀವತ್ರುಪ್ಥಿಗಾಗಿ |
ಆತ್ಮಶಕ್ತಿಗಾಗಿ - ಅನಂದಕಾಗಿ ||

This thought is different from food and clothing needs. Do animals think about it? No, it is something only human beings think about. Kanaka Dasaru was a great human being. Why was he great... He was great because he had seen Keshava(the eternal truth), he enjoyed his life through his poetry and compositions, he preached the society the objective one should have in their lives. So is our objective just to pray Keshava everyday. Do you think there is only one objective to all of us, a single objective to all in this diverse world? Introspect yourself!

What are we here for?

Swami Vivekananda in one of his letter to the Maharaja of Mysore reads in part "My Noble Prince, This life is short, the vanities in this world are transient, but they alone live who live for others, the rest are more dead than alive".

Then if we have to do something before we pass way, what is that best thing we can do? Before discussing this beautiful question, I would like to mention the name of one of the most famous philosopher, poet, musician and composer from Karnataka. Kanaka Dasaru (1509-1609) [1] was well known for his(avara) Kirtanes and Ugabhoga (reminiscent of Vachanas) compositions in Kannada langauge for Carnatic music. The uniqueness of his(avara) compositions was he(avaru) embedded common people's day-to-day language into the complicated classical carnatic music which was mostly limited to scholarly language[2].

Kanaka Dasaru in one of his(avara) works has explained LIFE beautifully, probably the simplest i have heard so far. Although the words used in the poem are written by keeping in mind the society that was there during Kanaka Dasa's period, the inner meaning implies to all societies of all periods

ಎಲ್ಲರು ಮಾಡುವುದು ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ | ಗೇಣು ಬಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ ಮುದ್ಧೆ ಹಿಟ್ಟಿಗಾಗಿ || ಪಲ್ಲವಿ ||
Every one works for stomach, clothing and food. Kanaka Dasaru when saying for Stomach, implies we all earn/work to fulfill our hunger and then we earn/work to fulfill our clothing needs.

ಕೊಟ್ಟಣವ ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಂಡು - ಕಟ್ಟಿಗೆಯ ಹೊತ್ತುಕೊಂಡು | ಕಷ್ಟ ಪಾಡು ಪಡುವುದು ಏತಕ್ಕಾಗಿ?
ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ - ಗೇಣು ಬಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ ||
Why does one do the difficult task of carrying paddy and wood (referring to the agricultural prominence in India)? for Food and Clothing(the inner meaning is as implied in the previous line)

ಬೆಲ್ಲದಂತೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ - ಎಲ್ಲರನ್ನು ಮರಳು ಮಾಡಿ | ಸುಳ್ಳು ಬೊಗಳಿ ಬಾಳುವುದು - ಎತಕ್ಕಾಗಿ?
ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ - ಗೇಣು ಬಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ ||
Why does one cheat others by speaking sweet (as sweet as Jaggery) words, and lead life by lying? for Food and Clothing

ಸಂನ್ಯಾಸಿ ಜಂಗಮ ಜೋಗಿ - ಜಟ್ಟಿ ಮೊಂಡ ಬೈರಾಗಿ | ನಾನಾ ವೆಷಗಳೇಲ್ಲ - ಏತಕ್ಕಾಗಿ? ||
ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ - ಗೇಣು ಬಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ ||
Why does one wear different attires of saint? for Food and Clothing

When you think of the plight of cows, pet dogs, rats in the gutter, cats, birds etc... Are their needs quite similar?

ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ - ಇಷ್ಟು ರೊಟ್ಟಿಗಾಗಿ ||
For Food and just Food alone...

When you think of wild animals like lion, tiger, snakes, eagles, flies and mosquitoes etc... Are there needs quite similar

ಹೊಟ್ಟೆಗಾಗಿ - ಗೂಡುಗಟ್ಟಿಗಾಗಿ |
ಸವಿ ತುತ್ತಿಗಾಗಿ - ಹಸು ಮೆತ್ತಗಾಗಿ
For handful of food, best shelter, and for better sleep

Is this all for which we are here in this world, or are we aiming at things higher? Lets Discuss...

Glossary
avara - Kannada word for its English counterpart "HIS". The kannada meaning denotes more respect to the addressee

avaru - Kannada word for its English counterpart "He". The kannada meaning denotes more respect to the addressee

References
[1] http://www.publicationsdivision.nic.in/b_show.asp?id=857
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaka_Dasa

A short beginning to a long thought...

This is a short beginning to a very long series of articles I am planning to write in the coming days. I do not want to discuss what will be the soul of all my articles, but the article should itself reflect the true spirit behind it. I hope i do justice to all great Legends while i refer their work when composing the articles.

Sri Dr Devanahalli Venkataramanaiah Gundappa, popularly know as DVG left this physical world even before I came to this beautiful place. I grew without even knowing what DVG had left behind. Left behind? I will come back to this question a little later. DVG was a prominent Kannada writer and philosopher. He was renowned for his famous literary work called as Manku Thimmana Kagga, which is a collection of versus. I do not think there is any matching literary work to this in any other language in terms of the simplicity in which DVG communicates philosophy to all sections of the society. Basically it was for the entire humanity, such is the depth and vastness of DVG’s most of the literary works. In fact Manku Thimmana Kagga is called as the Bhagavadh Gita of Kannada.

I will take up the question which i left unanswered in the last paragraph. What did DVG leave behind? DVG has left behind his thoughts through numerous writings in a language which can never be imitated or can be made more simpler. Leave behind? when we ask this question 40-50 years from now what should be our answer. A teacher asks his students in the class, do you remember your grand father's name, great grand father's name and so on.. Many students say they remember their grand father's name, a couple say they remember their great grand father's name and no one remembers their other ancestors. When the teacher asked them why don't you remember your ancestors, one of the student answered with conviction and arrogance "Not worth remembering sir!" So the teacher said "This is a irony, we remember Chanakya, Shankaracharya, Madwacharya, Ramanujacharya, Swami Vivekananda, Aurbindo, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Mahatma Gandhiji and there is a long list... without them being our forefathers, Can you tell why do we remember them?" The same student gets up and answers with conviction

"Anyone who lives for themselves will never be remembered and Anyone who lives for others will never be forgotten"

A lesson we should never forget. We are here to leave a MARK BEHIND and not just pass away silently

To be continued ...